Education: Qualifications

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Thursday 10th November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, we are developing destination measures, which should help us to get a better picture than we currently have of what happens to children after they leave school, whether they go into further or higher education or into jobs. It is important to know what the destinations are, so we are working on those measures, which will help us. As to monitoring the effect of some of the changes that we have had to make—for example, over the educational maintenance allowance, which was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Quin—we will keep it under review to see what impact it has.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that the scrapping of the educational maintenance allowance is widely held to be a major culprit in the recent drop in the number of students attending FE colleges? Is he aware of the wide disquiet that exists about the operation of the replacement for the EMA, and will the Government consider reversing the decision if the number of students in FE colleges continues to drop?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, as I have said, we are keen to keep the effect of the changes that we have made under review. As the noble Baroness will know, we were driven to make those changes because the proportion of children in receipt of EMA—46 per cent of them—meant that it did not feel like a targeted approach. We wanted to target the money that we have more closely on those children who need it most, which is what lies behind the redirection and the creation of the new bursary fund. The noble Baroness referred to the impact on FE colleges. I know that a survey was carried out by the Association of Colleges to look into that. That survey, which looked at around half of all colleges, found that the number where enrolment had increased was the same as the number where it had decreased. The overall fall was only 0.1 per cent, which, given that there was a fall of 40,000 in the age cohort generally, does not feel like a significant change. However, we must keep it under review and we certainly will.