[To receive a report on the Adult Education Strategy from the Head of Adult Education.]

The Chair welcomed Joanne Keatley, Head of Adult Education to the meeting to present a report on the Adult Education Strategy, Offer and Outcomes. The Chair invited Cllr Dr Mike Hardacre, Cabinet Member for Education and Skills to introduce the report.

Cllr Dr Hardacre explained that the report came to the Board after what had been a very challenging year for adult education which was very much community based. Adult education worked extremely hard with it’s partners to seek to upskill the population which would be especially important as we sought to recover from the pandemic. The report made it clear that there had been difficulties and highlighted the hard work put in by the team to overcome these difficulties. The pandemic had exacerbated the digital divide and issues such as access to a device, access to the internet and digital skills had become more apparent. Many students were now being provided with the internet connectivity that they needed to complete their studies and reach their goals.

The Head of Adult Education provided a presentation to the board that highlighted the main points in the report and a short video that showed learners actually speaking about their learning, what it had enabled them to achieve and how it had impacted their lives.

The pandemic had now impacted on two educational years and the report showed that locally and nationally there were issues in participation in learning itself and in relation to a student’s ability to achieve a qualification if they had started their learning prior to lockdown and had to have a break in learning for any reason (including access to equipment). The Head of Adult Education stated that she was immensely proud of her team and their resilience and the amazing job that they had done throughout an extremely difficult time.

It was also explained that in relation to strategy, the aims were aligned with the Council Plan and the aims of the Combined Authority Plan. This included a focus on inclusive growth which lead the team to focus on those residents with little or no qualifications or low literacy, numeracy skills or digital skills and those not in work or in work but on a low wage. The report sought to provide some contextual statistics to show how the Wolverhampton statistics had improved but perhaps not as quickly as the national rates. It was stated that the key was to provide the right curriculum to help improve the levels and in ensuring that learners had the means to access that curriculum. The core offer and strengths had to be made available on many levels and there had to be multiple pathways to allow people to join at different levels and work their way through to a qualification in a way that suited them best and was inclusive.

Issues facing residents included large numbers not going online at all, a lack of basic digital skills, a lack of devices and connectivity, not being able to take advantage of offers and information online, not being able to apply for jobs online and not having digital skills for work.

Issues facing employers included accelerated digitalisation of businesses during COVID, businesses needing more digitalisation to survive and difficulty upskilling and recruiting people with the skills needed for now and the future.

A survey of students in lockdown found that 25% didn’t have a laptop or a PC and 35% didn’t have Wi-Fi at home. Students stated that what would help them would be having a laptop or PC (26%), having a Wi-Fi connection (24%) and having more digital skills (12%).

The response to this had so far included intensive digital skills development frontloaded onto courses, an enhanced loan service for laptops and internet connectivity and a digital transformation plan to continue intensive development. It was noted that at the time of writing, 36% of students had received digital skills development at the start of their course, 64 laptops had been loaned out and 6 MiFi internet connectivity cards had been provided.

The Board welcomed the attendance of the Cabinet Member at the meeting to present the report. A Board Member referred to section 2.3 and the Education and Skills Funding Agency. It was confirmed that this was a fund for 16 to 18-year-old learners and that it had been a challenge to provide to small numbers of 16 to 18-year olds who accessed further education with the department and that going forward there was an intention to provide supported internships for 16 to 25-year olds with an education and health care plan. The board member referred to section 2.6 and the lower than normal response to the survey and whether there was any information in relation to the demographic of the respondents. The Head of Adult Education stated that yes demographics were available and that she would look into this to see if the responses represented the service as a whole but that the response this year had been skewed by the pandemic. The board member also referred to the table at 5.3 and the 21% employed on a low wage and sought confirmation whether it was 21% of the 36% which would have brought the actual figure to around 7.5%. The Head of Adult Education agreed and stated that she would address this moving forward. The board member also considered that we could not compel adults to take part in the process and whether there were issues with our engagement strategy in this regard. Cllr Dr Hardacre agreed that reluctant learners were an ever-present concern and that a lot of work was spent trying to understand how to reach those that were hard to engage with. The Head of Adult Education stated that the service had always met its funding target which meant that it was reaching its objectives regarding this but there was still a question as to whether those people who were being reached were the right ones, but this was an area that was constantly being worked on and participation had increased. Participation had dropped as a result of Covid and it would be a challenge to bring people back and to restore confidence in the process, but the service was good at this and campaigns and case studies would be used to meet the challenge. The board member thanked the Head of Adult Education and Cabinet Member for the responses and congratulated them on the good work that had been carried out.

Resolved:

That the report and the presentation be received.