is cutting adult skills budgets the right move for uk plc?

The answer to that question has to be a resounding no! 

indeed it should be a resounding no at any time of year and especially before an election. Certainly the sector as a whole has not adopted its usual tone of phlegmatic resignation. There is an active backlash going on and Nick Boles, our skills minister, is doing quite a bit of meeting local MPs on the subject. The budget this year may contain a surprise in this area. Then again it may not.
of course the government claim it is a modest cut given that apprenticeships, English and maths, traineeships and other elements of the adult skills budget are protected from the cut. But this only means a more swingeing cut for the rest of the budget. On some estimates by over 30% - or 24% if you take the Association of Colleges figures.
the result of the cut means there is now a lacuna in funding for many 19-23-year-olds. Treated differently from their university colleagues, who can access loans, this group can either compete for the dwindling state funding available to pursue the vocational qualification they want to, or cough up themselves. Which is the whole point of the exercise. For the government does not believe the public purse should really be supporting a whole range of courses that it believes either employers or individuals should be paying for. Austerity means you can drive through a neat argument. 'We cannot afford it' masks the argument that 'we really do not believe we should be paying for it'.
at edudo, learning is, first and always, about improving life-chances. It's what people do when they want to make sense of the world!

give young people the opportunity to decide their own futures

if our young people are to make the right choices about their future careers then they must be given the options. They need to be told not just about 'A' levels and university entrance, but also about apprenticeships and technical training.

but the fact is that they are not! There is a statutory duty on schools and colleges to provide access to impartial careers advice for young people aged 13 to 18, but this is simply not happening. Part of the problem is that these institutions tend to push their students towards conventional academic achievement. Perhaps this is not surprising given the background of most teachers and lecturers, and the natural desire to maintain the viability of sixth forms, but it is not helpful to most students.
young people speak readily about the pressure they are under to stay on at school, or move to sixth form college, and take A-levels, rather than starting apprenticeships. In fact, many young people simply don't know that they exist as a careers option. According to a recent University and Colleges Union perception study, 'numerous young people felt informed about UCAS applications....fewer felt they knew anything about apprenticeships.
this is why we need to take responsibility for the delivery of careers advice out of the schools and colleges themselves and into local 'hubs' like edudo, which will bring together relevant interested parties in an area – businesses and service providers – fully accredited and operating under a national standard.
at edudo, learning is, first and always, about improving life-chances. It's what people do when they want to make sense of the world!

edudo celebrates the end of the QCF

yesterday, the Qualifications and Credit Framework hit the dust! Ofqual has announced that vocational qualifications will no longer need to meet QCF rules in order to be eligible for public funding.

"the QC.. what?" you may wonder-- and very reasonably so. But the QCF mattered.  Shadowy, impenetrable and largely unloved, it created strict new rules for the size, structure and name of every vocational qualification in the land.  More or less every pre-existing award had to be comprehensively redesigned. It cost the UK millions. It distorted vocational education for young people and adults alike. And it rewarded low quality at the expense of excellence and innovation.
QCF rules lasted just seven years from their roll-out by the now defunct Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. But they were the apogee of a much longer-standing, ideologically driven campaign by various government agencies to allegedly raise the prestige of vocational education, and achieved the exact opposite in the end.
so no wonder that Ofqual's review concluded that the "one-size-fits-all approach to... vocational qualifications is not necessary and in some cases has proved inappropriate and damaging". It is finally up to employers and educators to help Ofqual to develop qualifications which deserve, and therefore acquire, genuine value.
at edudo, learning is, first and always, about improving life-chances. It's what people do when they want to make sense of the world!

edudo secures international brand trademarks

edudo is delighted to have formally secured international trademarks for its core brand identities including edudo, edu4work, edu@work, edu4all & edu4u. 

our brand - edudo - is the key asset of this business, distinguishing it from others and forming an “attractive force which brings in our customers". It was vital for edudo to ensure its brand identity is secure. 
at edudo, learning is, first and always, about improving life-chances. It's what people do when they want to make sense of the world!

improving life-chances matters at edudo

in line with edudo's founding commitment to improve life-chances for learners; edudo is delighted to have already directly financially supported, at its own cost, more than 120 of its security services learners post graduation with the cost of achieving their Security Industry Association (SIA) licenses thereby not only removing some of the real economic barriers in returning to work following a period of unemployment but also, and in many cases, to simply enable our learners accept a job offer with confidence.

contributions are gifted by edudo at its discretion and cost (without contribution from the UK Government) to its security services learners who, consequent upon achieving certification with edudo, subsequently secure an employment opportunity. 
the very deliberate, perhaps even disruptive, intention behind edudo thinking and process is, first and always, to support edudo learners back into work and in some small way, to play an active part in improving their life-chances. where we succeed in this mission: we are proud to have....

at edudo, learning is, first and always, about improving life-chances. It's what people do when they want to make sense of the world!

edudo partners with NUS to support its student learners

from today: all learners on edudo learning programmes are entitled to apply for an NUS Extra Card; giving learners access to thousands of money saving student offers and discounts.

NUS extra is the official student and apprentice discount card from the National Union of Students providing hundreds of thousands of students and vocational learners with market leading discounts with their favourite brands and providing a vital source of income for the student movement. As an NUS extra parter, edudo has chosen to make an investment in NUS extra and in-turn in the student movement.

more information can be found at http://www.nus.org.uk/en/nus-extra
at edudo, learning is, first and always, about improving life-chances. It's what people do when they want to make sense of the world!

edudo delivers a nuclear first!

In another industry first, edudo today successfully completed delivery of the UK's first SSSTS ABCSN (NUCLEAR) certificated training programme to 10 senior personnel from organisations including BamKier, Laing O'Rourke, & Bridgewater College.

edudo is a national provider of work-based learning programmes from employability and work-readiness skills to intermediate & advanced apprenticeships to occupational NVQs (to level 8) and statutory certification programmes delivered across multiple business sectors including construction, logistics, healthcare, security, retail, customer services, hospitality, manufacturing and more. 

edudo is the first UK learning centre to be accredited to deliver the SSSTS ABCSN programme, by CITB (The Construction Industry Training Board).

SSSTS ABCSN (NUCLEAR) means the Site Management Safety Training Scheme (Advanced Behaviours for Construction Supervisors (Nuclear).

at edudo, learning is, first and always, about improving life-chances. It's what people do when they want to make sense of the world!