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David Hughes: let’s present a confident and ambitious AoC regions front for colleges

Ahead of David’s first three-day AoC annual conference as chief executive, we discuss the area reviews, our ministers and the need for positivity.

“In a way, it being my first conference isn’t particularly important,” he tells me.

“What’s more important is that we’ve got a new government and we’ve got a new secretary of state and we’ve got new ministers. And it’s their first conference, and it’s superb we’ve got Justine Greening and Robert Halfon, we’ve got Lord Sainsbury and we’ve got Richard Atkins, the new FE Commissioner. We’ve got a superb cast of people.”

David clearly wants the new ministers to see positivity from principals.

“I’m really keen we present a very confident and ambitious front for colleges, saying what we can do rather than just diving in to all the problems,” he says. “Because there are all sorts of problems at the moment. It’s a sector that’s had a lot done to it. It’s had a lot of stress. The funding cuts have been profound. But actually I think we need to look beyond that and start setting the agenda, rather than being victims.”

“I think we need to start setting the agenda, rather than being victims”

I press him on whether this was a plea for conference delegates to be upbeat, particularly on Thursday, when both Justine Greening and Robert Halfon will be giving speeches that are likely to feature the Post-16 Skills Plan – and general positivity about the role of colleges.

“I think there will be some scepticism, because people have been hit by funding cuts and area reviews.” he admits.

“There’re all sorts of challenges around English and maths, for instance, and the apprenticeship changes are profound, and I want Justine Greening to acknowledge that those exist. I’m not for one minute saying to people, don’t mention the things that are urgent, difficult, challenging now – but if you can, do that as well as look to the long term, because there are opportunities,” he says.

“I genuinely think we’ve got a secretary of state and FE and skills minister who really get FE and colleges, and want to help set out a space for further education and colleges within the education system, and change the machinery of government to bring it all into one place – some saw it as a risk. I always saw it as more of an opportunity.”

Also speaking at the conference is Richard Atkins, the former principal at Exeter College and a previous AoC president, who this month took up the reins as the FE Commissioner.

I ask what he hopes the message Mr Atkins’ message will be, at a key time in most of the five area review waves.

“I think Richard will be trying to get that balance that says area reviews aren’t going to go away, and we’re going to finish them,” he says. “There’re only five or so months to run, and I think that’s important. Let’s get through them now. We’re right in it. I think he might tweak some of it, he might do it a little bit differently from David [Collins, the outgoing FE Commissioner].”

What does he think Atkins might do differently?

“Well, there’s a transparency issue that David Collins hasn’t been able to do, because ministers change and the delays in the reports have been bit unhelpful. Hopefully they can speed that up and move things forward more quickly,” he tells me.

“But more importantly I’d like him to talk about where he thinks that takes the sector, post area review. There is a sense that with one bound the sector is suddenly sorted for the next 25 years and there will be no more problems, no colleges getting into financial difficulties, and I think that’s very unrealistic,” he says.

In our next edition, David tackles questions about value for money in the area review process, along with the outcome of his review of AoC, including the future of the regional structure and what he will do differently.

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AoC regions and their directors

Steve Sawbridge – West Midlands: Mr Sawbridge has held a range of management roles in colleges and worked as a freelance consultant. He worked with the Learning and Skills Council on policy and strategy and on business planning in the FE sector, and as head of strategic partnerships at the Quality Improvement Agency for Lifelong Learning.

Gillian Miller – North East: For 13 years prior to her appointment in 2014, Ms Miller worked at a senior level in the Learning and Skills Council and its successor organisation the Skills Funding Agency, most recently as area director. Prior to that, she was head of economic development for a local authority in the north east.

Ian Munro – South West: Mr Munro taught and managed in FE before moving into senior leadership. He is also the national AoC policy lead for sustainability, working closely with the organisation’s Sustainability Portfolio Group. He is co-director of the newly-formed Hinkley Point Training Agency, a collaboration of colleges and independent training providers.

Mary Vine-Morris – London: Ms Vine-Morris has over 25 years’ experience of the management of adult education, FE, work-based learning and social and economic
regeneration. She has worked with partners in London’s education and business sector to provide strategic leadership of post-16 learning across the capital.

Richard Caulfield – North West: Before his appointment in December 2014, Mr Caulfield was chief executive of Voluntary Sector North West for seven years, a regional umbrella body for the voluntary sector. Prior to that, he held a number of senior roles in both the voluntary and private sectors, including time at the NUS.

Caroline Rowley – Yorkshire and the Humber: Ms Rowley joined the AoC in 2003 from the National Museums Liverpool where she was head of education for the eight museums and galleries in Liverpool. Before then, she held roles at education charity Campaign for Learning, Lancashire College and North Trafford College.

Paul Eeles, director of EMFEC (affiliate organisation covering AoC’s East Midlands region): Mr Eeles has over 29 years’ experience of working in FE. As well as his role at AoC, Paul is also chief executive of the Skills and Education Group, consisting of ABC Awards, ASDAN and EMFEC. He was recently appointed chair of the Federation of Awarding Bodies.

Andrew Thomson, chief executive of Association of Colleges for the Eastern (affiliate AoC organisation): Mr Thomson is a former college principal who went on to lead the Learning and Skills Development Agency and then the Quality Improvement Agency, before working as a consultant in industry and FE.

Pamela Lumsden, chief executive of the Association of South East Colleges (affiliate AoC organisation): Ms Lumsden has been chief executive of AoSEC since November 2012. Before this, she worked for various organisations, including the Learning and Skills Improvement Service, the National Institute for Adult Continuing Education, Ofsted, OCR and the Open College Network.

AoC and AELP bosses battle over independent provider quality

The bosses of FE’s two biggest associations have traded verbal blows over the quality of apprenticeships that are delivered by private training providers.

David Hughes, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, has claimed that independent providers offer apprentices “not very much” training, mostly assessing them “on the job”.

But his comments sparked a war of words with Mark Dawe, boss of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, who challenged the AoC chief to “produce the evidence” to back up his allegation.

Mr Hughes’ criticism of independent training providers was made during an interview with FE Week in which he defended colleges’ poor take-up of apprenticeships over the past year.

The former skills minister Nick Boles had challenged colleges to stop letting private providers “nick your lunch” at the 2015 AoC annual conference – something that the figures show they haven’t really managed.

Pressed on why some colleges haven’t been expanding their apprenticeship provision ahead of the levy, Mr Hughes said: “Colleges are big organisations and there’s always going to be a degree of cautiousness about suddenly shifting your business into new areas.

“If you’re an independent provider and you’re doing most of that work assessment on the job, there’s a lot of evidence that many apprentices get no-off-the job training, even at level four and five, even at degree-level apprenticeships. It’s much easier to suddenly switch your business and grow your business and get big numbers.”

Mr Dawe hit back at Mr Hughes, labelling his claim “disappointing and plain wrong”.

He told FE Week: “I challenge David to produce the evidence he refers to, given that Ofsted believes that 79 per cent of independent provider provision is good or outstanding, and the latest FE Choices and CBI data shows that by far the average highest satisfaction ratings among employers and learners are for independent providers.

“Is he really saying that an apprentice has to leave the employer’s premises to get access to the necessary facilities and kit?

“Off-the-job training for the technical certificate, and improving English and maths, can and does frequently takes place in training rooms on site or at the provider’s facilities.

“David may be inferring, and it may be the case that many colleges are not suited to certain types of delivery.

“Therefore they should focus on what they are good at rather than trying to turn everything into classroom education.”

Just days after the exchange, the left-leaning think-tank IPPR called on the government to phase out level two apprenticeships for 16- to 18-year-olds, and replace them with a programme only offered by colleges.

It is also likely that the government’s skills plan will favour colleges if classroom-based facilities are required to deliver its 15 new technical professional education routes.

“AELP has nearly 50 college members, some of which are very large, who offer high quality work-based learning and I would be surprised if many of them agreed with David,” added Mr Dawe.

“I am puzzled why the size of an institution should prevent it from entering the apprenticeship market – it is all about willingness to seize the opportunities that the levy offers and getting better at employer engagement.”

College sector ignoring minister’s cash warning as private providers clean up

Colleges have failed to take up the apprenticeships challenge laid down a year ago by former skills minister Nick Boles – with figures showing the proportion delivered by them has fallen significantly.

Mr Boles urged delegates at last year’s Association of Colleges conference to stop letting independent training providers “nick your lunch”.

He also challenged colleges to go from delivering a third of all apprenticeships to two-thirds.

Yet despite this, the proportion of all apprenticeship funding going to colleges has dropped from 37 per cent in 2015/16 to 32 per cent in 2016/17, according to latest Skills Funding Agency allocations.

Colleges were allocated £564,697,386 for all apprenticeships this year, compared to £1,175,506,126 for other providers.

While the college cash figure is 7 per cent higher than the same time last year, the Skills Funding Agency automatically set 2016/17 allocations 19 per cent higher for adult apprenticeships.

So, although actual delivery figures for 2015/16 has yet to be published, this is likely to mean colleges did not use all the funding they were allocated.

And of the £305 million extra cash allocated for apprenticeships this year, just £35 million, or 12 per cent, has gone to colleges.

And, shockingly, some colleges’ allocations have shown a massive drop compared to last year.

The figures for 19+ apprenticeships are even more damning, with colleges representing just 30 per cent of total allocations – a drop of six per cent from last year.

Colleges were allocated £272,757,698 for this age group as of August this year, compared to £628,665,199 for other training providers.

Astoundingly, a number of colleges still have only a tiny proportion of their allocations given over to 19+ apprenticeships.

The worst offender is Kensington and Chelsea College, with an allocation of just £79,324 – down 26 per cent on last year.

Its 2015/16 adult apprenticeships allocation of £106,533 was just 3 per cent of its adult skills budget for the year.

Colleges’ performance on 16 to 18-year-old apprenticeships was slightly better, with them representing 35 per cent of the total allocations – although this was down from 38 per cent last year.

Mr Boles’ speech was not the first such appeal by a minister speaking at AoC conference.

Read Editor Nick Linford's view here — Read Editor Nick Linford’s view here

The then economic secretary to the treasury, John Healey, urged college delegates 13 years ago to be “more active” in forging links with business, complaining the FE sector was too often a “passive recipient” of decisions made by the government to improve training.

David Hughes, AoC chief executive, has now defended colleges’ poor take up of apprenticeships.

“Colleges are big organisations and there’s always going to be a degree of cautiousness about suddenly shifting your business into new areas,” he said.

Colleges were particularly interested in “the technical, professional stuff, where you need off the job, where you need kit, facilities, gear, as well as doing on the job”, he said.

He added: “How that fits with the skills plan I think is really interesting and I think that’s where our members are really focusing.”

Several college allocations for 2016/17 were not listed in the Skills Funding Agency list, so a year-on-year comparisons could not be made.

Move away from 3m apprenticeship target to avoid ‘wasting £500 million’ says influential think tank

The government should “move away” from its target for three million apprenticeships, to avoid wasting £500 million a year on substandard training, according to experts from the Policy Exchange.

A new report from the right-wing think-tank claims that a significant proportion of the apprenticeship standards are inadequate, and raises concerns about the government’s focus on quantity over quality.

Its authors, Tom Richmond, a sixth form college teacher, and Jonathan Simons (pictured right), the organisation’s head of education, called on the government to “move away from the three million target for apprenticeship starts being the sole metric of success of the apprenticeships programme”.

Instead, they said, the government should set “a new system goal which focusses on quality”.

“Large numbers – perhaps as many as a third – of the new approved apprenticeships standards do not meet the required standard,” according to the report.

“In light of the forecast spend of £2.5 billion a year on apprenticeships by 2020, this means that at a conservative estimate, £500 million a year will be spent on training courses that are unjustifiably being branded as apprenticeships.”

Mr Richmond and Mr Simons wrote that the process of rolling out the reforms creates an environment where apprenticeships had been developed without adhering to “the best in class definition or the high expectation of quality”.

The report, entitled ‘The skills we need, and why we don’t have them – How apprenticeships should be reformed to make the UK compete on the global stage’, recommends introducing a new definition of an apprenticeship.

This would build on international best practice, using it as “a legal definition through which to assess all current standards”.

To be branded as an apprenticeship, they said, courses “must both meet the identified skills needs in scope and content terms, and contain sufficient long-term on and off the job training, rather than being a generic training course”.

Mr Richmond and Mr Simons identified six areas in which the new approved apprenticeship programmes could be improved.

These included “apprenticeships that are insufficiently stretching to meet the demands of the profession and the level of qualification within it”, do not “represent a skilled occupation”, or “require substantial and sustained training”.

Other problem areas were “apprenticeships which are in fact professional development courses”, or where “too much content is duplicated between different levels”, and there’s “inadequate assessment methods”.

According to the report, difficulties with end-point assessment included companies being able to sign off their own apprenticeships, and apprenticeships having no agreed method of assessment or awarding organisation in place.

In response to the report, David Hughes, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, said: “Policy Exchange rightly highlights the unhelpful nature of the government’s target of three million new apprenticeships by 2020.

“Apprenticeships need to be both valuable to the apprentice and the employer; giving people the experience and transferable skills to help them launch a career.”

He added: “In our autumn statement submission, we recommend that the government considers topslicing the apprenticeship levy, to not only promote access to apprenticeships but also help raise quality and to focus more on outcomes.”

Mark Dawe, the chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said: “We have called for a pause in the whole standards development process because there are important issues which unless they are resolved threaten to do serious damage to the apprenticeship brand.

“We totally agree, for example, with the report’s observations that apprentices should not be starting on programmes without proper assessment arrangements in place. In our view, every standard also should include a recognised qualification.

“As was recently explored by MPs on Commons committees, the levy may lead to some employers gaming the system, and it was inevitable that the introduction of the tax would mean that some existing in-house training would be turned into an apprenticeship.”

Skills and apprenticeships Minister Robert Halfon said: “We have made clear that all apprenticeships must be of the highest quality, and all standards are now developed by employers themselves and rigorously checked before being introduced.

“From next April the new Institute for Apprenticeships, with employer expertise at its heart, will be charged with approving standards to ensure they are high quality.”

Read an expert piece from Tom Richmond on ‘how to fix the skills system’ here.

Policy Exchange recommendations:

All newly approved and reapproved standards should have to include evidence that they are focussed on skilled occupations, and a detailed training plan covering content, time allocations, off the job training and qualifications
Add a new gateway for Ofqual to inspect all new assessment tools and to accredit all apprenticeship assessment organisations
The Institute for Apprenticeships should become the voice of technical education for all post-16 learning
Trailblazer groups should be converted into Technical Education Councils, following the pathways set out by the Sainsbury Review
Funds from the apprenticeships levy should sit in a separate, dedicated fund, with the institute choosing whether to distribute it on a sectoral basis
State funding for technical education should be widened to include higher-level classroom-based qualifications, funded by loans and with a lifetime allocation

Influential think tank calls for college-only route to replace the level 2 apprenticeship

Left-wing think tank IPPR wants the government to phase out level two apprenticeships for 16-18 year olds, and replace them with a programme only offered by colleges.

Entitled ‘Earning & Learning – Making the Apprenticeship System work for 16-18 year olds’, its new report warned youth unemployment is being fuelled by “too many” 16–18 year olds studying level two courses that do not help them progress through vocational education or into work.

Authors Joe Dromey, senior research fellow on work, skills and family at IPPR (pictured above), Jonathan Clifton, who left the IPPR to become Head of Strategic Policy at Department for Education after drafting the report and Charlynne Pullen, now head of workforce data at The Education and Training Foundation, instead proposed that level two apprenticeships should be replaced by “a distinct pre-apprenticeship programme”.

This, they added, should “only be offered by FE colleges, or training providers which are run on a not-for-profit basis”.

The report said that level two apprenticeships “are often very job specific, they do not include much off-the-job training, they only last one year, and – from next year – they will not be required to include a recognised qualification”.

The authors added: “Young people who leave full-time education with a level two qualification have an employment rate of 70 per cent – which is almost 20 percentage points lower than those who leave full-time education with a level three qualification or higher education.”

In addition, they said, wage returns for level two qualifications are low, and relatively few of these learners progress to level three – only 39 per cent of those on one year level two courses.

In contrast to the current system, IPPR said, pre-apprenticeships would be “explicitly designed to help young people move onto a full level three apprenticeship at age 18 or 19”.

The proposed scheme would differ from the current system in a number of ways, including “more ‘off the job’ training”, “more general education (including English and maths)”, and a final “transferable qualification” at its outcome.

The report also suggested “employers do not want to hire young apprentices” and therefore should be subsidised for taking on a young person on a pre-apprenticeship – for example by being “allowed to use their levy payment” to cover the wages.

In response to the report, David Hughes, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, said: “The AoC has been calling for the introduction of a pre-apprenticeship offer for some time, so it’s good to see other organisations pushing for the same idea.

“All FE colleges provide apprenticeships and are keen to do more, so it is interesting to see the suggestion that this offer should only be open to colleges and not-for-profit training providers. I’m sure that will be debated long and hard.”

AELP chief executive Mark Dawe, who has written an expert piece on this, commented: “We should be debating what is in the best interests of young people based on evidence rather than institutionally-biased proposals.

“Many industries need and want a level two starting point and therefore it would be a denial of social justice to disallow a 16 year old the opportunity to gain knowledge and proper experience of work.

“Moreover due to failings in the schools system, many 16 year olds need to start at level two and yet some opinion-formers seem bent on punishing them further.”

Last year there were 130,400 16-18 year olds apprenticeship starts, of which 86,700 (66%) were on level two frameworks.

When asked to respond to the report recommendations, skills and apprenticeships Minister Robert Halfon said: “We are determined to ensure that people of all backgrounds and all ages can get on the ladder of opportunity. That is why we introduced traineeships, which are backed by business, and provide young people with the vital work experience and skills they need to gain an apprenticeship or a job.

We want to transform this country into an apprenticeship nation and Level 2 apprenticeships are a key part of that. Level 2 apprentices can earn up to £74,000 more over their lifetime, thanks to the skills they gain. We are also supporting young people into full-time jobs with training through 16- 18 apprenticeships – providing sustainable careers, with proven returns on future earnings and employment.”

IPPR recommendations:

The government should abolish level two apprenticeships for 16–18-year olds and replace them with a pre-apprenticeship programme
Pre-apprenticeships should contain more off-the-job training and a final transferable qualification
Employers should be subsidised for hiring pre-apprentices – giving them a clear financial incentive to take part in the programme
There should be one pre-apprenticeship programme for each of the 15 technical pathways
Pre-apprenticeship programmes should only be offered by FE colleges or not-for-profit training providers
Pre-apprenticeships should be explicitly designed to help young people move onto a full level three apprenticeship at age 18 or 19

How to fix the skills system

Government’s recent apprenticeship reforms were well-intentioned but miscalculated, says Tom Richmond, co-author of today’s Policy Exchange report, ‘The skills we need, and why we don’t have them’.

“No matter who I speak with, when I mention apprenticeships people react warmly.” So said Doug Richard in his review of apprenticeships back in 2012. This warmth ensures that whenever a politician declares their commitment to supporting or expanding apprenticeships, they can be assured of an equally positive response.

But what if apprenticeships weren’t always as beneficial as they might appear? What if apprenticeships were not always the dynamic and valuable choice for young people and adults that you assumed them to be? What if everything you knew about apprenticeships was wrong? The report that I have written with the Policy Exchange think tank poses precisely these questions.

Since Doug Richard’s review, the government has quietly but systematically been reforming our apprenticeship system. In order to truly understand the impact of the government’s actions, you have to stop fretting over the apprenticeship levy or subcontracting arrangements and instead take a long hard look under the bonnet of these reforms. Our conclusion is that in too many areas, the laudable ambition of high-quality apprenticeships across the economy has not been met.

The reform programme has been beset by weaknesses and miscalculations

Some of the apprenticeships designed by trailblazers are excellent and promote the kind of training that embodies apprenticeships in this country and abroad. However, we found that the reform programme has been beset by weaknesses and miscalculations that have undermined its intentions.

To be clear, an ‘apprenticeship’ is not a synonym for ‘training’. It is an education programme that focuses on systematic long-term training both on- and off-the-job in a new and skilled occupation. Our report has identified many of the new apprenticeship standards – perhaps as many as a third – that do not meet the definition of an apprenticeship used in other countries or historically in this country.

We found examples of standards where the content is insufficient to meet skills needs, or relates to a low-skill occupation – contrary to the government’s stated intention that every new apprenticeship standard should be in a highly skilled role. We came across standards that we estimate require only a few weeks of training. We identified new standards that could more accurately be deemed professional development courses for existing staff, and which do not help a learner into a new role or responsibility. What’s more, several standards duplicated others, either across different areas, or between Level 2 and Level 3.

Our report also demonstrates how the speed with which the government pushed through their reforms has lessened the opportunities to address these concerns over apprenticeship quality. As FE Week has shown already, the arrangements for ‘end-point assessments’ for apprentices have resulted in some organisations who lack any prior assessment experience being put in charge without any agency, regulator or government department monitoring them. The government’s requirement that new apprenticeships must contain 20% off-the-job training is not consistently enforced, while previous commitments that the assessments used for new apprenticeships will be valid, reliable and judged independently ought to have received much more attention.

If you want to understand how such a well-intentioned set of reforms to a much-loved educational brand could have produced such mixed results, the report we have published today is required reading. Our estimate is that without change, £500 million pounds a year by 2020 could be spent on apprenticeships which are, in fact, not apprenticeships at all. There is too much at stake, both educationally and financially, to allow these reforms to continue without changes.

Robert Halfon and the newly unified Department for Education have a real opportunity here but it will require relentlessly focussing on high-quality apprenticeships above all else, alongside reforming the way in which apprenticeships are designed, bringing Ofqual in to regulate all assessments and giving more power and true independence to the new Institute of Apprenticeships.

A skills system in a country that works for everyone, not just a privileged few, has the potential to do so much better. Our report sets out how it can be done.

By Tom Richmond, sixth-form college teacher and former senior adviser to skills ministers Nick Boles and Matt Hancock

Government meddling blamed for 2 year apprenticeship delays

Government meddling has meant that students didn’t start on some apprenticeship standards for two years after they were launched.

Using the latest Skills Funding Agency data FE Week examined the first standards given government sign-off in 2014.

We found two had no starts at all in that academic year or in 2015/16, while low numbers of students were recorded in several others.

The National Skills Academy for Food and Drink took a lead role developing one of the apprenticeships which had no learners, for food and drink maintenance engineers.

Justine Fosh, its chief executive, laid the blame for squarely at the door of the government.

She said employers involved with the trailblazer group led by NSAFD, which developed the standard, had been “frustrated by the evolutionary nature of the government’s decision making process for approval”.

“We were advised at the start that this new and innovative approach was called ‘open policy-making’, whereby new ideas were tested to see if they worked or not.

“Unfortunately policy implementation does not lend itself well to this approach and valuable employer time and effort has been spent unpicking decisions made as policy decisions have firmed up.

“This has led to redrafting, reworking and lost time, such that the industry has written to the new skills minister, requesting that the Department for Education implements a far more structured and clear process for the future.”

She claimed that the standard had not actually been ready for apprenticeship starts until the start of this academic year, though “at least 60 students that I know of” have started since September.

When asked to explain more about the causes of the delays, Ms Fosh pointed to confusion surrounding the assessment plan.

The first one, she said, to be initially approved Wincluded detail on the mechanism of the end assessment”.

“In the first approved version, 40 per cent of the grade that the candidate would achieve resulted from the score for the qualification that they undertook on programme – i.e. they could take their score from the qualification into the assessment room,” she said.

“But subsequently the Department for Business Innovation and Skills decided that on-programme qualifications could not form part of an end assessment. As a result we had to redo the assessment plan.”

FE Week contacted a number of employers involved with developing those standards which had had few or no starts over the past two academic years.

They all declined to comment on why they did not take on apprentices themselves.

The DfE told FE Week in October that a change in policy would in future “require all groups of employers bidding to develop a standard to commit themselves to using it”.

In response to Ms Fosh’s complaints, a DfE spokesperson said: “We expect to see starts on employer-led standards increase over the course of this parliament as providers and employers adapt their delivery models towards new standards.

“The open policy-development approach towards standards and assessment was adopted to ensure that input from employers and other stakeholders could be taken into account along the way so that all new standards deliver the skills that they need.”

Education secretary commits to focusing ‘much more’ on FE

A firm commitment has been made by education secretary Justine Greening to “focus much more” on FE.

She made the encouraging comments during a speech at an event in London today to celebrate the Education Endowment Foundation’s fifth anniversary.

Ms Greening admitted that the government had “for a long time” focused mainly on improving academic rather than vocational-based education.

But she said: “It is now time we bring that same lens and focus on to the more technical education routes, which let’s face it, most young people follow.

“As we look at a Brexit Britain it is important we look at our skills and to skill-up. I don’t think we can afford to have any young person not delivering on their potential, which they otherwise could have done if we had taken more care in FE.

“We need to focus much more on this and that is what I intend to do. I’m really excited about the role FE can play.”

The minister cited the 15 new “high quality” technical professional education routes planned through the government’s Skills Plan unveiled in July, based on recommendations by Lord Sainsbury, as well as apprenticeship and traineeships training.

She indicated that she believes these “can work together” with classroom-based academic studies.

Also, with regards to maths and English resit results, which colleges have been criticised by Ofsted over, she looked towards “making sure FE colleges become steady centres of excellence and really bring on those young people who go through and do GCSEs, which is just simply harder”.

It comes after the government made it a condition of funding in 2014, that all 16 to 19 year olds who did not already have at least a grade C in GCSE English or maths should be enrolled in courses in these subjects.

This was changed the following year to require all those with a grade D in those subjects to do to a GCSE course, rather than an equivalent ‘stepping stone’ course.

Ofsted chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw has repeatedly hit out at standards of English and maths provision in colleges, and caused an uproar by suggesting that all 16 to 19-year-olds should be educated in schools.

The chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers called on the government to scrap its GCSE resit policy, as results published in August showed huge numbers of learners aged 17 and over failed their GCSE English or maths.

Figures released by the Joint Council for Qualifications showed that almost 122,500 learners aged 17 or above did not get at least a grade C in maths, while 93,000 failed to secure at least a C in English.

Mark Dawe called today’s results a “body blow” for the learners who did not make the grade.

Ms Greening added today: “FE is the final part of that strategy what we need to have in post-16 to finish off all of the improvements we have seen pre-16 around driving performance in maths and English and classroom altogether.

“We need to help FE position itself as a centre of excellence.”

Carmichael backs more FE investment as he rejects new grammars

New grammar schools have been rejected by influential education select committee chair Neil Carmichael, who called instead for more investment in the “much neglected” FE sector.

The Tory MP (pictured) said in a new blog for conservativehome.com it would be wrong of the government to lift the ban on these selective secondary schools, with the intention of improving social mobility, when other provider types were better suited to helping realise this aim.

General FE colleges, university technical colleges, and independent training providers were identified as neglected “Cinderella areas”, which he claimed colleagues on all wings of his party agree need more financial support ahead of the November 23 autumn budget.

Mr Carmichael warned “evidence argues that attending a grammar school does not make less advantaged children more likely to be upwardly mobile – but it helps them move further if they are upwardly mobile”.

But he insisted: “There is much more to be done in funding and expanding schools (the majority in our education system) which are providing more technical and vocational routes into the world of work, such as UTCs and the much-neglected FE Sector.”

The House of Commons committee chair added that outgoing Ofsted boss Sir Michael Wilshaw “has said grammars do nothing to improve social mobility, and share the concerns it will distract us from the debate about early years and a vocational route to success in life”.

It comes after former skills minister Nick Boles conceded in the introduction to the new Skills Plan, unveiled in July in response to Lord Sainsbury’s recommendations, that “technical education remains the poor relation of academic education”.

However, he added that while his department accepted and “will implement all of the Sainsbury panel’s proposals”, this would only happen “where that is possible within current budget constraints”.

The plan, based on recommendations by Lord Sainsbury and his panel, was for radical simplification of the post-16 vocational qualification system – with 20,000 courses to be replaced with 15 new “high-quality routes”.

It was understood at the time that each of the 15 routes would controversially only be available by a single awarding organisation.

But FE Week reported last week that this “myth” had been debunked by the deputy director 16-19 strategy at the Department for Education, Warwick Sharp.

He told the Association of Employment and Learning Providers’ autumn conference on November 1:“There is myth out there that there are 15 qualifications because there are 15 routes,” adding: “I think it will look different across each route.”