Apart from the specialist press, such as the TES, coverage of the proposals in the Taylor Review on learning and skills has been limited. This is not too surprising considering the focus of the review on tackling contentious employment rights issues in the gig economy and the varied reactions to these recommendations (e.g. see various…
Yesterday saw the last minute publication of the government response to the inquiry into teacher recruitment and retention undertaken by the House of Commons education select committee earlier this year. The committee’s original report, published in February, highlighted a number of key issues, including that the increasingly complex range of routes into teaching training routes…
As with much of the Budget, the package of skills measures contained few surprises as the various announcements had been trailed extensively beforehand. Nevertheless, there is much to welcome in the Budget on technical education and skills, in particular the commitment to step up funding for the rollout of the new qualification system (or “T…
This week the Government has made a great deal of its proposals on skills in the Industrial Strategy Green Paper. A BEIS press release came out last weekend entitled Technical education at heart of modern industrial strategy and this echoed the longstanding refrain that the UK has world class universities, but by comparison “technical education for school…
As trailed in yesterday’s press, a centrepiece of the Budget is a move to make every school in England an academy and to strip local authorities of their long-standing role in education. The signs were there that this was on the cards with the Times reporting earlier this month that there would be two Education…
In one respect the Chancellor’s announcements on skills and apprenticeships in the Spending Review has been viewed as another u-turn with the welcome news that there will not be the degree of cuts to FE colleges and the adult skills budget that was widely anticipated. In addition the Apprenticeship Levy is going to bring in…
As with much of the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement, the vast majority of the announcements on education, childcare and skills had already been trailed over the past week. The most controversial is the announcement that an extra £600M will be made available to establish 100 additional free schools in England over the coming three years, including…
One of the few positives in the Budget was the announcement that there is going to be additional funding to boost the number of apprenticeships. An extra £180M has been allocated “for up to 50,000 additional apprenticeship places over the next four years”. Forty thousand of these opportunities will be focused on young people not…
The announcements on further education and skills in the comprehensive spending review indicate that, by and large, adult students and older employees will feel the brunt of cuts to provision. The apprenticeship programme aimed at young people is the clear winner with a commitment to fund an additional 75,000 places for people aged 19-25 at…
The main cuts to education and skills announced today comprise £200M from the higher education budget, £200M from the budget for the Train to Gain skills programme, and a range of ‘efficiency savings’ applied to skills quangos. The £200M cut to Train to Gain actually involves a refocusing of this expenditure on apprenticeships and college…