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Education and Inspections Bill

I shall speak to Amendments Nos. 248ZAC and 248G. Amendment No. 248ZAC would create the role of an adult learning director in Ofsted to redress the balance after the abolition of the Adult Learning Inspectorate. The amendment was put forward by my honourable friend in another place, John Hayes MP. He raised the issue as a result of correspondence with the Institute of Directors, whose expectations for the future of adult learning are far from optimistic. In its experienced opinion, the Institute of Directors states that, "““it seems inevitable that, despite the Government’s protestations and soothing reassurances, the new inspectorate will concentrate on children and schools at the expense of adults””." While the reasons for closing the Adult Learning Inspectorate were lacking, the Institute of Directors said that the operational benefits were unconvincing and the financial saving underwhelming. The Minister in another place suggested that this amendment would not stand up to scrutiny as in his opinion, a head of schools and a head of adult learning would place a dividing line between the academics and the vocational. Aside from the obvious oversight that adult learning takes place in further education colleges and not schools, so the comparison is, to a certain extent, redundant, I suggest the very opposite. Surely the existence of a head of inspection for schools but no position for adult learning will create a division of attention in the inspectorate that all but ignores adult learning. The Minister in another place stated that he wants pathways between the vocational and the academic. That is a laudable aim which would be fully supported by our amendment and would ensure that both the vocational and the academic would be equally represented within the inspectorate.