“Plaid is critical of spending money to send the brightest young people out of Wales, so this would be reform to get young people to stay at Welsh unis.” Plaid would rather keep the money in Wales, OK, but by doing so would restrict the most able from achieving their potential, not so good. As an English alumnus of Prifysgol De Cymru such a restrictive approach won’t improve the lot of Welsh students.

I wouldn’t be so sure, the ‘blue wave’ that breached the ‘red wall’ may have receded as the blue Tories have proven themselves to have been just as bad as the red tories on key issues to many, but other parties may well overwhelm both sides of the shitehall mandarin approved Uni-party.

Plaid is critical of spending money to send the brightest young people out of Wales, so this would be reform to get young people to stay at Welsh unis.

Seren is very much a Labour-created policy

1. The budget was available from 2016 to 2019, after which the college insolvency laws would take effect (though in the event they’re only been used twice).

2. The money was tightly controlled via an application process following the nationwide programme of area reviews. Each deal was signed off by a new funding agency restructuring unit of secondees, an external committee (with not much expertise in colleges), the Education secretary, HMT officials and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury.

3. The plan was that DfE loans should be the main form of support but, in the event, many of the deals involved DfE grants to pay off bank loans. Each deal was individual, with an affordability calculation.

4. The five levels of approval meant that most deals took 9-12 months to complete, resulting in high spending on professional fees. The first deals agreed in 2017 had tougher terms than the last ones signed off in spring 2019.

The HE Restructuring Regime announced in summer 2020 had several features borrowed from this FE regime but was, apparently, only used once.

The high cost of market exit (redundancies, pension cessation, damage to sector reputation if creditors aren’t paid, negative local economic impact) makes it likely a future government will choose a targeted form of support that keeps an institution alive (perhaps via a rescue merger or downsizing on a standalone basis with property sales providing funding) in preference to other options.

So that’s most creative arts courses, as well as English, Philosophy, agriculture, languages, psychology, history & biosciences. Hmmmm.

It is for universities to judge entry standards and to provide support where they accept students who may be at significant risk of non-completion. Universities be expected to compensate for 14 years of school/FE education but they can increasingly id students at risk and provide help.

I have not seen any analysis that shows that a move to T levels will restrict numbers and constrict choice but would be interested to be pointed to some? So I am a little unsure of the basic premiss of the article but completely sure we should be thinking of the marvellously varied people we label as “students” and how they access the best routes through education.

I was astonished when a colleague got an NTF off his thin profile. It all became clear when it turned out his neighbours were part of the assessment process and of course knew what was in their application.

I was told by various people involved in the scheme, I had no chance and not to bother as I was not respectful enough to the right people.

Agree – and this article, by the Chair of said profit making organisation, neglects to mention the fact the vast majority of people studying BTECs don’t end up progressing into their chosen fields and the drop out rate in HE is hugely increased compared to other qualifications…