A Westminster Hall debate on ‘Funding for further education’ has been scheduled for Wednesday 4 November 2020 from 2.00pm-3:30pm. The debate has been initiated by Gill Furniss MP.
Funding for further education (349 KB, PDF)
There will be a debate in Westminster Hall on Funding for further education between 2.00 and 3.30 pm on 4 November 2020. The debate has been initiated by Gill Furniss MP.
The further education (FE) sector is large and diverse with a wide range of providers and around 1.7 million students. Financially the sector has been through a prolonged period of funding cuts which has led to reductions in provision and falling learner numbers.
The UK Government has allocated an extra £300 million for further education colleges and sixth forms for 2020–21 – this will lead to a real-terms increase in spending per learner of over 4% but will still leave spending per student over 7% below its level in 2010–11 in colleges and over 20% below in sixth forms.
A 2020 report by the National Audit Office concluded that “overall the financial health of the college sector remains fragile”.
The Covid pandemic has impacted on the FE sector in a number of ways, including: the change to providing online learning and the cost of supplying laptops to disadvantaged students, and provision for the increased number of students as a result of higher than expected examination results in the summer and increased demand among adults for re-training.
In June 2020 the Association of Colleges called for an extra £3.6 billion to upskill the 764,000 people most at risk economically post-Covid 19.
Funding for further education (349 KB, PDF)
The cancellation of exams including GCSEs and A Levels in summer 2020 led to a highly controversial process for issuing grades to students. This paper looks at plans for awarding qualifications in summer 2021. Updated following confirmation of the awarding arrangements for 2021.
This briefing paper discusses Covid-19 announcements affecting the HE an FE sectors in England from January 2021; it outlines areas such as the return of students to campuses and refunds for students affected by the disruptions. .
This briefing paper details what is known at present about the Turing Scheme, which will replace the Erasmus+ programme in providing funding to participants in universities, colleges, and schools to go on study and work placements across the world from September 2021.
