Education and A4e

Remember Vox4Tots and A4e's vocational education centre in Mansfield? The Guardian carries a piece about it. One sentence which might surprise the reader is "A4E, which also runs work-related programmes for prisoners and the long-term unemployed, has around 700 secondary school pupils in six centres across the north and the Midlands." The extent of A4e's involvement in education is far less well known than its welfare-to-work programmes. It's summarised on the company's own website here and here. The heartland is clearly the Tees Valley, where A4e has the contract for the EBP - Education Business Partnership - run out of the Thornaby Community School. This contract includes the STEMPOINT programme (see its website) focussing on science, technology, engineering and maths. So far the media have taken little interest in these activities, because welfare-to-work has an impact on more people. But they shouldn't be ignored.