Read Graham Hoyle’s Memories of a Year of Change Exclusively at

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January is well and truly begun, and with it the same issues that have confronted the Further Education sector in 2005 return with the melting of what snow there was.

One digit may have changed on the cheques and the bank statements that are loved and loathed respectively, but the challenges faced for skills in Britain remain. The Leitch Review ““ to be published later this year ““ is expected to elaborate upon the road ahead for skills, with the long term view of creating a workforce with competitive skills in the global economy for 2020. All of us at FE News are delighted that Graham Hoyle, Chief Executive of the Association of Learning Providers (ALP), has agreed to respond to questions on his thoughts about 2005.

Developments

Question: “What was the most significant development for FE in your opinion in 2005?”

Graham Hoyle: “Sir Andrew Foster’s recommendation in his Review of Further Education that the principle of contestability should be applied to all Learning and Skills Council (LSC) funded programmes is a major step forward in the delivery of the Government’s national skills strategy.

“He said that further education and training programmes should be opened up to the providers best able to deliver, irrespective of whether they are from the public, private or voluntary sector. The LSC is implementing contestability to the new “Train to Gain” programme for employers and ALP wants to see its introduction to other programmes as soon as possible.”

Neglect and Pride

Question: “What was the area of FE that you feel was neglected in 2005?”

Graham Hoyle: “The ALP believes that a valuable opportunity to target employers more with the Skills for Life programme is currently being missed. The programme enables adults to improve their literacy and numeracy skills and the Adult Learning Inspectorate has found that the limited amount of Skills for Life provision in the workplace has been particularly effective.

“We would like to see providers given encouragement to target employers more widely so that their workers can benefit from acquiring these vital basic skills.”

Question: “What has been your proudest moment of 2005?”

Graham Hoyle: “Our lobbying to secure funding to meet both the demand for apprenticeships and the costs of a continual increase in the rate of apprenticeship completions secured work based learning providers an additional £38 million from the LSC.”

All of us at FE News would like to take this opportunity to thank Mr. Hoyle and the ALP for their contribution and wish them well for 2006.

Jethro Marsh

Read Graham Hoyle’s thoughts on 2006 exclusively here at FE News!

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