Lord Browne of Belmont – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Browne of Belmont on 2016-01-21.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what resources and schemes are being targeted at those who lack the basic levels of literacy and numeracy.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe

This Government understands the importance of English and maths and makes these subjects a priority for support within the adult skills system. Adults who improve their literacy and numeracy are more likely to experience better health and well-being, increase their chances of employment and progress to better jobs.

We fully fund, through a statutory entitlement, all adults to achieve their first English and maths GCSE at grade C or above as well as other qualifications which help them get to that level. The total funding for English and maths for academic year 2013/14 (including for apprenticeships, English for Speakers of Other Languages and prisoners) was £563,961,000. Of this £142m was spent on English and maths in apprenticeships. (905,600 learners participated in English and maths courses in 2013/14)

We fund a wide range of learners to study English and maths including:
• Prisoners, through the Offender Learning and Skills Service
• Learners in the community, including through Family English, Maths and Language
• People who need English for Speakers of Other Languages
• Trainees as part of their traineeship
• Apprentices as part of their apprenticeship
• Jobseekers

We have increased our expectations of what learners should achieve in order to increase the standard of literacy and numeracy. To do this we have embedded English and maths at the heart of all our major programmes. This means:
• Learners who did not achieve a good GCSE pass in English and/ or maths by the age of 16 are now required to continue to study those subjects post-16;
• Since 2014/15, the English and maths requirement for Intermediate Apprenticeships has been stronger, with all apprentices who have already achieved level 1 English and maths having to work towards level 2;
• Since 2014/15, young people undertaking a traineeship have been required to study English and maths unless they already have level 2 qualifications in these subjects;
• In August 2014, we introduced mandatory assessment of maths and English for all newly-received prisoners to ensure that all offenders, not just those that go into learning, receive a learning assessment (focused around English and maths, but also covering learning difficulties and disabilities)

We have reformed GCSEs to ensure they are more stretching and provide greater assurance of core literacy and numeracy than the old GCSEs. We also recognise that some people are not ready to take GCSE so we are also improving the rigour and relevance of English and maths Functional Skills qualifications, which are taken by many students and apprentices aged 16 and over. We have commissioned the Education and Training Foundation to revise the National Literacy and Numeracy Standards and reform Functional Skills. The foundation has launched a consultation which will run until April and which will involve employers, teacher and subject experts.

We recognise the need to improve the quality of English and maths teaching in further education. We have invested over £30m over the past 3 years to fund a range of measures to improve the workforce in areas such as leadership, governance, teaching and learning, with a particular focus on maths and English. This has resulted in over 1,000 bursaries to attract graduates to teach in further education and over 3,800 teachers have benefited from training to improve the quality of their English and maths courses.
We are undertaking a range of research to best understand where Government investment in English and maths has the greatest impact and delivers value for money. This includes:
• Using behavioural insights to identify how to motivate adults to improve their English and maths and encourage learners to keep studying once enrolled on a course; ;
• Longitudinal research into skills gain and skills atrophy of adult English and maths learners
• Comparing the impact of blended and more traditional classroom learning.