Nick Bennet Guest Speaker for Andy 06/03/12

On the 6th of March, Nick Bennet came into out lecture hall to speak to us as a guest Lecturer. An overview of further education in Wales.

Nick Bennet spoke to us in our lecture about further eduation. He explained to us the basics like who runs it? Local education council and board of governors

How is it funded? Welsh Government (DOFS)

What is it for? To support industry, economy, second chances, financial support and WBL.

The Welsh Government has two major functions;
1. Underpinning Social Justice
- Widening access
- Second chances
- Cultural awareness
- Financial support
2. Supporting the Economy
- Qualifications
- Entrepreneurship
- Work based learning
- Business generation
- Employer engagement

66% of post 16 learners are in Further Education Colleges, and there are twice as many 16-19 year olds in college than school. He also spoke to us about the aim of the Welsh Governments Programme. Improving financial standards for lower incomhe households was one of the main points. Offering work based learning and apprenticshipos for young paeople and evaluating current post 16 basic skills activitys was another. The government is also trying to improve FE by giving children EMA who need it. Students can get up to £30 a week every two weeks, it helps students afetr leaving schools, who want to further their education in colleges. This however will soon be affected as university tution fees are set to go up, and could cost up to £9000 a year for students depending on your university and course. Mr Bennett also said that in 1979 there were 40 colleges and today in 2012 there are only 17 colleges, this is because they have merged together creating bigger and better places for HE. Considering all this, there are statistics that show that college's are performing at a higher level than they years ago and more people are attending colleges to get a higher qualification and achieve better opportunities to get a job or move onto universities.
I really enjoyed Mr Bennets speech, in college i recieved EMA and it really helped me in my college years, it was nice to find out more about colleges and schools to have a better insight.