PM Assures Shake-Up of Education: UK Should Expect Radical Changes

Boris Johnson assures “radical” changes to the adult education system in England in a means to help boost the post-Covid economy.

The prime minister has said the covid-19 pandemic had “massively accelerated” changes to the world of work, and made training gaps “painfully apparent”. 

He has also said funding changes could help to end the “bogus distinction” between vocational and academic learning. 

But Labour has said the plans would not make up for “a decade of cuts”. 

Speaking at an Exeter further education college, Boris Johnson said the government cannot “save every job” during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

However, he added that better training would “give people the skills to find and create new and better jobs”. 

He has said a new “lifetime skills guarantee” would provide a fully funded college course to all individuals over 18 in England without an A-level or similar qualification. 

Now, only people aged under 23 are applicable for a fully-funded qualification at this level. 

The commitment will be paid for under a previously announced £2.5bn boost to England’s National Skills Fund coming into effect in April. 

Funding will be offered for courses that are offering “skills valued by employers” – with the full list to be announced in the coming months. 

The prime minister added that the government would make higher education loans much more flexible, to enable people to “space out their study across their lifetimes”.