Education: Part-Time Study

Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble friend Lady Bakewell on securing this debate and agree wholeheartedly with her that it is indeed timely.

Those who recall or took part in the debates following the passage of the Higher Education Act 2004 will know that this House has played a major role in drawing public attention to the importance of part-time higher education. The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, stands out in particular for her contribution to securing some recognition that higher education policy has long been formulated with full-time, 18 year-old entrants in mind.

During those many debates, as in this one, noble Lords agreed that the economic evidence was unequivocal. The economy and the labour market are changing with increasing rapidity. To keep up, most people will have to adapt to many jobs, and several careers, during their working lives. This can only be more marked as the age of retirement goes up.

My noble friend Lord Leitch, in his 2006 Review of Skills, pointed out that 70% of the 2020 workforce had already completed compulsory education. He argued that to meet the changing needs of employers more than 40% of adults should be qualified to level 4 and above—in other words, equivalent to a degree-level qualification. The figure is up from 29% in 2005. By common agreement, that can be achieved only by increasing the level of skills of those already in work as well as of young learners.

The facts have not changed. What has changed is that, instead of a steady increase in part-time study, we have seen a marked decline. It is not a new phenomenon; it has been happening for a decade. However, as other noble Lords have said, we appear to have reached something of a crisis point. Between 2010-11 and 2012-13, the number of new entrants to part-time undergraduate study in England declined by 40%. At a recent breakfast discussion hosted by the All-Party Parliamentary University Group, we agreed that if this had happened to full-time participation, we would have seen a national outcry. Instead, there has been relatively muted comment in the media and even in Parliament. Why is this?

One answer is that it is far harder to talk about part-time students as a group. Their backgrounds and motivations are varied. They include large numbers of people from low-participation backgrounds, and with low skill levels, but a large proportion are already educated to degree level. The most substantial proportion of part-time study is directly linked to current employment, particularly in the public sector. On the other hand, some are studying for reasons of personal development and a love of learning.

There are a few really striking facts, which Claire Callender and others have done much to explain. Part-time students are more likely to be older and more likely to be female compared to their full-time counterparts. Some 63% of part-time students are female, compared with 56% of full-timers; and 80% are over 25. Two-thirds have family responsibilities and two in five have children, while 92% of full-time students do not. With the exception of Birkbeck, they are concentrated in the less research-intensive universities.

I wonder whether the lack of interest in part-time trends is associated with assumptions and prejudices which are familiar in so many other areas of policy. Are older female students invisible in higher education policy in the same way as older women appear to be invisible in so many other parts of public life? That would certainly be an illuminating area for study.

The varied characteristics of part-time students make it difficult to identify universal explanations for the decline in enrolment, but two factors appear to be particularly important. The first is that for many people considering starting—or returning to—higher education in middle life, their response to the shift in government funding to higher fees is very different from that of young learners. If you have children or dependent parents—or both—a mortgage or rising rent costs and are facing rising living costs, it may be particularly hard to face any additional expenditure. This may be especially true if you have to pay more for childcare and travel to make study possible. You may be weighing this up against the need to make a contribution to a pension for long-term security. It is clear that the introduction of fee loans, though welcome, has not helped as much as we might have expected.

The second factor is the connection between part-time study and public sector jobs. As the public sector shrinks, the proportion of people who are supported by their employers may also be falling. There are questions about whether private companies are willing to invest as much in training or whether they are maintaining their investment but focusing it on a smaller number of people. Certainly, anecdotal evidence suggests that employers may be less willing to subsidise career-enhancing study. The shift from public to private sector employment may be narrowing opportunities.

We need to know much more about what is happening in particular sectors of the economy, such as healthcare and education, where there is a particularly high concentration of part-time students, and where—if anywhere—employees are going for training if not to universities. I commend the Government for commissioning the Universities UK study, but I echo my noble friend in suggesting that it is likely to be the beginning and not the end of the conversation about how best to support and incentivise part-time higher education.

The Government face a choice. Public funding is scarce. Policy options are consequently limited. But I return to my original point. The evidence of economic need has not changed. I would argue that the Government can either pay now to encourage and support more people to study part time or they can pay later in the higher social and economic costs of supporting people who cannot get jobs in a labour market that has changed. There are short-term considerations but there are also long-term imperatives. It cannot be right to see part-time undergraduate—and, for that matter, post-graduate—higher education shrink and do nothing about it.

I have two immediate questions for the Minister. Will the Government consider incentives for employers to make contributions towards part-time higher education for their employees? Will they encourage HEFCE to provide incentives to institutions to maintain or develop part-time provision? Of course universities have to adapt, and I hope that the UUK report will help them think about how to do that, but policy will need to adapt as well.