Education secretary Gavin Williamson has said the government will “continue to work really closely with the FE sector” to see how it can “continue to add on the additional and extra support” colleges needed - but he did not confirm any support funding for the sector to tackle the impact of Covid-19. 

Speaking at tonight’s daily Downing Street briefing, Gavin Williamson said the government wanted “to help [colleges] in terms of being able to support their students in order to continue to succeed”. 

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’‘Opportunities they deserve”

He did not say, however, why colleges will not benefit from the government’s £1 billion “catch-up” package, announced by prime minister Boris Johnson and the education secretary today.

The move to exclude learners at colleges from the funding, which Mr Williamson said would “make sure that every young person, no matter their age or where they live, gets the education, opportunities and outcomes they deserve”, had attracted criticism from opposition politicians, as well as college leaders and unions. 

Mr Williamson said the government will “continue to work really closely with the FE sector to see how we can continue to add on the additional and extra support we know they are looking towards.”

Responding to the announcement of funding for schools this morning Toby Perkins, shadow apprenticeships and lifelong learning minister, said excluding FE was “a disgrace”, while Bill Watkin, chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association, said it would be “entirely unjustifiable to exclude sixth-form students from the package announced today”.

Association of Colleges chief executive David Hughes said the government was right to take action to help school pupils catch up for lost time and to focus on those who are already disadvantaged, but it was “indefensible to overlook the needs of the 700,000 in colleges”. 

Earlier this week, the Association of Colleges published its recovery plan, which would cost the Treasury £3.6 billion. It asks the government to guarantee a high-quality education or training place for every 16 to 18 year old, offer a suite of work-focused training programmes to get young people into jobs, and to provide support for adults who lose their jobs to train or retrain.