MP backs UTCs despite Black Country failure
Dudley MP Ian Austin has given his unequivocal support to university technical colleges, despite the much-publicised failure of the Black Country UTC.
Ian Austin said he was an 'evangelist' of the centres, which focus on providing students with job skills, and that they should become the 'fabric of education' in Britain.
The disastrous £9.5 million Black Country University Technical College in Bloxwich is to close after just four years and was the subject of a withering Ofsted report which rated it as inadequate.
A new, entirely separate, UTC is planned for the derelict Springfield Brewery site in Wolverhampton.
Mr Austin's viewpoint is at odds with that of Walsall North MP David Winnick, who called for an immediate 'pause' on opening new UTCs until the government can learn the lessons the doomed Black Country centre.
Responding to Tory backbencher Richard Harrington in the House of Commons, Mr Austin, MP for Dudley North, said: "Like the honourable gentleman, I am an evangelist for the UTC programme. Does he agree that we need a massive expansion of the programme, so that we have a UTC in every town?
"They should become part of the fabric of education so as to give more young people the opportunity to learn in a vocational setting. Every child in the country should have that choice."
