Adults should be able to access online GCSE exams for free, a senior economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has said.

Speaking at a ResPublica Lifelong Learning Commission evidence session on how to create a more balanced, equitable and affordable funding system in lifelong education, Jack Britton said there needed to be more availability of free resources online that allowed adults to gain entry-level qualifications.

“There should be much more availability of free online materials that enable people to go back and gain the qualifications [...] Getting GCSE maths, for example, if you haven’t passed that, I feel like there should just be an online course that you can do for free, and there are just exams that you can sign up to take that would enable you to gain those qualifications in a similar way to the medical entry exam,” he said. “That kind of thing would be extremely low-cost and could be quite beneficial.”

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However, Claire Callender, professor of higher education studies at UCL Institute of Education and Birkbeck, University of London, said she was sceptical that free online exams (in massive open online courses, MOOCs) would work for adult learners.

“[Adults] will need a hell of a lot of hand-holding,” she said. “I’m not saying they can’t get there, but they need hand-holding. And what the Open University is fabulous about is that hand-holding. The notion that we’ve got these people who aren’t going to go into formal education who can just lock into MOOCs? MOOCs demand a normal amount of discipline, and a phenomenal amount of motivation.”

Free online GCSE exams? Adults ‘will need a lot of hand-holding’

”[The] learner group that we’re really aiming to capture, which is those who have a poor level of qualifications, I’m very sceptical about whether the answer really can be MOOCs. They’re great for people in this room who know how to study, who are motivated. But actually, a lot of the people who we are talking about [...] there’s nothing wrong with those people, it’s just that they’ve had a whole load of shitty experiences, and those shitty experiences do not equip them to then go and do MOOCs or the equivalent.”

David Hughes, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, said: “Jack’s comment about GCSEs was part of a wider debate about lifelong education, so it is important to think about how things work, or don’t work well, for both young people and adults. For the 35 per cent of 16-year-olds without grade 4 or better, the current GCSE resit policy is not fit for purpose. Making 16-year-olds retake the exam until they achieve at least a grade 4 is not achieving what we all want - to help more people enter adult life with good English and maths.

“I hope that the Respublica Commission questions the obsession with GCSEs for young people and for adults as the primary policy in helping people become competent and confident in English and maths. Online resources can help, but most people want and need the support of teachers to be able to achieve. A more modular approach post-16 could build achievement progressively based on success rather than failure.”

According to a 2019 report from the Learning and Work Institute, the proportion of adults qualified below GCSE-equivalent level will fall to 21 per cent by 2030, while the proportion of adults qualified at least to degree level will rise to 43 per cent. The institute found that 55,000 adults in England took GCSEs in English and maths in 2018-19. 

In the new Skills and Post-16 Education Bill, the government has included a number of reforms on adult education, including a lifelong learning loan entitlement, and a lifetime skills guarantee, which means adults who need to gain level 3 qualifications can access courses for free. 

Chris Skidmore MP, former universities minister and chair of the ResPublica commission, questioned the participation numbers in adult education, and the government’s focus on adult learners who need to gain level 3 qualifications, rather than those who need to gain a level 2.

He said: “The education secretary recently trailed this minimum entry requirement of getting a C grade or above in English and maths and that reflects back then on lifelong learning and the very basic access to those level 2 qualifications and the opportunity to be taking those, and obviously what they mean for adults. The government’s focus is on level 3 and 4, but, actually, is there some prioritisation looking to happen?” 

Mr Britton said the outcomes for people who do not get five passes at GCSEs are “very poor” in terms of earnings.

“In terms of level 2 qualifications, just to go back to the evidence. The outcomes for people who don’t get five A* to C GCSE grades in terms of earnings are really, really very poor, and their earnings are very low to start with and they just stay low. The earnings growth through their 20s is extraordinarily disappointing,” he said.

Stephen Evans, chief executive of the Learning and Work Institute, said there was a “simmering crisis”.

“Nine million adults in England have either low literacy or numeracy, yet participation in English and maths learning has fallen sharply,” he said. “We need urgent action to reverse these declines. That includes making learning easy to access, including online. But we also need to inspire adults to want to learn, increase investment and contextualise learning so people can see the difference it can make.”

In a Commons Education Select Committee hearing in June, Association of Colleges chief executive David Hughes called for modular GCSE English and maths to be introduced to support learners gain level 2 qualifications. 

At the time, he said that a modular GCSE should exist for adults generally, and that bitesize modules of learning would allow more learners like prisoners to achieve qualifications and to continue their learning seamlessly once they are released.