We all know what it’s like to try to focus at work when you just aren’t feeling quite right, or when there are private troubles clouding your mind. Imagine that the problem isn’t a summer cold or too little sleep but hunger. There is simply no food in your home. And there wasn’t any yesterday, either. In one of the wealthiest countries in the world, it is difficult to believe that this is a reality for thousands every day.
A recent report revealed that one in 20 people aged 15 and over struggles to get enough food. One in 20. It is no surprise, therefore, that food poverty affects a significant proportion of college students.
There’s hardly a member of college staff who can’t tell a heartbreaking story of a student struggling to make ends meet. A student missing class because they have to work. A student who cannot get the money together to travel to college. Even, in some cases, a student passing out from hunger.
FE cares about its learners
And so colleges - in the way they always do - are stepping in. The annual survey of college leaders by the Association of Colleges, in partnership with Tes, reveals that one in eight colleges has a food bank on site. And almost nine in 10 have a support scheme in place for students who hit rock bottom.
This should not be up to colleges. There is fundamental societal failure occurring when it is left to further education institutions to feed their students. The government ought to make tackling this a priority if we are to have any hope of it delivering on its other plans, including plugging skills gaps.
But this sad reality also highlights the very best of FE. It remains, at its heart, a sector that cares about its learners. Where an individual student matters enough for staff to put money on their ID card for lunch. Where the stories of the students who make it against the odds stay with staff for years - and the stories of those who don’t haunt them forever. Let’s not forget how much good there is in FE. It is something the sector can be rightly proud of.
@JBelgutay
