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Further Education and Training Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 33: 33: Clause 7 , page 6, line 30, after ““receive”” insert ““part-time or full-time”” The noble Baroness said: Clause 7 concerns consultation procedures. Amendment No. 33 seeks to ensure that such consultation as takes place with students includes part-time as well as full-time students. As drafted, the clause does not specify this, and I hope that the Minister will assure us that there is no question of part-time students being ignored. But it is worth reminding the Committee that eight out of 10 students in further education colleges are adults, many of them studying part-time on day release or in the evening, and are therefore often a somewhat less visible presence in FE colleges than the young people on full-time day courses. Part-time students are an important constituency for further education and it is vital that they be consulted. Amendment No. 35 adds a rider to this consultation process and leaves the door open for consultation with other groups besides students and employers, both of whom are specified in Clause 7. In particular, it is surely sensible also to consult those who deliver our system of further education; that is, the teachers and lecturers who form the backbone of the labour force in further education colleges. There has been a tendency to ignore the voice of those who are now pejoratively called ““producer interests””. They not only are often the main deliverers of the service, but, as my noble friend Lady Walmsley mentioned, they also bear the brunt of the funding gap that exists between schools and colleges. Partly as a result of the funding gap, many of these teachers and lecturers face larger teaching loads and their salaries are often lower than those of their counterparts in schools. However, there are two good reasons why they should be consulted about developments in further education. First, in schools, the Government have recognised that the quality of education will not improve unless there is a dialogue between the DfES, the employers and the teacher unions on raising standards. This dialogue has successfully delivered a mechanism for continuing professional development for teachers, which understands the many forms of training that can be adopted—not just going on courses. This contrasts with the approach in further education where the Government have proposed a blanket requirement for continuing professional development (CPD) of 30 hours a year without any regard to the experience, expertise or effectiveness of practice in that sector. Secondly, the new specialist diplomas that will come on stream in 2008, which are the key to the Government’s drive to improve the skills base of the nation, will require further education teachers and lecturers to be able to adopt appropriate pedagogical practices to meet the needs and maturity levels of students in the 14 to 16 age range who they have not traditionally been teaching. Neither the Bill nor the Foster report mention pedagogy, but in this respect CPD will be vital. A third group, the voluntary sector, merits some input into any consultation process. A significant amount of specialist post-16 education and training is delivered by voluntary organisations such as the WEA or is delivered with substantial advice and guidance from such organisations as the RNIB, Scope and the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education. This reflects the enormous range and circumstances of older learners. If they are excluded from consultations with the LSC, their expertise on these specialised subjects would be missed. In conclusion, these two amendments would extend the process of consultation to a number of groups which in other respects may be ignored by the Learning and Skills Council. I beg to move.