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Much like the rest of the nation, the election announcement certainly took us by surprise. What now follows is the usual pause to decision making due to Purdah, and we can consider what changes an election may bring to our sector. To address the contentious issue of schools funding reform, the Conservative manifesto has promised a funding floor so that no child will lose out through the funding reforms.

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Much like the rest of the nation, the election announcement certainly took us by surprise. What now follows is the usual pause to decision making due to Purdah, and we can consider what changes an election may bring to our sector. Many of the policies outlined by the Conservative manifesto, in relation to apprenticeships and technical education, are those proposed by the previous (coalition) government. The broad direction of travel remains the same as set out in their manifesto, keeping the target of 3 million apprenticeship starts. However, they do highlight that further funding reforms are on the horizon, with ‘a wholesale review of tertiary education’ on the cards.

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This week, Alzheimer’s Society is highlighting dementia with its annual Dementia Awareness Week, and it’s a good time to talk about this disease and how we can help those suffering with it. Dementia now affects 850,000 people in the UK, and the numbers are sadly rising because we’re living longer. One in three people over 65 will develop dementia, and two-thirds of people with dementia are women. It’s estimated that by 2021, the number of people with dementia in the UK will have increased to around 1 million.

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It seems nowadays that hardly a week goes by without the announcement of the closure of another University Technical College (UTC) or their lower status sibling, a Studio School. They are struggling to recruit, achieving poor grades from Ofsted and failing to establish financial viability. Institutions, that were so admired in the abstract, that both Labour and Conservative politicians proposed to open one in every town, have proved to be seriously flawed in practice. It is not surprising that this catalogue of failures has been greeted with barely disguised glee by some parts of the battered FE sector. Having initially been patronised and excluded by Lord Baker, the architect of this new approach, colleges have increasingly been called in to bail them out. Yet schadenfreude, however understandable, is the wrong reaction. Whatever else this is, it is a serious failure of a well-intentioned initiative to boost vocational education and give it status. It is imperative to understand what went wrong.

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When it comes to manifesto promises, the trick is to keep it simple and easy to measure whether the commitment has been achieved. That’s what the Conservative manifesto got right with its pledge to fund 3 million apprenticeship starts during the parliament. Now let me acknowledge this quickly. An input target isn’t enough; it doesn’t have enough detail to address the important issues of access, quality, progression and so on.

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Surprise election leaves us guessing

We consider the possible impact of the general election

Dealing with dementia

UTCs and Studio Schools – a post-14 fiasco

Why 3 million is just a start

Authors

Lindsay Plumpton

David Grailey

Andrew Gladstone-Heighton

Esme Winch

Michael Lemin

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Authors

Lindsay Plumpton

David Grailey

Andrew Gladstone-Heighton

Esme Winch

Michael Lemin

Categories

Archive