Skip to content
19 April 2026

Tag: Levelling up

Apprenticeships should be a core part of the levelling-up agenda

The government needs to take action over the decline in apprenticeship starts if the country is to ‘level up’, writes David Phillips The government has outlined ambitious and laudable plans for their levelling-up agenda, with the release of their recent white paper. This promises to address geographic inequality across the country by investing in education […]

Make 2022 the year FE is unchained at last

FE is the best place for adults to upskill – but it needs lobbyists in parliament, writes Andy Forbes This year, the FE sector has a real chance of moving centre stage. Why this year, you ask, after so many frustrating years of flatline funding and piecemeal initiatives? It’s a combination of things. Three things […]

Levelling up reforms don’t match scale of the challenge

Skills inequalities are holding back entire communities and cannot be solved on the cheap, writes Dean Hochlaf To level up the country, we need to level up skills. The much-anticipated levelling up white paper has made improving skills a core mission for the government, as it grapples with the entrenched regional inequalities which plague the […]

Focus on adult education is promising – but lacks ambition

It is also surprising the levelling up white paper has so little to say on green skills, write Aveek Bhattacharya and Amy Norman For those of us who have been following the government’s skills and post-18 education policy, the levelling up white paper was very familiar. We knew many of the key announcements already: local […]

Here are 5 targets for the levelling-up white paper

This next white paper is critically important. Ministers must focus on the right measures, writes Naomi Clayton The long-awaited levelling-up white paper is due to be published this month. Michael Gove, leading on the levelling-up agenda, has called it the “defining mission of this government”. But with few details, many are struggling to understand what […]

From the European Social Fund to Shared Prosperity Fund: ‘It’s a shambles’

Billions of pounds have poured into skills and education projects through the European Social Fund. Its replacement, the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, is set to go live in 2022 ̶ but is it ready? “That money was an absolute lifeline, especially through the pandemic,” says Nickala Torkington, managing director of a not-for-profit which skills up […]