UNIVERSITY and college job and course cuts during this government have left post-16 education standing “on the edge of a precipice,” warned University and College Union (UCU) general secretary Jo Grady today.

Labour is “in the last chance saloon” for allowing the cuts, while Reform-led councils are axing adult education provision, she told the union’s annual congress in Harrogate.

UCU members “are taking up the fight against cuts and closures, speaking out for staff and students, giving a voice for the communities they serve,” she said.

Dr Grady warned that “the problems that plague higher education cannot be fixed under this funding model” as she called  for “an emergency government review” as a first step to prevent it “wrecking higher education.”

She paid tribute to higher education members taking strikes across Britain to save the sector, as well as further education members for negotiating over-inflation pay rises following strike threats.

The union leader demanded a New Deal for Further Education, including “pay parity with schoolteachers,” “fully funded pay offers,” and “national agreements on workloads.”

On prison education, Dr Grady added: “In our prisons, we have been organising hard, too, for a national contract for prison educators.

“This should be delivered with a nationalised prison education service, because the current system, of prison education for profit, is broken beyond repair.”

Turning to adult education, she said: “The very future of adult education in the UK is at risk.

“In Derbyshire, the Reform-led councillors have axed five adult education centres and in Lincoln, the party’s mayor is cutting English for Speakers of Other Languages provision. We will fight this every step of the way.”