Mums to be excluded from colleges

[biddles]

I am an ESOL (English for speakers of other languages) teacher and thought you should know what the government is doing to further marginalise vulnerable women in our country. At the moment, mums who have come here from other countries and call Britain home have access to ESOL at college either for free if they are in receipt of benefits, or at reduced cost if their partners earn very little. However, the government has decided that only those on JSA or ESA (so called 'active benefits') will be entitled to learn English- everyone else must pay an amount that for most families is an unaffordable luxury. The social costs of this will be huge, and the hardest hit will be women who are looking after their children and therefore not on JSA. These women will not be able to integrate into society, will not be able to help their children with their homework, will not be able to access services that they are entitled to.....the list goes on. This is not about immigration, this is about fair treatment for all. These women live here, many of them are British passport holders, their kids are British, and yet they are being treated appallingly. Please help! Please write to your MP to stop these cuts going through.

I can't read it, you need a few breaks and paragraphs. Nothing puts me off reading a post like a solid block of writing!! Sorry.

Well I read it and I think it's worth reading.

Is there anything we can do, OP?

I read it quite easily.

Can you provide any links with further info OP?

Some more links would be useful, if you have them, OP.

Thanks! Sorry for solid block, it's my first time.
Here's the link to the online petition:

www.gopetition.com/petitions/defend-esol/sign.html

I think it's worth pointing out for those who worry about immigration that these are women who are already here.

If we don't let them learn English, there will always be a huge cost in translation services, and their children will probably underachieve.

They also won't be able to get good jobs and therefore their tax contributions will be lower.

Thank you for posting this, I've signed.

DurhamDurham, you are rude.

No I'm not, I was making a point about it being hard to read when it's not broken down in to manageable chunks. I said sorry.

It wasn't personal at all.

"I am an ESOL (English for speakers of other languages) teacher and thought you should know what the government is doing to further marginalise vulnerable women in our country.

At the moment, mums who have come here from other countries and call Britain home have access to ESOL at college either for free if they are in receipt of benefits, or at reduced cost if their partners earn very little.

However, the government has decided that only those on JSA or ESA (so called 'active benefits') will be entitled to learn English- everyone else must pay an amount that for most families is an unaffordable luxury.

The social costs of this will be huge, and the hardest hit will be women who are looking after their children and therefore not on JSA. These women will not be able to integrate into society, will not be able to help their children with their homework, will not be able to access services that they are entitled to.....the list goes on.

This is not about immigration, this is about fair treatment for all. These women live here, many of them are British passport holders, their kids are British, and yet they are being treated appallingly.

Please help! Please write to your MP to stop these cuts going through."

Copied and pasted so that DurhamDurham can read it now.
Thank you for bringing this to our attention OP. I cannot understand why the government is cutting back on something that promotes integration.

Much better, many thanks. Have read, agreed and singed up. I admit I'm lazy when faced with large blocks of text.

I was wondering how much an ESOL typically costs. It's still going to be free for those on "active" benefits, and co-funded (50%) for non-active benefits and spouses of those on active/non-active.

I do realise that even 50% cost might be unaffordable, but am interested in the figures.

It's about £425-£500 per term.

Currently many students pay 50% but all fees will rise from September.

My worry is that many mums cannot be on JSA as they have chosen to look after their babies, and they seem to be being penalised for making this decision

The nation is virutally bankrupt. Library books are free. They could learn that way. Also if women are forced into work in order to be eligible this is all to the good. There are far too many housewives around. I'm afraid we have simply made far too many things available free and the money has run out. Tough tough times are ahead and this is just the start.

Agree with Xenia.

I must admit, I am slightly struggling to understand why taxpayers should pay for someone who has chosen to come to England to learn English.

If I move to France I wouldn't expect the French taxpayers to pay for me to learn French.

One woudl hope we are making it compulsory to do a language test before entry which I think might now be so, but I'm not 100% sure.

We could change the thread to one where we nominate all the many many public schemes we cannot now afford which we'd like to see axed. Sadly none ot he main political parties is really committed to cutting back the frontiers of the state anything like enough.

Whilst sympathising there are many mums who wish to better themselves through further education and they have to pay as subsidies and funding are being cut everywhere.

I agree with Xenia and Minipie. I'm sorry if it's harsh but I do not think we (read: taxpayers) can pay for everything and people who come to this country should want to integrate themselves anyway. And those that do want to integrate themselves will not let fee hikes or otherwise stop them. They will borrow Rosetta stone material from the local library make an effort to do things using English (shopping, banking whatever). Those that for some reason (cultural, familial or otherwise) can't or wont take some personal responsibility for learning the langugage of their new country wont be the ones to integrate themselves anyway. Besides I thought it was compulsory to take a langauge test before entering the country anyway? As a final point I'd say that this is the sort of service that belongs under the "big society" and so should be done on a charitable basis by volunteer teachers and philantropist supporters.

The point would be that if you want to have full and active members of society who are productive and add to the national interest by working, then you must support them in some way along the road to gaining those skills.

FYI, France does indeed have excellent access for non-French speakers to learn French.

This affects all courses - I am studying beauty therapy and have not had to pay fees for level 2 but next year the course will cost me about £900 for the year. I'll manage to stump it up somehow and it will be worth it because the college I'm at is very good and is well connected to help us get employment when we have finished.

thanks for posting, biddles- signed

I was on an adult education course a while ago, and loads of the women on it were on ESOL courses also run by the LEA. The amount of stuff these mothers were juggling and their determination to make something of themselves left me in awe

...'if women are forced into work in order to be eligible this is all to the good. There are far too many housewives around' roffle roffle roffle

[hopes Xenia is a performance artist/journo troll emoticon]

"if you want to have full and active members of society who are productive and add to the national interest by working, then you must support them in some way along the road to gaining those skills"

Well yes, but the courses are still going to be available for those who are claiming JSA, i.e. are demonstrating that they want and intend to work.

Maybe they can't claim JSA at the moment, but what better time to train than when your children are small, so that when they are at school you can slip right into the job market?

Xenia: "There are far too many housewives around"

Yes, all those SAHMS/ SAHDS just wasting their time rearing children to be smart, effective contributors to society. Whilst volunteering at charities, enabling their partners to work without worrying about the kids, etc etc.

Yes, very important political issue. The mroe we can disadvantage them the better for their own good and for society's good. But that's a different topic for another thread.

Name another country in the world who pays for non contributors to learn their language??

No wonder we're on the verge of bankruptcy as a country.