Oldham Labour Working for residents across Oldham and Saddleworth
I have joined with 92 MPs in backing our Sixth Form Colleges. We all know the value of a good quality education and there has been lots of activity on School Funding, but often further education doesn’t get the attention it deserves.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies reports that education funding for 16 to 18 year olds “has seen the biggest squeeze of all stages of education for young people in recent years”. This is having a serious impact on students.
The underinvestment in sixth form education is bad for students, bad for social mobility and bad for the economy. A central aim of the Industrial Strategy is to help young people to develop the skills they need to do the high-paid, high-skilled jobs of the future.
We have urged the Chancellor to use the spending review to implement the first recommendation in A ten-year plan for school and college funding – the report published by the Education Committee in July – which is to “urgently address underfunding in further education by increasing the base rate from £4,000 to at least £4,760, rising in line with inflation.
You can find out more about the campaign by following the link below https://www.raisetherate.org.uk/