Adult Education

(asked on 23rd January 2017) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the effect of adult education on (a) helping unemployed people to obtain employment, (b) improving skills and productivity in the wider economy and (c) improving mental health and social isolation outcomes.


Answered by
Robert Halfon Portrait
Robert Halfon
This question was answered on 27th January 2017

We are helping unemployed people of all ages to obtain employment by equipping them with the skills that employers need.

The Adult Education Budget helps young people aged 19-23 who need a second chance to achieve the qualifications they did not achieve in school (English and maths) and the unemployed who are looking to gain the skills needed to enter and progress in work.

We offer Traineeships, an education and training programme involving work placements, which aim to help unemployed young people prepare for an apprenticeship, other sustainable employment or further training.

The number of adults (19+) achieving a level 4+ qualification is 14,100 and has increased since last year (11,400). The Government has set out in the Industrial Strategy Green Paper how, building on the Skills Plan, it intends to grow advanced technical education.

We are committed to ensuring we have a strong skills system that can drive increases in productivity, improvements in social mobility and help make a success of Brexit.

New employer-led apprenticeship standards are now delivering the skills that employers need at all levels and we are rolling out more higher and degree apprenticeships.

We are also radically reforming technical education, creating a simplified, high status system consisting of 15 occupational routes encompassing all technical education.

To support this provision we are investing in specialist institutions - as announced in the Industrial Strategy Green Paper (published 23 January), the Government has made available £170m capital funding for new Institutes of Technology to deliver higher Technical Education in STEM subjects at higher skills levels to meet the needs of employers in local areas. We are also investing £80m in National Colleges to meet higher level skills gaps in sectors critical to the economy.

Taken together, this will help to ensure that people are equipped with the higher level skills that employers need to be globally competitive and drive productivity.

We continue to invest in learning opportunities for those with a disadvantage or learning difficulty who need additional support, enabling tailored programmes to be made available to help those furthest from learning or the workplace. This is through the AEB which can be used to provide the skills and learning disadvantaged adults need to equip them for work, an apprenticeship or further learning. It supports Community Learning which helps adults of different ages and backgrounds to develop their skills, self-confidence, motivation and resilience in order to improve their wellbeing and progress towards formal learning and employment. Funding is also available to help adult learners (19+) overcome barriers which prevent them from taking part in learning. This includes help to meet the additional needs of learners with learning difficulties and/or disabilities.

The national Community Learning Mental Health Study (2015/17) is a £20m 2-year research project funded through the 2014 Autumn Statement, which will help us to assess the effect of adult education on improving mental health and employment and social isolation outcomes. The findings will be available in January 2018.

In addition, the Department has already commissioned the Learning and Work Institute to engage in work with adult education providers to explore and better understand which social metrics may help us better assess social outcomes (like improving social connectedness) through non-formal learning. Learning and Work Institute is due to report on the first year of this work in March 2017.

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