Policy Consortium member Ian Nash introduces the full report of the second Great FE & Skills Survey, undertaken by the Policy Consortium in conjunction with its media partner FE Week.
After the election the TES reports that the FE sector has repeated warnings on the impact of the cuts on funding, arguing that this could stall any economic recovery and impact social cohesion.
Post by Paul Stanistreet, freelance writer on adult education and social policy, which argues that adult education is ‘an essential part of the fabric of any civilized, democratic society’.
Alan Tuckett, professor of education at the University of Wolverhampton and president of the International Council for Adult Education, says the AoC’s warning that we could have no public further education for adults by 2020 is a ‘terrifying prospect for our future productivity and competitiveness’.
A demonstration was held in London on Saturday 25 April to protest against the cuts. The demo, called by UCU’s London Region, saw protestors march on London’s City Hall.
The University and College Union reported that Birmingham Northfield MP Richard Burden will join the union and the Association of Colleges speaking out against cuts to adult education in the West Midlands on 15 April.
A number of senior and respected figures from the education and trade union worlds have signed a letter which condemns the cut to the adult education budget as ‘an act of vandalism’. The letter also says that the cuts are ‘perverse’ in an age of austerity when ‘economic growth requires a skilled population with funded opportunities for learning’.
Eddie Playfair, Principal of Newham Sixth Form College, takes a pop at the lack of recognition from all political parties of the vital importance of investing in post-16 and adult education in the run up to the election.
The TES have reported on the unprecedented unity that has arisen across the sector in the face of the government’s planned cuts to the adult learning budget, with support from over 20 sector bodies including trade unions, professional associations and college groups.
Claire Sully, lecturer and digital marketing agency MD, writes about how returning to education as an adult led to setting up a successful business, and how the cuts will undermine employer requirements around skills shortage vacancies.
