Policy and Practice Guest Lecturer - Nick Bennett 6/3/12

This lecture was from Nick Bennett who is the Principal at Gower College, Swansea. The lecture was based on an overview of further education in Wales. Firstly Nick Bennett discussed with us what further education is for, which led to us having two main reasons which were, to underpin social justice and support the economy. Within these reasons we then discussed further reasons which would be included in the two main factors. Which were as follows;

• Underpin social justice
  - widening access
  - second chance at education
  -civic duty
  -financial support
  -community regeneration
  -fulfilment of potential
• Support the Economy
  -employer engagement
  -work-based learning
  -business regeneration
  -international partnership
  -entrepreneurship
  -workforce development

Nick Bennett also talked about how some of these factors would not have been thought of years ago, such as workforce development and work-based learning. These factors would not have been thought of years ago as business' would not have had the opportunities to improve the staff they had and would have just been trained up within the business itself, or the member of staff would have just been sacked and replaced with somebody who could already do the skill required.  'Workforce development involves recruiting, developing and retaining the staff and volunteers needed to help an organisation reach its objectives. Training, qualifications, induction, supervision, appraisals, coaching, mentoring, reading and reflection are all part of ‘workforce development''. NCVCCO(2008). 

He then went on to discuss the Welsh Governments Programme: Sept 2011.

This programme encouraged the merges of FE colleges which enabled closer collaboration between further education and higher education providers, also working with FE providers to establish a new strategic management. Leighton Andrews (2011) 'Performance will be our driver, with a continued focus on improving performance and quality across the board and at every level.'

The point Nick Bennett discussed that I found most interesting was when he talked about how there are too many courses and qualification available, in which I agree. There are over 5,000 qualifications available in Wales, with often only a couple of people in one class. I believe this is a waste of funding when there are often very similar courses available with larger class numbers. However, Nick Bennett did inform us that changes are being made and there are going to be cuts in some minor classes and funding will go into larger courses.

References:

Leigton Andrews (2011), Education Minister for Wales.

National Council of Voluntary Child Care Organisations (NCVCCO), (2008). London