We can learn from my old pal Rodney
This week I said goodbye to my old friend Rodney Bickerstaffe – the trade unionist who fought for the introduction of the minimum wage, and was passionate about adult education and how it could transform the lives of working men and women. People like me. After failing the 11-plus and leaving a secondary modern with no qualifications, I went to sea to try to make something of my life.
I promised my mum that one day I’d make her proud.
While serving as a seaman and getting involved with the trade union, I felt the best way to get on was to go back to college.
Oxford’s Ruskin College, whose Labour board Rodney sat on, transformed people like me who wanted to find a route into higher education. It gave me the qualifications to get into Hull University to study economics.
Ruskin also gave me the confidence to believe I was good enough to do a degree. I was married with a young son when I started. But I almost didn’t get there.
I needed an education grant, so applied to Conservative-run Cheshire Council.
They turned me down when I said I wanted the degree to become a trade union official. So I applied again, lied and said I now wanted to be a teacher!
The Labour government invested vastly in part-time and full-time adult education – particularly creating the Open University so people who couldn’t afford to give up a job or be away from the kids could study at home.
Now the Tories are kicking ladders away for late bloomers like me.
Since they got in back in 2010, there’s been a huge drop in the number of part-time and mature students. Last year alone in England, mature student numbers were down 18 per cent. That’s more than 11,000 deciding they just can’t afford an education.
While the Tory/LibDem coalition promised to protect education spending, the one area they did cut was the adult skills budget since 2010. They slashed it by a third – that’s £1billion a year.
The cut in grant funding has been accompanied by an increase in further education loans which led to a 31 per cent drop in adult learners taking up courses.
Now more than ever we need lifelong learning. By 2030, a third of our jobs could be at risk from automation. People replaced by robots.
That’s why Labour’s National Education Service – the brainchild of its brilliant education spokesperson Angela Rayner – is spot on.
It will not only scrap tuition fees to ensure there are no financial barriers to pursuing higher education. It will also replace the Advanced Learner Loan with up front grant funding, so lifelong learning is available to anyone who needs it at any stage of their life.
It’s education along the lines of the NHS – based on need. Not your ability to pay.
This is not only right for individuals, but right for our economy.
Businesses get access to a highly skilled workforce that can adapt to changes in industries and working conditions in years to come.
Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell thinks Angela Rayner’s National Education Service will make her the Nye Bevan of the next Labour government. And he’s right.
Twenty years ago, Tony Blair said Labour’s priority was “education, education, education”.
Now it’s lifelong learning which the Labour movement must come together to bring back, for the many not the few.