Shake up to be shipped out

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 29 June 2007 07:01:43

Ok, so Gordon Brown is prime minister and all I can think about is this . However, on a serious note his splitting of the DFES has confirmed what many have long suspected that as far as the government is concerned Level 3 academic qualifications (i.e. AS / A Levels) don't belong in FE colleges.

As I understand it the remit for the qualifications we teach will lie within one department whilst the organisation controlling the funding and running of our insitutions will lie in another. This is a recipie for disaster and shows the lack of understanding that Whitehall has about the nature of FE and the role it has within the education system.

It is interesting that the BBC has this article stating that over half of the key leaders in this country were privately educated. It shows that their wholesale distruction of a vital resource comes not through a conspiracy to wipe us out but rather through no understanding of our role as it is beyond their life experience (they hear we exist but we are so alien to them that they can't get their heads round us).

The DfES wasn't perfect but it did it's job. In this case it appears going for a more joined up approach is probably going to just move the gaps so different people fall through the system in different ways at different ages. If I sound a tad bitter and cynical I am but on a positive note it's only because I care about the customers I provide a service for ;)