Adult Education and Skills
Skills for the Future, Education for Life
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Devolution of the Adult Education Budget is a key way in which our region can shape its own destiny, providing skills training and adult education to suit the particular priorities of the North East. As your Green Mayor, I would:
- Increase funding for the adult education and skills budget
- Make the Local Skills Improvement Plan fit for the future
- Negotiate for more powers to improve skills within the region and to provide longer-term funding for Further Education
- Support place based learning to build community resilience.
Increase funding for adult education and skills
Currently, North of Tyne and Tees Valley are 2 of the only 3 Authorities with devolved Adult Education Budget (AEB) in the country not to have added any uplift, while London adds 13.5% to the budget. Adult education and skills are too important not to fund sufficiently. I would increase the AEB by at least 5% from Combined Authority funds, to ensure that we can provide the training and adult education needed to support our region’s priorities.
Improving the Local Skills Improvement Plan
The Local Skills Improvement Plan (LSIP) is currently drawn up by the local business sector, to align skills provision to the current needs of employers. I would work with Further Education (FE) colleges and training providers, to ensure that our skills training is fit for the future needs of the region, not just for current workforce needs.
In particular, our Warmer Homes plan will need much more provision in green building skills, in order to expand the workforce available (see under Housing). My plans for a mass home insulation programme, combined with an expanding market for heat pump installations, passivhaus building standards and renewable energy installations, will all require expanded provision of skills training. Changes in sustainable farming and countryside management practices, electric vehicle and battery technologies and a sustainable maritime industry, also need to drive our regional skills planning.
Negotiate more powers and longer-term funding
I will join calls for the devolution of apprenticeship funding.
I will advocate for increased funding for the FE sector within our region, so that a longer term funding process can be established, in return for commitments from FE providers in relation to staff pay and conditions, community engagement and long-term commitment to key courses for students.
Wider adult education within and for the community
Adult education should embrace and encourage learning for learning’s sake – benefitting both individuals and their wider communities by enabling greater resilience and increased ability to learn new skills. In particular, place based learning can add to a sense of social identity and community wellbeing, so would be encouraged alongside the provision of specific skills training. See under Culture, Heritage and Sport for further ways in which learning can help build social identity.
Skills in community food growing and allotment gardening will also be supported through the Adult Education Budget, supporting food resilience and security, bringing people together within their communities, and helping to beat rising food prices.
Andrew Gray (centre) with Chris Davies (left) and Cllr Rachael Milne (right), in front of the closed Chuter Ede community centre, Biddick, South Tyneside Return to Manifesto overview