Tom Kirkham
‘Take the first step on a journey that will take you further than you ever imagined. We have ambitious plans in place and our Emerging Talent programmes are a massive part of that’ (British Airways, “Emerging Talent Programme” advertisement). Ok, but… are there any vacancies?
Few would deny that a working knowledge of English is a prerequisite for an upwardly mobile job in the United Kingdom. It is hard to think of a more vital skill. Yet English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) teaching is one of many services that has suffered from piecemeal funding by struggling local authorities, forcing overstretched non-profit organisations to make up the gap. Though the need for change in this sector has not been met with as much urgency as the dire situations in food banks or temporary accommodation, better coordination of the sector could transform just as many lives.
A good English speaker can much more easily become resourceful and assertive in their new city. They know not only to scroll through the waffle of advertising to find a job online, like those on the ‘Emerging Talent Programmes’ at Heathrow Airport, without competing with the rest of the job centre, but also to engage in their child’s education, to become attuned to local culture by reading the surroundings. Unfortunately, speaking good English can change who will listen, too. Unaccompanied refugee Hashi Mohammed, now a successful barrister and recently published author, was once asked about his public speaking skills and his – sadly not coincidental – well-practiced ‘home counties’ accent (Mohammed, 2020). In response, he pointed to his determination never to be pushed aside amongst the crowds, as his mother was many times after queuing for hours in the 1990s waiting for council assistance.
Enrolment in affordable English courses has fallen by 60% in the past decade. In London, services are provided by a fragmented web of schools, academies and charities, some funded by individuals, others funded by the national lottery and many no longer funded at all thanks to budget cuts. Free state-funded provision is now only available to those on employment benefits. Partly as a result, the number enrolled in funded ESOL courses in England dropped from 180,000 in 2009 to just over 100,000 in 2015. While additional funding has come from the Home Office, local governments and the European Social Fund, this has not compensated to cuts to the main funding body, the Education and Skills Funding Agency. For organisations, planning is made impossible as funding is given on a one-year basis. Forty percent of services end up oversubscribed, even as many charities are run by local communities, heavily reliant upon volunteers and private donations (Stevenson et al, 2017).
Southwark-based NGO English for Action is one example, a part-activism, part-teaching non-profit. In the year to July 2018, it received no council funding in five of the six boroughs in which it operates (EfA London, 2019). Originally set up to provide English courses for hotel workers at the West London Hilton in order to help them secure a Living Wage, it fights the negative link between language skills, bargaining power and social mobility (EfA London, 2019). The charity was founded in 2006, but its clientele – exploited migrant workers with little hope of upward mobility – is all too recognisable as a student in London now. I can go out and walk in the roads filled with Uber drivers who barely make £30 in a morning (Bloodworth, 2018), couriers there at a penalty of £150 a day (Booth, 2018), and security guards guiding £400/m2 flooring in for construction. Or I can lie-in until mid-morning until the cleaners, all Colombians minus one from Ecuador, have moved on from their early morning office job to clean my halls of residence – 14% of Latin Americans in the UK work more than the European limit of 48 hours per week, and 11% work below the minimum wage, ten times the UK average (McIlwaine et al, 2011). I can read about the Caribbean migrants, working so hard that many haven’t taken left the country in the last ten years, leaving them without a passport. I can study late into the night, when a squad of black cleaners working at LSE thanks to a return to the use of contracting agencies come in to deep-clean the library. Or I can go out to make some extra cash and end up stripping beds in a hotel like the one from fifteen years ago, surrounded by overworked Romanians who cannot communicate with their Colombian colleagues, and who on average earn 22% less and are 45% more likely to work in low skilled jobs than their British counterparts (Fernandez, 2019). On the next job, I get shouted at. ‘You’re British right? Why are you working as a commis?’
Thanks to a £12,500 a year subsidy from the state and my parents, I can do very occasional agency shifts like these, instead of committing to a full time job, leaving me free to volunteer with refugees through an organisation called Salisbury World, which gave me the inspiration for the introduction to this article. New arrivals are less fortunate than I am: A mum of two who has waited months to be granted asylum and/or the right to work (though of course, many migrants are not asylum seekers), and finally gains the chance to look for a job, could work thirty hours a week and have to support three people on that same £12,500 a year. For all those in her position, English classes cannot be a priority – but until her English improves, her confidence may have to survive gruelling shift after shift in the sectors which few locals work in, most likely cleaning or food preparation (Amani, 2017). Government provision, therefore, must work for migrants: free for those on benefits and in work, it should be easily searchable by post-code, and available at various times of day. A city-wide plan is essential to ensure that provision no longer fluctuates with councils’ funding priorities, but is instead made available according to assessments of local need (Paget et al, 2014).
Following successful new services in Nottingham and Leeds, the London Brough of Hackney launched an ESOL Advice Service in 2010 which provides a blueprint for what is possible. It allows students to register onto a central database, take a single assessment, and have their details passed onto providers running an appropriate English course. Students need no longer apply to multiple schools, be placed on multiple waiting lists and take multiple tests, only to miss registering for a course with a free space. The advice and assessment rely on a contribution from providers, who save on private advertising and recruitment and benefit from a forum for meetings. This model – based on a central database – should be extended across the capital to match students to nearby courses (Amani, 2017). As childcare is the second most common reason for non-attendance, information should be provided about the 15 hours of means- and non means-tested free childcare available to two to four-year olds, and an assessment made about the benefits of widening the availability of a creche.
This investment – which will require a small team to implement – will pay dividends as English learners contribute more in taxes, claim fewer benefits, and become healthier and happier, taking tremendous strain off the NHS. It will allow some of the most resilient people in the world – those with the courage to leave everything they know, spend all their savings and often risk their lives for the chance at a better future – to express themselves. The survivor of Mediterranean smuggling routes or the Calais camp, who waited for asylum, eventually found a job from a friend, worked and socialised with others who knew the country little better, suffered pressure from exploitative management and endured it, hoping to return in a few years, will see potential for a life in Britain. If London believes in them, they will see in London not only future savings and remittances, but a city waiting to be enriched by them, their home culture, and their new life.
Works Cited
Amani, K. (2017). ESOL Learners in Hackney 2016-17. Hackney ESOL Advice Service. Published November 2017. Accessed 23 February 2020. Available at: https://www.learningtrust.co.uk/sites/default/files/document/ESOL%20Learners%20in%20Hackney%202016-17.pdf
Bloodworth, J. (2018). ‘Hired: Six Months Undercover in Low-Wage Britain,’ London: Atlantic Books.
Booth, R. (2018). DPD courier who was fined for day off to see doctor dies from diabetes. The Guardian. Published 5 February 2018. Accessed 23 February 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/feb/05/courier-who-was-fined-for-day-off-to-see-doctor-dies-from-diabetes
British Airways, ‘Emerging Talent’ Careers Opportunities Homepage – Main Text. https://careers.ba.com/emerging-talent
EFA London (2019), EfA Annual Report 2017-2018. Published 13 June 2019. Accessed 23 February 2020. Available at: https://issuu.com/efalondon3/docs/efas_annual_report_
Fernandez, Reino, M. (2019). Migrants in the UK Labour Market: An Overview. The Migration Observatory. Published 17 July 2019. Accessed 23 February 2020. Available at: https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/migrants-in-the-uk-labour-market-an-overview/
McIlwaine, C., Cock, J.C., and Linneker, B. (2011). No Longer Invisible: the Latin American Community in London. Queen Mary University/Trust For London. Published May 2011. Accessed 23 February 2020. Available at: https://www.trustforlondon.org.uk/publications/no-longer-invisible-latin-american-community-london/
Mohammed, H. (2020), ‘What it takes to make it in Modern Britain,’ [Talk organised by the charity Salusbury World]. Queen’s Park Community School, London. 11 February 2020.
Paget, A. and Stevenson, N. ‘On Speaking Terms,’ (2014). cited in Stevenson, A. (2017).
Stevenson, A., Kings, P., and Sterland, L. (2017), ‘Mapping ESOL Provision in Greater London,’ Learning and Work Institute. Published May 2017. Accessed 23 February 2020. https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/gla_esol_mapping.pdf.
LSESU AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL 