Currently Further education in the UK is going through many changes. One of the main changes that has happened this year is lack of funding that FE sector has and this has affected many of courses being run within individual colleges. It has also affected the number of staff, colleges are able to employ and many in the FE sector have faced job cuts and have been at risk of being made redundant .
Working within a few different FE colleges in different areas of London including Havering, Kensington and Chelsea and Newham it has been interesting to see how the mentality of 16-19 years olds in theses colleges differ from those in school sixth forms. Young people in colleges doing Alevels seemed to have a more relaxed attitude towards applying to university and some of them didn't have a proper university plan in place. The contrast for these in school sixth forms is teachers take it as a responsibility to help prepare their Alevel students for the university journey and go through the UCAS process with them at length.
Further education colleges have a vast array of different courses which range from Alevels to vocational and work based learning courses. For example hairdressing, catering, travel and tourism, business etc. Some students who aren't able to get on to Alevels do a level 2 courses which is a 1 year course and after which do a level 3 course a two year course which is equivalent to 2 Alevels. The pattern I saw emerging with many of these students is alot of these students needed a college place and some of them were not actually interested or driven by the subject they picked so what happens then. This applied mainly to subjects like Business,Sports, and Hospitality. Were perhaps the career route seemed more open then subjects Beauty, Catering and Fashion. So why are students sometimes on these courses where there is no future aspirations for them in that field and what can be done about this. Is the need to fill college spaces greater then the aspirations of a young person and how will this affect their future?
As I have mentioned in my previous blogs unempolyment is high in the UK especially for those who are aged 16-25. If the economy is suffering then this age group should have a clearer vision of where they want to be. I am not just talking about being advised my careers advisers but people they are inspired by teachers, parents etc. One of the colleges I worked in had a really good careers team who did progression interviews with the young people a few months before they left the college. This allowed them to see if students would stay at the college or go else where. If they had other plans they could sometimes discuss with them if they already had a college or university place etc. This in theory allows colleges to help prevent the numbers current Neets emerging. This also gives young people some of the structure they need if they want to survive in this current economic climate.
A good website to look at if you are interested into looking at the current changes of Further Education sector is www.http://www.fenews.co.uk/. This website gives a comprehensive overview of what the government is doing within this sector.
So what is the future for FE students only time will tell. The FE sector for me personally is becoming more vocationally based espeically for young people which leads me to think that those who who will contuine to seek FE in the future will want to do more vocational careers only and those who want to go university will go onto do Alevels. A divide not only in the form of learning for students but a major divide in the social spectrum of this country too.
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