Apprentices and Further Education: Inflation

(asked on 11th January 2023) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment has he made of the impact of inflation on the average incomes of (a) parents supporting 16 to19 year olds in full-time (i) further education colleges and (ii) school sixth forms, (b) adults in part-time further education and (c) post-16 apprentices; and whether his Department is taking steps to help mitigate the impact of inflation on these groups.


Answered by
Robert Halfon Portrait
Robert Halfon
This question was answered on 20th January 2023

The department has carried out research in these areas. We have collected survey data on the impact of rising cost of living on households, including whether parents have cut back on household costs to fund education-related costs, and whether affordability has impacted their child’s participation in educational activities in the 2021/22 academic year. This data relates to parents of secondary school pupils in England, but those who responded to the survey could also be parents of learners in further education. The same surveys also asked pupils and learners in post-16 education in classroom settings in England about some facets of cost of living, in particular whether the rising cost of living has led to those pupils and learners changing their plans for education or training.

The survey data from the 2021/22 academic year has been published here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/parent-pupil-and-learner-panel-omnibus-surveys-for-2021-to-2022. The department intends to collect similar data for the 2022/23 academic year and we will publish this data in due course.

The government appreciates the difficulties caused by the rising cost of living and inflation, and is focused on levelling up so that young people and adults, regardless of their background or geographic location, can get the skills and training they need to secure rewarding, well-paid jobs and move up the ladder of opportunity.

The department provides a number of financial support programmes for those students who need the most help with the costs associated with staying in post-16 education. This includes extra funding to providers for disadvantaged students aged 16 to 19 with low prior attainment, or those who live in the most disadvantaged areas. In addition, the 16 to 19 bursary fund targets support towards young people who need the most help with education-related costs. In the 2022/23 academic year the department is providing £164 million to help financially disadvantaged students participate in post-16 education to cover such costs as travel, meals, books and course equipment, and over £31 million for free meals.

The department also provided over £550 million in the 2021/22 academic year to enable providers of 16 to 19 education to recruit, support, and retain disadvantaged students, and support those with special education needs and disabilities.

For those learners aged 19 and over, providers receive disadvantage uplift so that there is increased funding for learners living in deprived areas. In addition, funds are made available to providers to help adults overcome barriers to learning. This includes Learner Support, which is available to colleges and providers to support learners aged 19 and over with a specific financial hardship which is preventing them from taking part and/or continuing in learning, and learning support which is available to meet the cost of putting in place reasonable adjustments, as set out in the Equality Act 2010, for learners who have an identified learning difficulty and/or disability, to achieve their learning goal.

The department has also taken steps to improve apprentice pay, including aligning the apprentice national minimum wage rate with the national minimum wage rate for under 18s, and accepting in full the recommendations of the Independent Low Pay Commission to increase the apprentice national minimum wage by 9.7% from April 2023.

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