Scrutton Bland Education Newsletter - Autumn 2016

Higher Education

Improving the quality of social work education (July 2016) The Department for Education has released a paper declaring how the government will reform children’s social care in England over the next five years. The need for high calibre students to enter social work, taught through a curriculum based on the knowledge and skills needed to work with the most vulnerable children and families was announced, after it was fond only 65% of students qualifying from social work programmes had entered the profession six months after completing their course. During the last Parliament two new successful fast-track entry routes; Frontline and Step Up have been established and developed. Both programmes have been popular with students and employers and it has been anticipated that approximately 30% of new child and family social workers will come from fast-track routes, and up to 40% by 2020. The Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) report Boys to Men: The underachievement of youngmen in higher education – and how to start tackling it (May 2016) The report found that the proportion of male entrants to UK higher education institutions is at its lowest; 94,000 fewer men had applied for higher education up to the mid-January 2016 UCAS deadline. Evidence within the report reveals that boys are performing worse across primary, secondary and higher education and apprenticeships. The report forecasts that the gap between males and females will exceed the gap between rich and poor within a decade. In 2015, 51 per cent of young women on free school meals were more likely to enter higher education, whilst only 8.9 per cent of white men on free school meals entered higher education. However although 80 per cent of higher education institutions have more female students, only two higher education institutions have targets for recruiting more male students

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