Education failing to win hearts and minds on fees

IT TAKES something to whip up the fury of birdwatchers and beekeepers, but Education, Sport & Culture has done it.

Investigating fee hikes for all adult education courses, the committee is already on the backfoot if it ever was going to win hearts and minds for the move.

Firstly, the news was broken by one of those heading up a course that is in line for a three-fold increase in charges.

So the committee was left to respond and, instead of setting out a clear case, we got the line of, essentially, trust us, it needs to be done.

No detailed explanation of what the committee is trying to achieve, what losses it is covering, what income level it wants from the courses and why, what is happening with course numbers, and, as this is all part of efforts to address inefficiencies at the CoFE, what other measures were on the cards.

President Paul Le Pelley said it was part of a move to bring the college's budget 'back in line with expectations' – he failed to tell us what those expectations were or how far out of kilter things had got.

Perhaps this is the way the committee wants it, being vague enough to push the anger elsewhere by simply saying we've been asked to save money by those holding the purse strings – 'cuts are painful, hey, but that's the world we live in'.

It is not this committee's fault, but you cannot help but feel the fees have been kept at an artificially low level for far too long.

If they had been ticking along in line with inflation, we would not have the big bang shock. There are parallels with the waste charges we are all about to get hit with.

As it is, we are now left in a classic information vacuum.

We know from the PwC review that ESC were looking at this area, but we have very little understanding of why hit here first and not elsewhere where bigger savings are apparent.

The CoFE is expensive to run.

Net expenditure was around £7.37m. in 2010, £7.7m. in 2011, £7.49m. in 2012, £7.69m. in 2013, and holding around £8.1m. in 2014, 2015 and 2016.

In 2012, there was a nibble at costs when £200,000 was stripped from the budget as an FTP saving with a course reduction – the pendulum swung straight back by the same amount the next year. Classic States.

Further education as a whole now accounts for 12.8% of the committee's budget.

PwC – and remember its report was compiled after speaking to Education staff – say that the cost per pupil of CoFE services seems very high compared to other jurisdictions.

The average cost per CoFE pupil in Guernsey is £8,000 for 16-22 plus provision and £6,300 for apprenticeships.

The UK average cost of £2.8k and £1.6k respectively.

'The number of full-time students in particular is low,' PwC states.

'Centralised costs, including the cost of operating three sites, is therefore disproportionately high. A review should be performed to rationalise and ensure the optimum use of the CoFE's estate.'

This is an issue that goes beyond how much to charge for sewing, learning to play the ukulele, breadmaking and sugarcraft and drives at the heart of the expensive post-16 reforms the committee is proposing.

The apprenticeship grant of £474,000 has also been a focus of PwC, where it speaks of the need to assess the ability of employers to pay and the fact it can take up to five years to qualify, multiples longer than it does in the UK.

It could well be that the adult classes fees are one minor part of a major cost-cutting exercise – it really would be scandalous if the committee was taking the quick win route of fee hikes rather than address the big wins like the GTA and apprenticeship grants – we still are yet to hear its position on those.

As criticism mounts that Education is taking the easy option rather than address issues such as teachers pay, which PwC has said is up to 30% more than the UK average, committee member Neil Inder took to Twitter to ask what grants people would want it to cut.

Well, the £750,000 a year going to the Guernsey Training Agency, which we are told has built up a substantial surplus as a result, to subsidise courses which large corporations could easily pay for would be one obvious area.

And do we also really know if we are getting value for money from the £1.2m. being spent every year on the Institute of Health and Social Care Studies, for instance?

Glance through ESC's annual report for 2015/16 and you find this: 'There are currently over 200 candidates registered to undertake a Vocational Qualification award. Unfortunately, it was noted that many of these candidates working within HSC were failing to complete.'

In committee, ESC should have the bigger picture that we currently cannot see in public.

Or you would hope so. Some of the political response so far has been less than reassuring.

A clinical response would question the real need for some of the adult courses on offer, not so much education as hobbies.

But there is a very real counter to that.

This is a community service, accessible to many and with an increasingly ageing population, a very real way of keeping people and their minds active.

Taxpayers are, essentially, being double charged for the service and we do not know how much it costs to run the offering.

Without Education's rationale, without knowing whether it values some courses more than others, without seeing what is happening to the numbers of those on the courses, and, most importantly, without knowing what is happening elsewhere with addressing the CoFE's budget and why, the committee will be judged harshly.