News of cash to help two northern cities meet a surge in FE students has prompted pleas to help the rest of the country.
This week, the Department for Education revealed it would hand £10 million each to Leeds City Council and the Greater Manchester Combined Authority to help post-16 institutions cope with a demographic bulge of young people.
It also announced £302 million in condition funding ring-fenced for repairing colleges’ “leaky roofs, broken windows and dilapidated buildings.”
But while the capacity funding given to Leeds and Greater Manchester was welcomed by college sector leaders, it is understood England’s seven other core cities are facing high levels of demand due to a “demographic boom.”
‘We need a plan’
Association of Colleges (AoC) deputy chief executive Julian Gravatt said: “With 16-to-18 student numbers having risen by 7 per cent this year and forecast to rise by 5 per cent nationally, the government needs a plan for technical education growth.
“The funds for Leeds and Manchester will help, but there are pressures in other cities and towns across the country.”
The number of 16 to 18-year-olds is estimated to have grown by 230,000, or 13 per cent, between 2017 and 2024. It is projected to increase by a further 110,000, or five per cent, by 2028.
Government capital capacity funding was last released between 2021 and 2023. Around £230 million was shared between 89 colleges and sixth forms with the aim of creating additional capacity by September 2024.
‘Bursting at the seams’
The DfE said Leeds and Greater Manchester got funding this time around based on their levels of demographic growth and college capacity pressure.
Population pressures on education are kept under review, a spokesperson added.
But Sixth Form Colleges Association deputy chief executive James Kewin said: “Many of our members are bursting at the seams, but there is currently no capital funding available to support expansion projects.
“The funding announced for Greater Manchester and Leeds is welcome, but the demographic boom is not limited to those two areas.”
He told FE Week that one of the government’s spending review priorities “should be to create a capital expansion fund for sixth form providers that operates on an annual basis,” adding that the alternative is “cramming more students into already overcrowded classrooms or turning students away.”
Positive development
Colin Booth, chief executive of Luminate Education Group, called the £10 million in funding for Leeds a “positive development” that could go “some way” to tackling rising numbers of young people not in education, employment or training.
He said: “Over recent years, post-16 capacity constraints in Leeds have resulted in growing numbers of young people being unable to access suitable forms of post-16 education.
“The announcement represents forward-thinking investment that could benefit both the local economy and young people right across the city.”
However, he warned funding should be “targeted” at growing capacity for high-demand courses such as level 1 and 2, and some technical courses such as health and care, rather than local sixth forms or other providers offering A-levels.
He said: “In Leeds, there is an oversupply and competition between sixth forms for A-level students.
“But in the most disadvantaged postcodes of Leeds, fewer than half of 16-year-olds are able or want to study A-levels.”
Condition funding
The £302 million in further education college condition allocations (bizarrely, the exact figure given was £301,999,999.98) announced this week will be shared between England’s 179 college groups based on a methodology that takes into account learning hours in the last academic year, space requirements for each subject, modelled non-teaching space, residential space, local construction costs and total expected space.
While the methodology does include apprenticeship delivery, it excludes learning aims such as distance learning, higher education, T Level occupational specialisms or end-point assessments.
Large college groups such as NCG and Capital City College will receive more than £7 million each, while 48 smaller institutions such as Calderdale College and Capel Manor College will get less than £1 million each (see full list at FE Week).
Gravatt said the £302 million investment was a “significant and crucial step” towards improving colleges and praised the DfE for using a formula to allocate funding “for the first time in 20 years.”
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