'Further education is the key to navigating our way of the mess the country finds itself in', writes David Lammy MP in TES
City Lit Fellow David Lammy spoke to TES last week about the importance of increasing investment in further education. In the article he adressed the annual City Lit Tutor Conference he said: 'I was overwhelmed by the amount of talent, passion and diligence in the room. This experience reaffirmed for me that, in terms of investing in further education, we should have been doing this all along.'
'I have first-hand experience of the power of education to transform society in this way. My own mother studied nursing at night school whilst single-handedly raising five children. Watching her acquire new skills between shifts is precisely what made me and my siblings believe in ourselves. But it also made me believe in the importance of a flexible education system that supports hard-working people, often with caregiving commitments.'
'Colleges like City Lit build on the boundless talent and ambition of working people. It empowers people to take advantage of opportunities available in their own communities. Or, rather, it empowers people to observe for themselves what their community needs and present their own creative solutions.'
'That’s why we must increase our investment in further education. A lack of agency, voice and power is the product of a systemic lack of opportunity, engendered by inflexible and uncompassionate socio-economic structures. Large sections of our society who feel left behind are forced to swallow the same rhetoric on opportunity, the same opportunity that they have been denied their whole lives.'
Read the full TES article here: https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/david-lammy-we-have-pump-money-education
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