The Mayor should prioritise a section of the Adult Skills budget to support integration through funding wider availability of accessible ESOL provision in each part of West Yorkshire.
Lucy Lucy (CAY) - Access to college education at least for basic skills needs to be equalised across West Yorkshire – currently our asylum seeking clients in Kirklees have to go to Bradford or Calderdale to be able to do up to GCSE maths and English because there is no provision for this in Kirklees; it significantly impacts on their wellbeing as they experience financial hardship in finding transport costs; my organisation used to fund these but we cannot do that at present.
ESOL provision needs to be equalised across West Yorkshire and available from day one when people arrive; waiting six months to access a course wastes valuable time precisely at the point where clients are most open to learning a new language and need to go to regular classes to reduce isolation and get some support networks assembled.
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