It is rare for a prime minister to spend time talking about post-16 education from the stage at a Conservative party conference and there was a lot for FE to welcome in Rishi Sunak’s speech on Wednesday.
His plan for a new Advanced British Standard involves increased funding for up to 195 more post-16 teaching hours per student, tax-free bonuses to a maximum of £30,000 for lecturers in key subjects, and education becoming “the priority of every spending review from now on”.
On the face of it, the new qualification, reminiscent in ambition (if not detail) of recommendations made by the Tomlinson report in 2004, is a positive shift towards the ever-elusive parity of esteem between academic and technical education.
However, given the dire state of polling for the Conservative party and the fact that the new qualification has an anticipated gestation period of a decade, many commentators suggest that, like Tomlinson’s diploma, it will never see the light of day.
