Tag: GE2017

Manifesto promise: Scrap fees and loans in further education by doubling the Adult Education Budget Emily Chapman argues FOR When I ran to be Vice President for Further Education at the National Union of Students’ National Conference this year, I ran on a manifesto of ensuring funding for Adult Education and ESOL was ring-fenced and […]

Labour manifesto pledge: Reintroduce the 16-19 Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) Shakira Martin argues FOR Scrapping the education maintenance allowance scheme in England was a mistake. Plain and simple. The coalition government did a U-turn on their education policy centred on ‘fairness and equality of opportunity for all’. Against all their rhetoric it took away from […]

Conservative manifesto pledge: Allow employers to use their levy to pay apprentices’ wages Martin Doel argues AGAINST The apprenticeship levy is a bold policy that surprised many when it was announced, but it is of a piece with much of the last government’s thinking in terms of what is now being called Red-Toryism; it involves […]

Conservative manifesto pledge: Allow employers to use their levy to pay apprentices’ wages Neil Carberry argues FOR The Conservative manifesto pledge to allow firms access to levy funding to cover wage costs for some forms of training came as a surprise – and we certainly shouldn’t read too much into one line, in what was […]

Manifesto promise: Scrap fees and loans in further education by doubling the Adult Education Budget Graham Taylor argues AGAINST There is much to admire in the Labour manifesto on education and skills. Labour has promised to make all further education free at the point of use. And who wouldn’t want this? They would “introduce free, […]

Labour manifesto pledge: Set a target that all FE teaching staff have a teaching qualification within five years Malcolm Trobe argues AGAINST Labour’s pledge “for all FE teaching staff to have a teaching qualification within five years” is lacking in detail. Does it mean that people must have a teaching qualification within five years of […]

Labour manifesto pledge: Set a target that all FE teaching staff have a teaching qualification within five years Sally Hunt argues FOR The teacher shortage problem isn’t limited to schools – FE colleges are also feeling the pinch. As well as addressing problems of low pay, endemic casualisation and mounting workloads, a key challenge for […]