Petition ESOL funding changes

We urge the government to reconsider the latest changing to funding rules for ESOL.

· Until now courses have been funded according to the number of hours we need per level/per exam.

This has given us the flexibility to run the same exam over 1 semester or 1 year and to allocate hours accordingly.

They will now be 'listed' with a maximum amount of hours per part of a qualification attached.

· The listed rate (number of hours given to a course) is significantly lower than we need to teach successfully:

A 5 hpw course doing a S&L exam is currently 180 hours.

The new rate will give a S&L course around 50 hours .

THIS IS A HUGE CUT and It is being pushed through the back door.

We urge the government to allow ESOL to remain unlisted and not cut funding by reducing Guided Learning Hours.

I challenge government ministers to learn to listen to and speak Somali at E1 level and pass an exam with 50 hours of teaching.