Why colleges are crucial to region’s recovery – Gill Furniss

Colleges well and truly play their part in doing that, with 54 per cent of adult learners coming from the 40 per cent most deprived areas in the country.

They are vital for delivering skills-based learning, and those who teach in them are a testament to the quality of the teaching profession. That is evident, with four out of five colleges being rated as good or outstanding by Ofsted.

On many occasions, I have called for increased funding for the further education sector and for the Government to recognise the power that the Cinderella sector could have in bridging attainment gaps, developing skilled workers and giving those from working-class communities greater opportunities. Colleges, when properly funded, are places of great educational power.

But brutal cuts to the further education sector have been felt most harshly by adult learners. In real terms, 35 per cent of adult education funding has been cut since 2013. Over the same period, funding for those aged 16 to 19 has fallen by seven per cent.

Those cuts have meant that fewer adults can learn core skills such as literacy and maths to be able to meet many jobs’ English and maths requirements.

The National Audit Office has said the FE sector’s financial health is fragile, warning that core funding has fallen significantly.

I have spoken to staff at my local college and the morale among both teaching and support staff, who are now being asked to do more, is incredibly low.

To add to that low morale and the sense of being ignored, when the Education Secretary announced a pay rise for schoolteachers, he made no such announcement for further education lecturers. The gap in pay between schoolteachers and FE lecturers now stands at just over £9,000 a year.

That background meant many of us were already deeply concerned about FE funding. Then the coronavirus pandemic highlighted more clearly than ever before the truly devastating consequence of widespread cuts.

After a decade of cuts, I want to be able to welcome wholeheartedly the Prime Minister’s announcement of the lifetime skills guarantee. However, I fear that it is too little, too late and too slow.

We are facing an unprecedented crisis. Levels of unemployment have risen sharply while earnings have fallen across many sectors as a result of the economic impact of Covid-19.

In my constituency of Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough, the number of people claiming unemployment-related benefits has almost doubled since March, accounting for 9.5 per cent of the working-age population.

Colleges cannot wait for the funding to trickle through over the course of this Parliament; action must be taken to address the challenges they face now.

In our recovery, we have the opportunity to bridge the skills gap in a way we never have before. However, I feel that the Government is not being that ambitious.

The introduction of the Job Support Scheme at the start of next month will see many workers on reduced hours. I believe that the Government should integrate training into the scheme and allow workers to improve their skills.

I am also concerned that the Lifetime Skills Guarantee appears to offer little to those who have a level 3 qualification or above. People with qualifications of all levels have felt the impact of Covid-19 and, sadly, many with a level 3 qualification or above will lose their jobs.

Therefore, people with qualifications of all levels who will face unemployment should be able to access college courses and reskill should they need and want to do so.

The crisis in social care is an example of where cuts to colleges have had a wider impact. Since 2010, qualifications for health and social care have fallen by 68 per cent. Year after year, we have been promised reform in social care. Instead, we have seen a consistent failure to boost the number of workers in social care or implement any long-term plan.

With the further education White Paper and spending review on the horizon, I urge Ministers to urge the Chancellor to fund our further education sector properly.

In the meantime, Labour will continue the fight for more funding for further education, and I will continue to proudly back the Love Our Colleges campaign.

Gill Furniss is Labour MP for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough. She spoke in a Parliamentary debate on skills – this is an edited version.

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