Responding to the Department for Education's announcement on Technical Excellence Colleges

Date:

12 08 2025

Authors:

Stephen Evans

Tagged by:

Lifelong Learning

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Responding to the Department for Education's announcement on Technical Excellence Colleges on 12 August 2025, Stephen Evans, Chief Executive of Learning and Work Institute (L&W), said:
New funding to support construction training in ten colleges in England is welcome. But it comes alongside cuts to other funding like the Adult Skills Fund and Shared Prosperity Fund. Overall investment in skills is still £1 billion lower in real terms than in 2010 so this can only realistically make a modest difference. It does, however, show the Government plans to take a more active approach directing funding to sectors it sees as a priority, with similar sector plans likely. In doing so it should also look at how to increase employers' investment in training too, given this has fallen 36% per worker since 2005.
These numbers also mask substantial inequalities within construction. Women account for only 10 per cent of starts in construction apprenticeships so far this year, compared to 51 per cent of apprenticeships overall. In addition, this year only 9 per cent of construction starts are by individuals from minority ethnic backgrounds, with particularly big disparities for apprentices from black or Asian backgrounds. The following years therefore present a unique opportunity to not only further boost apprenticeship numbers in the construction sector, but to expand their reach to wider groups. The new Government should work with employers and providers to seize this.

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