Restructure triggers fresh UCU staff strikes

A row between staff and bosses worsened at University and College Union this week after new strike dates were announced following news of a restructure.

Unite the Union, which represents 80 percent of the 216 UCU trade union employees, called three days of action from December 9 to 11.

Unite claims the UCU is “prioritising” the staff restructure instead of resolving its eight-month-long industrial dispute.

But the UCU said the strike was a “completely disproportionate response to an employer consultation”.

The two parties have been embroiled in an industrial dispute since March over complaints about workplace racism, workplace stress and alleged breaches of collective agreements.

A walkout was staged during UCU’s national congress in May, and talks have been ongoing since Unite suspended indefinite strike action which was due to start on September 9.

‘Unnecessary’ 

In June, UCU general secretary Jo Grady announced the union would conduct a “full review of staffing” following the annual congress.

Last week she held an all-staff meeting detailing a consultation to streamline the organisational structure and make “very limited revisions” to the job descriptions of 14 employees.

A few days later, Unite passed a motion at an emergency special general meeting that questioned the timing of the restructure and resolved to use the existing live ballot to announce strike action “as soon as possible.”

Based on its current mandate, voted on in May when 72 per cent voted to strike from a 79 per cent turnout, the branch agreed to fresh dates for industrial action.

Unite claims the restructure will impact nearly a quarter of UCU staff, including “detrimental changes” to at least 10 members and modifications to the job descriptions of the equalities team and the all-female national bargaining unit comprising Unite’s branch chair and vice chair Jenny Lennox and Marianne Quick.

A Unite UCU spokesperson said: “The employer may choose to claim differently, but this is a significant restructure which directly impacts a quarter of UCU staff, and it has negative ramifications for the organisation as a whole as well as UCU members.

“UCU Unite members’ working conditions are UCU members’ bargaining conditions. None of those things are going to improve until UCU starts behaving like a decent employer.”

The staff union has advised members to refrain from attending individual consultations on job and contract alterations. In the meantime, it has called for a pause to the consultation until the results of the independent review of UCU’s organisational culture concludes.

UCU hit back at Unite, claiming it is simply asking for views on “limited proposed changes”, which could be subject to change based on feedback.

A UCU spokesperson said: “These proposals are in response to listening to recommendations from members, staff, and Unite UCU themselves. There are no redundancies or job cuts, and five new posts have been created.

“We are confused and extremely concerned about the decision by Unite UCU to call three days of strike action in response to such limited proposed changes to staffing.”

UCU bosses urged Unite to reconsider the “unnecessary” strike action, which it said “undermines any efforts” to resolve the dispute and “puts the intentions of Unite in doubt”.

They said: “We hope that Unite UCU reconsider this action so that we can all focus on the important work of supporting UCU members fighting for better pay and conditions, as well as those facing redundancies and course closures across the UK.”

Multiply subtracted: Sunak’s flagship maths scheme to end

Funding for Rishi Sunak’s flagship policy to improve UK adults’ maths skills ends in March, the government has confirmed.

The former prime minister hoped to “change people’s lives” when he revealed his “bespoke adult numeracy programme” Multiply in 2021.

Up to £560 million was set aside for a three-year period, part of the larger UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) that replaced European Union funding.

Sunak aimed to improve “poor” adult maths skills, based on estimates that about half the working-age population has the numeracy level of a primary school child.

A share of the budget was allocated to metro mayors and councils across England, which had flexibility to pay for courses they felt met local maths needs.

Last month the government reduced its commitment to the UKSPF from £1.5 billion to £900 million without confirming whether Multiply would continue.

The Department for Education, which was responsible for signing off each area’s Multiply plans, has now told FE Week the programme will end in March “as intended”.

Local government expert Jack Shaw said the Multiply programme was “poorly rolled-out” by the previous administration and “struggled to gain the momentum it needed” leading to an overall underspend.

Rishi Sunak’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

What is Multiply?

The aim of the programme was to boost people’s ability to use maths in daily life by offering free, flexible courses to people over age 19 who didn’t have a grade four or above in GCSE maths, or an equivalent qualification.

This fell under the previous government’s “levelling up” mission to secure a significant increase in the number of people who had completed high-quality skills training by 2030.

Public bodies commissioning courses from colleges, independent training providers and voluntary sector organisations were given flexibility to choose from a “menu” of course types, as long as they didn’t overlap with existing adult education.

These included courses designed to increase confidence with maths, money management, support for parents and carers, small business bookkeeping and employer-focused maths.

Did it work?

The decision to end Multiply comes before evaluations of its success are published.

The DfE hopes to receive the final report of a full national evaluation next autumn, six months after the programme ends, and has also commissioned randomised control trials into learner outcomes.

However, statistics released on Thursday suggest positive outcomes, with 68 per cent of 188,000 learners achieving in the first two years (2022-23 and 2023-24).

A DfE spokesperson said a core aim of the programme was to gather evidence about what works, and the findings of the evaluations will provide valuable lessons for future policy development.

Sue Pember, policy director at adult education network Holex, said: “The scheme has been instrumental in fostering collaboration and innovation across learning organisations and the voluntary sector, and we are confident that its legacy will continue to have a lasting impact.

“The amount of information and performance data each provider had to supply… you will see that this has been a robustly managed programme with several levels of scrutiny.

“Compared to skills bootcamps, this has been the gold standard of performance management.”

Local authority praise

Local authorities such as Essex County Council, which received a £7.9 million budget, said more than 8,600 learners benefitted from courses.

The county’s most popular courses were money management and family learning, with the highest uptake in Basildon, Colchester and Harlow.

Derby City Council said its Multiply programme was a “great success”.

Its “innovative” courses included maths embedded into creative arts and cooking on a budget courses.

Anna Mimms, head of employment, skills and adult education at the city council, said: “I don’t think there’s ever been a government initiative that has produced so many cakes. 

“All of us found so many ways of using food… we’ve all done some quite joyous things.”

But as with the wider UKSPF, the programme’s launch was delayed by months while some local authorities waited for the government to sign off their investment plans.

This caused underspends, with only 27 per cent of the £270 million budget forecast to be spent by March, according to DfE estimates published this summer.

What’s next?

The DfE said councils and mayors can continue to fund other adult numeracy courses through UKSPF.

Derby City Council said it is “investigating alternative funding” to continue with maths projects, while Essex County Council said residents can continue to learn through community providers such as ACL Essex.

Marguerite Hogg, senior policy manager in adult education at the Association of Colleges, said: “Multiply has been a revelation in finding new and innovative ways to support adults with numeracy skills.

“We understand that there will be flexibility within UKSPF for mayoral combined authorities to continue to offer numeracy programmes to adults, even if they are not badged as Multiply.”

Ditching level 7 apprenticeships saves £240m, MPs told

Around £240 million could be freed up in the apprenticeship budget if the government goes ahead with plans to remove level 7 apprenticeships from levy funding, data suggests.

Spending figures on master’s-level apprenticeships were released in response to a parliamentary question in the House of Commons this week.

When the apprenticeship levy launched in 2017-18, just £12 million was spent on the controversial apprenticeships. This figure rocketed to £238 million in 2023-24.

Although spending on level 7 apprenticeships has stagnated for the past three years, it accounts for around 10 percent of the Department for Education’s overall apprenticeship budget.

Ministers are working on plans to remove level 7 apprenticeships from the scope of levy funding because the budget is at breaking point and forecast to soon go overspent, largely due to the rise in higher-level apprenticeships which are the most expensive to deliver.

The cash freed up from defunding level 7s will aid Labour’s plan to expand the apprenticeship levy into a growth and skills levy that funds a wider range of training programmes.

Level 7 apprenticeship starts are dominated by the accountancy or taxation professional and senior leader standards. But other popular programmes include advanced clinical practitioner, solicitor, academic professional, chartered town planner, district nurse and community nurse specialist practitioner.

Supporters of the courses claim most level 7 apprentices are under the age of 25 and hail from the public sector, with the NHS and councils set to be significantly impacted.

Ministers claim that if employers truly value level 7 apprenticeships they will continue to fund the programmes themselves.

The Association of Employers and Learning Providers insists the level 7 axe can be avoided if the £800 million gap between the amount employers pay into the levy and the government-set apprenticeship budget is plugged.

The Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts that £4 billion will be raised in apprenticeship levy receipts by UK companies in 2024-25.

Yet the DfE’s ring-fenced budget to fund apprenticeships in England is £2.73 billion, while the devolved administrations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland receive around £500 million between them.

Ben Rowland, AELP CEO, said: “If the government is going to proceed down this route – and we don’t think it should – it must do so in a way that employers can understand and work with. This means phasing in any changes over time to prevent sudden cliff edges. 

“There is a real chance that in its blunt efforts to make employers invest more in training, the government actually achieves the opposite: employers, frustrated by yet another shift in the goalposts, could well turn their back on training, rather than leaning into it.”

Pearson and colleges agree truce over GCSE resits row

Dozens of colleges that threatened to take awarding body Pearson to court over this summer’s GCSE English resit controversy have ditched their legal action.

Luminate Education Group led the charge for a judicial review on behalf of 31 colleges that signed a collective complaint in August and sent a pre-action protocol legal letter a month later.

But following crunch talks last week, the colleges dropped the litigation after deciding a “long legal battle would not serve students’ interest”.

The row stems from what the colleges claimed was an “unprecedented” 11-mark increase in the grade boundary needed for a grade 4 ‘pass’ in Pearson’s GCSE English language 2.0 exam.

Teachers and leaders said the “shock” hike, which was communicated just a day before results day in August, caused lower-than-expected pass rates and left thousands of borderline students who were predicted to pass distraught.

In one case, a Luminate student scored 54 marks with Pearson in 2023 and improved to 80 marks in 2024 but still only achieved a grade 3.

Pearson apologised for the poor timing of communication and explained the significant grade boundary rise was necessary to bring the qualification “in line with the national GCSE English Language standard”.

The awarding giant did offer a 15 per cent rebate to affected colleges for 2023-24 entries – which would have cost Pearson hundreds of thousands of pounds – and offered free-of-charge re-marks which usually cost almost £50 per paper.

After taking legal advice, Luminate took the view that a judicial review would have resulted in a ruling that Pearson acted “unlawfully and unfairly”.

But following a meeting with Pearson last week, the group, which is made up of six colleges in Yorkshire and had the largest number of entries to Pearson’s 2.0 exam, said a legal victory would “not change anything in a positive way for students or colleges”.

Instead, Luminate and Pearson have “agreed to work together and campaign for positive change that will help create a better system”.

Luminate CEO Colin Booth told FE Week his team was “as certain as we could be” that a judge would find in favour of the colleges but there was “nothing we could ask for in terms of redress of that, that a court was likely to force to happen”.

Any judicial review would have been carried over to next year, and the ideal outcome, a change in students’ grades, would be unlikely.

Booth said the collective college complaint has always been about the “wider impact” it could have by sparking a national debate on the flaws in the resits policy. He wants awarding bodies to develop new GCSE English and maths qualifications specifically targeted at post-16 students who are forced to resit if they fail to achieve a grade 4 ‘pass’ at school.

Over 86 per cent (41,268) of the 47,819 students who took the Pearson 2.0 GCSE English examination in summer 2024 were aged 17 or older. 

Raising the grade 4 ‘pass’ boundary by 11 marks reduced the grade 4 ‘pass’ rate by 16.7 percentage points, moving from 37.4 per cent in summer 2023 to 20.7 per cent. The change left many students, the majority of which were taught within colleges, a whole grade poorer than if they had sat the exam in 2023. 

Colleges believe Pearson’s decision to move the goalposts was the dominant reason behind an overall drop in post-16 GCSE English pass rates. Results day revealed that 20.9 per cent of the 148,569 England-based students resitting their English language GCSE achieved a grade 4 pass, five percentage points lower than in 2023.

Booth said: “Pearson’s English 2.0 qualification highlights an assessment system simply not built in the interests of further education colleges or our students.

“We would like national policy to support a post-16 GSCE English qualification that would likely feature modular assessment rather than summative, with less creative writing and more focus on practical English skills for the workplace and for life skills. The same design principles should also be applied to creating a post-16 GCSE maths qualification.”

A spokesperson for Pearson said: “We apologise for not clearly communicating to schools and colleges during the 2023-2024 academic year the fact that grade boundaries may change – sometimes significantly – and for the impact this had on students, educators, parents, and guardians on results day.”

Pearson agreed it is “evident” the current resits policy is “not meeting the needs of many students and we need a new approach”.

David Hughes, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, said: “The increase in the grade boundary by Pearson between 2023 and 2024 resulted in many students improving their performance but failing to achieve the much-coveted grade 4. 

“The increase should have been communicated far earlier so that colleges and students could understand where the achievement bar was for 2024. 

“I applaud Luminate for pursuing this with the other colleges, and also for stepping back now to focus on the needs of future learners.”

The government is currently running an independent curriculum and assessment review led by Becky Francis, who is expected to recommend changes to resit rules.

What is racial fatigue and how can colleges combat it?

Most of us are familiar with the term racism, but how many of us are aware of racial fatigue? The idea refers to the emotional and psychological toll experienced by individuals who face racism and discrimination throughout their lives – personal and professional.

Racial fatigue is not just about isolated incidents, but rather the ongoing exposure to systemic racism, microaggressions and bias. This chronic exposure can lead to feelings of exhaustion, frustration and even trauma.

Dr. Rita Kohli’s book, Teachers of Color: Resisting Racism and Reclaiming Education explores how culturally diverse teachers continue to face negative racial experiences daily – experiences that mirror the racial trauma they endured as children.

This doesn’t just come from students but from colleagues as well, exacerbating their racial stress and increasing what is known as ‘racial battle fatigue’, a term first coined by Professor William A. Smith in 2003.

It is important to understand that racism often affects individuals from childhood through to adulthood. Experiences of racism during formative years can shape one’s perception of self-worth, belonging and potential.

Staff who experienced racism when they were younger may find themselves facing the same issues repeatedly as they enter education or the workforce.

There are many different types of racist behaviour and attitudes in the workplace. These include microaggressions, code-switching, being overlooked for jobs (despite being more than qualified), being excluded from key conversations, being treated ruthlessly or unfairly when mistakes are made (compared to other colleagues), and being invisible when things go right and yet hyper-visible when things go wrong.

Cumulatively, any number of these can lead to racial battle fatigue, whereby staff invest a significant amount of time and energy into thinking about and dealing with racism.

In turn, this can manifest itself in a wide range of negative reactions and emotions including hypervigilance (sometimes called the “superhero syndrome”), lowered aspirations, self-censorship, isolation, social withdrawal, exhaustion, anxiety, frustration, anger or anger suppression, helplessness, hopelessness and depression.

It is essential to acknowledge the lifelong burden that racism imposes on ethnically diverse individuals so that we can create a safe and inclusive environment that recognises and addresses their negative lived experiences.

Here are some tips for how to do exactly that.

Education and awareness

Provide cultural awareness and anti-racism training to all staff to promote understanding of  and empathy towards different experiences and perspectives. Senior leaders should take this seriously and role-model inclusive behaviour in their communication with staff and students.

Open dialogue

Encourage open and honest conversations about race, racism and discrimination, creating a safe space for employees to share their experiences and concerns without fear of repercussions.

Support networks

Establish employee resource groups or affinity networks to provide a sense of community and support for ethnically diverse staff, and safe spaces for students.

Review policies and practices

Regularly assess and update policies to ensure they are inclusive and free from bias, promoting equal opportunities for all employees and students. (Compliance does not always translate into a culture of psychological safety.)

Mentorship and sponsorship

Encourage programmes that support the career growth and development of ethnically diverse employees. Also consider reverse mentoring to enhance leaders’ personal understanding of these issues.

Celebrate diversity

Recognising and mark cultural events and holidays to foster a sense of belonging and appreciation for different backgrounds. This should be done sincerely, not just by publicising certain groups during specific times (like Black History Month) but throughout the year as an ongoing process.

In addition, Dr Kohli provides the following useful list of questions for managers and leaders to consider:

  1. What kinds of contributions are you expecting from teachers of colour, and how do those expectations differ from your expectations for white teachers?
  2. How do you communicate your trust and value of teachers of colour? Do you listen to their insights and understandings?
  3. How do you invest in the growth, leadership and vision of teachers of colour? Do you (materially) recognise their unique assets and strengths through compensation, in formal evaluations and in leadership opportunities?

By understanding the manifestations of racial fatigue and implementing inclusive practices, managers can actively combat it and create an environment where all students and employees feel valued, supported and empowered.

A construction boom will depend on more than just technical skills

The labour market is in the middle of a critical transformation towards sustainable economic growth and productivity. Labour’s industrial strategy and its curriculum and assessment review both highlight the centrality of skills to achieving its missions for government, but which skills? And how?

Among the many sectors experiencing shortfalls of essential skills in the workforce and growing skills gaps, construction and infrastructure play a particularly crucial role in the central initiative to ‘get Britain building again’.

The Federation for Master Builders reports that we need over 240,000 workers in construction over the next four years to meet demand. This severe shortage of skilled workers is placing an increasing burden on economic growth targets and national projects.

But focusing on technical skills will not be enough.

What skills?

Essential skills like problem-solving, teamwork and communication are equally important. In fact, people with higher levels of essential skills experience improved social mobility, employment, earnings and greater job and life satisfaction.

They also work as a platform for developing other skills such as literacy and numeracy, as well as technical skills. Overlooking them means overlooking a key driver of growth and productivity, with an estimated cost in 2022 of £22.2 billion.

We know that those from more disadvantaged backgrounds tend to have fewer opportunities to acquire and demonstrate essential skills, so they’re as important for social mobility as for economic growth.

Boosting productivity involves employers playing their part to develop essential skills in the workforce.

But how? Here are two companies that demonstrate the key elements of a successful approach.

Staff development

Amey, an infrastructure company, started using the Skills Builder Partnership’s Universal Framework in its apprenticeship and graduate programme in 2022.

A series of ten workshops initially supported employees to understand essential skills, identify their strengths and areas for development using the framework, and set actionable goals for improvement.

Amey has since trained line managers across the business to support their teams, enabling them to coach apprentices and graduates in essential skills. It has also integrated reflective practice into formal review processes.

The programme has received overwhelmingly positive feedback and staff report meaningful progress in essential skills development.

Prioritising problem-solving, collaboration and communication in a supportive environment is allowing Amey to address immediate skills gaps and increasing the adaptability and resilience of its workforce.

Recruitment processes

At Morgan Sindall Infrastructure, using the framework to recruit early-career roles widened the talent pool and improved the quality of candidate applications.

As a first step, we worked with the company to pinpoint the key skills required for success in various roles, particularly apprenticeships. We then supported them to reframe requirements using the framework to clearly articulate the desired essential skills.

With job descriptions now appealing to a wider talent pool, Morgan Sindall Infrastructure then used the framework throughout the recruitment process to inform group exercises, presentations and interview questions, ensuring a consistent approach to candidate evaluation, benchmarking and feedback.

Since embedding essential skills into their recruitment processes, the organisation has experienced a 170-per cent increase in candidates deemed suitable for roles, as well as greater applicant diversity.

So embedding essential skills is not only transformative for recruitment but it also unlocks the untapped potential of huge numbers of previously excluded potential recruits.

Long-term investment

The challenge of skills shortages in these industries is not one that can be solved overnight, and the government’s commitment to increase Britain’s building and infrastructure capacity can only be realised if we have the workforce to support it.

To truly unleash the potential of the construction and infrastructure sectors to drive our national economic recovery, government and employers alike must invest in essential skills.

Employers adopt the Universal Framework in staff development, supporting their adaptability in an evolving economy. They also use it to recruit workers with the skills they need, reaping the benefits of a wider talent pool.

As to government, it must not lose sight of what have often been dismissively dubbed in education as ‘soft skills’. They are, in fact, essential, and young people should be developing them long before they reach the workplace.

If we want to ensure infrastructure projects are delivered on time and to the highest standards, and if we want to set the country on a path to long-term prosperity, essential skills are… well… essential.

How to move from ambition to action for all NEET young people

The government’s Get Britain Working white paper rightly focuses on tackling economic inactivity, particularly among young people. It reflects years of work to identify the causes of and solutions to youth unemployment, but will it be enough?

With NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) levels nearly reaching the one million mark and youth confidence plummeting, as highlighted in our Youth Voice Census, the proposed Youth Guarantee (offering a job, training or apprenticeship within six months) is a crucial intervention.

Youth Employment UK has been at the forefront of advocating for comprehensive youth employment support for 12 years. Our research, particularly our work with the Youth Employment Group, has directly contributed to shaping national policy discussions on youth unemployment. Seeing this commitment reflected in the paper is a testament to the collective efforts of those dedicated to improving the prospects of young people.

Being NEET is more than just a statistic; it’s a complex problem with far-reaching consequences for both individuals and society. The reasons behind this rise are varied. They range from economic challenges, mental health struggles, and lack of access to quality education or job opportunities, to regional disparities.

Therefore, it is positive to see the white paper acknowledge the magnitude of different causes of youth unemployment and prioritise preventative measures early on in a young person’s life. These include offering work experience and careers advice, tackling persistent absence, improving access to mental health services and trialling the development of transition plans. 

We know spending any time NEET when you’re young has a detrimental impact on young people’s future employment prospects. Therefore, the Youth Guarantee is a fundamental step in ensuring young people begin their careers on the right footing.

Recognising this guarantee must translate into quality opportunities that lead to sustainable careers and genuine social mobility. To that end, it is encouraging that the white paper is taking a cross-departmental approach, particularly on joining up national and local efforts.

The eight trailblazers announced this week will test and pilot a collaborative, cross-sector effort that will bring together employers, education providers and young people to provide quality pathways for all. This is welcome.

 It must translate into quality opportunities for all young people

However, while the white paper acknowledges the complexity of the problem and the breadth of necessary solutions, the current Youth Guarantee is narrow and could potentially exclude young people during key transition points aged 24 and under.

For young people excluded from the guarantee (which promises only to focus on 18- to 21-year-olds), the consequences are severe. Becoming or remaining NEET at any young age can impact mental health and future earning potential.

Meanwhile, the trailblazers are currently planned to be trialled in mayoral authorities that currently serve only 48 per cent of England’s population. This will exclude many areas with high youth unemployment and deprivation rates.

While we look forward to seeing the evidence from the trailblazers, we hope their expansion will happen sooner rather than later and be carefully considered to ensure inclusivity.

Youth Employment UK is driven by social value. For 12 years, we have led the way in bringing youth and employer voice and insight together and in connecting quality opportunities through our digital offer. We believe that investing in young people is not just an economic imperative, but a moral one. 

As such, we see a successful Youth Guarantee not only as an important tool to reduce youth unemployment but also a vital contribution to a fairer and more prosperous society.

This week’s Get Britain Working white paper provides a strong foundation to meet those objectives. Now, it’s time to turn ambition into action. As it does so, we urge the government to continue to work closely with organisations like ours, education providers, employers, and – importantly – young people themselves.  

For this guarantee to deliver a brighter future for the next generation, it must meet the complexity of the problem with inclusivity, and its local manifestations with nationwide endeavour.

The government has made a strong case for investing in further education

A new government brings a flurry of white papers and policy announcements. The latest is the Get Britain Working white paper, aiming to increase employment. A key plank is a new Youth Guarantee, so all 18-21 year olds are offered help to find a job, training or apprenticeship.

There’s almost one million 16-24 year olds not in education, employment or training (NEET), a number which has risen since the pandemic. This is a disaster in waiting, as being out of work or education when young can do long-term damage to your pay and job prospects.

While everyone can agree we need to do better, some have criticised the government for being high on rhetoric but low on action.

It’s true that there isn’t much new money committed or any big, shiny new initiatives announced. But the last thing we need is yet another initiative, and what looks shiny at first glance often seems less so over time.

The problem we’ve had isn’t too few initiatives; it’s the lack of a plan.

The government’s idea is that metro mayors and other local leaders should get everyone round the table and agree a plan for how we’re going to contact every young person in an area and what we’re going to offer them.

That should include making sure young people are offered the best help for them, referring them to the agency best placed to help even if it’s not yourself.

That’s a good idea, though we need to make sure those plans have bite – that providers and stakeholders are required to stick to the plan and that we don’t have other government departments pulling rank and preventing true collaboration and different ways of working.

And of course there’s a risk we have too many plans: growth plans, get Britain working plans, skills improvement plans, etc – when what we need is a little less conversation, a little more action.

So I hope local leaders will focus on the action part of action plans. If we do that, we can help more young people with the resources we already have.

The Youth Guarantee gives us a hook to make our case

But a guarantee is no good if there aren’t enough good jobs, training places or apprenticeship opportunities.

The government’s aiming to encourage more employers to offer young people a chance, but that will require the economy to grow faster than the rubbish pace we’ve got used to since 2008 (another key government mission).

We’re also expecting more details on how they intend to reform the apprenticeship system to encourage more apprenticeships for young people starting their career. This is a sensible move given the disastrous fall in youth apprenticeships since 2017.

Will empowering mayors and reforming apprenticeship funding be enough? In truth, probably not.

I hope the government will look at raising funding for further education, how changes in benefit rules could help young people combine flexible learning with job search, and a Kickstart-style job subsidy scheme for those who find it toughest to find work.

Those are all decisions for next year’s spending review. While that doesn’t look promising (budget figures suggest less money for areas like skills and employment support, not more), the government’s commitment to the Youth Guarantee gives us a hook to make the case for what we need to make it a reality.

A final plea from me though. It’s great we have a Youth Guarantee, but can we please make it 16-24 year olds rather than 18-21 year olds? That would give us a chance to build a more joined-up transition from education to work.

Only 5 per cent of 16- and 17-year-olds are NEET, but that’s 5 per cent too many and has consequences for them for years to come. Let’s not forget them too.

The ultimate measure of success is whether NEET rates go down, and whether young people spend a shorter amount of time NEET. The ultimate prize is young people being prepared for their futures, employers better able to meet their needs and an economy that’s growing again.

And reaching that prize is the best argument for making the most of a further education system that is brilliantly placed to make the difference.

Sixth form college teachers march on Westminster

Hordes of teachers descended upon the Department for Education today to protest the government’s pay award snub to colleges.

More than 2,000 members of the National Education Union (NEU) working in sixth form colleges across the country walked out this afternoon in the first of three proposed days of striking.

Ministers and civil servants heard loud chants and speeches from a crowd of unionised teachers protesting outside the Department for Education’s headquarters calling for funding for the 5.5 per cent pay award to apply to the non-academised sixth form college sector.

Teachers gathered on the pavement opposite Sanctuary Buildings chanting, “What do we want? Fair pay. When do we want it? Now,” and loudly booed mentions of education secretary Bridget Phillipson and skills minister Jacqui Smith.

It marks the first national walk out by education staff since the general election.

The strike stems from the summer announcement that schools and academised sixth form colleges would receive £1.2 billion to fund a 5.5 per cent pay rise for 2024/25. But standalone sixth form colleges and further education colleges would be excluded from the deal.

Government officials are under pressure from sixth form college bosses to U-turn on the decision after the Sixth Form Colleges Association (SFCA) launched a judicial review against DfE’s “sickening” decision.

Smith maintains she made the FE pay case “strongly” to the Treasury before the Autumn budget and agreed that FE and school teacher pay should match.

NEU members are set to strike again on December 3 and 4 if DfE does not resolve the dispute.

Daniel Kebede, NEU general secretary, said the strike could have been “easily averted”.

“It’s shameful that you are going into Christmas with 0 per cent as your pay award at the moment,” he told strikers.

He added: “It is small beer we are asking for. £15 million. That’s not what we’re asking for, that’s what the SFCA is asking for.”

NEU post-16 representative Duncan Blackie outside DfE HQ

NEU post-16 representative Duncan Blackie told the crowd that the sixth form sector faces becoming “two-tiered” if DfE does not settle the dispute soon.

“Colleges that are represented here will be emptied in years to come, because the pay difference [with schools] is so, so enormous,” he said.

He urged the SFCA and the Association of Colleges to tell colleges to pay the award, funded or not.

“Don’t mess about. We want the government to tell you to pay the money, but if they don’t, then pay the money. You can resolve this dispute as well,” he said.

Teachers told FE Week that their employers have empathised with workers over the snub.

“They’re just as frustrated as we are,” said Graham Childs, head of BTEC law at Peter Symonds College.

“They know that the SFCA want to make a pay award, but without the promise of extra money, the only way to do that will mean to make shortages elsewhere. We don’t want to see our pay rise funded by redundancies of other staff.”

‘We expected better of a Labour government’

Kebede added that the strike was also about reversing the “deep, severe” recruitment crisis in sixth form college sector.

“This is about turning the tide on a direction of travel that seeks to erode and privatise education,” he told the crowd.

Earlier this month, NEU achieved a 97 per cent vote in favour of striking from 32 of the 39 colleges balloted.

Sixth form teachers told FE Week they assumed the DfE originally made an error by excluding them but given it has not rectified the oversight, it could “potentially” be a tactic to force sixth form colleges to academise.

“That’s something even the Tories didn’t try to do,” Ian Morton, accounting teacher at WQE and Regent College in Leicester. “We just expected better of a Labour government. No Labour government worthy of the name performs actions like this.”

“It must be by design and it’s just really sickening,” Childs added.