The further education sector has suffered swingeing cuts, more so than any other Education Sector. It is a national scandal that 40 per cent of the adult education budget has been cut in the past decade. One million ESOL student places have gone in the same time period. In the last five years 24,000 jobs have also gone, and wages have been cut by 25 per cent. Those remaining in the sector are facing workloads that have skyrocketed as student numbers stay the same, yet teaching posts diminish.

As general secretary I would make it UCU’s priority to end the historic underfunding of further, adult and prison education. In my FE manifesto I have put forward concrete steps that would begin to address the crisis that the sector faces.

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Clear funding commitments

If elected I would campaign for the end of incorporation. Severing colleges from local government control in 1993 ushered in the marketisation of the sector, and all of the problems that are associated with this act. 

We cannot leave education to the marketplace. The sector needs proper longer-term planning.  There should be clear funding commitments to further education provision over a 10-year period, not the stop-start approach currently adopted.

Students attending FE are some of the poorest and most vulnerable in society. Colleges are the main provider of post-16 learning for students with learning difficulties and/or disabilities. Recent figures show that 400,000 students declared themselves as having a learning difficulty and/or disability.

While 15 per cent of FE students are from black or ethnic minority backgrounds only 6 per cent of the FE workforce comes from a black or ethnic minority background, and scandalously only 2 per cent are principals. This has to change if colleges are to truly represent and meet our students’ and staffs’ needs. 

I will work for a thorough trade union, management and student audit of all colleges to ensure that they are fully compliant with the latest disability legislation. Trade unions, management and students have to monitor colleges to ensure that they are compliant with The Gender Recognition Act, The Race Relations Amendment Act, The Age Discrimination Regulations and the 2010 Equality Act ensuring that discrimination and bullying in workplaces is stamped out and positive duties are set.

The abolition of EMA and the adult learning grant must be reversed and it is something I will also be demanding of any future government.

The government’s apprenticeship strategy is in tatters, its target to create 3 million apprenticeships by 2020 will not be met. What they have put forward is at best short-term skills courses. We need real apprenticeships, which have wider learning experiences as an integral part of a vocational curriculum; our students need to learn about their rights, the role of trade unions, citizenship, discrimination, participating in democracy and environmental issues. This is an issue I am passionate about and on which I have campaigned.

For the sector to thrive, those who work within it must be properly rewarded with decent pay and conditions. Standing in front of a classroom for 23 hours, or in many cases more, per week is not conducive to staff or students. I will lead UCU in campaigning for a reduction in teaching hours: to be no more than 19 hours per week.  

Lecturers should be entitled to paid sabbatical every 7 years, and paid to do peer observations, mentoring and professional training. Unlike most other post 16 education sectors currently, they are not.

The scourge of precarious employment in FE is rife. As GS I will put forward the case for colleges to commit to a rolling programme of fractionalisation, which aims to convert all regularly employed hourly paid staff to salaried employees over a two-year period.

To be able to make these demands a reality we will need more action at a local and national level, and effectively supported branches to be able to organise these campaigns and sustain them.

It has been inspiring to see the incredibly successful pay+ campaigns that 30 or so colleges have participated in over the last two years. These UCU members have pioneered a strategy that can be a model for us all in UCU. Most have achieved significant success on pay and conditions for members, such as Sandwell, CCCG and Hugh Baird (where I did my access course) colleges.

One of the major successes of fighting locally for increased pay and conditions has been to focus the minds of the employers.  The campaign has put pressure on the AoC and government to increase funding for FE. This has resulted in a more dynamic funding campaign by the AoC itself. The recent debate brought about by a 70,000 strong petition in Parliament on FE funding and had over 50 MPs taking part. So, lots of warm words about FE.

However, it is deeds, not words that count.

To win sustainable levels of funding for the sector we need more branches to enter the nationally coordinated campaigns for pay and conditions. To secure these victories for the long term we must achieve increased government funding for FE, and it is both of these as GS, if elected, I will be prioritising.

Jo McNeill is president of the University of Liverpool UCU branch. She is running to be the next general secretary of the UCU.