Night classes in everything from flower arranging to foreign languages are expected to close. Leaders of further education colleges estimate that one million places will be lost overall.

Ministers believe that night courses should not be the preserve of the middle classes keen on self-improvement. They consider that taxpayers’ money would be better spent improving the skills of adults and young people who have left school with few or no qualifications.

However, fees for everyone else will rise sharply over the next four years. State subsidies will be cut from 73 per cent to 50 per cent of the cost of courses by 2010. Individuals or their employers will have to pay the other half.

“Colleges are already talking about shutting down in the evenings because of the reduction in adult learning and the focus on younger people,” Julian Gravatt, the Association of Colleges’ director of funding and development, said. “It will be the end of night school.”

People taking “leisure and pleasure” courses that do not lead to qualifications face even bigger increases. Annual funding for “personal and community development learning” will be frozen at £210 million for the next two years.

“There will increasingly be an expectation that individuals should pay for this kind of provision where they can afford to do so,” a government White Paper said yesterday, setting out a “new economic mission” for colleges.

Ministers promised to abolish course fees from 2007-08 for people aged 19 to 25 who did not have “Level 3” qualifications, equivalent to two A levels. About 45,000 young people will qualify for free tuition. Colleges would be expected to stop many leisure courses to provide increasingly specialised skills tuition.

The Association of Colleges said that up to one third of its 3.4 million adult places could be lost as a result of the changes. Up to 70 of England’s 380 colleges could close. Some 4.2 million are enrolled at further education colleges, including 850,000 under-18s, 400,000 on welfare benefits and 750,000 on basic literacy and numeracy courses. About 2.3 million adults pay towards the cost of lessons in anything from flower arranging to computer-aided design or the new work-related foundation degrees.

Mr Gravatt said that current government spending projections predicted a loss of 500,000 places by 2008. A further 500,000 could disappear by 2010. “One third of adult places could go. There will be growth in provision for 16 to 19-year-olds and the under-25s. Sixth-form students tend to study for more hours, so we will have fewer people studying for longer,” he said.

The White Paper said that the State would continue to provide free education for everyone under 19, and would now extend it to people under 25 without the Level 3 qualifications.

“But for older adults the arguments are different. The State cannot and should not pay for all education and training for adults.”

State funding would cover half the fees wherever people were studying courses “valued by employers”. Funding for recreational courses would “depend on local choice about how to use the allocated resources”.

Ministers said that reform of FE colleges was essential to end “scandalously low” staying-on rates among young people and improve adult job skills if Britain was to compete against the rising economic power of China and India.

Britain lagged well behind France and Germany for the proportion of young adults with the Level 3 qualifications considered necessary for productive employment.

It was also 24th out of 29 developed nations for the proportion of 16-year-olds in education or training. Ministers have set a target for raising participation rates for 16 to 19-year-olds from 75 per cent to 90 per cent by 2015.

The White Paper threatened tough action to “eliminate failure” by withdrawing funding from weak colleges. One in seven colleges offered “barely satisfactory” standards and would be served formal notices to improve within twelve months.

The Learning and Skills Council would end funding for colleges that failed to improve. It would hold competitions to find alternative providers, including private companies, that were capable of taking over their courses.

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