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Skills for Life Courses

Answer

It has been drawn to my attention that while the answer I made to question 24962 was done so in good faith and was based upon information passed to me by officials, it was inaccurate in its interpretation of the evidence referred to. I very much regret this.The Department is currently undertaking a longitudinal study of literacy and numeracy learners in FE colleges—a subset of Skills for Life learners. Reports on both the first and second stages of the survey will be published at the end of November 2005. The study found that 25 per cent. of this learner group had no qualifications and 86 per cent. had neither English nor Maths at Level 2 [a good GCSE A*-C]. In addition, 32 per cent. of this learner group were continuing with their full time education while 68 per cent. of learners had left. Among those who had left, 70 per cent. had left at age 16 or under. However, this does not rule out the possibility that these learners will have undertaken any post-16 education.There is further published evidence that also suggests a large proportion of participants on Skills for Life courses may have left school at or before the minimum age and may have no formal educational qualifications. I have placed in the Library of the House copies of two published DfES research reports which contain this evidence: ““Evaluation of Adult Basic Skills Pathfinder Extension Activities: An Overview”” by Michael White of the Policy Studies Institute; and ““Evaluation Outcomes for Learners in Pathfinder Areas””, which the company Taylor Nelson Sofres were commissioned to conduct.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

28941; 439 c1626W;439 c1628W

Session

2005-06

Related items

Skills for Life Courses
Monday, 7 November 2005
Written questions
House of Commons

Subjects

Further education Standards Literacy Numeracy

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk