FE Funding

Education and Skills written question – answered at on 23 March 2005.

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Photo of Mark Oaten Mark Oaten Shadow Secretary of State for Home Affairs, Home Affairs

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what estimate she has made of the funding gap between sixth-form colleges and school sixth-forms in each of the last three financial years.

Photo of Kim Howells Kim Howells Minister of State (Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education), Department for Education and Skills

The Department's main measure for what the funding gap between school sixth-forms and further education colleges is the difference in funding rates for an AS/A2 qualification. In 2002/03 the difference was 10.5 per cent.

For the academic year 2003/04, base funding rates per qualification increased by 3 per cent. for school sixth-forms and by 4.5 per cent. for further education colleges on a broadly comparable basis. In 2004/05, funding rates for colleges meeting their targets increased by 5 per cent., while those for school sixth forms rose by 4 per cent. We expect to see this trend continue in the 2005/06 academic year.

However, there is more to overall levels of funding than differences in funding rates and I acknowledge that there are other important differences between school and FE funding.

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