Skills minister Jacqui Smith joined FE Week for a 30-minute webinar today to discuss the recently published post-16 education and skills white paper.
Here’s what we learned…
1-week duration for some apprenticeship units
Short courses funded through the reformed growth and skills levy will be introduced in April 2026 as planned, but with their own special name: apprenticeship units.
The white paper confirmed that an initial wave of fundable short courses will be offered for employers in “critical skills areas” linked to the industrial strategy such as engineering, digital and artificial intelligence.
Smith revealed today that the length of these courses will “typically last between one week and a few months”.
She added that the units will complement existing apprenticeships and be based on “employer-designed occupational standards using quality-assured knowledge and skills, giving employers confidence around their legitimacy, content and quality of training”.
Skills England is “still developing the details, and we will share those as quickly as we can”.
Ben Rowland, CEO of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers who joined a panel of experts after the minister’s briefing, said: “I’m not sure about how a one-week programme will work as an apprenticeship unit. I’ll be interested to see how that is developed.”
‘Facilitating’ collaboration instead of ‘putting the stick about’
The white paper claimed the government will support providers across post-16 education to “identify their specialism and foster collaboration with local market actors” to “ensure all areas of the country have the right volume and mix of priority courses and research capabilities”.
Officials will be “clear on what we expect from providers and will ensure providers are held to account to deliver this”.
The white paper, however, stopped short of setting out exactly how this increased level of collaboration will look in practice across colleges, universities, training providers and their funders, or what specific levers government could pull.
Smith said today the government was not “dancing around” the issue, pointing to prime minister Sir Keir Starmer’s new ambition of getting 66 per cent of young people to a level 4 or above qualification.
She added: “I’m optimistic that people can see the arguments for doing this. When I go to universities, when I go to colleges, they tell me that they’re enthusiastic about doing this.
“I would rather that we facilitated that happening with a clear objective set through the prime minister’s target, than I went around putting the stick about and telling people what they should and shouldn’t be doing because it will differ in different places.
“One of the things that government needs to do is to get the regulation, the conditions, the funding in the right place, in order to facilitate it.”
Banning leaders to protect FE
Ministers plan to legislate to “bar unsuitable people” from management positions in further education providers – a power that can already be exercised in schools.
Explaining the rationale behind extending the law to FE providers, Smith said: “I meet phenomenal FE leaders doing enormously important work which hasn’t always been recognised in the past. The prime minister has been very clear that that has got to change.
“But as we know, because of the significance of this leadership role, sometimes you need to be able to take action to prevent people from leading these really significant jobs.
“It is already the case that that the secretary of state can bar unsuitable people in schools. Essentially, what we will do when parliamentary time allows, when we when we have a bill, is to take the same protections for the FE sector that already exist for schools.”
Smith said there was no single incident that triggered this policy extension.
Level 3 options will be ‘much clearer’
The white paper’s headline reform is the introduction of V Levels, which will replace “hundreds” of courses that sit alongside A Levels and T Levels.
When asked what a 15- or 16-year-old learner’s options will look like in five years, Smith said they will be “much clearer”.
The minister said V Levels will offer a third educational route that is linked to employer-set standards, can be combined with A Levels, and is “more practical, more applied, with assessment to match”.
V Levels are an opportunity to “fill that gap” for students who don’t want to take the “well-regarded” A Level or “high quality” T Level pathway.
She accepted that the transition period “will be difficult” but argued the end result would “give everybody an appropriate route to go to”.
Smith was also challenged on the white paper’s claim that students are “confused” by 900 level 3 qualifications – which is the number of approved qualifications in that space, but most are not actually delivered.
In response, she repeated the claim that the current “third route” study options are “too complicated” and argued that the government needs to look at “shortcomings” of the current offer from qualifications such as BTECs are “not always clear” on whether they are linked to employer needs.
She added: “And it’s not always clear that you can combine things to maintain a breadth.
“If you’re not completely sure what the occupation that you want to go into is, those are the issues that I think we can solve with V Levels, whilst keeping the good way of working for students who know they want something more practical, more applied, with assessment to match.”
Why a new English and maths level 1 course is needed
A new “stepping stone” qualification at level 1, announced in the white paper, will be designed to “better prepare” students with lower attainment prepare to resit their GCSEs in English and maths.
Smith said the aim is to move away from the current resit “treadmill of failure”.
Asked why functional skills alternatives could not fill this need, Smith said the “applied” nature of the courses “doesn’t actually help” students who lack the basic English and maths skills required.
She added: “If you haven’t got the basics in English and maths, it doesn’t help you, actually, simply to put something in a different context.
“It’s building up that foundation of knowledge which we think is going to lead to future success for students.”
When asked whether the government would like to eventually “remove” functional skills as an option, she said a “pretty small proportion” of students currently take the qualification.
She added: “So let’s see how we go with actually achieving something that will enable more young people to get to that gateway, that’s going to enable them to do what they want to be able to do in the future.”
Adult education ‘regret’
Responding to concerns that adult education was the “missing piece” in the white paper’s puzzle, Smith said that the essential skills review and sector skills packages would help to “really maximise the impact” of the available budget.
However, addressing concerns about the 3.7 per cent cut to the adult skills fund and free courses for jobs budgets from September, the minister said that she “wholly” understands the sector’s concerns.
“You know, I regret that we’ve had to do it, and not least that it follows on a period of time when there has been a big fall in the money available for adult skills,” she added.
Skills packages announced earlier this year include £625 million for construction skills and £182 million for the defence sector.
Smith explained that the essential skills review will look at what skills “people really need” across different sectors, “pinch points”, and predicted future needs.
When asked whether statutory entitlements to English and maths courses for adults will be reviewed, she responded: “They stand”.
The minister also said her recent appointment as a minister “astride” both the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Education should send “actually quite an important message” about increased integration of skills and employment support.
Watch the full live stream recording on the EducationScape Youtube channel.
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