Education and skills policies have fashions just like anything else.
Currently, the trend is to consider post-compulsory education (something that could cover higher and further education, apprenticeships, adult skills, work skills, prison education, and all kinds of related innovations) as a single sector.
The benefits this brings the learner could potentially include an easier way to understand and access what is on offer, and the ability to switch between what has always been seen as discrete pathways.
Funding – at appropriate levels, at appropriate times, in appropriate ways – is clearly key to this vision. But the other arm of this is planning. It is all very well for a minister or grandee to wave hands and insist the world matches up to the idea they are promulgating – a lot of technical and values-based decisions need to be made to make it happen.
