IN BRIEF

Around 1.6 million children in the UK are living in severe poverty, according to Save the Children. The charity, which found the highest levels of child poverty in Manchester and Tower Hamlets, in London, described the figure as a ‘national scandal’. More children would be tipped into poverty by public-sector job losses and changes to benefits, it said.


The proportion of 16 to 24-year-olds not in employment, education or training in England at the end of 2010 was up on previous years, official figures show. A total of 938,000 (15.6 per cent of 16 to 24-year-olds) were in this category in December 2010, the highest final- quarter figure since 2005.


London Mayor Boris Johnson has unveiled a £4 million volunteering fund for the capital. The Team London fund will give grants of up to £10,000 to voluntary sector organisations that want to increase the number of volunteers they use, including a new Mayor’s Mentors programme that will train volunteers to mentor young people.


Hundreds of Oxford and Cambridge academics have expressed alarm over higher education reforms in a letter to universities minister David Willetts. They say universities are being asked to ‘fly blind’ as they move to market-based fees without knowing the full details of the changes.


Library closures could prove catastrophic to University of the Third Age groups, according to U3A chairman Ian Searle. U3A groups are self-funded but they do need ‘a level of infrastructure’, he said, and public libraries were an important part of that. U3A members have reported they will be seriously affected by library closures.

 


Vocational courses are not good enough, says Wolf report
LEARNING FOR WORK
Hundreds of thousands of young people are wasting their time on vocational courses which do not lead to a job or further training, according to a report which calls for a radical shake-up of vocational education in England.


Alison Wolf, Professor of Public Sector Management at King’s College London, who led the government-commissioned review of vocational education for 14 to 19-year-olds, told the BBC’s Today programme that while there are some very good apprenticeships within building and manufacturing, and hairdressers’ training was of a good standard, there was a group of ‘low-level vocational qualifications’ that ‘do not do people any good’.


Her report found that many low-level courses had little or no labour-market value, while between a quarter and a third of 16 to 19-year-olds were on courses that score well on league tables but don’t lead to higher education or paid employment


The report recommends that pupils should study a core of academic subjects until they are 16 and proposes changes to the school league tables so that some vocational qualifications are not counted. It calls for more high-quality apprenticeships for young people aged between 16 and 18, with employers part-subsidised to provide them if they offer wider training.


The report also says it should be made easier for teachers from further education colleges to teach in schools, ensuring young people are taught by those best suited, and recommends changing the way college courses are funded.


Professor Wolf said that the current funding system incentivised colleges to put students through a lot of qualifications, which did not necessarily give them good-quality workplace training. Funding should follow a student, rather than be given to a college for teaching a course, she said. The government will shortly publish a formal response to the review setting out how it will take forward the recommendations.


 


Cable outlines coalition plan for growth
SKILLS FOR GROWTH
 Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills Vince Cable has outlined the government’s agenda for growth and reaffirmed the key role skills will play in delivering it.


Speaking to the City of London at Mansion House on 3 March, Dr Cable expressed frustration at assumptions that the government can guarantee an immediate return to rapid growth, adding that there was no ‘cookery-book recipe’ for growth.


‘Our central task – and mine in particular – is to strengthen a framework in which the private sector can grow the economy out of its current problems,’ he said.


The government’s approach, he said, would combine ‘vigorous, targeted action where the government can make a difference’ and ‘robust and unsentimental withdrawal from unnecessary interference’.


The key areas underlying the vision, he said, were trade and international competitiveness, deregulation and skills. There were clear market failures in the skills system, Dr Cable said, and the government was responding by investing in apprenticeships.


‘A growing economy isn’t just about government getting out of the way,’ he said. ‘Government has a major role even when slimmer and less intrusive.’


That role, he said, included ensuring longer-term clarity to aid infrastructure provision, and investing in skills and cutting-edge innovation.


 


Sir Stuart Etherington, Chief Executive of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO), has called on the government to double the size of the Transition Fund to prevent civil society organisations from going to the wall before statutory funders decide whether to continue contracts.


‘Nearly three-quarters of the funding that our sector receives from the state is in the form of contracts to deliver services,’ he told the NCVO annual conference. ‘It is the state that is dependent on us, for a whole range of services and support that are essential for the wellbeing of people and communities ... which is why the scale and speed of the cuts is of such concern.’


He said that the uncertainty created by the cuts was compounded by another problem unique to the sector – the fact that a third of charities have no reserves, so cannot tide themselves over if statutory funders inform them at the last minute that their contract will not be renewed.


‘That is why I believe the Transition Fund is so important,’ he said, ‘because it will help to ensure that good voluntary organisations do not go to the wall simply because of a pause in contracting. That is why I am calling for it to be doubled’.






A new £33.5 million project will follow 90,000 British children from birth to tell us more about the factors affecting the health and happiness of society, universities minister David Willetts has announced.


In a speech given at the British Academy, Mr Willetts confirmed that the Birth Cohort Facility Project will bring together the UK’s leading portfolio of cohort studies starting in 1946, and include a new birth cohort study starting in 2012. This will involve children and families from all backgrounds across the UK, and is nearly five times bigger than the previous study conducted in 2000.

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