Sector leaders have cautioned ministers that renaming England¡¯s lifelong learning entitlement will not address looming barriers for older learners, with a danger of repeating past mistakes that choked off demand from part-time students.

As the Lifelong Learning (Higher Education Fees Limits) Act gained royal assent this month, the Westminster government changed the name of the policy¡¯s key programme from the lifelong loan entitlement to the lifelong learning entitlement, which might be seen as a cosmetic acknowledgement of one of the key sector fears about the LLE, that learning funded solely via loans and ¡°debt¡± deters older learners.

The LLE, scheduled for introduction in 2025, will provide students with access to up to four years¡¯ worth of loan funding on a flexible basis, so learners can take individual modules over the course of their working lives.

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Tim Blackman, the Open University vice-chancellor, described the name change as a ¡°helpful tweak¡±, but added that there was ¡°no doubt that the students most targeted by the LLE, those who need to upskill or reskill later in their working lives, will be less willing to take on a loan than young students¡±.

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¡°Just as we saw a collapse in part-time learning that was completely unintended following the 2012 fee rise, there is a danger that the LLE has not yet been thought through to ensure that it really does enable more flexible participation in higher education,¡± he said.

Graham Galbraith, the University of Portsmouth vice-chancellor, backed the idea of the LLE, but said he was worried that ¡°the people who we really want to reach¡­will be put off by taking on a loan. I am concerned that there is not sufficient demand, and that universities may have to devote significant resources to cater for a demand that may never emerge.¡±

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During higher education minister Robert Halfon¡¯s appearance at the recent Universities UK conference, Katie Normington, the De Montfort University vice-chancellor, told the minister that DMU had hosted an LLE pilot and ¡°we didn¡¯t get any students taking that ¨C we got zero in that cohort¡±; while it has about 600 students on apprenticeships, against 34,440 on degree courses.

She added: ¡°While I share the enthusiasm for lots of different routes for people to get qualifications¡­it seems to me that a sense of where those pots fit and what¡¯s actually practical is something that perhaps needs a little bit of thinking.¡±

Sir David Bell, the University of Sunderland vice-chancellor and former Department for Education permanent secretary, said there was ¡°much to do to inform potential users of the benefits of the LLE¡±. He also cautioned about ¡°some of the potential complexities of making the system work efficiently and effectively, both for individuals¡­as well as the institutions who will be providing free-standing modules¡±.

Gordon McKenzie, the GuildHE chief executive, said he backed the idea of the LLE, but ¡°never thought it was going to be transformative in the way ministers claim¡± as it was not ¡°sufficient to transform demand¡±.

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He argued that ¡°older students are more debt averse ¨C as we learned from the 2012 changes ¨C and the new student loan terms make that debt last longer and require you to start paying back sooner¡±, while the LLE also ¡°does nothing for the employer side of demand¡±.

To address that last issue, Mr McKenzie said the government should ¡°broaden the scope of the apprenticeship levy¡± so it could also pay for, or contribute alongside LLE funding, to Level?4 or Level?5 qualifications being emphasised by ministers. That would avoid the ¡°absurd position¡± of students paying nothing on the degree apprenticeship route to a technical, work-focused qualification, whereas gaining such a qualification via the LLE would ¡°incur a 40-year debt¡±.

john.morgan@timeshighereducation.com