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Education

May 2007

Introduction

Under the official Standard Industrial Classification (SIC, 2003) the education sector encompasses the full range of education services including both public and private education at any level or for any profession, oral or written as well as by radio, television and internet. Its scope extends from primary and general secondary education, including pre-primary ("nursery") education and technical and vocational secondary education ("further education"); higher education from sub-degree to post-graduate level; and adult and other education, including the activities of the Learning & Skills Council and National Training Organisations and of private training providers and driving school activities.

Employment

Education is a basic local service activity and a major employing sector. In 2005 there were nearly 64,000 education-related employee jobs in Lancashire. This represented 10.6% or one in ten of all the sub-region's employee jobs, a proportion slightly higher than the Great Britain average of 9.4%. Some 48,000 or three-quarters of the workforce comprise female employees of whom 58% worked on a part-time basis compared with 32% of men. Overall, a substantial 48% of the education sector's workforce was employed on a part-time basis.

Graph showing the number of education employee jobs in Lancashire's local authorities - see text for details Source ONS - Annual Business Inquiry

Education jobs are widely spread across the County, in part reflecting the distribution of population and specifically the school age population, though the two largest centres – Lancaster and Preston – each the base of a university as well as wider educational services, between them account for about 29% of Lancashire's education jobs (Figure 1). Locally, education jobs make up 18.2% of all jobs in Lancaster District and 14.7 in Rossendale, falling to a share of 5.3% in Fylde and 8.2% in Chorley.

Structurally the sector comprises some 1,490 separate employing units – i.e. schools, colleges, training establishments, etc. across the sub-region with an average size of 43 employees. More than a half of these establishments employ fewer than 25 people but these account for only 10% of the workforce (Table 2). On the other hand, the top 124 establishments, each with 100 or more employees, account for over a half of the total sector workforce. The Universities of Lancaster and Central Lancashire are the two largest institutions.

Employment Trends

Employment in education activities expanded steadily over post-war years with a particularly sustained surge over the 1960s and early 1970s associated with demographic changes and with the expansion of further and higher education (Figure 2). Thereafter employment growth remained modest until a further large expansion in the second half of the 1990s associated with growth in pre-primary education and adult training provision and major public expenditure across both primary and secondary education. The largest segments of education employment in Lancashire today are in primary education, which continues to expand quite strongly particularly in terms of support staff whose numbers have doubled over recent years; followed closely by general and technical/vocational secondary education. Growth in higher education has been under-pinned by the government target of 50% participation by 18-30 year olds in English higher education by the end of the decade whilst there have been increased job opportunities in adult and special education and in the activities of private training providers.

Graph showing how the number of education employee jobs in Lancashire has changed from 1950 to 2005 - see text for details Source Ministry of Labour/ONS - ERII Employment Records
Table 3  Education: Lancashire Employee Jobs, 1993-2005
 
Primary Education
Secondary Education
Higher Education
Adult & Other Education
All Employee Jobs
 
 
 
 
 
 
1993
13,000
12,300
9,100
2,600
37,000
1995
13,800
12,500
9,900
1,700
38,000
1996
14,400
12,400
10,100
2,800
39,800
1997
15,200
12,200
10,200
2,600
40,300
1998
16,700
13,200
11,900
3,400
45,200
1999
16,100
13,300
12,500
3,700
45,600
2000
17,100
13,200
11,900
3,300
45,500
2001
17,200
13,000
12,700
4,000
46,900
2002
24,200
16,600
13,400
4,600
58,800
2003
23,500
16,500
13,600
4,300
57,900
2004
25,300
16,900
15,000
5,100
62,300
2005
25,000
17,700
15,900
5,300
63,900
Note Primary and secondary education employee figures for the period 1999-2001 are suspect. It appears that there may have been an erroneous classification of some educational establishments resulting in an under-estimation of local job numbers in the sector.
Source ONS - Annual Employment Survey/Annual Business Inquiry

General Characteristics

Photograph of Stonyhurst College at Hurst Green in Ribble Valley

Economically, education is a major sector in its own right and the proportion of total financial resources devoted to it is one of the key choices made by government, enterprises and individual students and their families. It is an investment item since it affects the future income of both the individual and the nation: it can help foster economic growth, enhance productivity, contribute to personal and social development and reduce social inequality.

Total expenditure on education services by central and local government in the UK in 2004/05 was £64bn. This included £4.2bn directly on under-fives, £36.5bn on schools, £7.4bn on further education and £7.8bn on higher education. On the broadest measure the current level of public expenditure on education across the UK represents about 5.6% of total gross domestic product (against 4.7% in 1997) or approximately 13% of all public expenditure. The contribution of the private sector has also increased over recent years and taking account of private as well as public sources of funding, the UK spends in the order of 6.1% of its total GDP on educational institutions.

Locally, universities and major colleges of further education are often amongst some of the largest employing organisations and can have significant economic impacts in terms of their expenditure power and multiplier effects and in attracting revenue and generating employment within the area. Moreover, their role in community outreach work and in assisting the re-generation of urban areas has received increased recognition over recent years.

Education generally is being called upon to play an increasingly important role in preparing young people to enter the business world and to continue to update skills throughout the working life. Through its content, organisation and the quality of its training and formation, education is the most important factor in meeting the demand and the changing conditions of the labour market. A general tendency towards a longer educational period reflects both an increasing need for higher education as a protection against unemployment and the political desire to offer as many students as possible the opportunity to complete secondary studies and to move into higher and further vocational education.

This page was compiled by Peter Kivell .

All enquiries from the media should be sent to Corporate.Communications@lancashire.gov.uk .

Any other questions about the content of this page may be sent to EconInfo@lancashire.gov.uk .

For all enquiries about the county council's services , contact the Customer Service Centre on 0845 0530000 (01772 530000) or at Enquiries@css.lancscc.gov.uk .

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