Rethink on skills funding cuts needed

A 24 per cent cut to skills funding is ‘an act of wilful vandalism that will decimate further education’.

The University and College Union, UCU, has warned that cuts of up to a quarter in funding for adult learning courses risk decimating further education provision and leaving millions of the most vulnerable adults without access to any opportunity to improve their education.

And analysis by the Women’s Budget Group has found that cuts to further education, particularly to adult community learning and ESOL, have a disproportionate impact on women.

The union’s warning is a response to the Skills Funding Letter 2015-16, which has outlined that £770m of adult skills funding for 2015-16 will be set aside for apprenticeships.

This means that the bulk of the overall 11 per cent cut to the Adult Skills Budget will fall on non-apprenticeship provision; and the Skills Funding Agency has estimated that this could amount to cuts of up to 24 per cent for non-apprenticeship learning in 2015-16.

The UCU said that these cuts would hit vulnerable learners hardest, with millions of people who missed out on qualifications at school or those who need to retrain missing out if the cuts go ahead in 2015/16.

The University and College Union (UCU) represents more than 120,000 academics, lecturers, trainers, instructors, researchers, managers, administrators, computer staff, librarians and postgraduates in universities, colleges, prisons, adult education and training organisations throughout the UK.

It was formed in 2006 on the amalgamation of two strong partners – the Association of University Teachers (AUT) and NATFHE – the University & College Lecturers’ Union – who had shared a long history of defending and advancing educators’ employment and professional interests.

Sally Hunt, the UCU’s general secretary, said: ‘This latest announcement is an act of wilful vandalism that will decimate further education as we know it today.

‘Millions of people use colleges every year as a springboard to improving their education and skills, and cuts of this size will shut the door on those who need us most.

‘The government’s myopic obsession with apprenticeships at the expense of everything else risks leaving many types of courses unsustainable, and UCU calls upon all those who care about further education to join us in fighting these appalling cuts.’

Please support – sign – the UCU’s petition to save Further Education.