How to shift attitudes and market higher technical qualifications effectively

Fifteen years ago, at a meeting about recruiting students to higher technical courses, I heard one college director bemoan, to sympathetic nods, that her biggest problem was ‘the attitude of our own level 3 tutors’.  

Those tutors were encouraging students who might progress on to higher education at the college to enrol elsewhere, she explained, because ‘they think their teaching deserves a better result than college HE’.

Last month, at events organised by the Association of Colleges and the Gatsby Foundation, I spoke about the work of my company in researching higher technical education markets.

Judging by comments from attendees, the problem persists.

Recruitment to non-degree higher education is notoriously difficult. For institutions bridging the gap between A Level, BTEC and level 4, if tutors actively advise their students to avoid progressing, it becomes Sisyphean.

While local higher technical provision might not be right for the majority of level 3 students in a college, sixth form or independent provider (who typically are looking for a residential experience away from home), the minority for whom it might be right make up a considerable potential market.

This phenomenon of dissuasion is a cultural and leadership failure. If the problem is one of poor quality among higher-level courses, that needs be addressed. Likewise, if it is one of prejudice or ignorance.

So it is good news that the Department for Education intends to update its toolkits for providers of Higher Technical Qualifications (HTQ) to include materials targeting tutors.

Our own research into HTQs highlights various other challenges facing these kinds of programmes, while uncovering some solutions.

According to critics, HTQs are ‘just another acronym’ in a crowded qualifications market. They suffer from low awareness among potential students and their influencers. 

Dissuasion is a cultural and leadership failure

I think this misses the point. The plethora of (in particular, ‘non-prescribed’) provision at levels 4 and 5 means that some kind of organising conceit is required. HTQs are as good as any other.

This does not mean that this or future governments are likely to pour money into their branding or marketing like they have done with apprenticeships. That’s fantasy.

But it does mean that providers have the opportunity to package their qualifications in a manner that we know from the literature and our own research appeals to the target market: as occupational standards that will help get you a job or improve your career.

Another major challenge that higher technical education recruiters face is the diversity of the target market.

The good news here is that there is an abundance of publicly available evidence to help institutions unpick that complexity.

These include a library of studies and surveys commissioned by DfE. For example, the 2022 Technical Education Leavers Survey features new research on the motivators, influences and barriers of level 4 and 5 students.

Given that the majority of these students are aged over 24, it’s also useful to understand the attitudes and behaviours of adults more generally. For that, the Learning and Work Institute’s ‘Adult Participation in Learning’ study provides very useful insight.

It is clear from its results that convenience is a crucial factor in decision-making for adults thinking about non-leisure learning at higher level, in particular those with childcaring responsibilities.

Which is one reason why higher technical education providers should spotlight timetabling, travel connections and crèche facilities in their marketing.

They also need to understand which types of learners prefer different modes of delivery. In crude summary, the lower the level, the higher the preference for face-to-face learning. Which means that there can be a vibrant market for blended delivery at levels 4 and 5.

Our research, alongside the literature, is also very clear that search engine optimisation is important for all types of provision because of the primacy of online search among target markets.

Recent developments in artificial intelligence allow providers to become much more proficient at labelling courses and using key words that match the search terms used by potential students.

There is much more to consider, including the appeal of modularisation among employers, school liaison using level 4 tutors and adult recruitment through community centre partnerships, but the thoughts I have set out here are a good place to start.

The election will bring change – but will it bring respect?

In the midst of preparations for the first English exam on 22 May, my phone pinged with a message from a colleague: “general election July 4th then…”.

English and maths exams are the pinnacle of our year, but nothing quite trumps the excitement of an election, especially one that we expected to wait a bit longer for.

I don’t become nervous about change any longer. Having worked in further education for many years, I have seen the shifting sands and waves of new policy washing over the old (and often, not so old).

The prospect of change brings hope, but I wonder: are we ever going to escape the perpetual cycle of change, and is it conducive to creating a strong, stable offer for our students?

After 14 years with the Conservative party at the helm, we have seen and endured a lot. Under Gove, my own children have become expert fact-learners, primed for their future examinations. They know so much, and are prepared well to regurgitate on the day.

But what of the most disadvantaged young people, who we know are likely to come into further education looking for a new direction? And what of those young people who can’t quite ingest the fact-heavy curriculum they have been fed? What might a new government mean for them?

At present, when they come to our colleges, they sit through further years of preparing for high-stakes exams in English and maths, paired with a vocational course of choice.

They can climb the vocational ladder up to T Levels, and some do, but these qualifications are so challenging that without a stronger academic grounding, our students struggle. I have seen BTECs discontinued without an appropriate T-Level to replace them in time – and where BTECs have gone, many teachers have mourned the loss of a course that their students enjoyed.

These courses should have been reviewed and improved, not thrown away. This ruthless mentality which the sector has been subjected to does nothing to provide stability. These fraught changes mark the end of the line for some of our future tradespeople and aspiring vocational professionals as they have no path forward.

A new government needs to take pride in us

Whatever the new government looks like, it has to prioritise routes forward and out of deprivation for our disadvantaged young people.

During their 14-year tenure, the Conservatives have successfully reclassified the further education sector to align us with our primary and secondary counterparts and increased the funding we receive.

Yet we are far from thriving, and this has me questioning whether any of the policy changes have actually helped the most at-risk students. And do policy makers really understand who we are as a sector?

The changes to the Condition of Funding has had us all scrambling for English and maths teachers frantically, and wondering how to even begin timetabling for it.

Colleagues across the sector who have painstakingly timetabled resit classes within study programmes will have shared my despair as we read through the new weekly mandate of three hours in English and four of maths a week.

This was further confirmation that our current government doesn’t really ‘get us’ at all, when the nuts and bolts of our study programmes have now suddenly changed size and shape.

That feeling is particularly isolating when you pair it with our sectors understandable ‘poor relative’ complex.

A new administration (of whatever shade) needs to take the time to get to know us, because there is a lot more to post-16 education than A Levels. We are diverse, and we are wonderfully creative – we have had to be, to survive what has felt until only recently like ex-communication from the education sector.

A new government needs to take pride in us, and truly value what we do as a sector if we are to benefit from sustainable, meaningful change that truly improves life chances. They need to help us to reach our potential, so we can help our students reach theirs.

This election has roused me from my exam-haze. Change is coming one way or another, but it needs to be well-considered change that gives the sector a chance to have their say.

It’s time for stability. It’s time for a better deal for further education.

Why would anyone question the benefits of more teaching time for resits?

It is extraordinary to me to hear educators question the relationship between teaching time and outcomes. I first encountered it when working on the Department for Education’s review of ‘Time in Schools’ in 2021. Boris Johnson later used the doubters’ arguments to justify not investing sufficiently in education recovery. More recently, the setting of minimum teaching hours for GCSE resits has rekindled the debate.

The thing that’s extraordinary is that I can’t imagine any other sector or industry disputing the benefit of their core activity. Are GPs suggesting that shorter patient appointments would be better? Are there police who believe that time on the streets detracts from important back-office admin? Is McDonalds provoking a public debate about whether we eat too many cheeseburgers?

And although I deeply admire the societal value of all three of those callings, neither doctors, nor police, nor any number of ‘Have a nice days’ can open up the world and opportunity for young people like teaching can.

I could point to the abundant academic evidence on the benefit of increased teaching time, such as Battistin and Meroni 2016, or Bellei 2009, or Huebener 2017, or Kikuchi 2014, or Lavy 2015 & 2020, or Rivkin and Shiman 2015.

In a few of those cases it was only a sub-group who benefitted, such as economically-disadvantaged students or women, but that is perhaps why it hasn’t moved the Treasury to pick up its cheque book.

But it doesn’t matter, because the sad truth is that we already don’t get enough time.

“Our 16-19 year-olds spend less time in classrooms than their international peers”. Those aren’t my words. That’s from Gillian Keegan’s foreword to the Advanced British Standard proposals.

Study programmes in England are not funded for adequate teaching hours to equal the experience internationally. Failing to make the case for more hours fails our young people.

There was a small step forward in 2022 with the additional forty hours in study programmes for maths. Then, if I may say so myself, a rather progressive move was announced in 2023 to reform the English and maths premium.

Failing to make the case for more hours fails young people

Previously, that little-known pot of funding was mostly benefiting school sixth forms while FE did the heavy lifting on resits. Now it will add a cash boost to FE coffers, in recognition for doing an inspiring job of the most important policy in education.

I have seen some rubbishing of the new funding because it is perceived as coming with new asks from “busy officials” in Whitehall. But they are not really new. Most of us had three hours with our resit students before Covid, and the extra hour for maths was funded two years ago.

Officials were indeed busy. And what they were busy doing was listening to teachers and students in the minority of outlier providers, desperate because the one hour per week or less they have timetabled doesn’t give anyone a fighting chance.

The case for linking new funding to some minimum expectations seems more than reasonable when you put learners first.

Anyway, there’s a relatively quick way to prove the case. Two things happen in 2025/26: The headline performance measure for English and maths finally returns after its Gavin Williamson hiatus, and the DfE will start collecting data on English and maths hours in study programmes.

By the end of 2026, we can prove once and for all whether more teaching hours makes a difference.

(I’ve actually always wondered why DfE doesn’t do this for study programmes generally. They already know which colleges offer the expected 640 hours versus the minimum 580. It would take about thirty seconds to run some analysis of that against outcomes.)

Right now, we are heading into an election where only one party has plans to increase contact time for 16- to 19-year-olds, and the bookmakers are pretty confident they’re not going to win.

We need the next government to invest in FE, so let’s please start shouting about what a great investment it is.

From OOF to WOOF: How to put a leash on apprenticeship completion dates

A major challenge that consistently plagues many providers is learners extending beyond their expected programme completion dates. This often leads to unfunded provision or, to use the jargon, out of funding (OOF).

So much so, in fact, that the language surrounding this issue has evolved from the painful-sounding OOF to an almost-exhausted WOOF (well out of funding) in the face of increasing durations far exceeding the norm.

This begs the question: why do these learners linger? Is the essence of the service still intact or have these learners become mere statistics in a bid to sidestep actual qualification achievement rates (QAR), at least momentarily?

The reasons behind learners’ programmes stretching beyond their intended timelines vary, yet common themes emerge across sectors. For those of us deeply involved in governance, we frequently deal with inquiries from providers about benchmarks, acceptable thresholds and strategies to address this pressing issue.

While there is no quick fix, there are proven strategies, systems and processes that can make a tangible difference.

Recruitment stands out as a pivotal concern, most notably ensuring that each learner finds their rightful place in the appropriate programme. As FIN colleague and former inspector James Houston aptly puts it, “sales sell the dream and operations live the nightmare”. In other words, allowing recruitment targets to overshadow retention drives the wrong behaviours.

Assuming you recruit with integrity and therefore have the right learners on the right programme, the most profound impact in successfully reducing the number of learners becoming OOFs lies in reframing the narrative.

Instead of viewing learners who exceed their timelines as statistics, let’s recognise them as casualties of broken promises. Some might think this is an unfair term. However, turning the focus onto ourselves as practitioners with some emotive language makes us more likely to take ownership of the problem.

Let’s recognise these learners as casualties of broken promises

Consider the learners and apprentices who have their goals or aspirations hanging in the balance. When a learner commits to a programme or apprenticeship, it is more than a transaction: it’s a promise of personal growth and achievement within a set timeframe. If a learner goes beyond their planned end date, that promise is broken.  

No one intentionally wants a reputation for breaking promises. But by taking the approach of accountability for the broken promises, provider staff will build in more risk management strategies.  For example, the timing and sequencing of the various learning components play a crucial role.

Deliberate planning for introducing topics, assessments for learning and the scheduling and effectiveness of reviews can help predict and prevent extensions beyond planned end dates.

Where functional skills are included (one of the most common reasons for OOFs), the delivery model needs to identify potential barriers at the start of the programme as a preventative measure, not retrospectively after deadlines have been missed.

Frequency of contact, varying approaches and awareness of seasonal challenges feature in certain industries.

Sadly, reviews are often more about process rather than purpose when we should be celebrating milestones and impact on the workplace. Highly effective reviews pull together all the components of an apprenticeship and highlight positive workplace impact while measuring progress over time and identifying potential hurdles early.

Tutors on the ground have a good grasp of where the pressure points are. By reframing how we consider and support learners approaching their planned end date or deemed OOFs, we can drive change and have a significant impact.

Some providers may feel that too many factors are beyond their control, but I’ve seen this reframing approach really work. The change in perspective challenges us to take ownership of our responsibilities, recognising that it is not just about finances but about the trust and commitment we owe the learners we recruit to provide them with the opportunity to succeed.

It definitely becomes a more uncomfortable conversation with leaders and managers when talking openly about broken promises, but you might be surprised by the innovative ideas that emerge.

Mental health is key to educational efforts to rekindle social mobility

Recent findings from the Institute for Fiscal Studies show that social mobility is at its worst in over 50 years. Alongside alarming NHS data revealing a 50 per cent surge in mental health emergencies among children and young people over the past three years and a government study revealing an equally worrying rise in adults experiencing depressive symptoms, it paints a bleak picture of our current societal challenges.

If education is the gateway to social mobility, then this rise in poor mental health is a significant barrier. Without good mental health, students are unlikely to be focused on learning or where they want to go next. Lacking that motivation too easily leads to poor standards of work, lateness and non-attendance.

That’s why I thoroughly believe that government and education sector efforts to improve social mobility must focus on mental health and wellbeing outcomes.

This must start with challenging the misconception that social mobility means going upwards all the time. In truth, social mobility is about enabling individuals to choose their direction (including sideways or even staying still), safe in the knowledge they can move and armed with the confidence to do things differently.

Accessible and safe solutions

As educational providers, we are often powerless to address the external factors that impact learners’ mental health. However, we can provide the support and the tools they need to develop strong mental fitness and resilience.

Whether their struggles are academic or personal, and whether they would benefit from joining a club or more formal counselling, we need to support them to find the solution that works for them.

Familiarity and shared experience are often key to opening up. When I led student support at the University of Salford, we created the first integrated service of its kind, located within the student union. We overhauled the system so that our student counsellors were new graduates who looked and sounded like those seeking help.

By removing barriers where we could, we were able to create a genuinely safe and supportive space.

Social mobility superheroes

Few people experience social mobility challenges and the potential for poor mental health more than refugees. According to the Mental Health Foundation, those seeking asylum are five times more likely to have mental health needs than the general population, but much less likely to receive support.

Amid a skills crisis and government efforts to grow the economy, we can’t afford to ignore the experience, skills and resilience refugees bring with them. And yet their huge potential is often overlooked.

Through NCG’s ‘Our Community is Your Community’ initiative, we help refugees overcome the barriers they face upon arrival beyond language acquisition. From navigating local transport and setting up bank accounts and bills, to social events and access to entrepreneurial opportunities, we aim to give this community a sense of purpose and confidence.

As well as the technical English that allows them to share their skills and make a purposeful contribution to their new communities, these are crucial to their mental health and their social mobility.

Taking support to the next level

More broadly though, we need to do much better than guessing at what our learners need from us. Reinventing the wheel in every college is a highly inefficient way to proceed.

That’s why we have partnered with Activate Learning and signed up to be part of the largest college-based Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT) of its kind. Using a mobile mental health app called eQuoo, developed by PsycApps Ltd, the trial launched in February with a sample size exceeding 8,000 students across both college groups and focuses on the mental health issues that contribute to non-attendance, drop-out rates, behaviour and academic struggles. 

Participating in this research will support the creation of an evidence base which will tell us what does and doesn’t work. More than that, sharing those outcomes will better inform policy makers, the health system and industry.

My hope is this will result in positive change, not least in terms of how things are funded. Ultimately, getting this right is key to mental health and educational outcomes – and therefore to social mobility.

Both parties pledge targeted training to cut immigration

Both Labour and the Conservatives have made similar pledges to cut overseas recruitment and immigration by targeting training at sectors facing staff shortages.

Appearing on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg last weekend, shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper claimed a Labour government would set up a “new skills system” and target key sectors with “training plans” to reduce the need for overseas recruitment.

The pledge appeared strikingly similar to a Conservative announcement made the day before the general election was called.

In a speech on May 21, Conservative work and pensions secretary Mel Stride claimed that his party would combine “tighter visa rules” to curb overseas migration with training schemes targeted at key sectors.

Stride claimed he had set up a taskforce to come up with “interventions”, such as initiatives to fill HGV driver shortages in 2021, which included skills bootcamps and jobcentre training opportunities.

The key difference between the two parties’ proposals appears to be Labour’s pledge to develop “major workforce plans” for several priority sectors.

Cooper told Kuenssberg that Labour agrees that net migration “needs to come down”. She claimed her party would get unemployed people “back into work”.

She said Labour would target five critical sectors which see high levels of overseas recruitment: engineering, social care, health, IT and construction.

Labour’s ‘proper plan’

The shadow home secretary said the current government lacked a “proper plan” to increase the number of engineers in the UK, despite overseeing a drop in the number of apprentices for the role, which is on the government’s list of shortage occupations.

Today, the party shared further details on the policy, which includes encouraging employers to train workers in Britain by refusing to grant sponsoring work visas to companies that are not doing enough.

Labour says it could also remove roles from the shortage occupation visa list if it felt a sector is not engaging with the workforce plan.

Labour has also pledged to reform the apprenticeship levy as the growth and skills levy, giving employers flexibility to spend their contributions on other forms of training for their staff.

Keir Starmer’s party has also said some of the rebranded levy would fund 150,000 traineeships for young people, a programme which was scrapped in 2022 after a decade of delivery but low starts.

Labour has also said it will set up Skills England, a “taskforce” which would work with the government and devolved authorities to “develop outcome agreements” to ensure accountability for skills spending.

Emma Meredith, director of skills policy and global engagement at the Association of Colleges, which has called for a new national skills “partnership”, said the UK needs a “coherent and cohesive national strategy” on training and immigration policy to address its “chronic skills shortages”.

Labour and the Conservatives were approached for comment.

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: EDITION 464

Lesley Morrey

Principal, City of Stoke on Trent Sixth Form College

Start date: June 2024

Previous Job: Director of Student Engagement & Partnerships, Stafford College

Interesting fact: Lesley is a fan of music and musical theatre. She sings as part of a four-part choir and has recently joined a local ukulele band

Lawrence Wood

Principal & CEO, Telford College

Start date: August 2024

Previous Job: Principal, Coleg Llandrillo

Interesting fact: Lawrence has worked in further education for nearly 25 years. In addition to his leadership responsibilities, he has been a peer inspector for Estyn, the Welsh education and training inspectorate

Students volunteer to support their local communities

College learners across the country this week helped to build wellbeing hubs and served free lunches in their communities as part of Volunteers’ Week 2024. 

Volunteers’ Week is a national initiative running from June 3 to 9 June, which has been running for 40 years and in the past drawn interest from around 140 colleges.  

It is also being pushed by the Good for Me Good for FE campaign, which launched its first awards ceremony last year and is due to open nominations for next year’s ceremony in a few months’ time. 

This year it features some of the 2023 Good for Me Good for FE Award winners, including Nottingham College, which won volunteering college of the year last year. 

Plastering, carpentry and joinery students at the college have built a wellbeing hub on the campus, which is set to open to students in September and will be available to those who need downtime in between classes and/or access to wellbeing support. 

The group decided to take on the project after they learned that construction workers are almost four times more likely to take their own lives than those in other sectors.

Caleb Sansom, a level 2 plastering student at Nottingham College

Caleb Sansom, a level 2 plastering student and one of the group leaders, said he wanted to help support others after experiencing his own mental health challenges. 

He was also recently named runner-up in the Nottinghamshire Police youth outreach team’s Live our Best Life awards, in the category of Bringing People Together. 

“Coming from a construction background, and also dealing with my own mental health issues, I know this is a real issue,” he said. 

Meanwhile, London South East Colleges’ students welcomed local residents into the college BR6 restaurant for a complimentary lunch as part of the London Borough of Bromley’s tackling loneliness initiative. 

Hospitality students ran the “warm Wednesdays” events this year and, due to popular demand, the college will be hosting its first “summer wellbeing Wednesday lunch” this month. 

LSEC’s strategic programme manager Karen Oliver said: “By volunteering in their local community, students understand the importance of what they are doing and the skills they are learning as they can see the impact directly on those living nearby.” 

Oliver was a finalist in the special recognition award for last year’s Good for Me Good for FE awards.

Uefa under-19s football tournament team, Belfast Metropolitan College

Another finalist taking part in Volunteers’ Week is Natalie Thompson, from Belfast Metropolitan College, who was highly commended as staff volunteer of the year in the 2023 awards. 

Thompson (pictured right) is helping with mascots and half-time matches for young girls in the Uefa under-19s football tournament, which is being held in Northern Ireland in July. 

Sam Parrett, group principal and CEO of LSEC, which leads Good for Me Good for FE, said: “Volunteers’ Week is a great opportunity for us to once again shine a light on the amazing work being done by staff and students in colleges around the country, to support their communities. 

“It’s fantastic to see some of the winners of last year’s awards continuing their volunteering efforts and inspiring others. We are looking forward to launching this year’s awards and hearing about many more incredible people within our sector – and urge every college to get involved and nominate their community heroes!” 

Good for Me Good for FE is launching its second year of awards to  showcase the best local volunteering and fundraising efforts. Nominations will open in early September. 

Sunak’s national service plan puts £2.6bn employment training fund at risk

The future of billions of pounds in funding for employment and skills training programmes aimed at the country’s most deprived areas is facing “huge uncertainty” following the prime minister’s proposed introduction of a “modern national service”. 

Created to replace the European Social Fund and European Regional Development Fund  following Brexit, the £2.6 billion UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) is dedicated to projects that improve local social and economic outcomes between 2022 and 2025.

Much of it funds crucial “third sector” programmes for priority groups, such as lone parents, ex-offenders, or people classed as not in education, employment or training (NEET).

The fund is targeted at the most disadvantaged parts of the UK and is a core part of the Conservatives’ levelling up agenda to “spread opportunity more equally” across the country.

About a third of the £1.5 billion is also ringfenced for “multiply” numeracy courses, which vary widely across the country but include teaching people how to avoid debt, budgeting for the self-employed and maths for parents and carers.

Last week, however, Rishi Sunak pledged to scrap the fund completely from 2028 to pay for a new national service scheme for 18-year-olds. This could be one of 30,000 selective full-time military placements lasting one year or 25 days of voluntary placements with organisations such as the fire service, police, NHS or a charity.

Keir Starmer attacked Sunak over the funding of national service during Tuesday night’s ITV general election debate, calling the idea “desperate” and “taking money away from levelling up”.

Sunak replied that his national service plan would be “transformational”, adding: “The money we spend on levelling up is partly spent on spreading skills and opportunities for young people.”

It is not clear whether Labour would retain the UKSPF, but a report published by Gordon Brown in 2022 recommended “merging” the fund with the main adult education budget.

‘Betrayal’

A study by Jonathan Payne at De Montford University has already found that the third sector faces “huge uncertainty” due to its reliance on UKSPF funding.

Payne, who surveyed 64 third-sector organisations, said that three-quarters of them have already reduced their services due to a drop in funding during the transition between EU funding, which ended in 2020, and the UKSPF’s launch in 2022.

Ian Ross, whose company Whitehead-Ross Education has £2.4 million of UKSPF contracts across nine local authorities, told FE Week that scrapping the fund would be a Conservative “betrayal” of its levelling up promises.

Neither Labour nor the Conservatives responded to requests for comment.

Marguerite Hogg, senior policy manager at the Association of Colleges said members are reporting that the UKSPF and Multiply are both making a “real impact” on learners’ lives.

She added: ““For many adults, maths can be a huge source of anxiety, and Multiply can be a real stepping stone towards a maths qualification as it is an introduction to numeracy in a non-intimidating way.

“The potential risk facing Multiply is worrying, and there must be policy development and funding to ensure that adults can continue to access maths provision like this.”

Simon Ashworth, the Association of Employment and Learning Provider’s director of policy said: “Elements of the European Social Fund previously had a strong focus on support for those not in education, employment or training (NEET) and much of this has already been lost following the introduction of its infrastructure-heavy replacement, the UKSPF.

“Given there are currently 900,000 NEETs, any further reduction in spending on UKSPF creates a real risk of critical funds getting lost for what should be priority groups.”