§ Laura MoffattTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will make a statement on shared delivery of education between schools and sixth form colleges and further education colleges for post-16 students. [81966]
§ Mr. Ivan LewisThe Government expects schools, colleges and all providers in the learning and skills sector to work together to raise standards, improve choice and ensure success for all post-16 learners. Improving this collaborative working is a key theme in the Government's ambitious plan for reform of further education and training— Success for All— which was launched on 19 November. We are supporting this reform package with the largest ever investment in the learning and skills sector, which will enable the Learning and Skills Council to reduce substantially the current gap in the core funding rates per qualification it pays to school sixth forms and FE colleges.
A key part of these reforms is the programme of Strategic Area Reviews led by local Learning and Skills Councils, which will commence in April 2003. This process will help build in each part of the country a network of providers working in collaboration to achieve educational and economic success.
We have also begun our pilot of the first sixteen 14 to 19 pathfinder areas. This programme will explore how a coherent 14 to 19 phase can be delivered nationally in a variety of locations with different social circumstances and different mixes of schools and colleges.
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