My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss further education and take the opportunity offered me by the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, to say how much the Government value further education and its part in the educational landscape.
I turn to Amendments 91A and 91B in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and start with a general point. The framework set by the Bill does not intend the content of the funding formula to be specified in legislation itself. As such, any detailed provision would not be dealt with here. More specifically, schools are already fully able to make arrangements with colleges to allow their 14 to 16 year-old students to undertake part of their education at college, so there is no need for further legislation.
The funding arrangements in the Bill are designed for schools and could not be readily applied to colleges. The noble Lord will know that there is a separate approach to funding the relatively few 14 to 16 year-olds on full-time courses at colleges, aligned to their post-16 funding. However, I agree with noble Lords that we need to ensure that funding for 14 to 16 year-olds in colleges is sufficient. Noble Lords will know, and I hope be reassured by the fact, that the basic rate of funding per student will increase by 8% next year as part of the work to close that gap.
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Taking Amendments 171A, 171B and 171R together, I absolutely see the intention and recognise the importance of partnerships and collaboration between schools and further education providers. However, it is unnecessary to specify such requirements in the Bill. Although further education providers, maintained schools and academy trusts are different types of legal entities, these differences do not prevent partnerships and collaborative working, including sharing services, facilities and resources. There are many examples of how schools and academies collaborate with other education and training providers, such as where 16 to 19 institutions are part of a multi-academy trust or where further education colleges are sponsoring academy trusts.
The Government have done significant work on improving collaboration between education providers. The college collaboration fund has supported education providers to work more effectively together. I give noble Lords just one example: Wilberforce College and its partner sixth form colleges have worked with local secondary schools to improve the quality of teaching, learning and assessments in blended learning; a case study of this project was published in November last year.
On the issue of establishing access to further education for all 14 to 16 year-olds we agree that, as we heard on the previous group, young people need a full picture of their post-16 education and training options. As noble Lords have already heard, through the Skills and Post-16 Education Act schools are now required to provide at least six opportunities for year 8 to 13 pupils to meet providers of technical education or apprenticeships to discuss their education and training options. It is important that each of those is a meaningful experience.
Today, we launched a consultation on the statutory guidance that will underpin the provider access legislation, and I encourage all those with an interest to participate in the consultation and to share their examples of how schools and providers can collaborate effectively. That consultation will be important to ensure that, when we commence the legislation on 1 January next year, its implementation will be informed by the very best and innovative professional practice.
This was a brief group, but I thank the noble Lord for the opportunity to talk about further education in the Bill. I hope he will withdraw his amendment.