For a fighting FE campaign!

Posted on March 13, 2007
Filed Under Inside NUS

Students in Further Education colleges make up around 66% of NUS’s 5,200,000 paper members. Re-focusing some of the union’s activities around FE is lauded as one of ex-President Kat Fletcher’s great achievments, carried on by her political successor Ellie Russel (the current Vice-President Further Education). But has the NUS really delivered for its members in FE?

ENS believes it has not. Its sycophantic attitude to the 2005/6 Foster Report (which suggested that “failing colleges” should be privatised) and its current enthusiasm for the FE Bill (which includes many similar proposals for privatisation) are indicative of its general approach. ENS believes that, by failing to deliver a fighting campaign for FE, the NUS is failing the majority of its members. We have produced the following document to set out how we believe a fighting campaign on FE should look.

An alternative manifesto for FE, from Education Not for Sale

On 21 February the National Union of Students FE Campaign held a lobby of Parliament, hoping to persuade MPs to vote for the Further Education and Training Bill. Hailed as a “real achievement for the National Union”, the bill commits FE colleges to “learner consultation” and having two student governors rather than the previous requirement for just one.

The NUS briefing fails to explain the government agenda behind this bill - not to “embed the learner voice” (whatever that means), but to allow further privatisation of the education system. The bill allows FE Colleges to set up private companies to deliver education, no doubt with accompanying casualisation of work and worse conditions for lecturers and campus staff, less accountability, and more principals with bigger salaries, bigger bars and expense accounts.

NUS’s comment on this? “NUS is concerned that another take on ‘encouraging diversity in the education and training available’ could pave the way for further privatisation of the FE sector. We hope that there remains adequate as well as sufficient provision that provides authentic ‘choice’ for learners”.

Securing representation on college panels is not in principle wrong, but to concentrate on this aspect of a bill which paves the way for massive privatisation of FE demonstrates the unwillingness of the campaign’s leadership to challenge the government.

“Learners” or students?

The repeated use of bizarre jargon like “learner engagement” by the NUS FE Campaign might seem superficial, but it cuts to the heart of the leadership’s vision of Further Education compared to ours. “Learner” is college management-speak for the consumers of education run like a business. The teens and adults in the FE sector are students, like those in HE, and have many of the same issues; lack of a living grant, fees for over-19s, privatisation of campus services such as canteens (leading to higher prices, worse services and worse conditions for workers), course closures and cuts in teaching hours. These now include the massive assault on English as a Second Language Provision (ESOL) which the Government is now undertaking.

The NUS FE Campaign seems determined to ignore these student issues in favour of high-profile lobbying about the “learner voice”, and “wins” which actually involve capitulating to a Blairite vision of education.

For properly-funded students’ unions!

Tucked away on the NUS FE website is a document about how to win block grants (annual guaranteed funding from college management) for FE students’ unions. Also hidden from view behind bluster about the bill is a document on sabbatical officers in FE unions. These are the issues that the campaign should be organising around - building properly-funded, independent students’ unions capable of taking on college management.

With block grants, unions are better able to support full-time, elected sabbatical officers. At the moment, FE college unions are dominated by student-staff liaison officers (SSLOs), who range from being very good to being completely in the pocket of college principals. FE students need democratic control of their own unions.

Students are workers too

During the last round of NUS’s “regional conferences”, delegates were given a presentation on linking with trade unions. Bizarrely, the agenda detailed a separate session for FE delegates, as if securing trade union representation for FE students isn’t just as important, and unity with campus workers impossible. Further Education students are often at the sharpest end of student poverty - with no access to even the paltry student loan available for university students, a joke of a means-tested grant at a maximum £30 a week and a minimum wage of just £3.30 an hour for those under 18. Just like HE students, they increasingly need to work to support themselves; just like HE students, they need rights at work and campaigns against poverty pay and casual labour.

The “skills agenda” and McJobs

A much-vaunted buzzword in recent years, the “skills agenda” was rolled out by the government in 2001, supposedly in response to the 1999 finding that 7 million adults in the UK were “functionally illiterate”. It has meant even greater focus on the demands of employers - the government’s complete disregard for adult education demonstrated by the fact 700,000 adults dropped out of education this year, unable to afford the soaring fees. Funding for adult courses has been redirected to “basic skills” to improve “employability”; i.e. training for the low-paid, hyper-exploited work known as ‘McJobs’. At the same time, many FE colleges are stopping A-level courses altogether, separating post-16 education into a two-tier system with sixth forms for those considered “university material” and FE colleges to channel the rest into low-paid, low-skilled work. The proposed 14-19 diplomas and raised leaving age will, at best, do nothing to counteract this.

The FE sector is a key focus for the government’s attempt to turn the entire education system into a training ground for the low-paid workers of tomorrow. The FE campaign should oppose the splitting off of vocational courses and A-levels, as well as standing against cuts to adult education and education geared towards the needs of bosses.

For a fighting FE campaign!

Education Not for Sale stands for:

- A living, non-means-tested grant for all students of at least £150 a week.
- A living wage for all workers, with a minimum of at least £8 an hour, regardless of age or job.
- Strong FE students’ unions; block grants and sabbatical officers, not “learner engagement” with management!
- An end to course cuts; defence of ESOL.
- No to privatisation; bring all campus services (canteens, cleaning etc.) back in house.
- Business out of education - for democratic control of FE colleges.

If you agree with us, get involved! Email ENS at info@free-education.org.uk or ring Sofie on 07815490837.