The latest Labour Force Survey statistics show 11.3% of British adults do not have any qualifications. In England, the figure is 11.1%, in Wales it is 13.3% and in Scotland 12.3%. but these overall figures hide wide variations. According to UCU, the college lecturers’ union, people living in Newcastle upon Tyne Central are twice as likely to be unqualified as their neighbours in Newcastle upon Tyne North.

Of the 20 constituencies with the highest percentage of people with no qualifications, the West Midlands accounts for eight, and has four in the top 10. There is a clear east-west divide in London, the union found: of the 20 worst-performing constituencies in the capital, three-quarters are in the east.

You do not have to be a statistical or sociological genius to understand what these figures mean. The areas with the highest levels of qualification are the richest areas, the areas with lowest are the poorer areas with higher levels of unemployment and social exclusion. In other words levels of achievement are closely bound to social class.

And it also is not difficult to predict that the present UK government policies,  increasing student fees at many univeristies to £9000 a year, abolishing student maintenance grants and reducing funding for vocational education will only excaerbate these divides.

Despite their claims that they wish to promote equal educational opportunity it is hard not to think they really don’t care.

I have spent many years living in Pontypridd, in the South Wales Valleys. During this time I also spent several years living in social housing on a housing estate where many people were unemployed. Nealy everyone I knew who was unemployed wanted to work. True, some of them suffered from chronic illness or disability – all too often caused by depression. But most simply couldn’t get work. Many had few qualifications.There were also a considerable number of single parents, unable to work due to childcare responsibilities.

People were reliant on social benefits to feed and cloth their children – and yes to go on an occasional night out. But then as now it was very hard to survive on benefits. however families helped out plus there was generally (not always) a sense of solidarity and community support. Many people also worked on what we called ‘hobbles’ – off the cards (illegal work) – mostly for a local Christmas decoration company paying little more than £1 an hour.

But some, like me had degrees. And for two years I was unemployed. I admit I took to lying in my job applications. After endlessly being told I was overqualified I forgot to tell people about my degree. And at the same time no-one was looking for history graduates in the valleys.

None of these people were lazy. None were afraid of hard work – quite the reverse. Few people would choose to live on benefits. It is simply that within the limits of their qualifications and responsibilities there was no work.

And so I get angry when I hear ideologically driven nonsense from people like UK prime minster Cameron – who wouldn’t even last half a day on one weeks social benefits – that poor people are “culturally” unique, dependent on welfare by their own design and workshy.

And such nonsense is shamelessly peddled by the popular press who produce all kinds of spurious and inaccurate statistics to back it up. Even the Department of Work and Pensions has got in on the act, this week being forced to admit that its false its claim that there had been a 30% rise in people on disability living allowance over eight years was in fact “distorted”.

All the more welcome then that the UK Higher Education Economic and Social Data Service has released a new web page entitled “Understanding the riots: Data that can inform new research”.

The article states:

The recent street violence that erupted in parts of London and other English cities is sparking heated debates about the underlying causes.

Policy makers and the public want to know more. For researchers, there is a wealth of data to consult.

In August 2011, areas of London and towns and cities across England experienced outbreaks of rioting, looting, crime and arson unseen since the riots in Brixton and Toxteth of 1981.

While the situation has calmed for the moment, media coverage has raised many questions, for example:

• How has socio-economic discontent and the rise of consumer culture contributed to the unrest?
• How do young people see their lives and opportunities in an uncertain world?
• How do the police use their powers and resources during civil disturbances and in the wider policing of communities, especially with regard to race, and how does the presence of gangs affect community life?
• Given the role of technological and social media as an agent of communication in the riots, how has the rise of the internet and mobile technology changed society, especially among young people?

ESDS provides access to a range of qualitative and quantitative data resources that can give researchers contextual information to make analytical sense of these issues.

The article goes on to provide access to a number of relevant studies. But the ESDS also provides access to a wide range of statistical resources. And the sooner social science and education researchers start making use of these statistics the better. The problem, I suspect, is that analysing such statistics takes some skill and time.

Even more is the problem that academic researchers are not used to telling their story in a way that connects with people. Whilst I would not want to see research presented ‘Daily Mail’ style, I think there is much we can do to think of new ways of connecting with the wider world outside academia and making considered research and analysis available to counter blind prejudice and ideology (more to follow in next few days).

Having spent much time in Germany working as a researcher around vocational educatio0n and training I am a big fan of apprenticeships. True, the German dual system of apprenticeships has its weaknesses, but in general if offers a respected and high quality training to over half the age cohort. As Wikipedia explains,  there are some 342 recognized trades (Ausbildungsberufe) where an apprenticeship can be completed. They include for example doctor’s assistant, banker, dispensing optician, plumber or oven builder. The dual system means that apprentices spend about 50-70% of their time in companies and the rest in formal education. Depending on the profession, they may work for three to four days a week in the company and then spend one or two days at a vocational school (Berufsschule). This is usually the case for trade and craftspeople. For other professions, usually which require more theoretical learning, the working and school times take place blockwise e.g. in a 12–18 weeks interval.

I have also long bemoaned the poor apprenticeship system in the UK, which was largely abolished with the demise of the Training Boards in the 1970s. Many young people are forced into inappropriate university courses which provide poor training for their career and result in large personal debts. So in theory I should be happy with today’s House of Commons library research, as reported in the Guardian newspaper, which shows that the coalition exceeded its target of creating 203,200 apprenticeships for people over 19 in the 2010-11 financial year, creating 257,000 new apprentices. And I am sure that the headline will be seized on by apprenticeship advocates in Germany and other parts of the world as welcome news that the UK has indeed at last re-established a reputable apprenticeship training system.

Sadly this is not so. The research shows that the biggest increases in apprenticeships are in health and social care and retail; indeed one of the most dramatic increases was in the “cleaning and support service industry”, where 1,930 apprentices were created in the academic year 2010-11, compared with 360 in the previous academic year. In other words the majority of the apprenticeships have been created in low skills service industries.

One of the major problems for comparative researchers is how apprenticeship is defined in the UK. Apprentices are defined as paid employees who gain practical skills in the workplace as well as receiving training outside work. In other words any programme which provides external training for employees as well as some form of practical skills training can be counted as an apprentice and therefore employers are able to draw down subsidies for the training. This goes some way towards explaining why the largest increases were for ‘apprentices’ aged over 25 where numbers nearly quadrupled, from 36,300 to 121,100. And perhaps the most telling figure is in the average length of the so called apprenticeships. In Germany most apprenticeships take three years to complete. But in the UK, apprenticeships lasting longer than a year rose by under 2% while those lasting less than a year increased by over 30% on 2009-10.Overall, the proportion of apprenticeships lasting longer than a year dropped from 47% to 41%. Indeed many appear to have been shorter than 12 weeks!

Whilst any increase in work based training is welcome, the new programmes being introduced in the UK are a parody of the idea of apprenticeship. And sadly the credibility of apprenticeship training as a whole is likely to be reduced, both in the eyes of young people and from the viewpoint of employers.

Despite all the thousands of words written about the riots in England it is hard to find many considered ideas or indeed undertanding or just sense. This video interview by the Guardian newspaper with Chavez Campbell who had  predicted riots in London – six days before they actually occurred  stands out – and provides a realistic, depressing and chilling message that is being ignored by main stream politicans and media.

Universities in the UK are being hit with a double whammy. Not only are fees for English based students being increased to up to £9000 a year, which will inevitably put off many working class students from applying to university, but new racist go0vernement policies on immigration are being introduced to stop students from outside the EU from studying in the UK. The Guardian newspaper reports “that the home secretary, Theresa May, has refused to accept an official “impact assessment” which put the cost to Britain’s economy of her curbs on overseas students at up to £3.6bn.

May has dismissed her own department’s official assessment of the impact of her policy on overseas student visas, and has instead asked the migration advisory committee for a “better assessment and a better judgment of the true picture”.

Her actions are strongly criticised by MPs on the Commons home affairs select committee, who say it confirms their “deep concerns” that Home Office ministers are not taking “evidence-based policy” as seriously as they could.

The MPs say that the disputed impact assessment – which warns of the £2.4bn cost to the British economy of curbing overseas student visas – was not published until 12 weeks after the policy was announced, despite ministerial promises.”

Other European countries are fighting to attract students at just the very time when England is refusing them entry. And whilst the first impact will be on university income, in the long term this measure will only stifle innovation in the UK. But this may be of little concern with a politician who when confronted with the results of research merely tells the researcher to do it again and make sure the outcomes are what she wants.

It is conference season. Today marks the start of the PLE2011 conference in London. Together with Andrew Ravenscroft, Dirk Stieglitz and David Blagborough, I am presenting a paper with the snappy name ‘‘Jam Hot!’ Personalised radio ciphers through augmented social media for the transformational learning of disadvantaged young people.’

Although the paper is very much a work in progress, there are a series of ideas here which I find interesting and will return to on this blog in the future. In the meantime any feedback very welcome.

‘Jam Hot!’ Personalised radio ciphers through augmented social media for the transformational learning of d…

The story on innovation cultures in Greece, based on research undertaken in 2001 and published last week on the WalesWideWeb, has received favorable feedback. But of course this research does not just refer to Greece, it is directly relevant to what is happening today in England.

Government policies to cut education expenditure and effectively privatise universities have great repercussions for the future of innovation and innovation cultures for years to come. There is little evidence that similar moves in the USA have stimulated innovation indeed quite the reverse. More effective in policy terms is the reaction of Germany to the crisis, who, even with a conservative government, have increased the number of university places and boosted research funding as a move to stimulate the economy and secure future employment.

The UK government actions are not just because of a spending deficit. They are born out of an ideological attachment to the private for profit sector. It seems unlikely that handing over swathes of the education sector to the private sector will do anything for quality. Of course it will reduce access to education for those less well off. But ultimately it threatens to damage the contribution that research makes to economic and social innovation. Where Greece goes today, will the UK go tomorrow? Or will the UK just become a nation of stockbrokers?

As long ago as 2001, I was contracted to undertake a study of private- public partnership in Greece. This was not into PPPs as then being implemented by the UK Blair government, but rather at looking at partnerships between private sector organisations, academic and research institutions and the State for research and development and innovation.

My conclusions were fairly stark. Far from helping boost research and development in Greece, EU policies as designed to support R and D in the rich north European economies were distorting R and D in Greece and actually inhibiting innovation.

I was looking again at the report yesterday and much of it seems to be still relevant today, especially for those seeking to understand the Greek economic collapse.

Below I provide the conclusion to the report. The whole report can be downloaded from the link at the bottom of the page.

“That there are problems in developing collaborative research and development in Greece is without question. At a policy level these are summed up by the evaluation report on Structural Funds in Greece for the period 1994-1999:

• Lack of co-ordination between the bodies in charge of public research and those in charge of private research
• Gap between Universities and enterprises
• In  many regions there seems to be a lack of co-ordination of the science and technology policy between departments of industry and departments of education
• In some regions there is overlap and inadequate co-ordination between national and regional measures
• There is little involvement of the regional RTDI actors, private sector in particular, in policy planning.

Morgan draws attention to the issue of  the quality of the institutional setting as one of the main reason for  regional underdevelopment. Certainly there are problems in co-ordinating policy and in bureaucratisation of government in Greece. The development of science parks has been held up for a number of years due to lack of poli9tcvical agreement. The politicising of policy advisors and of the civil serviced militates against continuity in policy and development, and to an ensuing lack of the confidence required for investment. Whilst it would appear to be true that there is a lack of competence and know-how amongst regional administrations, the centralisation of the Greek system does not allow the development of such pools of competence and experience.

Equally it is easy to blame the lack of private sector investment from Greek companies on the failure to develop an entrepreneurial and research culture.

However, this overlooks a number of basic issues. The structure of Greek industry is atypical within the EU and much more akin to that of the southern Mediterranean countries – such as Turkey, Cyprus, Tunisia and Morocco see Table 2).

Table 2 Size-class structure of European enterprises by Country, 1995.

Source: EIM Small Business Research and Consultancy, European Observatory for SMEs, 1996

The small number of large companies are largely inward investments. Research and development for these companies is usually located in their ‘home’ state, rather than in Greece. Neither do they build up networks for research with local small and medium enterprises. The Greek economy is predominantly agriculture and services based and is dominated by micro enterprises. However, the structure of EU funding is designed to support industry and commerce in north Europe with a completely different industrial and economic structure. This would not be so serious a problem if it was not for the almost total reliance on structural funds to support research and development activities. One of the most surprising policy issues is that all the major Greek political parties have allowed the EC to dominate policy so completely.

There has been considerable discussion of the problems of what are somewhat euphuistically referred to as the “Less Favoured Regions”. The outcomes of those discussion are summarised in the Table below.

Source: Landabaso, 1997.

Most of these problems apply in Greece – although it is notable that venture capital appears to be relatively easily obtainable.

The question is how to overcome these problems and whether the present European structural policies are adequate and suited to the needs of the Greek economy.

Morgan (1999) points out how university departments from relatively new universities, for example, which do not have a long tradition of university-industry collaboration, use new funding to strengthen research activities which do not always reflect the needs of the regional firms.

He also says that the regional firms, often small, family-owned and competing among themselves in relatively closed markets, do not have a tradition of co-operation and trust either among themselves or with the regional R&TD infrastructure, particularly universities, In short, the regional innovation system in these regions does not have either the necessary interfaces and co-operation mechanisms for the supply-demand matching to happen, or the appropriate conditions for the exploitation of synergies and co-operation among the scarce regional R&TD actors which could eventually fill gaps and avoid duplications. In this situation, investing more money in the creation of new technology centres, for example, without previously co-ordinating and adapting the work of existing ones, risks further distorting the system.

In this situation reliance on state funding is almost inevitable and should not necessarily be seen as a bad thing. However the critical issue is whether public funding is being used towards a strategy of sustainable and indigenous development and how that funding is planned, administered and evaluated.

Sofouli points out the contradictions in the use of European funding and the rigid guidelines which appear to be designed for the industrial systems of north Europe. There are frequent conflicts between the development aims and funding and the rulings on competition. Even where it is agreed that the granting of funding will not break competition rules, the need for official approval causes long bureaucratic delays.

More fundamentally micro enterprises are unable to raise the match funding required by many of the structural funds, whilst the infrastructure and skills for new networks does not always exist.

It could also be argued that the EU funding through development projects is focused towards technological and industrial  development, rather than enhancing the service sector which is far more important in Greece. Patiniotis (2001) is critical of what he sees as the technological determinism inherent in European funding and development policies.

The underlying justification for present policies lies in a direct link between research and development activities within the industrial economy and the innovation which is seen as critical to future economic growth and to unemployment. Yet it can be argued that Greek companies are nothing if not innovative. However, research and development tends to be brought in from abroad utilising the extensive Greek Diaspora. However, the emphasis in the structural programmes on demonstration projects  prevents the use of many funds to support accessing technology from abroad.

It is interesting to note that Greek universities do have very extensive links with other European and international institutions. The relatively high education levels are also an issue as is the very high levels of business start ups and company creation, linked to the availability of finance capital.

One sector which has been acknowledged for innovation in Greece is the Information technology industry. However, what is interesting here is that most companies in this industry throughout Europe are small or micro industries (European IT Observatory, 2001) and that in Greece this sector is almost entirely focused on software services rather than production. However even here new programme for the development of the new economy which aims to provide seed capital for the establishment of small companies in the ICT sector is being impeded because the programme regulations require those very same companies to provide match funding – in other words to provide the capital that they lack in the first place (Sofouli, 2001). Sofouli goes on to say that the need for approval of new research projects by EPAN – the Greek office for competition is holding up innovation.

A further issue is that of geographical location. Greece is often referred to as being a peripheral economy. This raises the question of peripheral to what. Certainly the structure of the economy is peripheral in terms of the north European industrial economy. Equally Greece is geographically peripheral within the European Union. However within its own traditional spheres of influence and trade – in the Mediterranean and as the gateway to the Bosphorus, Greece is anything but peripheral.

More thoughtful research is need to develop policies which can promote research and development and innovation through PPPs in Greece and as to how European policy is formulated and implemented. This is not just a question for Greece – or the other so-called ‘Less Favoured Regions’. With the planned expansion of the EU the Greek economic structures will cease to be isolated and may well represent a model for the new Member States in The European Union.  However, in order to undertake this task a major policy weakness needs to be addressed. This is the issue of evaluation. Our research suggests that present evaluation polices and practice – based on the requirements of the European funding programmes and focused on summative systems evaluation – are inadequate. This is not to denigrate the purpose and intent of the present evaluation regime in ensuring public value for money and contract compliance – nor to question the methods being used. But the data presently being collected and the tools for analysis do not provide policymakers – in Greece and in the EU – with sufficient  information or knowledge to develop the policies so evidently need to support innovation with the Greek economic and social system. Neither do they provide researchers with the basic information needed to undertake more fundamental research into development processes in an economy and society such as Greece. Finally the present evaluation regime is not providing the formative evaluation and feedback so desperately required by project promoters and developers and fails to provide the arena to capitalise on present development and experiences.

In conclusion why does Greece have a flourishing culture of start up enterprises and economic activity despite all the problems outlined above? Nikitas Patiniotis (2001) suggests it lays with the people themselves:

“The Greek people are innovative and take risks – especially in terms of time. Money is always short and is controlled by the government. Most companies are started by one or two people. Greek SMEs use family  resources. The biggest indigenous company in Greece is Intracom which was started 15 years ago by one person. Risk taking in Greece is a survival technique.” “

You can download the full report here.