Further Education Institutions Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Education
Adrian Ramsay
Main Page: Adrian Ramsay (Green Party - Waveney Valley)Department Debates - View all Adrian Ramsay's debates with the Department for Education
Further Education Institutions
Adrian Ramsay Excerpts(1 day, 23 hours ago)
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Anna Dixon
I will give way first to the hon. Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello).
Anna Dixon
The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point—I was about to come on to the pay gap between teachers in schools and those in further education colleges. Teachers in further education colleges earn an average of £8,000 a year less than schoolteachers. I was not aware of the gap with higher education, but it is clearly important that there is a level playing field so that they can attract and retain teachers.
Adrian Ramsay
The hon. Lady has now pre-empted my intervention. I wanted to highlight that further education leaders I have spoken to, such as those from Suffolk New college, who run the Halesworth campus in my constituency, have highlighted that £8,000 to £10,000 gap in pay between FE lecturers and secondary education teachers teaching the same subjects. Does the hon. Lady agree that this needs to be addressed in order to tackle the challenge of retaining and recruiting staff?
Anna Dixon
I agree. Closing the gap in pay will be vital, particularly if we look at vocational areas where industry salaries are higher. In construction, engineering and digital, FE teachers earn around 11% less on average than their peers who work in industry. Even when colleges do manage to recruit, they are quickly enticed back to industry, so it is not enough to just ask employers to release their staff to support the teaching of these in-demand skills. How does the Government intend to address the teacher shortages in further education, attract people and offer incentives for businesses to release people?
The final point I will touch on is social mobility.