Education: Further Education Colleges

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Tuesday 9th October 2012 Grand Committee

[Baroness Brinton]

My Lords, I also pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, for securing today’s debate, but she has done much more than that. She has championed the sector for decades, and her most recent role, as chair of the independent commission, has shown how she really understands what the sector already does and what it, government and employers need to do in the future.

Our further education colleges are the hidden gem of our education system: the breadth of teaching and learning that they cover, the large and varied number of students that attend, and—key for today’s debate—the importance and relevance for our local economies and communities. The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, spoke about the strategic position of further education in the UK today. With only a brief time to speak, I want to focus on how FE colleges work within specific sectors.

If our universities are sometimes described as the brains trust of Britain, the FE colleges are certainly the engine room that provides people with the right skills at the heart of the economy. My young hairdresser, Harry, went to West Herts College at 16 and for three days a week was apprenticed to a salon which worked closely with the college. Three years on, he is a confident and skilled hairdresser who has benefited from both arrangements. He is now employed by the same salon, which has been delighted with him. The key has been the partnership between student, employer and FE college, with the college as the dynamic nucleus to which the commission refers. His route is one that we might expect—the bedrock of providing key skills for all local economies, whether in hairdressing, plumbing, catering or construction.

I also want to applaud the teaching and learning for more specialist sectors. For example, in Dundee, over the past few years a real economy in digital technology has emerged, quite specifically in digital games. Forget Pac-Man, we are talking about the dark arts of highly complex technical computing skills as well as artistic and performance art. Working with local, usually very small, creative companies, Dundee College has developed a number of courses at varying levels to help provide this growing and increasingly profitable sector with trained staff. That includes using professional standard facilities, providing good practice-based skills for essential entry-level technician jobs, while at the same time preparing students well for moving on to honours level work right at the cutting edge of technology and creativity.

Dundee College also links into the highly effective Scottish Creative Loop, and Skillset, the sector skills council for the creative arts, to give employers and students the best information and support. This is happening not just in Scotland, nor just in the creative sector. Whether it is specialist healthcare pathways, heritage construction skills or skills for the financial sector—wherever you look—many of our FE colleges are playing an essential role in providing the new specialist skills needed for UK plc to grow out of the recession.

I agree with my noble friend Lady Sharp that FE colleges need to be represented on local area and economic partnerships as well as work closely with sector skills councils. They certainly need more flexibility with funding routes. My one regret is that the message is not always known, even by funding bodies and government agencies, let alone by many employers. While the burden to celebrate and develop this excellence rightly remains with the FE sector, let us help them sing it from the rooftops because it is key to our country’s future.