I was pleased to take questions from colleagues from across the House this afternoon at Education Questions. This is an important part of keeping colleagues up to date with my work as the Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education.
It was good to be able to confirm that the Department for Education is transforming lives in the Further Education sector by ensuring the Ladder of Opportunity is available to every student undertaking courses in Colleges across the country. This includes a £125 million uplift for 16-19 education for 23/24.
Whilst I know that the FE sector has long since been known as the “Cinderella” sector, this Government is introducing reforms to banish the 2 ugly step-sisters of under-resourcing and snobbery. These steps include investing £3.68 billion in skills education this Parliament, investing £500 million per year to deliver vocational qualifications like T Levels whilst announcing a suite of upgrades to FE estates and infrastructure.
Furthermore, as #HolocaustMemorialDay approaches, it was an honour to highlight the importance of the work undertaken by the Holocaust Educational trust to educate our young people. Sadly, there were 128 recorded incidents of antisemitism at Higher Education institutions last year and we must ensure that more is done to prevent this type of awful behaviour.
Similarly, I was shocked & sobered to read the findings of the report into the National Union of Students which found that it was a ‘hostile place’ for Jewish students. This is unacceptable. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating and I expect to see NUS implement the recommendations in full.
It was also important to report to the House of Commons that by 2025, Ofsted will be inspecting all apprenticeship providers. The Department for Education is also also providing more support to students and employers to ensure the quality of apprenticeships remains high. Apprenticeships are a vital part of our educational landscape and are crucial to ensure young people can climb the ladder of opportunity so it is important that we do all we can to ensure apprenticeships remain a high quality pathway.
As such, the Department for Education is working to hard to promote the pathways to apprenticeships. This includes the #GetTheJump campaign, transformative careers advice in schools and colleges and £2,7 billion investment into this sector by 2025.
