Many things happen by accident. You can spill your tea by accident, you can whack someone in the face with your backpack on the bus by accident (if you’re tall enough). But cuts to further education budgets are most definitely not “an accident”, says Robert Halfon, chair of the Commons Education Select Committee.
Speaking in the Commons earlier this week, the Conservative MP called for further education to be better funded and said that the current national funding formula was in need of reform. “I hope the House will forgive me if I take this opportunity to give my strongest support to the plight of further education, which has for far too long been the poor relation between secondary and higher education,” the former skills minister said. “By 2020, we will be spending the same amount in real terms to educate and train 16- to 18-year-olds as we were in 1990.
“I was shocked to discover that this was not an accident of history but, in fact, the result of a conscious policy choice almost a decade ago. FE is a great example of why a national funding formula in and of itself is not a panacea: without there being enough money to go around, it doesn’t matter.”
Emma Reynolds, Labour MP for Wolverhampton North East, echoed Mr Halfon, citing a report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies showing that FE has faced the largest cuts of any area of education.
She said: “I really think we need to look again at the funding for these colleges because I know there are many of my constituents who may not want to stay at school and may want to study a more vocational subject at college.”
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, Conservative MP for The Cotswolds, told the House that Cirencester College has had to cut subjects and mental health support because of the lower funding formula for 16- to 18-year-olds.
