<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://www.clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/2a6392ce-7c5c-4bcd-997c-aea965e66ae5/005E9F6B-0330-4AB5-8A8A-8B274CEB9557/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://education.guardian.co.uk/further/opinion/story/0,,2122220,00.html" href="http://education.guardian.co.uk/further/opinion/story/0,,2122220,00.html" style="font-size: 11px;">education.guardian.co.uk</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://education.guardian.co.uk/further/opinion/story/0,,2122220,00.html"><P>Only the presence of powerful voices - the middle class, to be precise - can protect a service and its users from the destabilising initiatives from on high.</P><P>The otherwise laudable focus on basic skills and level 2 provision in colleges has serious dangers. The insistence on chasing government targets runs the risk of impoverishing the clientele of FE colleges and turning them into post-16 secondary moderns. Colleges are being robbed of those best able to speak out against the casual vandalism that runs through the skills agenda. Colleges with only a remedial role will lose out in the two-tier system towards which public services seem to gravitate if left unchecked.</P></blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/005E9F6B-0330-4AB5-8A8A-8B274CEB9557/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content7.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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