Further Education: Social Mobility, Skills and Second Chances

Abstract

This report looks at data analysis which has uncovered good returns to learning at all levels of FE and challenges previous findings from survey-based studies that estimated insignificant, or even negative, returns to learning at level 2 and below. In the accompanying policy comment Professor Peter Unwin from the Centre welcomes the recent move away from the almost exclusive focus on more academic learning within HE over recent decades to a focus on apprenticeship learning. He argues that some of the greatest opportunities for boosting UK productivity will only be achieved if we can unlock the potential of those who have innate ability, but are not able to make the most of this, as they are born to levels of disadvantage that mean they are more likely to give up on education at an early age. FE, he argues, takes the most disadvantaged on the longest educational journeys.