Education Secretary Nicky Morgan and Skills Minister Nick Boles set for social mobility grilling from Lords

Education Secretary Nicky Morgan and Skills Minister Nick Boles will be witnesses in the final evidence session of the House of Lords Select Committee on Social Mobility this week.

The Conservative duo are expected to field questions on topics such as funding for FE on Wednesday, December 9.

Their appearances will close the process of evidence-gathering from witnesses as part of the select committee’s inquiry into social mobility in the transition from school to work.

The committee, which was formally appointed on June 11, is required to report on its findings by March 23.

The key question of funding for FE will be addressed during the session, as will employability skills, work experience and careers education.

Other topics will be the policy focus on young people who do not do A-levels or attend university, pathways through the education system to employment, and incentives for employers, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, to offer guidance.

The evidence session will start at 10.35am in Committee Room 4A of the House of Lords.

It comes a week after Alan Milburn, chair of the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, spoke to the committee about the experience of disadvantaged students in the education system.

Mr Milburn described the pathway into employment via vocational education as “an absolute jungle” and discussed changes in the expectations of employers for young people.

Follow @FEWeek for live coverage of the hearing using the #HLSMC hashtag.

Your thoughts

Leave a Reply to anonymous Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

One comment

  1. anonymous

    Social mobility – what a joke.

    Saddle those at the bottom with debts when they try to better themselves.

    Allow legalised loan sharks to take advantage of nationally tragic levels of numeracy.

    Have a massively complex tax system geared towards extracting proportionately much more from the many while leaving some loopholes for those with clever accountants to slip through.

    Create the ultimate sneaky stealth tax, the tax of hope, while convincing you that it’s all in a good cause and ‘it could be you’….

    If you can fight your way through that, you will have been very lucky.

    Rant complete.