A New Learning and Skills Landscape? The central role of the Learning and Skills Council

This is the first paper from a project which is part of the Economic and Social Research Council’s Programme of research into “Teaching and Learning”. The project, entitled “The Impact of Policy on Learning and Inclusion in the New Learning and Skills Sector”, explores what impact the efforts to create a single learning and skills system (LSS) are having on teaching, learning, assessment and inclusion for three marginalised groups of post-16 learners. Drawing primarily on policy documents and 62 in-depth interviews with national, regional and local policymakers in England, the paper points to a complex, confusing and constantly changing landscape; in particular, it deals with the formation, early years and recent reorganisation of the Learning and Skills Council (LSC), its roles, relations with Government, its rather limited power, its partnerships and likely futures. While the formation of a more unified LSS is broadly seen as a necessary step in overcoming the fragmentation and inequalities of the previous post-16 sector, interviewees also highlighted problems, some of which may not simply abate with the passing of time. Political expectations of change are high, but the LSC and its partners are expected to carry through ‘transformational’ strategies without the necessary ‘tools for the job’. In addition, some features of the LSS policy landscape still remain unreformed or need to be reorganised. The LSC and its partners are at the receiving end of a series of policy drivers (eg planning, funding, targets, inspection and initiatives) that may have partial or even perverse effects on the groups of marginalised learners we are studying

‘Modernisation’ and the role of policy levers in the Learning and Skills Sector

This paper examines the changing use of policy levers in the English post-compulsory education and training system, often referred to as the Learning and Skills Sector. Policy steering by governments has increased significantly in recent years, bringing with it the development of new forms of arms-length regulation. In the English context these changes were expressed during the 1980s and 1990s through neo-liberal New Public Management and, since 1997, have been extended through the New Labour government’s project to further ‘modernise’ public services. We look here at the changing use of policy levers (focussing in particular on the role of targets, funding, inspection, planning and initiatives) over three historical phases, paying particular attention to developments since the formation of the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) in 2001. We conclude by considering the range of responses adopted by education professionals in this era of ‘modernisation’

Learners in the English Learning and Skills Sector: the implications of half-right policy assumptions

The English Learning and Skills Sector (LSS) contains a highly diverse range of learners and covers all aspects of post-16 learning with the exception of higher education. In the research on which this paper is based we are concerned with the effects of policy on three types of learners – unemployed adults attempting to improve their basic skills in community learning settings, younger learners on Level 1 and 2 courses in further education colleges and employees in basic skills provision in the workplace. What is distinctive about all three groups is that they have historically failed in, or been failed by, compulsory education. What is interesting is that they are constructed as 'problem learners' in learning and skills sector policy documents. We use data from 194 learner interviews, conducted during 2004/5, in 24 learning sites in London and the North East of England, to argue that government policy assumptions about these learners may only be 'half right'. We argue that such assumptions might be leading to half-right policy based on incomplete understandings or surface views of learner needs that are more politically constructed than real. We suggest that policy makers should focus more on systemic problems in the learning and skills sector and less on problematising groups of learners

Mediation, translation and local ecologies: understanding the impact of policy levers on FE colleges

This article reports the views of managers and tutors on the role of policy ‘levers’ on teaching, learning, and inclusion in colleges of Further Education (FE) in our research project, ‘The impact of policy on learning and inclusion in the Learning and Skills Sector (LSS)’.i Using data from five research visits conducted over two years in eight FE learning sites, we explore the processes by which colleges ‘mediate’ and ‘translate’ national policy levers and how this affects their ability to respond to local need. The paper tentatively develops three related concepts/metaphors to explain the complexity of the policy/college interface – ‘the process of mediation’, ‘acts of translation’ and ‘local ecologies’. We found that policy levers interacted with a complex set of national, local and institutional factors as colleges responded to pressures from the external environment and turned these into internal plans, systems and practices. We conclude by suggesting that national policy-makers, who design national policy levers, may not be fully aware of these complexities and we make the case for the benefits of greater local control over policy levers, where these interactions are better understood

'The heart of what we do': policies on teaching, learning and assessment in the learning and skills sector

One of the stated aims of government policy in England is to put teaching, training,and learning at the heart of the learning and skills system. This paper provides a critical review of policies on teaching, learning and assessment in the learning and skills sector over the past five years. It draws upon data collected and analysed in the early stages of an ESRC-funded Teaching and Learning Research Programme project. Using evidence from policy sources, we argue that despite policy rhetoric about devolution of responsibility to the 'front line', the dominant 'images' that government has of putting teaching, learning and assessment at the heart of the Learning and Skills Sector involves a narrow concept of learning and skills; an idealisation of learner agency lacking an appreciation of the pivotal role of the learner/tutor relationship and a top-down view of change in which central government agencies are relied on to secure education standards

How policy impacts on practice and how practice does not impact on policy

Our project attempts to understand how the Learning and Skills Sector functions. It traces how education and training policy percolates down through many levels in the English system and how these levels interact, or fail to interact. Our first focus is upon how policy impacts upon the interests of three groups of learners: unemployed people in adult and community learning centres, adult employees in work-based learning and younger learners on Level 1 and Level 2 courses in further education. Our next focus is upon how professionals in these three settings struggle to cope with two sets of pressures upon them: those exerted by government and a broader set of professional, institutional and local factors. We describe in particular how managers and tutors mediate national policy and translate it (and sometimes mistranslate it) into local plans and practices. Finally we criticise the new government model of public service reform for failing to harness the knowledge, good will and energy of staff working in the sector, and for ignoring what constitutes the main finding of our research: the central importance of the relationship between tutor and students

Botulinum hemagglutinin disrupts the intercellular epithelial barrier by directly binding E-cadherin

Botulinum neurotoxin's nontoxic HA protein binds E-cadherin to disrupt cell–cell adhesion in a species-specific manner