It seems that the IfL is not giving up without a fight and rather than smell the coffee they’ve brokered a deal that will see it retain union support in return for halving its annual tax from £68 to £38 (for a limited period of 2 years!).

This joke organisation wanted by none, and managed by a few desperate bureaucrats hoping to hold onto their lucrative positions simply doesn’t get it.

So, once more, here is the gripe:

It doesn’t matter how low the fees are, or how many compromises they make to lessen the burden on hourly and low-income staff, this organisation is and will always be an undemocratic imposition.

The IfL was not the idea of FE staff. Why would they want an organisation demanding money and 30 hours of CPD on top of the excessive teaching hours, shockingly low pay, stress and micro-management that they already have to put up with?!

An organisation created, manned and run by and accountable to FE staff is what the IfL should be. Instead it is and will remain a private, for-profit bureaucratic joke, albeit very, very unfunny.

Because of this, the Institute for Leaving will never gain the full support of the very staff it is supposed to represent.

There may be a commitment to professionalism, status, regulations, quality and reputation; there may be talk of accountability and relevance; of flexibility and diversity; of fairer fee policies; of future benefits for membership; but that is immaterial.

And there is not even a guarantee that the fee will no higher than £68 in 2013/14. So, in other words, hoping that the opposition will peter out, they are looking to make more profit again in a couple of years.

The unions (UNISON, ATL) also need to wise up. Yet again they have shown their true colours. Rather than supporting their many members against this joke, they seem to have taken the institutional view and fallen for the IfL’s sob story.

We however don’t believe that there is a problem with professionalism, standards or quality in FE.

Talking down the profession only serves specific bureaucratic and business interests, and the IfL is another example of a privately-run organisation that is seeking to profit from the Education Crisis Myth parroted by politicians and their business partners.

But in reality there is no problem with FE staff, as there is no problem with FE.

The only problem: IfL.

Firstly, the IfL demands for a £68 annual fee have been met with howls of derision not least because no-one can work out what the IfL is for.

Secondly, it has emerged that Browne’s Review neglected to incorporate the results of a survey costing £68k that revealed just how much opposition there was to fees and debt.

And both the IfL’s missing raison d’etre and Browne’s stitch-up were discussed at EducationState some time ago.

UPDATE: Here is the UCU link explaining their plans for battle and also a link to their anti-IfL petition

Number of young people currently unemployed in the UK and the worst figures since records began: 953,000 (20% of 16-24 year olds).

Nice one, Vince. Only 850,000 to go.

It is a shame you’ve trebled tuition fees and scrapped the EMA so that these youngsters will find it so much more difficult to increase their chances of finding work through improved qualifications.

But fear not. They could always work for free as IDS wants.

We wonder if IDS and Vince willl be doing the same in solidarity with the young. Doubtful.

Do as they say, not as they do?

Shadow Education Secretary Andy Burnham explains why he wants to save the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) aimed at keeping poorer children in education.

Listen HERE.

Education Select Committee chairman Graham Stuart admitted the government plan could have a “damaging impact” but said there would be other help with a “more targeted discretionary fund”.

Further signs of a Tory-led coalition flailing in the wind.

The government intends to axe the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) for college students in England. This will have a massive impact on those families in our communities who most need support to undertake education.

The EMA is a means-tested allowance of between £10 and £30, paid to 16- to 19-year-olds who stay on in education. In 2009/10, 635,000 learners received at least one EMA payment, and around 80 per cent of those the full £30.

The EMA helped support a huge increase in the number of young people from less well off backgrounds going onto college. Students in areas with higher levels of social hardship are most dependent on the weekly financial support, and will therefore be hit hard by this cut. In some areas of Birmingham, Leicester and the North West as many as four-fifths of students receive the EMA.

Thousands of students could now be forced to drop out of college which will in turn also put even more college jobs at risk.

This is a punitive, cruel, unfair and inadequately evidenced cut on the most vulnerable and those in the greatest need.

Take a stand now against the cruelest of cuts

NUS, UCU, Unison, NUT, Unite, GMB, ATL and NASUWT are holding a nationwide day of lunchtime protests at colleges on 13 December.

We are calling on all members to support these peaceful lunchtime protests at their local college.

Please note that this is a united day of protest and not industrial action.

What YOU can do

* Make urgent contact now with your other campus unions and Students’ Union or student reps to discuss local ideas for the day
* Speak to other union branches and community groups in your area and involve them in your plans
* Approach your college principal about your plans – ask them to support the day (many principals are concerned about the axing of the EMA)
* Sign the joint union EMA petition
* Contact your local MP (www.writetothem.com) to ask them to sign the petition, attend and/or publicly support the day and the campaign
* Put up a poster advertising the day of action: EMA day of action poster
* Distribute a leaflet about the day of action and the EMA cut: EMA day of action leaflet”

That this money – an extra £4bn – is coming at a time when those in FE and HE face hefty cuts will raise little cheer for those who are paying mortgages, have children to feed and saw education as free of the boom-bust cycle that so plagues the private sector and job security.

Even the money that is being squeezed out of the FE/HE sponge and passed onto to schools isn’t without a cost. This cost not simply being a financial one, of course, but also the right to decide how that money is spent.

Just lik NuLab, the Coalition of One will expect to control where that money goes and how it is spent. They do this, naturally, through the quangos such as OfSTED that still remain.

What is needed is freedom for schools to do as they have always done even before the Age of OfSTED and get on with schooling. But this is only feasible if there are no strings. By attaching strings to how money is spent, unnecessary bureaucracy is created. Without the strings OfSTED and those like it lose their raison d’etre. Period.

The imaginary world of success and failure that these strings and inspectors create and perpetuate serves only the very people that have a vested interest in the system being created and perpetuated. No system, no problem.

You may be asking what this has to do with education. Well, education policy is decided in exactly the same way. That is, experts advise, politicians decide.

We at EducationState and many, many others think this is totally unacceptable. Labour Secretaries of State are devising policy unilaterally and paying only lip service to experts and advisors. They pander to the noisy minority when they should be leading the enlightened majority. They are acting as mini-dictators, against reason and beyond the pale.

In the case of the decision to sack the chief drugs advisor, they have today wheeled in Gordon Brown to lend his support to AJ and to further discredit Prof. Nutt. They’ll set up another body to review the current body that was set up to review drugs policy. Jobs for the boys, shameful and ridiculous.

Contrast the findings of the government-funded UK Commission for Employment and Skills (Ukces) review into further and higher education, which calls for yet more league tables – this time in FE – with the Cambridge Primary Review that calls for formal learning to begin later than at present.

The first is funded by the Government and lo-and-behold it is full of praise for existing Government policy and in the Guardian the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is quoted as saying: “We work very closely with Ukces and warmly welcome their valuable insight on improving the skills system.”

The latter isn’t funded by the Government and, unsurprisingly, its findings are rejected.

This whole corruption of education research is reminiscent of Tony Blair at the time of the Iraq war fabricating intelligence to fit his own messianic designs. Look where that got us.

1.
“”There has been a significant improvement in retention,” says media curriculum manager, Perry Perrott.” and:

2. “As a consequence, he says that there has been a reduction in the number of students dropping out of courses.”

Now, let’s examine these passages in more detail. At the Gloucestershire College website there is no public access to this data so it can’t be verified. In other words, we have to trust Mr Perrott and the College that their figures are exact and have been analysed correctly.

This doesn’t seem too much to ask. But should a BBC journalist – Sean Coughlan – be taking them at their word? Shouldn’t the journalist mention in the very same article that the data has or hasn’t been verified? We’ll never know if he did because it isn’t mentioned.

Despite Auntie’s mission to be objective and impartial, this article through not checking its facts, has failed. It would be interesting to know what motivated Mr. Coughlan to write this article. Education journalists are no different to others and must act to identify PR parading as news. The links and information in this article do nothing to prove or demonstrate that Facebook improves retention rates. It only says it does.

The same applies to all of the other assertions made:

1. “Gloucestershire College says social networking is used to keep students informed and in touch with staff.”

2. “Using such teenager-friendly communication tools has a “positive effect on motivation”, says the government’s technology agency, Becta.”

3. “”We’re embracing it rather than fighting it,” says Mr Perrott. He says Facebook pages for individual courses help the students to bond with each other, work together as a team and maintain their connection with staff.”

4. “Students on media-related courses at the college use the social networking website to get information about assignments and to access help either from other students or from staff.”

5. “These are closed group pages, with designated times when lecturers will check for questions or messages and when students can have discussions about their courses.”

6. “When the use of such websites was so widespread among students, Mr Perrott said it made sense for colleges to take advantage.”

7. “With social networking also available through mobile phones, it means that students can keep in touch with each other and be given support outside of class.”

8. “As a practical example, he says students had been asking each about what was needed for an assignment – and he was able to intervene and explain, allowing the work to be handed in on time.”

9. “”This can be a properly managed way of sharing information,” he says.”

10. “It was also used as a way of keeping in touch with students who were about to start courses, helping them to make contact with future course mates.”

11. “At City of Sunderland College, a pilot scheme using Facebook has found it useful as a way of reminding students about deadlines.”

12. “Lynne Hardy, a lecturer in biology and physiology, says that students can often forget when work needs to be completed and this is a way of “giving them a gentle prod”.”

13. “”Students are already familiar with it, they’re very comfortable with using it,” she says.”

14. “”Technology is no longer an optional extra – and modern trends such as social networking should not be ignored,” says Jane Williams of Becta, the government’s educational technology agency.”

15. “”Virtual learning environments, simulations such as Second Life and social networking sites can have a positive effect on motivation and attainment across the further education sector,” says Ms Williams, executive director for further education, regeneration and delivery.”

16. “”With social networking technologies, you can communicate to many students easily and quickly at next to no cost, which is increasingly important in a world where budgets are under pressure.”"

There is no evidence. Therefore, you can’t make these claims.

Aren’t they supposed to have the interests of their members to look after?