UK Parliament / Open data

Technical and Further Education Bill

Proceeding contribution from Lucy Powell (Labour) in the House of Commons on Monday, 14 November 2016. It occurred during Debate on bills on Technical and Further Education Bill.

I thank my hon. Friend for that excellent intervention. It sounds like just the sort of institution we should explore further and support.

As I said, many of the jobs that we need today and will need in the future require both types of education. The pathways into professions such as nursing, engineering, health and social care and many more require a blend of general applied and academic education, as well as technical and vocational education. That will be especially true in post-Brexit Britain, where the supply of such workers is likely to be reduced further, particularly in nursing, social care, health and engineering. Closing down those pathways at this point in time could have serious unintended consequences.

It is a well-trodden pathway for people to go to university to study nursing, health and social care or engineering with an applied general academic qualification and some technical BTEC qualifications alongside it. That pathway is highly regarded by universities. We should be careful about closing down that pathway, because if Ministers look, they will see that the vast majority of the tens of thousands of undergraduates who come into the system through that route have that blended mix of academic and vocational qualifications.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
617 c58 
Session
2016-17
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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