The Department for Education has published the further education and skills statistics and the apprenticeships and traineeships statistics for the first quarter of the 2019/20 academic year (August 2019 to October 2019). The FE statistics reveal that there has been a drop of 7.7% in adults studying English and maths from quarter 1 in 2018/19. The figures also show that the participation in adult education and training (excluding apprenticeships) fell by 10.5% and participation in community learning courses fell by 11.4%.
In response to these figures, the Liberal Democrats have called for a ‘revolution in lifelong learning’ to give every adult a lifelong learning account to spend on education and training throughout their lives.
The apprenticeship figures show that starts have decreased by 4.7% in quarter 1. Analysis by FE Week of provisional figures for November show starts falling by 18% when compared with figures published last January.