Closures, recruitment struggles and low performance: even Michael Gove who gave university technical colleges the green light while education secretary said they haven’t worked. But, Baker Dearing Trust chief executive Simon Connell tells Billy Camden things are looking up – with new ones on the horizon and plans afoot for new ‘UTC sleeves’…
Since their introduction in 2010, university technical colleges have struggled – so much so that Michael Gove, the then education secretary who gave them the green light, said the schools for 14- to 19-year-olds had just not worked out.
The evidence backed that up. In 2017, when Gove delivered his verdict, more than half of UTCs inspected by Ofsted were rated ‘inadequate’ or ‘requires improvement’.
