You are a taxpayer. What do you think about the subject of online learning? Should the government be risking public funds on unproven elearning strategies?

Following the disastrous failure of online learning initiative UKeU, the Education and Skills Committee report into the ill-fated £50m project – see box, below – suggested that despite the dangers involved, it did not want to discourage the government from taking necessary risks.

‘It should learn from this experience and, in the future, take a more experimental approach to such high-risk ventures,’ said the final report.

Such an approach would include focusing on testing, taking an evidence-based approach, and involving the private sector as partners in a more organic process.

Moreover, the report concluded that the lesson to be learned from such high-risk ventures is to focus on front-line research.

‘They need to have the flexibility to adapt to changing market trends - and directors/managers must be able to make strategic and operational decisions, but these decisions must be evidence-based and rooted in robust and reliable research information,’ it said.

Step forward, then, the executives at the University for Industry (Ufi), the latest public sector online learning project to come under close scrutiny, following a recent Public Accounts Committee to discuss a National Audit Office (NAO) report into the organisation.

Ufi is responsible for Learndirect, the largest government-backed online learning initiative in the world.

Launched in 1998 with funding from the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) and the Learning and Skills Council, Ufi’s aim is to help over-16s improve their job potential via online learning technology.

And Ufi, like UKeU, requires a degree of innovation, risk-taking and private
investment.

‘Part of innovation is to take risk and analyse whether or not it’s working,’ said Sarah Jones, Ufi chief executive, at the recent committee meeting.

‘Innovation is about trying things. Fifty per cent of small and medium-sized businesses do not do any training at all. What we have to do is exploit that criteria.’
The report found that some 200,000 small and medium-sized enterprises – businesses with fewer than 250 employees – had used Learndirect by the end of July 2005.

‘The service is geared to low-skilled people wherever they are located,’ said Jones. ‘That is the beauty of elearning. We just need methods for outreach.’

But despite successes that have seen as many as four million learners take courses through Learndirect, it would appear that Ufi’s methods might require some tweaking.

Just nine per cent of learners progressed to a level two qualification, equivalent in standard and breadth to five GCSEs, by 2003.

The requisite tweaking is, apparently, in hand: Jones told MPs at the meeting that Ufi has clear objectives to improve on its level two figures. ‘We’re not happy and we’re hoping to progress,’ she said.

But in other areas – most notably funding – Ufi has much work to do. Jones said the organisation has focused hard on public funding. But so far, its requirement for public funding has been to the detriment of private investment.

Like the online learning project UKeU, Ufi aimed for a public-private partnership that would attract external investment. UKeU’s business plan envisaged a partnership with private sector companies, with public-private funding split 50/50 to put commercial drive and accountability into the venture.

Instead, the Education and Skills Committee inquiry into the ill-fated £50m elearning project found that UKeU became another example of how the public sector struggles to form partnerships with the private sector.

‘It appears to us that the wave of enthusiasm which caused all but a handful of higher education institutions to sign up to the UKeU project receded very rapidly, leaving it without private sector investment or active higher educ ation sector engagement,’ said the inquiry’s final report.

Like UKeU, Ufi’s attempt to attract public-private investment has been fraught with difficulties. Computing revealed last year (9 December, 2004) that, having spent almost £1bn of public money, Ufi was struggling to attract private investment.

And the recent Public Accounts Committee meeting revealed that the organisation generated just £12m in commercial income by July 2005 (Computing, 24 November).
Jones told MPs that most of that £12m has been generated from two public sector accounts, with the Connexions service (£6m) and NHSU (£1.1m).

Ironically, NHSU is yet another example of a problematic public sector elearning venture.

Regarding private investment, Jones said that Ufi has interacted with business but has not yet generated enough money. But only 37 per cent of employers are even aware of Learndirect’s services for businesses, according to the NAO report.

Jones told MPs that Ufi aimed to increase private sector-generated revenue from just £1m a year to £40m by 2010.

However, the timescales are tight, a fact recognised by the committee, which questioned the three-year target for increased private sector investment.

‘Ufi is spending a lot of money but not generating as much as expected because the organisation is too complex,’ said committee chairman Edward Leigh.

The organisation is also spending heavily on overheads. In 2004 to 2005, Ufi spent 29 per cent of its £187.6m funding on marketing and management.

Jones said Ufi has already appropriately restructured and refocused the organisation’s business.

Further challenges will involve providing assistance and training to target groups. Susan Pember, director of further education and the Learning and Skills Performance Group at the DfES, told the committee that most of the people already training with Learndirect are in some form of employment.

And Labour MP Kitty Usher said that with some 27 million people in the UK in part- or full-time employment, and with Ufi providing assistance to about half a million people, the potential for the organisation remains enormous.

But with £1bn already spent on Ufi, let us hope that the risk to the public purse is worth it – and that the potential of the organisation realised.

Public sector elearning projects

UKeU
UKeU was launched in 2000 to attract overseas students to study online at UK universities.

But its first courses were delayed until September 2003, and the project attracted just 900 students – falling well short of the 5,600 target.

The Education and Skills Committee’s March 2005 inquiry - following a 12-month Computing investigation into the project - found that UKeU also failed to attract significant private investment, despite this being a condition of government funding.

NHSU
Last December the health service’s corporate university NHSU was merged into a new NHS Institute for Learning, Skills and Innovation.

The move came as part of the review into the Department of Health’s Arm’s Length Bodies, launched by health secretary John Reid.

Computing had revealed earlier in the year how NHSU had cancelled a major elearning procurement project designed to support online training for many of the NHS’s 1.2 million employees (Computing, 5 August).