Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what support her Department can provide to establish a technical college in north Dorset.

The area of north Dorset is well served by four neighbouring further education (FE) colleges and a range of independent training providers, who provide a broad range of technical and vocation provision.

The department invited applications from general FE colleges to become one of ten construction technical excellence colleges (CTECs). The window for applications closed on 4 July. With one CTEC to be appointed in each region, these colleges will be the first to achieve TEC status, playing a pivotal role in shaping the wider programme and supporting regional providers to meet critical skills needs through a ‘hub and spoke’ model.

The UK's modern Industrial Strategy confirmed that we will be expanding the TECs programme to address shortages in engineering, which is critical to developing the skills needed in priority sectors including Advanced Manufacturing, Clean Energy Industries and Digital and Technologies. The government will also establish defence technical excellence colleges, provide funding for courses for defence-related skills and invest in cutting-edge university facilities to increase the pipeline of talent into the defence sector.