FE support from Chancellor welcome but narrow
24th October 2021
Today's announcement on extra funding for Further Education is a welcome start but only addresses a small part of what the sector needs, says City College Norwich Principal Corrienne Peasgood OBE.
City College Norwich welcomes the announcement from the Chancellor today of some targeted investment into Colleges and Skills in this week’s Budget.
As one of the first College’s nationally to offer the new T Levels, we’ve been at the forefront of developing these new qualifications and welcome the additional funding announced, which is required to ensure they are a success.
However, only a small percentage of City College Norwich students currently study these qualifications (3% currently) and it is disappointing the Chancellor has not taken the opportunity to increase funding for all young people’s programmes through increasing the core funding of colleges.
It is particularly disappointing that he has not chosen to address the funding reduction applied to 18 year olds at Colleges, which sees them funded at 17.5% less on their programmes than other young people on the same course simply due to their age. This impacts 660 18 year olds at CCN, meaning that the College loses around £0.5m worth of funding that we would use to support their studies.
Supporting adults within our communities to retrain and upskill and helping employers take on more apprentices are important areas of priority for the College. We therefore look forward to receiving more details on how the funding announced today will reverse the decade long decline in Adult Learning and the more recent significant decline in Apprenticeship opportunities for young people.
We will continue to work with the Association of Colleges and other Colleges to make the case that sustained and long-term investment in Colleges and all their students, is an investment in the future prosperity and success of our economy and our wider society and without it, “Levelling up” will not be possible.