Liberal Democrats pledge £660M funding boost for FE

The Liberal Democrats are yet to announce their full manifesto, but have pledged £7bn investment in schools & colleges, with a £660M funding boost for FE.

The Liberal Democrats have announced they will invest nearly £7bn more in schools and colleges over the next parliament. Sarah Olney, Lib Dem Shadow Education Secretary comments:

“Students are being left behind as our educational system is cut to the bone – but Theresa May doesn’t care.

“This extra £660 million to protect further education will ensure that students are not taken for granted by this Conservative government.

“We will reverse crippling Conservative cuts to school budgets, to ensure every student has the opportunity to succeed.”

The Liberal Democrats plan to invest £6.9bn more in our schools and colleges over the next parliament, to ensure no school and no child loses out. The Lib Dems point out that this goes further than Labour’s commitment to reverse £3bn of cuts to school budgets by 2020.
 
Over the course of the parliament, the Liberal Democrats pledge to protect further education ‘per pupil funding’ in real terms (£660m).

A Liberal Democrat spokesperson highlighted that they will be “setting out other commitments to support adult learners in our manifesto, which will be out in due course. Apprenticeships are also extremely important to us and we will be announcing further policies about our plans in the near future.”

So it appears that there is more to come from the Lib Dems for FE, Apprenticeships and Technical Education in their manifesto. As soon as we have more details on the Lib Dem manifesto we will let you know.