October 8th - the Functional Skills
newsletter
This week’s Functional Skills
newsletter has a summary of the main political parties’ education policy as
related to 16-25 year olds plus news of more funding for traineeships.
Closer to home, the results of the
Functional Skills Annual Survey are now in with an amazing response rate of
more than 400! The Wednesday webinar will focus on the top level findings
and as always will be recorded with links provided in future newsletters.
As always, we aim to send this
newsletter out every two weeks, your comments and thoughts are always
appreciated - let us know what you'd like us to cover in the newsletter by
emailing the editor - jwells@guroo.co.uk
Policy statements
With the main political conference
season just recently closed, it's worth having a little look at the main
policies being put forward.
The Conservatives majored on "Earning or Learning"
with a threat to remove welfare benefits for 1 million young adults under 25
who are not in Education, Training or Employment. In his speech, David Cameron
said "It’s time for bold
action here. We should ask, as we write our next manifesto, if that option
should really exist at all. Instead, we should give young people a clear,
positive choice: go to school. Go to college. Do an apprenticeship. Get a job.
But just choose the dole? We’ve got to offer them something better than
that."
The Labour Party promised to implement "many of the recommendations from the independent
Skills Taskforce in particular improving vocational learning in FE and adopting
a benchmark in apprenticeships of L3." The Pearson think tank
has a great summary of all three parties position.
The Lib Dems policy adopted by conference includes support for traineeships "For those with no work experience, we support the
introduction of six month traineeships which combine structured job
search, continuing English, Maths and ICT support for those who need it
and work experience in return for an allowance." and mandatory skills training for 18-24 year olds "It is vital that mandatory skills training
under the new Universal Credit regime is of sufficient duration to allow
unemployed younger adults to achieve qualifications up to full Level 3
qualifications.
More funding for traineeships
As apprenticeships move steadily up the rigour and value chain, there is
lots more focus on the 6 month long traineeships with the latest announcement a
very interesting one as it applies solely to 19-23 year olds.
An extra £20m of funding has been allocated to the traineeship programme
that offers workplace experience alongside Functional Skills in English &
maths plus employability training.
Wednesday Webinar at 4.00pm
"The Functional Skills Annual
Survey" is Wednesday's webinar with Jonathan Wells, on Wednesday 9th
October at 4pm.
A look at the top level findings of the
summer survey based on more than 400 results. Join us live, but we record
every session as we know that many more people enjoy coming back for the
recording afterwards, so if you want to join or just want to watch the
recording, just drop an email to info@guroo.co.uk
Join us on Wednesday 9th October at
4pm.
All previous webinars are recorded and
available anytime for playback - login as a guest and the password is password.
Simply click on the links below and don’t forget, if you’d like to have your
own 1:1 webinar looking at how Guroo can help you support Functional Skills,
just call us on 0191 305 5045 or email info@guroo.co.uk and we’ll take it from there.
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