David Willetts

FURTHER EDUCATION

What a great pleasure it is to be here at your annual conference once again. Visiting members of the Association of Colleges is one of the best parts of my job. Only recently:

David Willetts, the Shadow Universities and Skills Secretary, will today commit to a big reduction in the amount of information that has to be collected by further education colleges. Currently up to 200 pieces of data have to be collected for each course done by each student, and a typical college can have 45 staff who work exclusively on collecting and entering data.

New statistics published today reveal that the number of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET) has passed one million, after rising by more than 120,000 in the last three months.

Responding to the BBC survey which shows that three quarters of universities have had to provide emergency funding to students due to the meltdown in the Government’s student finance system this year, Shadow Universities and Skills Secretary, David Willetts said:

Commenting on the Skills Strategy announced by Lord Mandelson today, Shadow Universities Secretary David Willetts said:

New figures from the Student Loans Company show that 176,000 students have still not received maintenance payments, more than a month after their courses started, following the collapse in the student finance system this year. Shadow Higher Education Minister, John Hayes, has still not received a response to his letter to David Lammy asking about the remit and timescale for the independent investigation into this year’s problems.

Responding to the launch of the higher education funding review, Shadow Secretary of State for Universities and Skills David Willetts, said:

Commenting on new figures from UCAS showing that applications for starting university next year are up by more than ten per cent on the same time last year, Shadow Universities and Skills Secretary, David Willetts said: