Image: Rwendland [CC BY-SA 4.0] via Wikimedia Commons
Shadow education secretary commits to six years of free education for all adults
The Labour Party is to announce plans that it says will put vocational learning on a par with higher education, and lead to what it calls a “radical expansion” of lifelong learning.
In a speech due to take place in Blackpool on Tuesday 12 November, Labour’s shadow education secretary Angela Rayner (pictured) will claim that a Labour government would “throw open the door” for adults to study “whether they want to change career, are made redundant or didn’t get the qualifications they needed when they were younger”.
The policy proposals to be announced by Rayner include giving every adult a free entitlement to six years of study at level 4 to 6—which includes undergraduate degrees and diplomas in higher education.
The Labour Party will also offer free A-level or equivalent study for those without such qualifications and paid time off to allow workers to participate in education. The party has reiterated its commitment to abolishing university tuition fees in England and bringing back maintenance grants for students.
“For many, adult education is too expensive, too time-consuming or too difficult to get into,” Rayner is expected to say. “People have been held back for too long. We will make free education a right to ensure we have the skills we need to allow our economy to rise to the opportunities of the future.”
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who will also be speaking in Blackpool, will say he sees education as “an escalator running alongside you throughout life, that you can get on and off whenever you want”.
“That’s what Labour’s National Education Service will offer people—free education, as a right for all,” he is expected to say. “Under our plans, skills and vocational qualifications are valued the same as university degrees.”
Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute and a former adviser to Conservative universities minister David Willetts, told Research Professional News, “while I am pleased to see one of our two big parties focus on education so early in the campaign, I think this is a little pie in the sky”.
“The costings assume ludicrously low take-up figures, which ignore billions of pounds worth of higher education commitments that are mentioned in the press release, such as the promises to scrap university tuition fees, bring back [the education maintenance allowance] for sixth form students and bring back university maintenance grants.”