The FT has reported this today:
The UK Department for Education has announced a last-minute cut in funding to pay for additional students at further education colleges in England this year, in another sign of looming budget squeezes across Whitehall.
Colleges will now receive only two-thirds of a top-up payment to their budgets that had been promised by the government at the start of the academic year in August, leaving principals to face tough financial choices in an already cash-strapped sector.
I think FE colleges are really important and a key component in our education system, especially for those on non-academic pathways to lives of value.
The government does, however, treat these people with contempt: no doubt Tony Blair has told them these are the people whose functions AI will sweep aside, hence the cuts.
A bigger question occurs to me though. What else is it that our obnoxiously neoliberal government is doing under the cover of the current Trump-created chaos that will deliver long-term harm to all of us in the UK?
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Yes, HE Colleges churning out Carpenters, Plumbers, Electricians, Mechanics, Hairdressers/barbers etc etc
I really dont understand why we bother funding these places
In a few decades we will have newly graduated PPE’s from Oxford looking like Rasputin as they cant get a haircut having to walk to London because the Railways/bus’s/cars wont work any more due to nobody to maintain them and picking up Typhoid as the plumbing no longer works.
One of the problems with FE colleges is that the decline in manufacturing has left engineering courses stripped bare, apprentices in manufacturing having to travel miles to get industrial based courses, my local FE college electrical Technician courses covering domestic and light commercial electrician training, giving little understanding of three phase power or motors.
The real decline in FE came with privatisation in 1993, as principals realised that engineering, white goods and other electrical courses were expensive. They dumped them for Travel & Tourism and new Mercs and BMWs plus trebled salaries for senior management plus awarding contracts to family firms. Hence the influx of Polish plumbers etc pre Brexit. Academy chains are copying this template BTW.
FE colleges deliver far more than just technical courses. Many provide most of the 6th form education in their catchment area, they have large art and design departments, provide provision for those with special needs, have drama departments, run evening classes, and so on.
In addition many of the students have been failed by their schools, especially if it was an academy, and need a lot of individual attention in order for them to develop both their learning and interpersonal skills.
And all this is delivered by a thoroughly undervalued and demoralised workforce forced to endure conditions which damage their health, whilst management hacks and corrupt principals pay the fat salaries plus perks.
BTW, I used to teach in FE, it was my vocation in life. But I ultimately had no option other than to take early retirement in 1998. It’s got considerably worse since then.
I think FE is better than most 6th forms.
What ever neoliberalism wants, the government is doing.
It began with Thatcher, and continued with all the parties to this day.
The only exception may have been Corbyn, but the neoliberals dealt with him too.
Recommended reads:
The Invisible Doctrine – George Monbiot
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/455534/the-invisible-doctrine-by-hutchison-george-monbiot-and-peter/9781802062694
The Racket – Matt Kennard (2nd ed)
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/racket-9781350422711/
Thanks
Yet again a lack of joined-up thinking. Amongst other important roles, FE colleges are where we train the bricklayers, electricians, plumbers and carpenters needed to build the houses that Labour claims to want built. ♂️
Thank you, Kim.
I think it was Blair who popularised the term joined up thinking, not that his government was that good at it.
At the same time as the government is cutting the education budget and reviving Theresa May’s hostile environment, aided and abetted by the BBC, the Foreign Office has sent delegations to Asia and Africa in search of students for British universities. British high commissioners and ambassadors make opening remarks and complain about the fall in overseas student numbers before handing over to the mission leads and education professionals. Attendees are too polite to explain why there’s a fall, even a boycott.
I know three senior diplomats. One is a true believer. The other two say they just go through the motions. One, a non believer, will soon retire and stay where posted. The sibling of the soon to retire envoy migrated to the land of ancestors a couple of years ago. They are from Surrey.
I detect the young Ewen Blair behind this. Blair’s firm, Multiverse, counts the Sunak family investment firm as an investor. They are friends.
Just as I turn 60, I expect that I will not get my free prescriptions. I’ve been on prescribed anti-coagulants since 1994. Having just seen my water bill go up just over £100 I am sort of giving up on trying to keep ahead. It’s just impossible. So, I will have to delay retirement I think, like many people I know who daren’t retire for one reason or another. And I’m going to be spending even less on discretionary spending.
What is worse is that Laboured has spoken about getting people off benefits, but now its cutting educational opportunities!! That does not add up at all.
I have lost patience with this bullshit a long time ago. I’m convinced that the people running the show here do not have a clue about what they are doing. They have no idea on their large salaries and perks what real life is like. Our politicians are becoming an enemy to me and my life.
But I know who is responsible and it is not immigrants, Muslims or Jews or whoever else is getting the blame.
Yep, 73 and still working part-time because I have to, general expenditure alone barely met by state and teachers pension anymore. The future is a little bleak.
Thank you, John.
One can see why so many Britons and French escape to their former colonies for the winter, if not retire there.
Last week, French TV featured some of the tens of thousands who drive to Morocco. All said it was due to meagre pensions and their income going further there. It was added that 60k have stayed for good.
It’s the same in Mauritius. There’s no resentment in Mauritius. In Mauritius, grandparents are often joined for a short while by children and / or grandchildren. Some decide to make their lives there.
It’s not always the wealthy who escape the winter.
@PSG wrote: ” I’m convinced that the people running the show here do not have a clue about what they are doing”
They know exactly what they are doing (at least those pulling the strings).
Read: The Racket by Matt Kennard
https://amzn.eu/d/50S0NjA
Thanks
Looking forward to AI repairing my garden wall, then.
Young people have cottoned on. They are going into jobs as electricians or plumbers because they know AI can’t take those jobs.
Sensible.
As a teacher in the Netherlands, whose qualification was garnered here as well, I can guarantee that things are no different here.
That’s not encouraging.
CNN commentator yesterday evening on Trump’s actions so far:
“This is ludicrous! They’re making it up as they go along!”
Same could be said here.
Agreed
On leaving university in the early seventies I decided that I didn’t particularly want a career of any description so ended up do all kinds of things including driving lorries across Europe, working as a sales director, setting up and selling on a CCTV company, running my own scuba diving training company to ending up working for Wiltshire College in my early forties as an Economics and Business Studies Lecturer and then as Head of Department for Sports, Leisure and Public Services. Okay, it’s been twenty years since I resigned and moved on to other things but I clearly remember how pissed off we all were that FE funding always fell far short of what schools got for their six form students, even though we were delivering, not only A-Levels, but the far more interesting, flexible and valuable BTec Nationals. I was extremely proud of the students achievements and would have put any of them up against any six former when it came to getting a job or getting a place at University. Many of the students in my department came out with not only the equivalent of 3 A-Levels, but also qualifications in first aid, mountain leadership, canoeing, dinghy sailing, life guarding and rock climbing. FE was always, and clearly still is being undervalued and treated as second class and, even though I left the sector twenty years ago, it still makes me angry!
Much to agree with.
My sons chose an FE college for their sixth forms – and both flourished as never before in the environment it provided that school never had, and both went on to university from there – and did well. I really do believe in FE.
There seems to be no rational plannning of post 16 education.
Schools are now Academies and seem to think they aren’t proper schools without a Sixth form offering Alevels but some of the hard subjects Maths and science don’t have many candidates which makes it hard to attract good teachers, or offer a rounded curiculum.
In my town with have two High Schools and a FE College which is just getting new buildings, a pathfinder project for more energy efficient system built, campus. There is competition for students not a sensible joined up approach.
We desparately need skilled technicians and artisan tradespeople if the country is to flourish and build the homes we need (not just those that provide most profit for house builders; but I digress)
Much to agree with
Perhaps some clues here:
https://europeanpowell.substack.com/p/how-big-tech-invited-by-governments?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app&r=i28j5&utm_medium=email&triedRedirect=true
Not unrelated to this potential land and asset grab by corporations in the UK: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/mar/06/town-hall-leaders-condemn-ill-thought-out-plan-to-merge-english-councils
Thanks
FE colleges are also vital for providing a pathway to Higher Education for older participants through the Access to HE courses. My son dropped out of school aged 17 and was ‘shut in’ at home for 7 years until he was well enough to return to education. He could not study A levels because he was too old and did a one year Access course at a FE college instead. He is now at Sheffield Uni studying politics and sociology. He was the youngest on his course (23yrs). Most of the students had been working in medical/social care roles for many years and were now able to move on to degree courses in Nursing and Social Work because of this qualification. They bring experience, professionalism and dedication to their future careers.
If funding cuts mean that courses like this are dropped it really will be the government shooting itself in the foot.
Much to agree with.
Good luck to your son.