STATE-FUNDED English language courses in the UK are struggling to cope with a sharp rise in demand, the Guardian reports.
This month, a special inquiry into the problems of ESOL provision in England, led by the UK National Institute for Adult Continuing Education (NIACE), is due to deliver its interim report.
In 2001 the UK government took on board many of its recommendations for ESOL in its new "Skills for Life" national strategy. This aimed to raise the literacy, numeracy and English language skills of adults with a new framework for qualifications, a new curriculum and increased funding. The initiative brought coherent support to an ESOL sector that had felt undervalued and underfunded. It also delivered a new ESOL curriculum aimed at bringing English learners up to an equivalent level in speaking, listening, reading and writing as school-leavers aged 16.
But according to Derek Grover, chair of the NIACE inquiry, the programme's successes are in danger of being obscured. "The important thing to be aware of is that the problems have changed," he said.
The main shift has been in the types of learners accessing ESOL. In 2001 the main groups destined to benefit from "Skills for Life" were longer-established immigrant communities and asylum seekers and refugees. But since the enlargement of the EU in 2004, the numbers of migrant workers from new accession countries have increased sharply.
According to NIACE, enrollments on ESOL courses trebled between 2000-2001 and 2003-2004 from 159,000 to 488,000. But while government funding has increased, from ￡170 million (about US$321 million) in 2001-2002 to ￡256 million (about US$484 million) in 2003-2004, it is falling behind demand.
Jane Ward, a senior NIACE adviser, said that at the moment there isn't enough capacity to meet demand. "If you increase a lot you need to train more teachers and you also need to make funding decisions," she said, "At the moment there are not enough teachers. That has been an issue for a while as ESOL has expanded."
Many of those giving evidence to the NIACE enquiry say that the "Skills for Life" qualifications are too limited to meet the needs of the diverse cohort of learners. One example sited are the lower-level "Skills for Life" courses. These are designed to support people from settled immigrant communities who have only limited literacy skills in their first language. Many migrant workers from the EU, who have a good standard of general education, find that these courses are not stimulating and they would be better off studying for a general EFL qualification such as Cambridge ESOL's First Certificate.
