Curriculum Change in Further Education

For over a decade, the government of the United Kingdom has expressed dissatisfaction with the skills base of the nation, and has introduced a number of initiatives aimed at achieving a further education curriculum which is broader, more flexible and more closely tied to the needs of employers. This paper describes the advent of new qualifications and a new funding system, and reports on interviews with curriculum managers in further education, as to how they have experienced this change. It argues that the funding system is causing a great preoccupation with finance, to the potential detriment of the curriculum, and that the new qualifications have raised a number of problems in maintaining a broad and balanced curriculum. It examines the resultant changing relationship of managers to staff and employers. The paper concludes that the positive impact has been greatest amongst a minority of students, and that managers are achieving development in the curriculum often despite, rather than because o...