Principal and Chief Executive, City of Wolverhampton College
Start date: August 2024
Former Job: Deputy Principal, City of Wolverhampton College
Interesting fact: Louise is an avid fan of professional boxing, with highlights being watching a live fight in Las Vegas and once having the opportunity to meet Tyson Fury – a picture of which she proudly displays in her office!
Scott Bullock
Principal & Chief Executive, East Durham College
Start date: September 2024
Previous Job: Principal, Newcastle College (NCG)
Interesting fact: Scott has a passion for road cycling and has climbed most of the big hills in the Canary Islands. He also once shared a ride back from a football match in a Mark 1 Ford Transit with a very young Paul Gascoigne.
Presented by FE Week’s Editor, Shane Chowen, the series features discussions with leading experts from inside and outside our sector and essentially asks one simple question – what does our sector need from the next government?
Recorded in a year that could shape skills and education for decades to come, it’s a must listen for those wanting the inside track on themes such as the call for a sector-wide strategy, the ever-expanding use of generative AI, apprenticeships, the skills gap and much, much more.
Episode 1
FE: how do we shift from rhetoric to action?
In this episode, The Baroness Wolf of Dulwich DBE CBE and Sir Michael Barber set the scene for the series by discussing the big issues facing the FE and skills sector in 2024.
Baroness Alison Wolf is an economist, an academic and a life peer and has been a Non-Executive Director at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology since 2023. Sir Michael is a former teacher who went on to work at the National Union of Teachers and was, until recently, an advisor at the Department for Education and the Treasury on skills policy delivery.
Their discussion covers funding, apprenticeship reform and levy, skills as a crucial element of economic growth, and the role of employers.
Michael warns against the skills system assuming victim status:
“They say ‘what’s the government going to do about it?’ – and kind of wait rather than say, there’s a problem, this is what we’re going to do about it…….there needs to be a sense of momentum and not being a victim, being a change agent.”
Alison is critical of the Mayoral Combined Authorities:
“I really think the mayors need to step up a bit. Actually, quite a lot of the money is already devolved to the Mayoral Combined Authorities, and what has been to me very depressing is how little they’ve actually done to take advantage of their new freedoms.”
The episode concludes with Shane asking Alison and Michael what their long-term goals would be for the next government. Listen here to find out what they say.
Episode 2
The Business of Skills
A national, long-term skills strategy that can respond with agility and flexibility to the needs of employers and local communities is what’s required to solve our skills problems, according to our guests on this episode.
Jane Gratton, Deputy Director of Public Policy at the British Chambers of Commerce and Nicola Drury, Head of Skills and Apprenticeships at Amazon, join Shane in a discussion around the ever-growing skills gap from an employer’s perspective.
Jane makes the point that three out of four businesses surveyed by the British Chambers of Commerce are unable to recruit the skills they need, and discusses how stability is key if the system is going to work.
“The workplace is changing at a phenomenal pace, more digital, more automated, the circular economy, the green economy. What we really need is a slick system for getting people re-skilled, getting them into different jobs…. getting them into new opportunities within employers … so that the employer can grasp the opportunity and an individual has a really quick way to get the skills they need for them to progress at work.”
Nicola emphasises the effects of the many changes over the last few years – both circumstantial via economic uncertainties and the pandemic – and in the number of skills initiatives; T Levels, Bootcamps, Multiply and Kickstart. She also talks about how, at Amazon, they’ve grown their apprenticeships:
“The fact that there’s no age restrictions, that helps the ageing workforce. They help people pivot, it gives people an alternative – and a great alternative – to university. So, for me, that’s a really strong system.”
The panel also discuss the Skills Fund and the need to use it to support regional devolved areas of skill, and they address the fact that only 50% of students are leaving education with a grade C or above in Maths and English.
With job vacancies at a record high but apprenticeship take-up and employer spend on training at a low, this episode asks who is trying to plug the skills gap – and who isn’t getting a chance to.
Our guests are Naomi Clayton, Director of Policy and Research at the Learning and Work Institute, and Sam Tuckett, Associate Director for Post-16 and Skills at the Education Policy Institute.
Lack of investment leading to reduced opportunities for people to take part in formal learning, the role of inequality in who gets the opportunities and the absence of a long-term skills strategy are all discussed.
On the issues of apprenticeships, Sam says:
“So apprenticeship take-up has declined substantially in recent years, specifically since the introduction of the levy and there’s been a drift to the South in apprenticeship take-up and, when there have been increases, it tends to be the high level apprenticeships and the degree apprenticeships….”
When questioned about the Lifelong Learning Entitlement, the new system being phased in from 2025 that will entitle every adult up to the age of 60 to a loan to access a range of courses at Level 4 and above, Naomi says:
“I think, in general, it’s a good idea, but we think it needs to be more ambitious….We’d like to see the Lifelong Learning Entitlements extended to encompass entitlements at lower levels of learning.”
Sam makes the point that getting adults without qualifications into education and training should be a priority for a new government, while Naomi concludes:
“We really need to make sure that beyond things like the Lifelong Learning Entitlement, we are making it easy to access learning everywhere, that we have really good information and advice to enable people to make informed choices about learning.”
As the use of generative AI expands across the FE and skills sector, there is much debate around whether it’s a good or a bad thing. Does it present a chance to modernise outdated methods of teaching, learning and assessment, or does it put us at the top of a very slippery slope towards lower standards and a reduced real-world understanding of your chosen discipline and overall love of learning?
Self-proclaimed AI optimist, Debra Gray, CEO and Principal of Hull College, and Paul McKean, Director of Further Education, Skills and Training at Jisc, tackle this head-on.
In essence, they feel the truth lies somewhere in the middle. That with the right management, integration and stewardship of the technology, AI gives us the tools we need to take a well-timed and much-needed look at how learners learn, and teachers assess.
“I think this is a real inflection point for us in terms of assessment methods. We can’t keep using 19th century assessment methods for the purposes of a 21st century economy.”
Debra explains how the team at Hull College have made a conscious effort to maximise the use of generative AI – for teaching, learning and leadership. Students are encouraged to use it as a research tool, to support assignment structure, to consider different viewpoints, to create inspiration and give ideas, to simplify complex ideas and to evaluate feedback.
Leaders and teachers are encouraged to use it to strategise, provide ideas, analyse data and summarise an often overwhelming wealth of material. The opportunity to redefine the role of teachers is discussed. To move away from the ‘sage on the stage’ and lean towards the ‘guide on the side’ – freeing teachers up to focus on what teaching is really about – igniting sparks, sharing passions and building meaningful relationships with students.
Whilst illustrating how AI can lead to huge efficiencies, innovation and increased accessibility – the discussion does acknowledge it also provides challenges that need to be navigated effectively.
Watch our video with Debra Gray as she shares her passion for the sector.
Episode 5
How can FE lead the green revolution?
How can the FE and skills sector develop an education and training system that creates a skilled workforce for new and emerging industries? And what can the next government do to support colleges seeking to skills and reskill the workers needed to tackle the major global challenges, from climate change to global security?
For this episode, Shane is joined by Charlotte Bonner, CEO of the Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges, and Jeremy Kerswell, CEO and Principal of Plumpton, a land-based college in East Sussex.
The episode highlights the debate and discussion around green jobs and green skills – and the implications for our education system and global industries.
Charlotte says:
“Have we got what we need to develop the volume of technical skills that we need to invest in the infrastructural changes and the technological changes we need across society, particularly with things like energy systems, agriculture systems, travel and transport systems..? And at the moment, I think, in terms of volume, the answer is no.”
Charlotte continues by noting that all jobs can have some green element and we need to ensure that there’s an almost universal curriculum around sustainability skills – and that educators need to be prioritised to ensure they have the required knowledge to deliver a greener curriculum.
Jeremy flags his concerns for the incumbent workforce. He says:
“I think there’s huge risks.. in terms of people already employed in the sectors who desperately need upskilling at a time of significant change for these industries. And I’m not sure we’ve .. got the freedom and flexibilities to truly be able to meet …the needs of the incumbent workforce.”
The panel go on to discuss the growth in green subject areas, the need for a national food strategy and how that could be complemented by a national strategy for skills for the land-based sector.
Finally, when asked about the likelihood of meaningful change from the next government, Charlotte says:
“…let’s put a sentence in the Ofqual handbook that says qualifications need to be fit for purpose to achieve our sustainability and climate goals….it’s still allowing awarding organisations to interpret that, but it would create radical change really quickly.”
Future-proofing the FE curriculum: how do we do it?
The final episode in the series looks at the FE and skills curriculum and asks what a new government needs to do to ensure it is fit for purpose and future-proof.
Our guests are David Gallagher, CEO of NCFE, an educational charity and leader in vocational and technical learning, and Karen Spencer, Principal and Chief Executive of Harlow College.
David acknowledges that we can’t predict the future but we can follow hints about what the FE curriculum may be called on to deliver. He states:
““….things like adaptability, resilience, creativity, problem solving, you know, these are all things for me that absolutely should be at the heart of curriculum and hardwired in there.”
Karen states:
“I would like to see something that’s much more adaptive and recognises all of those big themes that are going to come through like digital technology… VR, AI, green skills. And we can’t possibly do that with the setup we’ve got at the moment.”
The discussion goes on to cover the shift away from level two qualifications and the mismatch between what businesses need and what the education sector is delivering.
The need to have a system that can adapt to local or regional need is also discussed, with a call to get all stakeholders – regulators, employers, awarding organisations, colleges and teachers around the table at the same time.
Finally, a call for more trust in the sector is made, noting that with multiple regulators or quasi-regulators, it’s difficult for those on the ground to feel trusted.
A London college has appointed a new chief executive after the former incumbent suddenly stepped down mid-year – and as governors embark on a shake-up of its senior leadership team.
Darren Mepham resigned from Barnet and Southgate College in January after five years at the helm.
His deputy Neil Coker has led the college since as interim chief executive as a recruitment search was quickly launched. The college this week announced that Coker will take over on a permanent basis.
Mepham joined Barnet and Southgate in 2019 soon after it was handed a grade 3 Ofsted rating. The college got back to a ‘good’ rating in 2022, and its latest accounts show a healthy financial position, recording an EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation) of 10.93 per cent of income.
Board minutes in October and December last year gave no indication that Mepham intended to stand down in the new year.
He started a new post this week as chief executive of the Mayor of London’s Office for Police and Crime.
He told FE Week: “I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Barnet and Southgate College and am proud to have been part of the team that moved us out of ‘requires improvement’. My best wishes to Neil and the board on the next steps and to the whole team of staff there who have achieved so much.”
Coker has more than 30 years’ experience in FE, becoming the deputy chief executive of Barnet and Southgate in 2019.
“I am extremely honoured and proud to have the opportunity to continue to work with the amazing and talented staff across Barnet and Southgate College as we build on the success of the last few years,” he said.
Adam Goldstein, the chair of governors, added: “Neil has made a huge contribution to the college already as our deputy CEO and is clearly ready to step up and lead the organisation in the coming years.”
Barnet and Southgate is on the verge of a shake-up with an upcoming strategy for 2030. It is recruiting for three roles in its leadership team: deputy principal for quality and student experience, chief operating officer and chief finance officer.
The current senior leadership team is made up of Coker and Tracey McIntosh, the executive director of employer partnerships, following the resignation of the college’s director of corporate services Mark Sellis last August.
“Neil and the board share an ambitious vision for the future of the college and its students, and we are collectively focused on delivering our exciting new strategy from now to 2030,” Goldstein said.
The need for policy reform to ensure continued flexibility in qualifications and increased national investment for adult education is critical. Now, with manifestos published, it’s important to understand the implications for our vital yet often neglected part of the further education sector.
The Conservative manifesto focuses on young people. Its offer centres on the introduction of the Advanced British Standard to integrate A Levels and T Levels. This new framework aims to broaden the scope of subjects studied by learners aged 16-18 and promises £600 million in funding over the next two years to address teacher shortages.
Additionally, if re-elected, they plan to create 100,000 high-skilled apprenticeships by eliminating what they term ‘rip-off degrees’.
In contrast, the Labour manifesto (though a little vague) emphasises inclusivity and investment in education at all levels.
Labour promises to increase funding for adult education, saying they will reverse recent cuts. Their plan includes expanding access to free lifelong learning and ensuring that education systems are adaptable to the needs of adult learners.
Labour’s stated commitment to improving funding and flexibility in education might actually benefit adult education. But what will it take?
Cuts run deep
Adult education is central for reskilling and upskilling the workforce, especially in a rapidly changing job market. The sharp decline in its funding over the past decade has had severe implications.
A reduction in funding from £3 billion to £1.3 billion has simply meant fewer opportunities for adults to gain qualifications that can improve their employment prospects and quality of life. This has been particularly harmful for non-traditional learners who rely on adult education to build confidence as well as skills.
As an awarding organisation (AO), Gateway Qualifications, like many others, understands the importance of continuous investment in adult education, especially when a significant portion of adult education funding goes towards entry-level to Level 2 qualifications.
These qualifications are essential for re-engaging adults in learning. They provide a stepping stone to higher levels of education and better job opportunities.
Flexibility is key
But it’s not just about funding. Government policies have also increasingly restricted awarding organisations’ ability to offer flexible and innovative qualifications.
The moratorium on the development of new qualifications has been in place for several years. This has strangled innovation, which has been particularly harmful in areas like digital technology and artificial intelligence.
Here, demand for new skills and qualifications has skyrocketed in recent years. Yet new qualifications have been limited to a few government-prescribed programmes.
The awarding sector needs the ability to adapt and innovate in order to best serve the needs of the learners we serve.
In spite of these restrictions, we have consistently shown, alongside our partner colleges and training providers, that integrating flexibility and inclusivity into qualifications benefits learners significantly.
We believe that qualifications need to be adaptable and inclusive, meeting the needs of both learners and employers. We know that learners have diverse needs; the one-size-fits-all approach simply doesn’t work.
A call for policy reform
As we approach the final days of the election campaign, I urge all policymakers to consider significant reform and parity for adult learners.
It’s time for policymakers to acknowledge the vital role of adult education in the UK’s prosperity, and the pressing need for increased Treasury investment and qualification flexibility. The FE sector should be equipped to deliver accessible, high-quality education to all learners, regardless of their background and starting point.
By prioritising inclusivity and adaptability in adult education, the next government can make a lasting impact on countless learners’ lives and help build a more resilient and skilled workforce.
Supporting the FE sector by reversing funding cuts, the restrictions on learner eligibility, and lifting the moratorium on new qualifications to support local, regional and national needs is a vital step forward.
Making this move will ensure that adult learners have the opportunities they need to flourish, helping to keep the whole FE sector system robust, yet agile enough to face its many future challenges.
A university-run apprenticeship provider has jumped up to ‘good’, just over a year after it was dealt Ofsted’s lowest possible grade.
Alliance Learning was allowed to keep its apprenticeship contract by government after being hit with an ‘inadequate’ in April 2023, mostly down to safeguarding concerns.
Shortly after the damaging report the University of Bolton, which owns Alliance Learning, parachuted in one of its deans, Gill Waugh, to become its new chief executive.
Ofsted yesterday published a follow-up full inspection report that judged Alliance Learning as ‘good’ in all areas. Inspectors found previous issues, including “systemically weak” recording and monitoring of safeguarding referrals, as well as staffing disruption and poor off-the-job training, had been rectified.
Waugh said the turnaround is a “huge achievement for us”.
“The grade is testament to the relationship between Alliance Learning and employers and the contribution and commitment of our apprentices,” she added.
“I would like to thank all colleagues for their hard work and determination in ensuring this improvement in our grade.”
Alliance Learning opened as a training provider 40 years ago and joined the University of Bolton group in 2020.
After the firm’s grade four last year, Bolton College principal Bill Webster and executive director for HR and estates, Jane Marsh, were also both drafted in to join Alliance’s board.
At the time of its most recent inspection, the provider had 304 apprentices mostly aged 16 to 18 studying apprenticeships in engineering, administration and business management between levels 2 to 7.
Inspectors found that apprentices “benefit from well-equipped workshops, tools and resources” that replicate those used in industry, and are “very well supported by tutors who are responsive to their needs and approachable”.
Apprentices also develop “professional, work-ready behaviours and demonstrate positive attitudes to their learning” and “most” now “benefit from a varied personal development programme relevant to their apprenticeship and life experiences”.
Ofsted also confirmed apprentices now feel safe and know how to report any concerns they may have.
Tutors were praised as “subject experts with significant industry experience” who use their expertise to help apprentices understand how theory relates to practice.
And leaders were lauded for a “clear vision” for the curriculums they offer, using their expertise in engineering and business management to provide apprentices with the training they need to be successful at work. “Leaders design ambitious curriculums that meet the needs of employers, apprentices and their industry sectors,” the report added.
Caroline Cowburn, chair of the Alliance Learning board, said: “I am incredibly proud of the team. This Ofsted grade recognises the work of the team following and the dedication of the staff to ensure that we have continuous quality improvement for our apprentices.”
We live in the world we live in, not the world we would like to live in. That this a truism, but it is no less true for that.
The world we live in does not have education as a priority. That is true for political parties and for the public. It is even more true for further education.
Polling by Public First found that just 15 per cent of people think that the country should spend more on schools (sigh). Six per cent think we should spend more on higher education (double sigh). Only four per cent think that we should spend more on further education (triple sigh).
These low figures are in spite of the fact that people are 50 per cent more likely to think that the quality of further education has fallen than risen since 2010.
Labour voters are even less keen than Conservative voters: four per cent of Labour voters want more spending on further education, compared with five per cent of Conservative voters. The same for apprenticeships: 8 per cent of Labour voters want more money to be spent, compared with 13 per cent of Conservative voters.
The sector could pursue a ‘Millwall’ strategy: “No one likes us, we don’t care”. After all, not everything has to be put to the people in a referendum; there will be no vote on further education funding.
Politicians can ignore their voters. They often do. So the sector could concentrate on key opinion formers and ministers, and it might work. After all, Millwall did win the last five games of the season.
But ignoring the public is risky. The brute reality is that politicians have to listen or they will not get re-elected. Millwall don’t win five in a row very often.
This is not a call to give up or to reduce our aspirations or asks. Quite the opposite. It is a call to involve more people. Further education will do better when more people understand it. The best way for more people to understand further education is for them to experience it.
Now is a time for engagement, engagement, engagement
That means now is a time for engagement, engagement, engagement. A further education college must be the heart of the community.
I walk past such a college twice a day on my commute. I have no idea what happens there. That needs to change. We need people to see for themselves (or at least be aware of) what is going on. Public knowledge of and about further education is the first stage to wider public support.
However, what really matters is not knowledge but experience. Almost everyone has experience of the NHS, and all of us expect to experience it in future. Guess what? More than two-thirds of people want more spent on the NHS.
My local university, Kingston allows people to use the library as a quiet study space. You don’t have to be a student and you don’t have to be studying; you can just be someone who wants a quiet place to get on with stuff. You can use the cafe as well.
For sure, there are restrictions: the public are excluded in exam season and must leave by 9pm. Fair enough. In truth, I doubt that many local people use it. Kingston does, however, get a lot of publicity. It makes them seem at the heart of the community. They certainly are seen to want to be at its heart. Good for them.
The sector’s expectations and hope are running high, and the reality is that there will be a lot of disappointment and heartache over the next five years.
The Labour party (who as I write are on course to win the election by a mile) have been careful not to promise what they cannot deliver. That is good.
In the meantime, for this sector to do better if and when more money does become available we need to win as many hearts and minds as possible.
We need not just to tell our story, but to make it everyone’s story.
The parallels between independent providers of higher education and HE delivered in FE are numerous. Many have discussed the need to draw together the segmented parts of our post-18 tertiary landscape.
At IHE, our Manifesto for higher education recommends the creation of a Tertiary Education Commission for this very purpose: to benefit the entire sector and enable students to choose the type and size of learning they want, without worrying about the particular method of funding required to access it.
IHE is calling on the next government to embrace the opportunities presented by the Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE) and to remove the barriers for providers who are ready and able to re-skill our nation in the way the LLE intends.
We need more providers who are connected to local industries, driven by a curiosity to innovate, who use their roots in communities to engage with businesses and understand the requirements of employers. Such options are ideal for students who are local, commuter students, or those who have a passion for a subject and want to study where there are specialist facilities.
IHE members like Futureworks in Manchester design their courses in collaboration with industry, providing cutting-edge technology for students at their purpose-built MediaCityUK studios.
In a different field, Metanoia Institute schedule their classes during evenings and weekends so that their predominantly mature students on psychotherapy and counselling programmes can fit study around their careers. Often, students have an affiliation with this type of small education provider which cannot be emulated by a large university outside of their local community, or they want to study with a specialist rather than at a larger, more diffuse provider.
As part of the preparations for LLE, the Office for Students (OfS) ran the Higher Education Short Courses Trial. In the eyes of commentators, it was not a success. Arguably though, this was a misadventure in design rather than a failure through lack of appetite.
What we really need is more diversity and more choice
New courses were brought to market at speed with no clear method of finding a target audience, ultimately attracting just 125 students. of which only 41 were student loan recipients.
Student numbers in the trial could have looked very different. Imagine, instead, a trial focused on the existing highly successful courses delivered across our tertiary landscape – like those delivered by West Dean College who offer stackable modular provision across a range of arts, design, craft and conservation subjects.
Pathways through a lifetime of learning should be enabled so that if a student wants to study a level 4 module at their local provider and step into a related apprenticeship course, they are not prevented from doing so by the confusion of different systems.
Providers of education should not be so bound by regulation that they cannot offer a bridge from one course to another.
That is why we are calling for a Tertiary Education Commission. We must tackle the inefficiencies between the silos of our current system. Overlapping regulation keeps small teams in colleges and independent providers from their real purpose, while OfS and Ofsted assess the same providers in different ways for the same things.
OfS haven’t even determined how to measure success under modular LLE delivery yet. Providers should not have to unpick disproportionate regulation not built for their scale in order to offer students the choice they deserve.
As so often happens with funded projects, the Short Course Trial focused on traditional universities and STEM subjects, and students were expected to fall into line to sign up. We are seeing this same short-sightedness again in the rhetoric around low-value courses, with government expecting their priorities to dictate student behaviour.
It is disheartening to have to rehearse the arguments for why cutting ‘low-value’ courses is unhelpful but we must persist. What we really need is more diversity and more choice.
LLE purports to offer this solution, reaching learners throughout their lives. Independent providers and colleges are already experts in doing just this; government has proven that they have not yet mastered the approach.
There is much we can all learn from each other to make the LLE work in the best interests of students – a Tertiary Education Commission will be just the forum to do it.
Everyone knows that teaching GCSE English resit students is a tough gig. These students come to FE colleges feeling like failures, because they don’t quite measure up to the grade-four yardstick of perceived success. They arrive full of negativity towards English as a subject, harbouring feelings of inadequacy and swallowing bitter pills of resentment at being forced to take the hated exams again.
So, yes, we face quite the challenge trying to change their mindset.
During this past year, I decided to experiment by offering my classes a choice of texts and topics during our GCSE English re-sit course, to see if this would have any impact on engagement or motivation.
Why on earth would I do that? Well, I realised that our GCSE re-sit students had little or no input into the content of their course. This seemed unfair: why should only teachers get to pick which fiction extracts to use or which non-fiction topics to explore when it’s the students themselves who will have to do all the work?
The other motivation behind this decision was purely selfish: I get easily bored teaching from the same old extracts or the same old past papers. And if I’m bored? Well, odds are that the students will be bored too.
So last summer I gathered and prepared a range of exam-style fiction extracts and questions, mostly using stories that I had actually read and enjoyed. Every term, I offered each class a choice of two. I shared a short extract from each, and then the classes voted on which one we’d use.
The impact was immediate: students responded more positively to the extracts that they had chosen. Of course, not everyone voted for the winning extract choices. However, the democratic process gave the choice legitimacy, and no one complained.
Because these were mostly extracts and exam-style questions that I had created myself, I knew that it was highly unlikely any of my students would have seen them before (unlike all the old past papers, that get re-used year after year).
It is their course after all, not mine
Additionally, it really kept me on my toes. Having to juggle using different extracts with different groups meant that I never got bored.
I used a similar approach with non-fiction exam-style extracts and questions. However, instead of offering choices of specific texts, I asked students to vote by topic. Throughout the year, classes chose from this menu of possible topics: tattoos and body art, education, ice-cream, animals, music, smartphones, or smoking and vaping.
It hasn’t all been plain sailing: one student had a specific sensitivity to a certain theme, so I had to hastily change the choice of texts for that class to avoid upsetting them.
In a different class, the margin was just one vote, which meant that some students were unhappy with the outcome. However, as I explained to them: that’s how democracy works.
Now that the GCSE exams are over, I asked my students for feedback on what they thought about being offered choices to help curate the course content. Their responses were overwhelmingly positive, indicating that they not only liked having choices but that having choices helped to motivate them. Some students told me that they would like more choices like this.
In response, I’m now looking to develop this approach on a bigger scale next year: I’ve already been gathering a wider selection of extracts and exam-style resources, and I want to empower my students to really have an impact on the course content by involving them in co-curating our learning plans, right from the beginning of the academic year.
Of course, we can’t change the exams or the skills that we need to practice, but I want my students to decide which topics we’ll discuss, which fiction extracts we’ll explore, and we’ll build the learning plan together.
It is their course after all, not mine.
Why not offer your students some choices and see what happens?
Matthew Syed recently wrote in the Times about the success of Nigel Farage being based on deceit. Not his, but that of politicians lying about the reality we all observe in every day life.
It got me thinking about deceit in the world of skills. Working in the sector for three decades, it is hard not to be cynical and disillusioned. Apparently, politicians care about the ‘forgotten 50 per cent’, ladders of opportunity and the importance of upskilling and reskilling. But do they really?
I visit numerous colleges and providers. I see incredible commitment, amazing facilities and dedicated staff – but they can only do what they are (poorly) funded to do.
The real crisis I see isn’t opportunities for young people and adults to do degree-level learning or future green skills where there are no current jobs.
It is in sectors like care, early years and hospitality. It is in the transformation of skills needed for entry-level jobs. It is in our young people coming out of a policy-constrained and archaic school system without the personal skills valued by employers.
And what has the policy response been to this crisis? Across governments, we have seen the decimation of the adult education budget and a raft of policies that are anti lower-level learning and anti-young people’s skills training.
Who in their right mind would remove business admin level 2 at a time when the jobs at this level have become unrecognisable? What justifies the lowest funded apprenticeship provision in our two crisis sectors: care and early years? What policy wonk thought demonising level 2 adult provision and slashing its funding was a good idea?
When Skills England is formed, are we really expecting it to bring about a seismic change? Or will it be stuffed full of the usual suspects, recreating the familiar quango with its familiar injunctions to form new skills strategies and to engage with employers?
How do we prevent it being just new initiatives and new acronyms? How do we mitigate the inevitable turbulence of change in qualifications and programmes that ultimately have no net effect on the ground?
Are we really expecting a seismic change?
I have sat on skills boards for over 30 years. They are full of people who care, but it is the same old stuff. Short-term plans, projects and funding, verging on zero long-term sustainable impact, to tick funding boxes.
And we are told the problems are being resolved. This is the deceit.
And yet the solutions aren’t hard to find – or expensive.
When Labour free up £2 billion a year from the levy, let’s get it into the adult skills system. It is woefully underfunded and does exactly what Labour want: short, sharp, focused programmes giving employers and individuals the skills they need to enter and operate in the current workforce effectively.
Bootcamps actually work. Yes, a few tweaks are needed (and Labour can rebrand them to make them their own if they wish), but let’s build on those principles.
As an aside, how depressing it is to see graduates stuck in dead-end jobs having their prospects transformed by a 12-week bootcamp. HE fit for purpose? Perhaps that’s another deceit.
Degree apprenticeships will look after themselves. Apprenticeships policy should refocus and incentivise levels 2 and 3, and young people, which will re-engage SMEs.
Meanwhile, T Levels are great but they are an academic programme for university progression for a small proportion of students. Labour must press the big red stop (not pause) button on removing BTECs and the other vocational qualification reform that surrounds this misguided approach.
The vocational world is complex and evolves with the economy. It does not need a group of ‘experts’ who have never set foot in a provider or met an FE student to tell the sector what to do.
Common sense is being drowned out by party-political platitudes. Meanwhile sector representative groups who will need to hold Labour’s feet to the fire after the election are already compromising.
We can do better. Let’s get some hard-core practical solutions in front of Labour now so they can hit the ground running and make an immediate and real difference.
