05.02.20
Further Education to benefit from £24m support package
The Department for Education has today (Feb 5) committed to a multi-million pound investment into Further Education (FE) to recruit train and develop the workforce and boost skills and opportunities in the UK.
Education Secretary Gavin Williams made the announcement today as part of an additional £400m investment into education for 16 to 19-year olds in 2020-21 and the introduction of new T Level qualifications.
Included in the £24m is £11m to deliver bursaries and grants worth up to £26,000 to incentivise talented people to train and teach in FE, with extra emphasis placed on recruiting STEM, English and SEND teachers.
To provide more opportunities to learn technical subjects, £10m of the fund will be for developing the Taking Teaching Further programme, delivered in partnership with the Education and Training Foundation (ETF). The programme supports industry professionals to retrain as FE teachers in their field, such as engineering or computing.
With the remaining £3m, ETF will be delivering a package of high-quality mentor training programmes to support and progress FE teachers.
Education Secretary Gavin Williamson said:
“Our ambitions for a world-beating technical education system can only be achieved if we have outstanding teachers who will inspire the next generation.
“I’ve seen first-hand just how much brilliant work is already going on up and down the country. I want to thank the many thousands of further education teachers doing fantastic jobs and changing lives.
“This investment is a clear signal of the government’s commitment to helping the FE sector to continue to recruit and retain excellent teachers who will help to unlock their students’ full potential.”
In addition to the funding, the government has also announced today that it will be collecting data on the FE workforce every year, starting in the next academic year.
Data collected will help to build a better picture of the FE workforce to ensure the sector is in the best possible position, with knowledge of how policy reform affects the staff and gaps and strengths in skills.