Part-time and Continuing Education and the Open University

Baroness Kennedy of Shaws Excerpts

Thursday 5th July 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bryan of Partick, who also hails from my home city. It is wonderful to see her here joining us in this House. I welcome her, as do all our colleagues. It is clear from what she has said that her experience will be invaluable to this House. She has a well-documented commitment to social justice. I should let your Lordships know that she edited a book, What Would Keir Hardie Say? I have no doubt that, in the months and years to come, she will tell us what Keir Hardie would say about the state of our world at the moment.

I want also to congratulate my noble friend Lady Bakewell on bringing this debate before the House, but I am sorry that we have so little time to speak. I agree with her about celebrating the Open University and in expressing regret about what is currently happening. Education is a social good as well as a good for the individual. It hugely benefits society as a whole to have a well-educated and well-trained populace, and learning is central to our economic success and social cohesion. It is particularly important just now as we address national skills shortages and the challenges of a changed world of work, an environment in which there is huge technological change.

Those who are disadvantaged educationally are also disadvantaged economically and socially. We have to place learning at the heart of a national common purpose and draw into learning and training those who missed out the first time round and have come late to the party, but who want a change of direction. Turning education into a commodity has not served our nation well, but I am afraid that that is what is happening. Turning universities, colleges of further education and the Open University into businesses is not appropriate. While all of these institutions absolutely should be business-like in the way they work, they should not operate as business models, as they are currently being asked to do.

Large numbers of young people still leave school and begin adult life in need of compensatory education. School does not work for many people for reasons that are often related to their family circumstances, but sometimes it is because they have breathed in a sense of failure at an early stage in their lives and they do not go on to do what they could do. We see a great deal of thwarted potential in our society. However, a moment will come for someone in their late 20s, 30s or sometimes their 40s when they want a second chance. I have seen this because my name is borne by a small foundation that gives bursaries to people in this category. They know about real hardship. The financial model and the insistence on paying for everything is now putting them off and it is the reason we are seeing such a drop in the number of people taking up those second chances. I could tell noble Lords many stories of triumph over adversity, but we have not got the funding right.

I want to make two brief points. The Open University was a visionary initiative and what we need now is a new vision. I suggest that we draw on lottery funds that were put to one side for the millennium projects in order to create a “learning nation fund”. We should create a learning regeneration fund to go to the parts of the country where there are no opportunities but there has been great neglect. In that way, people would be given those second chances. We should also create more pathways from further education into higher education, thus giving people the know-how for their lives. Let us celebrate continuing education and the institutions that deliver it, in particular the Open University, Birkbeck and many others. I am about to become the chancellor of Sheffield Hallam University, which does this work very well. These institutions are part of the lifeblood of our nation. Let us seize the chance provided by the policy review to revitalise these educational opportunities.