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)
Further education providers are allocated funds from different sources depending on the type of courses they provide and on the age of their students. There is also capital funding available for upgrading the college estate. This briefing explains the different systems, examines recent funding announcements and trends, and considers some related issues facing the further education sector.
Public funding will be removed from “low-quality” level 3 courses that overlap with A Levels and T Levels from 2024.
Education spending peaked in around 2010 at 5.5% of GDP or £104 billion (2019-20 prices). It has fallen since then, but how much of this is due to changes to definitions, where does this leave the UK compared to other countries and how does this fall in spending compare to others over the past seven decades?
