Keeping the Choices Rita Had - Voting Against the 20+% cuts

The other evening I watched Educating Rita staring Julie Walters and Michael Caine. It’s a film which is somewhat dated now, being set in the early 1980’s but the central theme of the film remains as relevant then as it did at the time adult education provides people with choices and opportunities.

The relevance of that opportunity for Further and Higher Education institutions such as the Open University to act as a second chance giving those opportunities is, I would argue, more important for us to hold on to and fight for than it has ever been. It’s why on Tuesday at the election hustings I asked the candidates for Milton Keynes North the following question:

“Whilst I appreciate the commitment all the parties are making to apprenticeships I am concerned that for other courses there is going to be a funding cut of over 20% in Further Education next year. What are their opinions and commitments on ensuring that  FE courses which provide an important second chance to many students are properly funded and ensuring that Further Education is not reduced to a purely vocational option for younger learners?”

The answers were interesting although only one candidate directly answered the question.

The first answer came from Mark Lancaster the Tory candidate. He started by saying that in the current situation we all had to take our share of the cuts and when the economy improved reinvestment would take place. This shows a naivety on the part of Lancaster. If you cut funding by over one fifth for something in the educational context not only does it have a knock on impact for the whole sector which provides that type of course but it also will lead to the cutting of courses, Once a course has been cut it is highly unlikely that it will be reinstated. Additionally, changing the funding formulas increases the cost for adult students paying for these courses. This all acts to reduce choice for learners who want to advance themselves, often facing some of the similar barriers to the ones illustrated in the film.

The second point Lancaster made related to the problems there had been in the past in setting 50% targets for higher education. I think he is right with this, but it is part of the overall problem with education at the moment. The marketisation of education which has been part of the New Right ideology promoted by the Conservative Party since the 1980’s and to a lesser state by “New” Labour since the mid 1990’s has focused too much on targets and models and lost sight of the learner and their individual stories.

My husband works validating models and knows a lot about the limitations of models and software programmes. He makes the point that if we look at the financial crisis and the roots it had in his sector they were related to relying too highly on the models and losing sight of the bigger, human, picture. I believe that the Conservative Party are encouraging a culture where this dependency on models and targets is actually being increased and not decreased. Funding cuts mixed with the data focused approach of Ofsted mean that colleges have to be much focused on the models and what they are suggesting when considering which courses to keep but also when looking at which students to give opportunities to.

The Green candidate Jenny Marklew and  TUSC challenger Katie Simpson spoke well against austerity. I was unimpressed by both UKIP’s David Reilly who seemed to have no grasp of the situation and Independent David Mortimer who seemed to have stood simply to have a platform for developing his campaign on fathers rights whilst throwing in the odd uninformed comment regarding immigration.

The one proper answer I got to my question came from Labour candidate Emily Darlington who not only addressed my question by referring to the impact of the cuts on MK College and the OU but also went further to call for the reinstatement of EMA for young people.

I was in total agreement with her answer because unlike her Conservative counterpart she seems to have grasped this point that education funding is about providing choices to people and in particular choices regarding employment and housing.

I am not saying all the changes we have seen since Rita’s time are wrong. It is right and proper that tutors such as Frank would no longer be able to stay in post in the way he was for much of the film. However, equally it is wrong that we are removing choices to people like Rita.

People familiar with the film might argue that the type of patriarchal working class household shown in the film no longer exists as we have seen a feminisation of the workforce and that she would have many more choices now anyway.

I beg to differ. I have taught in FE for fifteen years, nine of those teaching Access students as well as A Level students, including in some of the most deprived areas of the country. I know the background stories and challenges which many face, a number of which are linked to patriarchal expectations. Thus, this is both a class and a gender issue. Additionally because of the problems many young LGBT people face which may mean they have to come out of education for a while, (LGBT young people are much more likely to become NEETS or face housing issues) it is also an issue that connects with the LGBT community.

Additionally from a personal point of view I know the difference of what Emily was talking about makes.

I did my A Levels at evening classes at Suffolk College. Now Suffolk New College, somewhere which has had to cut it’s A Level provision. As a result of that second chance I was able to fly and gain postgraduate as well as graduate qualifications and go on to teaching.

My daughter did her A Levels at the local FE college in Durham, where we lived then, having become a school refuser almost due to bullying. The fact she wasn’t forced into the vocational route meant she was able to go on and do an Applied Theology degree which she is due to graduate from in June. Whilst on her A Level course her EMA was used to provide her bus fare to college and occasionally our electricity (as I was working part time and finishing off my M Litt).

The point is she now has choices and so do I because of the academic courses which were available in FE. I have seen many adult students flourish on Access courses, something these cuts may in the long run negatively impact.

So the choice is clear if we want to ensure the Rita’s of this world are given the choices they deserve we need to vote against the slashing of this part of the education budget which is not ring fenced and protected.

For more info on the fight against FE funding see the UCU website.