Asked by: Baroness Fookes (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what are the main routes through which horticultural qualifications may be obtained.
Answered by Baroness Barran - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Qualifications in horticulture can be obtained through apprenticeships, vocational and technical qualifications, and through higher education (HE), including at degree level. T Levels in Agriculture, Land Management and Production, designed by relevant employers, will be available from September 2023. New higher technical qualifications in horticulture are also expected to be available from September 2025.
Employers in the horticultural sector have developed high-quality apprenticeship standards ranging from level 2 Horticulture or Landscape Operative, level 4 Arboriculturist, up to level 6 Professional Arboriculturist.
The government’s free courses for jobs offer at level 3 includes several qualifications in horticulture.
As autonomous institutions, HE providers are free to decide which courses they provide, depending on a number of factors including student demand.
Asked by: Baroness Fookes (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government why ornamental horticulture and floristry has been removed from Annex C of the funding regulations for post-16 education.
Answered by Lord Agnew of Oulton
The Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) does not hold the total spend on horticultural education and training for students over 16 years old. This is because the agency cannot disaggregate this information from the data that they hold.
Ornamental horticulture has never been an identified occupational area in the criteria used to assign specialist status; consequently it has not been removed from Annex C. However, the specialist provision group (a group with whom the ESFA consults which includes representatives from land-based colleges) agrees that ornamental/amenity horticulture requires very similar resources to production horticulture (which is an identified occupational area in the criteria), and therefore that the list of land-based occupational areas will be updated so that production horticulture changes to horticulture (thereby including ornamental, amenity and production horticulture).
Floristry was removed from the criteria on the advice of the specialist provision group when the criteria were reviewed in November 2015. It was removed because it does not require exceptionally significant resources that must operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week throughout the year - a fundamental principle in awarding land-based institutions specialist resources.
Asked by: Baroness Fookes (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what was the total spend on horticultural education and training for students over 16 years old by the Education and Skills Funding Agency for the last three financial years.
Answered by Lord Agnew of Oulton
The Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) does not hold the total spend on horticultural education and training for students over 16 years old. This is because the agency cannot disaggregate this information from the data that they hold.
Ornamental horticulture has never been an identified occupational area in the criteria used to assign specialist status; consequently it has not been removed from Annex C. However, the specialist provision group (a group with whom the ESFA consults which includes representatives from land-based colleges) agrees that ornamental/amenity horticulture requires very similar resources to production horticulture (which is an identified occupational area in the criteria), and therefore that the list of land-based occupational areas will be updated so that production horticulture changes to horticulture (thereby including ornamental, amenity and production horticulture).
Floristry was removed from the criteria on the advice of the specialist provision group when the criteria were reviewed in November 2015. It was removed because it does not require exceptionally significant resources that must operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week throughout the year - a fundamental principle in awarding land-based institutions specialist resources.
Asked by: Baroness Fookes (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether Ofsted has raised any concerns about the delivery and quality of the horticultural element of the National Curriculum since it was included in the Curriculum.
Answered by Lord Agnew of Oulton
Horticulture is not explicitly referenced in the national curriculum for science or geography. Programmes of study do include the expectation that pupils are taught about plants including trees, their structure, how they reproduce and grow, how they are named and classified, photosynthesis, cell biology, the importance of selective breeding in agriculture, and how human processes interact to influence and change landscapes, environments and the climate.
Ofsted has not raised any specific concerns about the delivery or quality of these topics.