Monday, 25 June 2007

Education, Education, Education

We long ago moved away from Education for its own sake. Briefly, we had Education to provide a skilled workforce - which at least had the benefit of a brutal economic logic. Now we have Education whose sole purpose is to help the government meet its targets. Students too are treated as mere exam fodder. It might be funny if it weren’t so expensive, pointless and really quite sinister.

This morning, I met with Louise Thurston of West Herts College to discuss ways in which the College and CVS might work together. We were joined by Vanessa Levy (our Development and Training Officer) and by Mary Green of Three Rivers CVS.

Although we are all interested in the subject of training, it is hard to find secure grounds for co-operation between us. CVSs want to secure appropriate affordable training for our member organisations. The training needs of voluntary organisations are very precise, and of course few charities have budgets to cover training costs. The government sees no reason why it should pay to train the paid workforce at MegaCorp Capitalist Inc - or the volunteer workforce at a neighbourhood trust. To the government, there is no real distinction between the two.

The College’s agenda is determined by its funding arrangements with the LSC, who take their lead from the governmant, whose focus is those “without a level two qualification”. In my personal experience, many of those without a level two qualification are perfectly happy and just want to be left alone. Few want to be conscripted onto courses to meet some political target.

For Louise Thurston, genuinely committed to the local community, it must be very hard to make any progress through this policy madness. Whichever way we turned, there was another barrier in our way. But we have at least begun a dialogue and with goodwill and good fortune we will find a way.

After Louise left, I talked through our autumn training programme with Vanessa: she is consulting local groups on their training needs and will soon convene a meeting of the Voluntary Sector Training Network to examine the results of this consultation. All very good. But where will the funding come from?

Back to BASIS

In the afternoon, I met again with Vanessa and with Anne (our Funding Advisor) to talk through our second stage application for BASIS funding. It was a good discussion and I have now left Anne and Vanessa to review and edit my work prior to a further meeting at the end of the week.

Databases

I also spent time with Sha-Lee (our data worker) who has now prepared a file to import our contact data into Volbase. Sha-Lee and I talked through the exercise and our options. In the evening, I stayed late at the office re-running this conversation and ruminating on our database needs.

All other CVSs in Hertfordshire are now using Volbase, and Volbase is perfectly ok. But it lacks the intuitive elegance that software ought to possess: it doesn’t excite me. And I worry about the training needs that it will create for WCVS. Moreover, WCVS already uses Outlook and V-base, and I still can't understand what Volbase adds to this mix. And are our fellow CVSs clear why they are using Volbase and where it might lead? No. Is there a thought-through strategy in place? No.

For six months,. WCVS has been on the verge of implementing Volbase. We have been delayed by staff changes and staff absences and occasionally by mere prevarication. But we are now clearly standing at the crossroads and we must take a decision. I know what my decision would be if it were entirely down to the needs of WCVS. But there are also other things to think through.