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| The Basic Skills Agency’s national conference, in London on 10th November 1998, featured the Birmingham Core Skills Development Partnership as an example of good practice. The audience of 250 key representatives from a wide range of organisations heard David Cragg of Birmingham & Solihull TEC describe the features that made the Core Skills Development Partnership effective. At the same conference:
Baroness Blackstone, Minister of State for Further and Higher Education, reinforced the need to operate on a broad set of fronts at once if progress is to be made over the next 5 years. Important though the National Literacy and Numeracy Strategies for schools are, and important as Sure Start is in getting all children under 5 off to a solid beginning, there is a need to work on the reduction of the 15-20% of adults with low levels of literacy and numeracy. This is already a focus in our next Business Plan. She also stressed the renewed importance of working through the range of small voluntary organisations where the focus on individuals doesn’t easily segment into neat ‘basic skills’ categories. This work had already formed the basis of a successful proposal to the Government’s Adult Community Learning Fund. Over the next 2 years the Partnership, with a lead role via Birmingham Voluntary Service Council, will work to unlock the basic skills needs in a wide range of dispersed small community groups. |
Alan Wells, OBE, Director of the Basic Skills Agency, described the productive relationships at Board level within the Core Skills Development Partnership, reflecting the good relationships that have been created and built upon. In his own words "partnership is much more difficult to do, rather than to say", but he felt that Birmingham had got it right in many respects.
Sir Claus Moser, Chair of the National Working Group on Post School Basic Skills - due to report to the Government soon - described the ‘disastrous situation of the 7 million adults nationally, who had serious basic skills problems’. His working group is likely to propose a radical approach to address this and Sir Claus’ personal hopes were that the country would adopt a national strategy for adult basic skills; that work is undertaken through local partnerships (such as Birmingham Core Skills Development Partnership) to improve the quality, volume and effectiveness of a wide range of responses to clear basic skills needs; that there is an end to the ‘jungle’ of qualifications and the chaotic nature of much of the funding. The aim has to be a rapid reduction in the number of adults with low levels of basic skills, in order to build a literate and numerate country.
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David Cragg, (Chief Executive of Birmingham and Solihull TEC. and member of the Partnership's Board) addressing the National Conference.