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COMMITTEE FOR EMPLOYMENT AND LEARNING Report on the Inquiry into Education and Training for Industry (Continued)
812. Ms McWilliams: The question was more to do with whether we need to look at how the bodies are interacting with each other. Currently, two separate bodies set a curriculum. Are they appropriate to this area that seems to lose out? That is really what I was addressing. 813. Ms Connolly: That is one issue that we have been asked to address by the Minister in a further letter he sent to us. It is one of the key areas that we need to look at, to work closely with these two bodies and see what role they play. Again, as a unit, it will be a Government decision as to which of those agencies is appropriate or what is appropriate in terms of a regulatory authority. 814. Ms McWilliams: I was not aware that the Minister had asked you to address that. The Committee Chairperson should note that the Minister has written to EGSA asking them to address whether there should be one authority. 815. Ms Kelly: Not strictly speaking. It is to look at the role of the CCEA in relation to a new ABE curriculum. As far as we are aware, the Department has started to discuss ABE with the CCEA and it is asking us to work with the CCEA also. 816. Ms McWilliams: I was thinking earlier of ABE for BBC on ICT. Thank you very much. 817. The Chairperson: There are many acronyms/ abbreviations. That may well have to be the last question. 818. Mr J Kelly: You will be relieved to know that I do not have any questions for you. They have all been answered already. I want to congratulate you on a very good presentation and I wish you well in your efforts. 819. The Chairperson: Could I just reiterate what Mr Kelly said. We are all immensely grateful for your attendance this afternoon and would pay tribute to the work which the organisation has been doing over the past few decades and wish you well for the future. 820. I also had a question but Mr Byrne anticipated it. Where is the best place to do adult basic education? I have already picked this up in my local experience in South Belfast. I am aware of the work of two groups that you work closely with. The point they keep making to me is that even in a relatively small geographical area of Belfast you need to be very close to the provision of adult basic education. Therefore, there are advantages in relation to outreach in having a facility directly on people's doorsteps. 821. My colleague, Mrs Joan Carson, could not be here today, but had a question which I suspect you will not be able to answer today. She wanted to know how many people were involved in your schemes in the Tyrone area which she represents, but perhaps you might answer her in writing. 822. Thank you again for coming. What you have said is really interesting. Thank you also for the written submission to the Committee, which obviously we will take note of. 823. Ms Kelly: In conclusion, we have jotted down the principles that I outlined at the outset. On the note I have also listed conclusions that were drawn up in a recently published report on adult learning in England from the Institute for Employment Studies. The conclusions it reached are similar to those we reached about the role of adult learning. We have added in a few recommendations which summarise the points we have been making today. I will leave these notes with you. I know that Mr Beggs was at the launch of this document, which was an evaluation of our work with the reconciliation funding. We have copies if members would like to have them. 824. The Chairperson: Thank you. topThursday 30 November 2000 Members present: Witnesses: 825. The Chairperson: Good afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen. It is my great pleasure on behalf of the Higher and Further Education, Training and Employment Committee to welcome you and thank you for your participation in our inquiry. You are all extremely welcome. We are sorry that the table is not big enough to seat you all, but I would stress that, when it comes to questions, the most appropriate people in the overall group should feel free to respond. We will begin with a short opening statement from yourselves and then move to questions. 826. Ms Lavery: Thank you Chairman. May I start by saying that Mr David Hunter is unfortunately unable to be with us because of a family bereavement. I hope that I have not mixed up your preliminary plans by asking various people to sit at the table with me. They are John Blayney (vice-chairperson), Raymond Mullan (past chairperson), Brian Turtle, and David Elliott of BT. There is one other change to our paper work - Mr Peter Gavan represents the Veridian Group generally, rather than NIE. 827. I will say a little about the Association of Northern Ireland Colleges (ANIC), and then I will ask Mr Mullan to develop the theme of economic development. The ANIC is the key voice for further education in Northern Ireland. It represents 15 of the 17 colleges, and its role has been very diverse in the two and a half years of its existence. It manages the College Employers Forum so that further education can benefit from collective bargaining. It co-ordinates an efficient curriculum and staff development service for the further education sector, including projects such as "Lecturers into Industry" for updating and further developing the skills of lecturing staff. This is achieved by providing a GNVQ skills advice co-ordinator and a key skills co-ordinator. Furthermore, we supply a support network for professional staff involved in the further education sector. This ensures that there are separate network groups for professionals such as human resources managers, finance officers and estates managers. 828. We run several committees on behalf of the Department of Higher and Further Education, Training and Employment, and we act as a sounding board and liaison point for both the sector and the Department. 829. We recently developed a special protocol with the Council of Directors of Institutes of Technology in the Republic of Ireland because we feel that the sector has much to learn from the institutes of technology in the Republic. We also have close working relationships with our counterpart organisations in the United Kingdom. 830. We have done a lot of thinking and planning with regard to economic development. Mr Mullan will explain some of it to you. 831. Mr Mullan: I presume that you have already received a copy of our paper. It is a summary of our objectives in relation to economic development. I shall go through it in bullet points; you can go through the document in greater detail, if you wish. 832. We held a conference, entitled "Skills for 2000 and Beyond" in the Hilton hotel in Belfast a week ago. The key aim of the conference was to refine the vision of the role of further education in the economic and social development of Northern Ireland. The discussions that took place will be published in January, and we will circulate a copy of that document to you. 833. We presented an action plan on the role of further education in economic development to the Minister. I have that document here. In summary, it says that there is a need to promote what further education does more vigorously. We want to see the further education sector involved in creating strategies for economic development, as happens in other countries, including our near neighbour, the Republic. We want to be involved in inward investment planning. We are pleased that, following our conference with IDB in May, colleges are consulted when inward investors come into an area, and this week I have had two meetings with potential inward investors. That change has come about as a result of our meeting with IDB, LEDU, and others, in May. 834. Economic development should be centrally co-ordinated. In other words, Departments should be talking to each other and to us. We note that careers guidance is being reviewed, as was mentioned in 'Strategy 2010'. We welcome that, and perhaps we can say more about that later. We want to see a mechanism through which colleges can work with the IDB, LEDU, T&EA, the Department of Higher and Further Education, Training and Employment and others. At the moment, such work tends to be a little ad hoc, so we would like to see a more formal relationship. Colleges can offer only what is required by industry, and sound knowledge of the labour market is the basis for our strategic planning. Every year, we draw up a development plan and it covers the two following years as well. Good information helps us to develop more relevant plans. 835. Qualifications have changed and are still changing. The nature of the qualifications should be clarified for the benefit of employers, students and school pupils. We should review the role of the further and higher education sectors in working with the T&EA to promote economic development. Some fairly close links already exist, but they need to be developed. The colleges affiliated to the ANIC need to review constantly what we are doing and how we do it, our policies and how we meet the challenge of economic development. The situation has changed; colleges have changed dramatically in the past 10 or 20 years - even the past five years - and things are changing all the time. We will be lobbying for assistance for an industrialist to help to co-ordinate all of these matters. 836. Finally, we see ourselves as being proactive and reactive. We wish to be more fully involved in economic development. We are a "can do" sector. We want to continue doing what we have been doing, expand that, be flexible and be able to meet the needs of industry and the economy. 837. Ms Lavery: The principals and industrialists present would be happy to answer any questions the Committee may have. 838. The Chairperson: Thank you very much for that introduction. Who would like to ask the first question? 839. Mr J Kelly: How do you see the relationship between industry and education developing? As industry requires educated people, what responsibilities do you think it has, and does it have a role in providing a financial package towards that? 840. Mr Turtle: We welcomed the additional focus that 'Strategy 2010' placed on further education, plus the emphasis on meeting needs. If we are going to create world-class businesses, particularly small businesses, we need a world-class workforce. We welcome that challenge. Some of the larger industries have been able to define their needs. For example, the Software Industry Federation has put much work into that process. Over the last number of years we have talked to the Software Industry Federation as an association and as individual colleges. At a local level, colleges are working in partnership with local councils and the development organisations. There is plenty of information about what employers need, but it has not been collated very well. In our own area we are examining a web-accessed database on which employers can list their needs, and which will show trainers the needs of employers which learners should focus on. 841. As for partnership, many colleges have received help in the design of courses. Many use staff from industry to help deliver courses and monitor project work, and a number of colleges have been fortunate enough to work with employers who have helped to resource equipment. I believe that that relationship is blossoming. It works well when the employers have their own regional association, such as the Software Industry Federation. There is also a role for close local links. One of my concerns is that employers are visited by a number of agencies. They collate information regarding the developments and training needs that employers expect to see in two or three years' time. Not all of those are in the public domain. Some of the strategies to use technology to gather that information and make it available will improve access to employers' needs, and, therefore, enhance the relevance of our training. 842. Ms Lavery: Does that address the substance of the question? 843. Mr J Kelly: Yes. 844. Mr Beggs: I want to develop your views on the existing links among colleges, industry and the various Departments. I attended an IDB seminar last night where the deputy director of a local college pointed out that it was the first time that he had been invited to such an event. I found that rather alarming. Can you outline what contact you have had to date with the IDB, LEDU, T&EA et cetera? What is the current level of contact, and how would you like that to develop so that colleges can accurately assess current and future job requirements? 845. Secondly, I am beginning to believe that careers guidance is an important area. What suggestions do you have to develop relationships in the field of careers guidance so that the openings in industry are fed back to yourselves and the school sector? Our young people should not go along a purely academic route without being made aware of alternatives. 846. Ms Lavery: I think everyone would like to throw their tuppence worth in here. Those are meaty issues. 847. Mr Mullan: The ANIC was concerned that colleges had not been contacted or involved when potential inward investors came to an area through the IDB or an agency. At the conference in May, the ANIC asked for consultation on, and involvement and inclusion in, those visits. You say that that was the first time your contact had been invited to an IDB seminar. I have been contacted at least four times since May regarding different visits, but I had not been contacted previous to that. The ANIC saw that as a fault and felt that it was not giving the full picture to industry. When a potential inward investor comes in, the first thing that it wants to know is whether there are skilled people available and what the facilities for training are. Those are the questions that I was asked last night, so it is very fresh in my memory. 848. The ANIC works closely with the T&EA and has had a series of meetings with them - particularly about the transfer of training centres to the institutes in the last few months. That has helped to cement our relationship. However, there is still a lot of work to be done to develop our work with the T&EA. The issue of Jobskills should be taken to a higher level than it is now, and we need to examine issues such as the needs of adults who are retraining. Can that be done through Jobskills? 849. There are a lot of plans being discussed at the moment. The ANIC waits to see how those will work out and it wishes to play a role in the planning and thinking. 850. Ms Lavery: Through the ANIC, all colleges have been participating in a link with industry called "Lecturers into Industry." That has worked in two industries in the past year - software engineering and the hospitality industry - and it is hoped to extend the programme to different industries. This year the programme is slightly broader, with the ambition that there should be some reciprocation by bringing industrialists into the further education colleges to make sure that the information and skills being taught are tailored precisely. 851. All colleges, as far as I am aware, have a recognised training organisation that provides direct training that is customised to individual businesses or industries. In that respect it would be a shame not to use the expertise of industry. 852. Mr Elliott: BT's view is that innovation should be at the front edge of the new world. Industry and colleges work together in different ways. The Modern Apprenticeship scheme is a local initiative in which a local college offers a number of modern apprenticeships. 853. BT had a number of its people go through the European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL). That is a Europe-wide accreditation. It has also had a number of its people go through the CISCO course. CISCO is the electronics that runs the Internet and it is a worldwide accreditation. 854. Therefore BT is receiving local benefit, modern apprenticeships and Europe-wide accreditation through the ECDL, and worldwide accreditation through the CISCO-type courses. BT's links with colleges have been very strong and beneficial to itself and the colleges. 855. Mr Beggs: Do you have any comments on career guidance? 856. Ms Lavery: The ANIC is aware that that is a crucial element of the development of further education, and the issue is currently being reviewed by the T&EA and the Department of Higher and Further Education, Training and Employment. The ANIC will press for an independent service, because it appears that no independent advice is provided to most school leavers. Therefore there is a strong tendency to view "academic" courses as the more successful choices. The ANIC is not reaching the brightest young people who could be in wealth-creating roles in our economy because they tend to opt for a more academic pursuit. 857. Mr Turtle: It is all about information. The IDB did not, in a concerted effort, decide to exclude colleges, but it did not know that we currently have a very high speed, powerful Internet access and that many colleges are well equipped for training. Some colleges, for example, would have 500 higher education learners at HND level, which would be the same size as the University of Ulster for the first three years. That is not well known, and people do not understand what colleges are delivering for their local economy. 858. We are concerned that if people are not given proper guidance they will make the wrong decisions. If they are allowed to do that, they will not follow a route which will give them the appropriate choices for employment. 859. Many young people go to a job market, or would have done in the past, and ask to do a particular course. They are given a training credit for it. They then come to us and we have to deliver that training, even though it may not be linked to the needs of the local community. Certainly, at a local level, colleges are joining up the circle involving the schools, industry and the T&EA so that we can have a learning partnership with employers where we identify the needs. We make the T&EA aware of those and encourage them to give out appropriate training credits. 860. We also go to the schools and say that if we are to deliver, in three weeks, people with appropriate skills to work in call centres, then students need to be developing keyboarding skills in their last year. From that point of view we believe that we could be a local focus for joining up that particular circle and producing effective guidance. 861. It is important that vocational education be given a status. If parents believe that you do not go beyond brain surgeon and solicitor, and that there is nothing else in life then we will have a problem if they focus on that. That will impact on the outcome of the review of the transfer procedure. 862. Ms Lavery: One complex area in which careers guidance gets bogged down is the plethora of qualifications that higher and further education have. It is necessary to find a route through that for each individual student, and a guidance service is really required to provide that route. 863. Mr Carrick: At community level, reskilling and retraining are necessary. This is a tremendous period of change, and it is nice to note that the colleges of further education are coming through that. They want to improve co-ordination and to be proactive as well as reactive. That is evident and is to be welcomed. However, in some areas there is a severe skills shortage. ICT is one of the examples given, but there are also other areas at community level. What is the ANIC doing to encourage people in the community into those subject areas where there are identified skills shortages? On a regional as well as a local level, what proposals do you have to reach out into the community to entice or induce them to embrace and manage the change that we are all involved in? 864. Mr Mullan: Last year the Department of Education provided access initiative money which many colleges used in different ways. One way was to buy a mobile IT unit, which has been very heavily used, and to go into community centres. Some colleges put their slightly obsolete machines in community halls. There has been a big growth in community education in ICT and other skills. The big issue for us is the increased involvement of the community. We sometimes have to go out, instead of expecting people to come to us. 865. Increasingly we are doing that. At my own institute, we have more than 40 outreach centres. These have been growing very rapidly, but much more needs to be done. In some cases, there are people in work who may be underemployed. With the scarcity of labour at present, we need to look at reskilling and retraining people and, in turn, to also encourage them to do that. We need to discuss developing a strategy for this with the T&EA. Community education, particularly in IT, is one of our fastest growing developments in these areas. 866. Ms Lavery: East Antrim Institute has been a leader in this field. 867. Mr Blayney: Community education is not separate from supporting economic development. It is important that everybody can share in increased prosperity, as well as this ratcheting-up effect. Under this, the underemployed move up a step, the unemployed move into those gaps and we ratchet up, time after time. 868. Ms Lavery: One other benefit of both the community education aspect of the programme and the out-centre approach, is that it helps us to reach people who may be demotivated with the notion of entering education or returning to study. It is seen to be more accessible and less daunting to enter a community hall or some of the out-centre venues, than going through the front door of a college. Eventually, perhaps two or three years later, these people will often become part of the core student population. 869. Mr Turtle: We consider ourselves to be champions of the community. There are initiatives that we find out about which perhaps the community would not. It is our responsibility to tailor those initiatives and make them work for the community. Well-known initiatives - such as individual learning accounts - provide us with the opportunity to deliver people with reduced cost education to people. Some colleges have delved into finance made available by other Departments, such as the Leapfrog initiative, enabling them to provide e-commerce training for local communities. With regard to the unemployed, I do not believe that there are adequate resources for them to benefit from these initiatives. There has been a major focus on this sector of the population, particularly by the T&EA. It is understood that there are groups of people, of all ages, who perhaps have only one A level. These people have decided to become employed and are working in garages or at tills in shops. 870. Other groups in this position include potential women returners. We have had a reduction in the numbers of women in this position by approximately 5.8%. Over a third of women (36%) are neither unemployed nor employed. We need to reach these people. They are not unemployed, so they do not fall within either the New Deal programme or any other means of resourcing, but they have to pay for training. There is no potential for day release. We must find some means of resourcing their learning, while trying to create time for them. People must have a right of access to learning. 871. Ms Lavery: In industry there are several schemes - operated by further education colleges - that aim to upskill people who are employed at a basic level, by way of undertaking supervisory studies. 872. Ms McBriar: I work for Eurest Sutcliffe which is the Compass Group - a contract catering company. We have arranged to upskill our workers, most of whom are very low-skilled. Furthermore, the majority are either older or female. We have worked closely with the colleges on training at supervisory level, and we have invested in developing the abilities of existing workers rather than looking to other areas of the labour market. It has been a successful programme. 873. Ms Lavery: Another example would be a growth industry like Nortel Ltd. In the coming years it will need to employ a workforce that has increasingly higher levels of skill. 874. Mr Davidson: I am sure that Committee members will have heard the Nortel story at least once. We have placed great emphasis on trying to generate skills that were previously not there. Like BT, we are at the edge of the new world. We have the added advantage of foreseeing what the future will be like, as a result of our experiences in North America. Our North American colleagues are working on the premise that the knowledge you come out with at the end of a degree has a shelf-life of seven years. There is therefore a continual need to learn and relearn. 875. We are trying to kick-start that through the ANIC and, in particular, our local college - East Antrim Institute. In technician training we are trying to reduce the two-year period for progression from an Ordinary to a Higher National Certificate. We are all learning together as we go along, and have made a great start. We are also working on providing skills in the semi-skilled sector. The institute has been very helpful in providing us with the resources and facilities to do that. Our people are coming in and benefiting from induction programmes; those are transferable skills which will be useful in the new economy. 876. Mr Dallat: Could I return to something Ms Lavery said earlier? You said that you needed bright students to train in the new skills that will be demanded by the new industries. The sad fact is that your students do not get the same financial support, enjoy the same prestige, or get the same back-up that others do. What should you, this Committee, or the Minister be doing to remedy this? It has hung around us for a long time and implies that students in further education are the poor relation. That issue needs to be taken on board. Also, what are you doing to target the special needs of many of your students, not only in terms of numeracy and literacy, but in relation to geographical location et cetera? 877. Ms Lavery: The sector generally recognises that we have an image problem. We hope that we can persuade the Department of Higher and Further Education, Training and Employment to assist us in developing a new marketing strategy to address this. I wish that every 16, 17 and 18-year-old in the education system was worth a flat rate of financing. It is much more beneficial to have a sixth-form pupil in a grammar school than to provide education for the same young person in a further education college. That is one of a variety of funding problems that we face. 878. The Access Fund that Mr Mullan referred to is the latest initiative from the Departments. Previously, the Department of Education made special funds available to assist us in addressing needs individually. Such needs relate to young people and mature students with special needs - needs for access because they are disabled or needs for additional learning support because they have learning disabilities or difficulties. All colleges have a number of students who fit into that category, and there is special access funding to deal with individual issues when they arise. 879. Recently, Castlereagh College used the access funding to plan substantial changes to its building to allow students with physical disabilities access all over the campus on an equal basis with able-bodied students. There are different stories from every college. 880. Mr Turtle: There is a perception of an image problem to some extent. We have groups of engineers who earn a lot of money. Again, the Nortel story needs to be revisited, because we have groups of students who are being paid and offered a job after an 8-month fast track course. That contributes to an image problem. Our society needs to realise that wealth generation is very important. We need to put that message out. We need to highlight role models, and the training awards and other award ceremonies, are ways of doing that. Perhaps we should look at further education awards and community education award ceremonies similar to the training awards. Regarding people with special needs and geographical disadvantages, colleges are now supporting local councils, LEDU and the IDB to try to bring employers into their area. That support may help in redressing those difficulties. 881. Mr Mullan: Perhaps I might raise the very important issue of funding for further education in case we lose sight of it. We hear a great deal of talk about higher education and issues such as the transfer procedure, but many students in further education are more or less disenfranchised at the age of 19 when they fall outside the scope of discretionary awards. The discretionary award was a lifesaver for many people turning to education, and it has more or less disappeared now. 882. In my experience, students are left without much support. Some have had to give up full-time courses and go part-time. The problem needs to be addressed very radically and quickly. If families get a discretionary award, they lose benefits. That acts as an incentive for vulnerable people, in particular, not to carry on in education and improve their lot and employability. It is a huge issue that needs to be addressed. 883. Ms Lavery: Many hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of students fall into the benefits trap. If they study for too long each week they are no longer entitled to benefits. 884. The Chairperson: There are 17 colleges at present, representing a reduction on the previous number. However, some might say that the figure is still relatively high for a population of 1·7 million. Is there a problem of fragmentation in the sector - especially as funding tends to follow numbers? The different colleges all work within the system, which is not their fault, but they compete for the same pool of students and go off in their own directions. There is a lack of co-ordination and certain social returns. 885. In some of the earlier sessions in our inquiry into the training system we got the message, rightly or wrongly, that there is a problem at the so-called sub-degree level, particularly with the Higher National Diploma (HND). It is perhaps not a problem in reality, but in perception. Employers - or perhaps students - are not seen to value HNDs, which have really begun to disappear as qualifications in their own right. They are being used as part of a progression to degree level, which in some ways is a good thing - certainly from the individual point of view. However, that may create shortages in critical skills, particularly in IT, but possibly also in other sectors related to technology and engineering. 886. Ms Lavery: Perhaps I might address the last issue first by saying that we have not found that many take such a route. We have found most employers value the HND and are somewhat concerned about the introduction of the proposed foundation degree. 887. The Chairperson: That is what I forgot to ask - what do you feel about the foundation degree? 888. Ms Lavery: I will ask the professionals here. 889. Mr Mullan: The report on IT skills highlighted this. It is a chicken-and-egg situation, as Northern Ireland employers have been spoilt for choice for a long time with so many graduates coming out and returning to the system. The majority of firms need highly skilled technicians at HND level rather than doctoral graduates, whom they bring with them in any case. We say very clearly that this may need to be highlighted more to employers. It is a valuable resource which we are not exploiting properly. 890. Even other vocational qualifications are very seldom advertised - I dare say that also applies to the Assembly Commission - and people are looking for GCSEs, A levels and degrees. The whole value-judgement issue must be addressed. The HND is a very relevant qualification for both IT and business. In my own institute I have not found that there is a problem of recognition. We work very hard and place students with industry for a year. Very often those students are snapped up by the industry in which they are working. 891. It has been mentioned that many students prefer to go full-time and get a degree, because that is seen as the gold standard. 892. Nortel Ltd hopes to put that to rest because it is offering opportunities for young people to continue and get those qualifications by part-time study if they want to. Perhaps that is why the foundation degrees are coming into the equation now. We need to talk more about that later. 893. Ms Lavery: Your first question, Chairman, was about whether 17 was the right number of colleges for the Northern Ireland population. We have not found that colleges are competing with each other for students to any great extent. In fact, colleges are learning, possibly from a deliberate decision at the time of incorporation, to collaborate with each other and share resources. That is still in its infancy, but we are sharing rather than competing to any destructive level. 894. In Northern Ireland the placement of colleges has been very important for community growth. To the same extent that a village loses its heart if it loses its school, a town tends to be diminished if it loses its further education college. The colleges have very different characters to suit their local identities. In the next few years there may be a rationalisation which will cost us one or two colleges. There seems to be a belief that the catering college, which is our smallest member, is likely to amalgamate with the university. That is a possibility, but it is not yet definite. 895. Mr Blayney: As a college which is involved in this rationalisation process, we believe that local access is vitally important. There is a danger that if you centralise too much, some of that local access will be lost. 896. Mr Mullan: You are making the point that the Department of Higher and Further Education, Training and Employment seems to be moving towards centres of excellence. We all bid for those during the summer. We have not heard the outcome, although we are waiting patiently for it to be reported. It may well be - to be rational in our thinking - that not every institute can do everything. There may well need to be centralisation. However, it is very important that no area be denied access to further education. There may be, however, a movement to have centres of excellence for study above a certain level. We can also look at the model in the Republic where there are specialisms. 897. Ms Lavery: I do not know if it would be true of Kilkeel before Newry and Kilkeel merged, but it is certainly true of Newcastle before Downpatrick and Newcastle merged, that Newcastle is a bit poorer for the removal of its own Newcastle college. I used to be a governor of both colleges, and subsequently of the merged college. 898. Mr Turtle: We are finding, as we involve business in the design of the courses, that the credibility of courses becomes more pronounced. Someone might say that he has an HND in business. However, if Nortel Ltd say that it wants a particular course with certain units in it, and we deliver that as an HNC, then it recognises and values it more. As we engage in dialogue with employers, we will have more tailored courses. 899. I am here on an ANIC ticket, and I must say that since we established good practices in the colleges, one of our major successes has been curriculum development groups. A college that has found a way of doing something well brings in people from other colleges and teaches them, on a fast track basis, how to do it. We have an event tomorrow morning where colleges that have had some success with community education are preaching to the unconverted, or the semi-converted, to try and spread that good practice. That is one of the major benefits of the ANIC. 900. Mr Beggs: Do you agree that it is a huge weakness that the Belfast Institute of Further and Higher Education has gone its own way? 901. The Chairperson: That is what I was going to ask. 902. Mr Turtle: Tactics are important. It is one of the areas that I am concerned about. If an organisation wants a member on every committee it goes outside the group. I do not know whether that has been the tactic or not, but we regret that that is the case. 903. Mr Beggs: Perhaps the Department of Higher and Further Education, Training and Employment needs to enforce discipline so that that does not happen. 904. Mr Blayney: One of the benefits of the ANIC is that it is a voluntary association, and voluntary associations are better than enforced associations. But I accept your point that there is a weakness in that we do not have a single voice for the sector. 905. Mr Mullan: The ANIC has only been in existence for two years, and we have come a long way in that time. Prior to this we were members of education and library boards and were tied into those boards. I would only have met these people here once every year or so. Now, with the ANIC, we meet regularly. We share views, we discuss issues, we debate, we disagree, we argue and we come up with what we regard as the best way of doing things. It is a very healthy development, and I think we have come a long way in two years, although we have a way to go yet. Working collaboratively we can do that. I regret that not all colleges are together, but then that is not the case in England, Scotland or the Republic either. Unfortunately there are people who, for whatever reasons, want to stay outside and do their own thing. However, we would be stronger if we joined together, and we have tried to do that. 906. The Chairperson: Thank you very much. It has been a very useful session, and we are grateful to you. We could continue this discussion, but we have a number of other evidence sessions this afternoon and we need to move on. We have your written evidence as well. We will carefully consider both that and what you have said this afternoon, and it is likely that we will be referring back to you in the future. We wish you all well in your work. 907. Ms Lavery: Thank you, Chairman. topThursday 30 November 2000 Members present: Witnesses: 908. The Chairperson: I welcome Mr Peter Gallagher, Director of the North West Institute, and Mr Seamus Murphy. Perhaps you would like to kick off the presentation with your views on further education and training and then take some questions from the members. 909. Mr Gallagher: Thank you for inviting us along. An expeditious time change enables me to get back early to the maiden city tonight. 910. My name is Peter Gallagher, and I am Director of the North West Institute. You have been sent copies of my lengthy CV, so I will pull only one or two potentially relevant items from it. The fact that I have been chairman of the Association of Principals of such colleges in two different member states, the Republic of Ireland, where I was a principal for 10 years, and Northern Ireland, is relevant in the context of some comparisons we make in our submission. 911. You should have documents that we sent through the Committee Clerk. One document is several pages long and it is the more expansive response to the invitation; a single-sheet submission contains relevant facts about the North West Institute; a double-page submission is a synopsis of a rationale for the underpinning of a policy. I hope that does not sound pretentious. We have also given you some background information. You have a document entitled, 'The Case for the Further Development of Non-University Higher Education in the Derry City Council Area', which was designed, as the name suggests, for a particular locality but it has some general application for Northern Ireland. I prepared that paper in 1997, and it is interesting to see how much of it is actually now in place, which delights me. 912. I have now been a director of a third-level college for 26 years, and I have to say that this is the most encouraging opportunity I have ever known. I would like to congratulate yourself, Chairman, and your Committee for the level of consultation you are allowing and for the openness and soundings on issues such as fees. It may be a bit impish of me to suggest that I would still like to read the small print on it, because if fees are paid the financial impact would strongly favour the university sector. That could be detrimental to the further education sector, but this is perhaps an issue of detail. 913. Enough about myself. My deputy, Seamus Murphy, has a very wide experience. He was formerly deputy Director of the Belfast Institute, and made a very wise choice to come to the north-west. He was attracted by the prospect of having two cities to serve - if Mr William Hay were here I would be telling him Derry and Londonderry, of course, but I do not see Mary Nelis either. Suffice to say that he has been attracted by that prospect. He was involved in the Springvale project and is spoken of very highly by Professor Don McCloy and by the vice chancellor of the University of Ulster, Professor Gerry McKenna, both of whom have also been involved in Springvale. He is also the Northern Ireland Convenor for the Association of College Management. He is a member of the Northern Ireland Credit Accumulation Transfer System (NICATS) body. He has been asked to write a seminal paper on foundation degrees for the Standing Conference on Further and Higher Education. 914. I would like to refer you to the documents. The two-page document is a summary of the case that is outlined in more detail in the longer document. I have tried to put it in a simple form, Chairman. If you find it too simple, that is good because it will be easy to persuade you to let it go. If you find it complex, then that is what you will question me about. The thesis is that there are three ways in which further education can impact on economic development. I was advised by Ms Sung to eschew technology and simply have a cross-table talk. We did not bring representatives from our support industries, although they are legion. In fact, I would be a bit worried if we were seen to choose some and leave out others. 915. There are three ways in which we can impact on economic development and job creation. Clearly the public sector in Northern Ireland is a major one. There is also inward investment and SME (small to medium- sized enterprise) development. In the summary I have concentrated on inward investment, largely because it is highly competitive. The work for SME support is individualistic and can be done anywhere. I have taken a view that we are heavily dependent, and are likely to remain so, on the USA for inward investment. The bulk of our inward investment in key technology and manufacturing industry comes from the USA. That is likely to remain the case. 916. However, the USA is increasingly looking to the Far East and India to satisfy its labour requirements. What are the implications of that? I think one of the first implications - as someone who, on behalf of the Industrial Development Agency (IDA) in the Republic and the Industrial Development Board (IDB) in Northern Ireland, was frequently asked to meet with inward investment itineraries - is that you can have difficulty explaining the nature of our further and higher education system to inward investors. Now that we have the prospect of foundation degrees - by the way, I was asked yesterday by Dr Davison to write a pilot for a pre-foundation degree course which we will work jointly with the universities, as we will of course do also with the foundation degrees themselves, and I would like to come back to that - but I think there is a window of opportunity here. Instead of calling it a "foundation" degree, we should think about calling it an "associate" degree, which is what a comparable degree is known as in the USA. I see very interesting parallels between our system and the high school/community college/university combination in the USA. 917. I have just returned from a study trip to California with the USA, EU and Canada consortium. We have had extensive partnerships in the USA where they have been dealing with a problem which is besetting us here in Northern Ireland. I have managed to persuade my colleagues in the Further Education Consultative Committee that a major impediment to the growth of technology-driven businesses, be they inward investment driven or SMEs, is the low level of achievement among a large section of our population in areas such as maths and physics. It is well known that Northern Ireland has the best-qualified people, but proportionately the smallest number, and a huge number are underachieving in these areas. This is a feature of life in the USA, and since 1991 it has been developing an associate degree and pre-tech prep. Using that as a model, Dr Davison has asked me to write a pilot programme on the pre-tech prep. I will answer questions on that if you want to come back later. 918. The Republic of Ireland has shown what can be achieved with a dedicated, responsive third-level education programme, which was based on Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reports. They are now in a curious situation in the Republic of not only having a skill shortage, but also a labour shortage. That could be an opportunity for Northern Ireland, but it could also be a threat. It could be an opportunity in that we might be able to persuade inward investors that they should look north of the border rather than south. On the other hand it could mean that existing wings of USA companies, already positioned south of the border, could be seeking to poach people from Northern Ireland to go south, thus leaving us with a bit of a wasteland. There are signs of both those things happening and we need to be careful. 919. The bulk of my comments are summarised in the two-page document. I hope you have had time to read them. I will not bore you by reading them because I think that is a terribly insulting thing to do. Generally speaking, we have been involved with the issue of SMEs for a long time. We run the only business innovation centre, which is modelled on the European Business and Innovation Centre (BIC) Network system. We have been doing this since 1985, with particular support from LEDU but occasionally from the IDB and private-sector businesses too. 920. At one stage we helped set up a venture capital organisation called Investment Equity Limited. We managed to prise £200,000 worth of pension funds out of the American Presbyterian Church, which I thought was a significant achievement. We also managed to draw down 200,000 ecu and approximately £1 million worth of seed capital for small business development. That was rolled out on the back of the Northern Ireland Innovation Programme. Sadly, most of that money has gone, but if you are familiar with the development of SMEs, you will know that there tends to be a very slow rate of return. In this case, the American Presbyterian Church was not interested in soft loans; they wanted equity shares in the small businesses. However, payback time in the small business sector is quite long, and when seed capital is spent it can get lost in there - it has to be continually renewed. Small businesses do not need large amounts of money. They need perhaps £5,000 or £10,000, but it must be at the right time. We have been beavering away at that for some time. 921. By the way, I would not like to give the impression that we simply have to copy the Republic of Ireland. I think our colleges are better than the Republic of Ireland's colleges. We cover all college activities plus those of FÁS, the Republic's general training organisation, and CERT, its catering industry training board. We are lagging behind in associate degrees, but that is about to change. It is important that this area is properly funded, and that further education is funded on a like-for-like basis with universities and grammar schools. We have been the poor relation for too long. 922. The extent to which further education colleges have been the poor relation is perhaps best exemplified by my own college. We had the lowest unit of resource of any college in Europe - not just in these islands, but right across Europe. Our funding was 88% of the norm in Northern Ireland. As for physical development, may God forgive the Western Education and Library Board, of which Mr William Hay and I are members. I am sorry he is not here, because he has heard me say that before. We had 6·2 square metres of space per student. The Northern Ireland average is over 8 square metres, and some colleges have 14 square metres per student. If you go across to England, Scotland and Wales or abroad, there are colleges with 22 square metres per student. The physical deprivation of the further education estate is a significant problem. 923. I would like to finish there. Perhaps Mr Murphy would like to pick up on any issue that I may have missed, or give added emphasis to something. I am anxious to give the Committee maximum time for questions. I am sure we will get the same amount of time in the round as everybody else. 924. Finally, I should congratulate you, Chairman, before I finish. Lest you pick out something from the documents that I submitted, Mr Alister McReynolds keeps reminding me that Lisburn has a substantial population too. It is a major population area. I would not dream of knocking the documentation, but some of it was prepared for other purposes, and it was pulled together when I was in America. Some of the documents are quite accurate in what they say about us, but it is possible that some other institutions may have successfully played catch-up since then. Please forgive me if I have done another college any disservice - it is not intentional. 925. Mr Murphy: I want to briefly add one point. I want to draw attention to the capacity of further education colleges to carry out applied research. Currently we are not funded to do so, but much of the university funding through the research base is not applicable to SMEs. There is an opportunity for the further education sector to pick up on that and make a valuable contribution to applied research. We can pick up on other issues during questions. 926. The Chairperson: Thank you very much for that introduction and the written submission. Who wants to ask the first question? 927. Mr Dallat: Does the further education sector accept that there needs to be specific emphasis and focus on relevant skills issues? 928. Mr Gallagher: Yes. Tragically, the lead in much of the training has been taken by national initiatives, many of which have broader application across the water than they have here. However, it must be done in partnership with private enterprise. 929. It is impossible now for any educational institute - and I sit on the senate of Queen's - to design, for example, a computer degree that would be relevant to the myriad of computer applications that currently exist. Those days are gone. It is even potentially difficult to bring them to a generic base, so that will have to be done in partnership, but we have to be in there, if only to bring back that knowledge to our staff and an awareness of where the skill base is going. We must be there. 930. Mr Murphy: There are two different angles. You are looking at the vocational skills base - the hard skills - but Province-wide employability skills are also an underlying problem. For many people who are long-term unemployed, or who are semi-skilled or unskilled, the real problem is getting to the interview stage. After the employability skills, the interpersonal development, the ability to fill in an application form, to carry out an interview et cetera have been achieved, you can then talk about the vocationally specific skill for employment. Both are necessary. 931. Mr Gallagher: I should have told you that we are members of the Manufacturing Technology Partnership with the two universities. That is a private enterprise, largely funded by the universities and ourselves, and it exists to bring industry and higher education into partnership. 932. You had previously raised the question about relationships within the sector, and between the sector and other elements of higher education. I do not want to be seen as saying it after ANIC has just left, but there is not as much cohesion in our sector as I would like. People are aware of that and are, I think, open enough to seek a solution. 933. Regarding the cohesion between our sector and the university sector, I think it is at its best level. It is better now than it has been for years, and some credit for that must be given to vice chancellors Gerry McKenna and George Bain. In the context of linkages, in the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) we have been contracted to develop the SuperJANET IV national network that runs between the further education and higher education sectors for the whole of Northern Ireland. 934. Mr J Kelly: ANIC has been in close liaison with colleagues in the rest of Ireland, the Council of Directors of Institutes of Technology, and has developed partnerships with colleges North and South, including a formally agreed protocol. Could you develop on the protocol? Could you also develop on your notion that colleges here are better than those in the Republic? 935. Mr Gallagher: For a start, as I indicated earlier, we are much more comprehensive, in that colleges in the North cover basically what is provided by the institutes of technology, plus what is done in FÁS. We also cover the catering industry. In the context of our response to industry, it is a virtual one-stop shop. The actual protocol is with ANIC. Our institute is not currently in membership, but in relatively close communion. Our partnerships with the colleges in the South were on the back of my own personal familiarity with the system, having been a principal there for 10 years and chairman of the Association of Principals. We have active, practical working arrangements with two or three colleges and have joint-ventured with them several times, most notably with Tallaght, Sligo and Letterkenny, and also universities in the Republic. For 10 years I was on the governing body of what is now Dublin City University. We are in close communion with colleges in the Republic of Ireland. It would be very hard not to be, having worked with them for 10 years. 936. Mr Murphy: An important point is that the institutes in the South are currently looking northwards in terms of good practice as well, because they recognise that the 18 to 21 market has peaked. They are now looking at a lifelong learning agenda, the part-time adult agenda, and widening their base. It is a two-way flow. 937. Mr Gallagher: I have, however, qualifying remarks about our being better. There are areas in which institutes in the South are significantly better; they are much better funded and better resourced. They have been able to make much better use of World Bank money - nearly all their buildings were paid for by the World Bank. In addition, they were far better at availing of their Objective 1 status, largely because they did not have to operate through Westminster and suffer its approach to additionality, which we had to deal with. Now that Objective 1 is coming to an end, I hope that we will find a way to change people's minds about that. This was an area in which they were particularly good. They have also benefited from the economic upswing in the Republic and they are now awash with money. 938. As Mr Murphy said, applied research is crucial to our colleges in relation to the support we give, particularly to small businesses. Another relevant feature is that our system is funded in relation to what work is carried out in the classroom. No account is taken of the large amount of work we do in support of business development. No funding recognition is given for that and we must examine this point when dealing with funding arrangements. 939. Mr Carrick: I have two separate questions but they are linked. The institute has stated that it will not presume to offer suggestions about the delivery of the wider school curriculum, but the Committee would like to hear your views on this issue and on how that curriculum can be applied to the further education sector. Secondly, what are the institute's views on allegiance to national programmes, such as GNVQ programmes? The institute has also stated that these courses do not necessarily benefit the region when there is such a highly competitive global economy. 940. Mr Gallagher: I will answer the questions in reverse order. The concept of GNVQ programmes was brilliant but they have lost their way. Sadly, they are no longer higher vocational courses and they are insufficiently tuned to the work place, which was the original intention. 941. The wider curriculum is of particular interest to me. I spent the first four years of my career as a primary school teacher and another five years in the secondary sector, so I recognise the importance of continuity. The Department plans to establish better links between the secondary sector and the further education sector ¾ that is of particular importance. For years we have been haemorrhaging some very good people who were not hacking it at A level standard. Many of those who were performing to standard were hacking it only to the point where they could get on very "soft courses" - courses that were not yielding jobs. 942. Our institute is working in partnership with two private organisations, Bic Systems in Belfast and Western Connect in Derry, through the Rapid Advancement programme. This is an intensive one-year programme in IT skills for 750 graduates in disciplines that are not yielding jobs. 943. I am not opposed to studying for a degree for the sake of the subject, but this issue must be examined carefully in the context of priorities for funding. There is an opportunity to correct the terrible waste of young people who do not even reach the entry point for some of these "soft courses". We feel particularly strongly about that because we have been trying to maintain high standards in our HND courses. It is, however, disconcerting to discover that people who do not meet our HND standards, because of their levels in maths and physics, are being accepted to study degrees in similar disciplines. Many are dropping out of university after a year, at very substantial expense to the public purse. 944. We must begin to work in partnership with other sectors. The Americans have introduced a similar method of tech-prep; they "dip down" into high schools to target 14-year-olds. I discussed this option with Dr Davison, who suggested a pilot programme. Under this proposed programme, we would work in partnership to ensure quality teaching, which would prevent students from leaving college with negative attitudes, particularly in areas such as maths and physics. A large part of the problem is caused by poor teaching, which includes teachers with only a marginally better knowledge of the subject than the pupils they are teaching. The pupils are being channelled into subjects other than maths and physics to the point where they may no longer want to know about these subjects, once they have merely scraped a pass at GCSE level. We will have to operate in a way which suggests that we are no longer teaching maths and physics. This will have to continue until a generation comes along that has a positive attitude to these subjects. 945. That seems to me to be crucial, and has to be a preparation for the sort of associate degrees we are talking about. The HND may be under severe threat if we are successful with the associated degrees - as I hope we will be. 946. Mr Murphy: There is a problem here with the two Departments looking at the issue. One of the problems seems to be a mismatch between people leaving the school sector - even good pupils in a number of subjects, maths being the obvious one - and the requirements of the higher education entry point. What people are looking for at higher education is not actually being fed to them in the current school curriculum. 947. The second issue is what I would call the "market place" in terms of qualifications. The awarding bodies are companies and they want to sell as much of their product as possible. When it comes to selling GNVQs, you have to look to the wider school market. The way to do that is to devocationalise them so that every school can deliver. The concept in the curriculum for 14 to 19-year-olds - particularly the curriculum for 14 to 16-year-olds - of looking for a vocational bent with a vocational GCSE is not necessarily the right way ahead. A better way would be a genuine vocational qualification, at Levels 1 or 2, through half-day per week release into further education. People could then experience equipment, buildings, and the vocational curriculum, and they could make an informed choice at 16 years of age about where they want to go. 948. Mr Gallagher: A good example of the problem of the thinking in industry is Nortel, who needed 1,500 employees. They approached a number of colleges and did joint advertisements. They received 500 enquiries, 300 applications and 150 appointees - only a 10% appointment level. The difficulty was that they were looking for A levels in maths and physics and anybody with those A levels had already gone to higher education. Somebody has to fill that void. You will not do it by presenting second-chance maths and physics because eyes will just glaze over. We have to package it well, provide the best teachers, and give it the same sort of kick that we have given to the Bridge to Employment and Rapid Advancement courses. 949. Mr Beggs: The evidence from you and from other further education colleges is greatly encouraging. You seem to be so much on the ball with ICT, and your institute is the only Microsoft-accredited further education college. Why are more colleges not accredited by Microsoft? I would have thought that would have been a very useful thing to have. How have you gone about achieving that status and why have others not followed the same route? 950. Your obvious success is not the perception the public has of further education colleges. How will we, collectively, change that image? Image, whether we like it or not, is an important part of solving the problem. Proper recognition must be given to the colleges and people must be encouraged to take HND or associate degree routes. What actions should we take to change that perception, so that the colleges and their work are better valued? |