Call for Evidence

The further education sector is currently navigating a series of reforms and challenges. The Curriculum and Assessment Review group will publish its recommendations later in the year, including on what the Government describes as the ‘ceilings to achievement’ built into post-16 education. Meanwhile, the Government has said it will transform further education colleges into specialist Technical Excellence Colleges and replace the Apprenticeships Levy with the new Growth and Skills Levy.

Yet the sector has undergone real-term funding cuts in recent years and, as the Committee recently heard, students and teachers have faced uncertainty over which qualifications will be available to them in the coming years. The Education Committee will explore these issues and other pressures currently facing the further education sector, including the pay gap between school and college teachers, maths and English GCSE resits, students’ mental health.

The Government has also established Skills England in order to address the country’s skills shortages and shape the technical education pathways necessary to respond to the skills needs. The Committee will assess the work of Skills England and the Government’s response to the skills crisis more broadly. It will also consider how the entire further education system could better equip young people with the technical skills and qualifications they need for a range of sectors experiencing labour shortages, whilst offering parity of esteem with more academic post-16 education routes.

In this inquiry, the Education Committee will examine the issues that matter most to students, teachers, parents, school and college leaders, and employers. The Committee is solutions-focused and would therefore like to hear not only what those issues are but how they can be resolved.

Terms of reference

The Committee welcomes evidence on the following points.

Curriculum and qualifications in further education

• The post-16 curriculum.
• The assessment system.
• Driving better standards in further education; the quality and consistency of provision and outcomes.
• Post-16 numeracy and literacy, including GCSE resits.
• The strengths and weaknesses of T Levels as the main qualification option for students wishing to pursue a technical route into further education.
• The reform of level 3 qualifications.

Delivering further education

• Funding for further education, including whether the additional £300 million announced by the Chancellor in last year's Budget is sufficient and how it should be distributed.
• The effectiveness of current funding arrangements in tackling the attainment gap in further education.
• Workforce pressures, including college teachers’ pay and the recruitment and retention of staff in all further education settings.
• Funding arrangements for specialist colleges.
• Quality of facilities and capital investment strategy.

Skills and apprenticeships

• How to resolve the skills shortage and narrow the gap between the skills that employers want and the skills that employees have.
• The level of collaboration between the further education sector, local government and employers in responding to the skills shortage.
• The role of Skills England in meeting the Government's industrial strategy and boosting economic growth.
• Current challenges for apprenticeships, including employer engagement, funding issues, and apprentice pay.
• The role of devolution in addressing regional skills needs and apprenticeships.
• The quality and availability of work placements within vocational courses.

Supporting young people, widening access, and narrowing the attainment gap

• The difficulties facing further education students, including mental health issues and access to mental health support, and cost of living pressures.
• The specific barriers to accessing and pursuing further education for those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), and children and young people in care across specialist and mainstream settings.
• Access to higher education, other qualification levels, and employment; career and course guidance.
• Disparity in attainment, including by gender, area of the country in which a student lives, ethnicity, and between disadvantaged students and their peers.

The deadline for receiving written submissions has now been extended to Friday 14 March at 6pm.

Important information about making a submission 

The content of your written evidence should not stray beyond the terms of reference as set out above, but please note that your submission does not have to address every point. Guidance on giving evidence to a select committee of the House of Commons is available here. 

Individual cases 

In line with the general practice of select committees the Education Committee is not able to take up individual cases. If you would like political support or advice you may wish to contact your local Member of Parliament.

How your submission will be treated  

The Committee has discretion over which submissions it accepts as evidence, and which of those it then publishes on its website. If your submission is accepted by the Committee, it will usually be published online. It will then be available permanently for anyone to view and may be found online by using search engines. It cannot be changed or removed. If you have included your name or any personal information in your submission, those details will normally be published too. Please consider how much personal information you want or need to share. Your contact details will not be published.