Sir Keir Starmer is wrong to demand migrants achieve proficiency in English to A Level standard - Jayne Dowle
This knee-jerk proposal to demand all migrants to the UK achieve proficiency in English to A Level standard is so clearly a panicked immigration measure on the part of Sir Keir Starmer - and untenable.
Just ask at any post-16 college. There aren’t enough teachers of English to this standard, or even able to deliver the basic qualifications of English GCSE or Functional Skills, to cover existing demand.
Morale in the teaching profession, in particular amongst those working on adult learning programmes, is shockingly low. Many colleges struggle to fill teaching vacancies, because pay and conditions lag behind those available, for instance, at well-run academy chains.
So where will the tutors of Starmer’s English teaching army come from, and how will a nationwide programme be organised, run and funded?
A teacher of English at adult learning level can expect to earn between £25 to £30 an hour. I know from friends who do it that this attractive-sounding hourly rate does not typically include time for lesson preparation and marking. If he wants to recruit competent and committed teachers to do the job, Starmer is going to have to find a way to power up the pay and fund his ambition.
No doubt any plan will include online learning, which would be an open-door for abuse of the rules. Anyone can pose as anyone online, so what checks will be in place to ensure that the person attending the class and sitting exams is who they say they are?
We already know there is a thriving market in impersonators taking theory and practical driving tests. According to BBC research, national figures showed 2,059 incidents of cheating were recorded by the DVSA in the 2023-24 financial year.
The proposals, which are expected to appear in an immigration white paper published early this week, will require people applying for a UK work visa to show a higher standard of English than is currently expected.
The current standard migrants must achieve, equivalent to English as a foreign language GCSE, is seen as too basic to allow integration. It requires an understanding of the main issues “regularly encountered in work, school or leisure”, deal with situations “likely to arise while travelling” and “produce simple connected text on topics which are familiar or of personal interest”.
However, set the bar too high and it’s obvious that people will be deterred and find ways around the system.
It’s reported that the standard is expected to be raised to almost the equivalent of a foreign language A-level, known as B2 on the Home Office website.
According to the Home Office, this requires people to express themselves “fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions” and to speak English “flexibly and effectively for social, academic and professional purposes”.
Starmer himself, according to reports, achieved A-level grades of B in Mathematics and Music, and a C in Physics. He’s clearly never attempted to study a foreign language at A Level, so is in no position to dictate terms.
I have. I got halfway through French A Level before begging my sixth-form head of year to let me swap to Politics.
And where will the capacity for ‘in real life’ classrooms and examination halls come from? Given that around a third of school-leavers in England fail English and maths, colleges and education providers are already buckling under the strain to provide space for re-sits.
It is sensible and desirable for anyone who wishes to make their home in the UK to be able to speak the language, that much is common sense. However, achieving this aim needs proper consideration, and not be waved by the Prime Minister as a desperate flag in the face of the dramatic gains Reform UK has made in recent elections.
The white paper is designed to tackle record levels of net migration, which are reported to currently stand at 728,000 (in the year ending June 2024, 1.2 million people migrated to the UK, while 479,000 emigrated), and help to get more than nine million economically inactive people into work.
It sounds good on paper, doesn’t it? Makes perfect sense. Yet has Starmer actually considered that many people whose families already stretch back generations in this country would find achieving the equivalent of A Level English quite a task?
I wonder, idly, how many of the recent Reform UK candidates, for example, could pass? Or indeed, members of the current Cabinet? My daughter, who had achieved the equivalent of A grades in English Language and English Literature at GCSE, struggled with A Level English Language, but got there in the end.