The 157 Group has responded to the publication this week of manifestos from each of the main political parties ahead of the general election.
Dr Lynne Sedgmore CBE, executive director of the 157 Group, said, “We know that the work done by Further Education Colleges and the skills system more broadly is vital in bringing individuals closer to employment and prosperity to both local and national economies. It is very pleasing to see that this is acknowledged by the fact that all the major manifestos give significant priority to their policies around vocational and technical education in a way that has not been the case before.
“What is also clear, however, from the manifestos, is that further cuts are planned which will directly impact skills training for adults – both those in work and those who are unemployed. This important area has borne more than its fair share of austerity to date, and we will be arguing strongly that additional cuts in this area are unsustainable and counter-productive to economic growth.
“We have set out, in our own Manifesto for FE and Skills, four key principles against which policy should be judged. Chief among these are stability and durability in terms of structures and funding. It is good to see commitments from both Labour and the Liberal Democrats that funding for Colleges will be protected alongside that for schools, although the details of what this means in practice need further exploration. Young people in particular deserve to know that their post-16 education is viewed as importantly as what goes on in schools, and there are a number of other commitments that reflect this very laudable aim.
“The focus on Apprenticeships and employer engagement in the skills system more broadly is welcome and we support any plans that can be reasonably expected to support more employers, especially SMEs, to offer College Apprenticeship places.
“High level skills are critical to our labour market, but all the manifestos are curiously quiet about the pathways that will enable more young people to reach the levels required for an Apprenticeship or a higher level qualification. It is good to see, however, explicit commitments from Labour around careers advice and guidance for young people, which needs to be a major priority for the next five years.”
Sarah Robinson OBE, chair of the 157 Group and chief executive of Stoke-on-Trent College, said, “There has been much structural reform in the past five years, and we are unconvinced that more change to qualifications or to institutions is in the best interests of our economic prosperity. We should ask how new initiatives such as UTCs and Institutes of Technical Education will provide value for money as well as what problems they are addressing which cannot be addressed through the existing national infrastructure of Further Education Colleges.
“Our other two policy priorities are equity and flexibility, and many of the pledges go some way towards achieving this. It is important that Colleges are able to play a leading role in strategic economic growth as responsibility and – potentially – funding for skills is increasingly devolved. The manifestos say little about how Colleges can be further enabled and encouraged to be the drivers of economic growth that we know they can and should be.
“We would like to see the increasingly flexible nature of adult provision more represented by all parties, however, with, for example, a clearer commitment to viewing HE and FE funding in the round, to enabling all adult students to access the same student support package and to developing a strategy for adult workforce development which reflects the reality of longer working lives and places College-employer partnerships at the heart of this delivery.”