The provision, organisation and meaning of what has come to be known as Further Education (FE) in England has developed over many years, and can still be described as a ‘work in progress’.
Knowing something of that history, and the debates and policy interventions that shaped the way FE looks today can help us make sense of what has always been a complex and dynamic contributor to the country’s education and training system.
In 2021, the Further Education Trust for Leadership (FETL) published Honourable Histories, a chronology of the landmark policy reports and interventions following the incorporation of FE colleges in 1992 taking them out of local education authority control. The authors explained that its purpose was to “provide an aid for reflection upon the myriad of changes and shifts in policy and institutions and to give contemporary policy makers a glimpse into the thinking that motivated their predecessors”. That report is now looked after and updated annually by the Edge Foundation and you can find it here (https://www.edge.co.uk/research/Learning-from-the-past/honourable-histories/).
We were inspired by that exercise to develop a ‘prequel’ that identified the policy interventions and other significant activities that contributed to the development of FE prior to 1992. Although further away in time, many of these policy interventions and the debates surrounding them are just as relevant today to the future of FE and vocational education in England.
