Changes to funding rules for adult education will mean a focus on skills for employment and to “equip parents and carers with the skills to support their children’s learning.”
Kent County Council (KCC) says changes in funding rules from the Department for Education means a new Adult Skills Fund will no longer be able to subsidise courses for ‘leisure’ such as creative art and crafts and language courses.
Community Learning and Skills (CLS) is KCC’s internally commissioned department to deliver education and training to adults and young people over 16.
It delivers core subjects like English and maths, and has a long history of a creative arts curriculum as well as languages, fitness and humanities.
KCC say: “The new Adult Skills Fund will support learners to gain skills which will lead them to meaningful, sustained, and relevant employment, or enable them to progress to further learning which will deliver that outcome.
“KCC will no longer be able to use money from the Adult Skills Fund to subsidise courses for which the primary purpose is leisure.
“Kent’s Adult Education will have an increased focus on core subjects, helping Kent residents to improve their employment prospects, health, and wellbeing, and to equip parents and carers with the skills to support their children’s learning.”
Impact on staff and property?
The funding changes are expected to come into effect from Thursday, August 1, but staff will continue to support learners whose courses will no longer be subsidised as KCC prepares for the switch-over.
There will be an impact to CLS staffing, particularly for tutors in the biggest impacted creative courses, and KCC documents also say there will be a reduction in property assets that “will be vital for CLS to return to financial viability.”
The service is expected to move to short-term community-based venues.
The cut to creative courses and statement that the focus will include course to “equip parents and carers with the skills to support their children’s learning” have been slammed by County Councillor Karen Constantine (Labour) who is a representative for Ramsgate.
She said: “One thing that would assist Thanet residents to achieve their life goals, whether in employment or in personal terms, would be if KCC did their job properly, and delivered statutory education, health and social care services to the residents of Thanet in a timely and professional manner.
“Far too often I support residents as they struggle to get answers to basic questions from KCC, and as they wait – as if in suspended animation – for vital and much needed services to come on tap.
“I find the idea of Kent Adult Education delivering courses that ‘equip parents and carers with the skills to support their children’s learning’ laudable but somewhat laughable.
“Far too many Thanet parents are resorting to home education because of a tardy or inflexible education system. Some parents cannot get their children into the schools of their choice. Some parents are concerned that KCC isn’t meeting SEN needs. “Some children, for whatever reason are not ‘school shaped’ and therefore home education becomes a necessity. The answers to these issues won’t be achieved by training parents! Also, youth provision, slashed by the ruling Kent Conservatives is a valuable avenue of support for our young people.
“Likewise if Thanet residents received social care earlier than they currently do, then they might not become even more ill – requiring them to depend on even more social care. I have seen this happen far too often.
“The delivery of adult education should be expansive and allow people to follow their interests – whatever they are. There’s a lot to be said for vocational training for its own sake. This decision represents an unpalatable narrowing down of opportunities and a cynical attempt by KCC to blame the very people it badly lets down.”
‘New funding rules’
KCC’s Cabinet Member for Education and Skills, Rory Love, said: “Helping Kent residents develop the skills and knowledge they need for the jobs to which they aspire is at the very heart of what our adult education service is all about.
“Learning is a lifelong skill that can benefit people in so many ways, from having the confidence to go for that next job, to being better able to support children in their own education.
“There is a wealth of knowledge to be gained, whether by learning a new language, strengthening English, maths, or digital skills, or by improving wellbeing by taking one of our creative or fitness courses.
“The proposed changes are needed for our Adult Education service to meet the requirements of new funding rules from the Department for Education.”
