Last week the apprenticeship levy was introduced (Report, 4 April) and, though challenges remain (for example, ensuring employers make the best use of levy funds and young people have access to the high-quality apprenticeships they deserve), this was a significant moment. For years professional and technical education has been a poor relation of academic study; it’s welcome that this appears to be changing.
However, there’s a sense of deja vu. We are in a period of huge education policy reform, from grammar schools to T-levels, but we’ve been here before. In our Sense and Instability report we highlighted the constant change the sector has experienced over the past few decades and the damage caused by poor implementation and rushed timescales.
With Britain leaving the EU and skills gaps widening, we urgently need to develop the skills of the next generation. Professional and technical education is well placed for this but must be given the time and resources to succeed. Though the levy will encourage different behaviours among employers, there is still significant work needed to ensure parity of esteem with university education.
We will be watching closely to see that there is sufficient support and funding for key reforms and that they are carried out in consultation with the sector and with the businesses whose backing is crucial.
Kirstie Donnelly
Managing director, City and Guilds
• We should make a crucial addition to your editorial prescription for the Labour party’s primary education proposals (7 April). This is to bring back elements of adult education provision that are now, aside from the noble efforts of the WEA, long gone.
Forty years as an adult education tutor-organiser demonstrated that when women, specifically mothers with young children, were able to return to study and achieve access to further and higher education, their children did the same when they left school.
The research underpinning this now sadly unrecognised progression followed the development of community-based “outreach” learning in South Yorkshire mining communities, provided by Northern College, Barnsley. Since many Labour MPs were able, through similar routes, to progress from working-class communities, might they not be minded to press for the re-introduction of adult education programmes to complement their plans for primary education?
David Browning
Huddersfield, West Yorkshire
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• This article was amended on 10 April 2017. An earlier version misspelled Donnelly as Donnell.
