Further Education: Coronavirus

(asked on 28th January 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what criteria will be used to determine when to re-open further education colleges during the covid-19 outbreak.


Answered by
Gillian Keegan Portrait
Gillian Keegan
Secretary of State for Education
This question was answered on 4th February 2021

On Wednesday 27 January 2021, the government confirmed that education attendance restrictions should continue post-half term.

This follows my right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister’s announcement on 4 January 2021 of national restrictions and that the position would be kept under review during January, with pupils and young people expected to return to face to face learning at school and college after the February half term at the earliest if the public health data permitted this.

Following an in-depth analysis of both the COVID-19 prevalence data and the data on NHS capacity, it has been concluded that this will not yet be possible, and that school and college attendance must continue to be limited to help support the reduction in the overall number of social contacts in communities.

Further education (FE) providers will remain open for onsite attendance to vulnerable students, the children of critical workers and a small number of FE students and apprentices who would otherwise be completing their courses or apprenticeships in January, February or March 2021, where it is not possible for their training or assessment to be completed remotely. This includes:

  • Those who are due to do a licence to practise, or other occupational competence, assessment in January, February or March 2021.
  • Those training for some critical worker roles, for example engineering, health and social care, manufacturing technologies, nursing and subjects and vocations allied to medicine, transportation operations and maintenance, agriculture, education and training and building and construction (where this is connected to utilities and communications) that are due to complete in the next 3 months.

The decision to continue restricting attendance does not suggest that schools and colleges have become significantly less safe places for young people. Instead, limiting attendance is about continuing to support the reduction in the overall number of social contacts in our communities. This is a vital intervention in the context of a current stubbornly high prevalence of COVID-19.

When Parliament returns from recess in the week commencing 22 February 2021, we intend to set out the results of our review and publish our plan for taking the country out of lockdown. We will continue to review restrictions in education and will ensure that remaining students and apprentices return to face-to-face education as soon as possible.

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