Today's news review looks at the Technical and Further Education Bill which was published in Parliament yesterday.
Technical and Further Education Bill
On Thursday (27 October) the Department published a new bill in parliament – the Technical and Further Education Bill. This will strengthen the quality of technical and further education for young people and builds on the progress already made by investing in high-quality apprenticeships.
The proposals set out include the following:
- Boosting technical education to make sure it is high quality and responds to employer needs
- A new insolvency regime to protect the interests of students
- Focus on good quality technical education and information sharing between colleges and local authorities
This new bill sits alongside the Children and Social Work Bill, the Higher Education and Research Bill and our consultation on creating more school places, ‘Schools that work for everyone’.
Beyond this, we do not require wider education legislation to progress our plans for an education system that works for everyone. This includes legislation for ‘underperforming’ or ‘unviable’ local authorities to be required to convert to academies.
The story was covered in BBC News, The Independent, The Mirror, Schools Week, The Guardian and TES. There are supportive comments from Russell Hobby, general secretary of NAHT and Councillor Richard Watts, chair of the LGA’s children and young people board.
A Department for Education spokesperson said:
We are raising standards across the system to ensure every child, not just the privileged few, receives an excellent education. Our ambition remains for all schools to benefit from the freedom and autonomy that academy status brings but, as the previous Education Secretary made clear in May, legislation to force all schools to become academies is no longer needed.
As we continue to require failing schools to become academies so they can benefit from the support of a strong sponsor, there is no current need for legislation to require the same for all maintained schools in underperforming or unviable local authorities.
Our focus is on social reform and creating more good school places, something we are taking forward with our ‘Schools that work for everyone’ consultation.
To find out more about the Technical and Further Education Bill please see here.