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Independent training providers criticised in Ofsted report on implementation of anti-terror duty

Independent training providers (ITPs) have come in for the worst criticism in Ofsted’s thematic review report into how the anti-terrorism Prevent duty is being implemented across FE.

The document, called ‘How well are FE and skills providers implementing the ‘Prevent’ duty?’, was unveiled by the inspectorate this morning.

It was based on survey visits to 37 FE providers, along with with findings from 46 full inspections or monitoring visits between November last year and this May.

It recognised that general FE and sixth form colleges had been “most successful”, through “working closely with partners to ensure that good progress had been made on all aspects of the Prevent duty”.

However an Ofsted spokesperson warned it had found “a worrying number of providers, particularly ITPs, small providers and those working in isolation, are struggling to implement the duty”.

The report said: “Two of the eight ITPs visited had not implemented any aspect of the ‘Prevent’ duty.

“The ITPs tended to operate in isolation and few had adequate systems in place to ensure the safety of learners.”

FE institutions were first made subject to the Prevent duty — which requires them to put policies in place to prevent potential radicalisation of learners and exposure to extremism — in September last year.

And Paul Joyce, Ofsted deputy director for FE and skills and independent schools, revealed the inspectorate would be launching the thematic review a month later, as reported in FE Week.

The resulting report has concluded that Ofsted should “raise further its expectations of providers to implement all aspects of the Prevent duty, and evaluate the impact this has on keeping learners safe” from the start of next academic year.

Recommendations for providers included that they should ensure appropriate procedures are in place, and implemented effectively, to protect learners from “risks posed by external speakers and events”.

It also called for better information sharing with other partner organisations such as local authorities, improved staff training, and for more effort to be put into ensuring learners understand British values radicalisation threats.

It also called for Prevent to be explicitly referred to in IT policies, and careful monitoring of learners’ “use of IT facilities to identify inappropriate usage”.

Oftsed added there needed to be more consistency “of advice and guidance provided by Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) Prevent co-ordinators, police Prevent teams and local authorities”.

The report noted that six of the providers visited had no arrangements in place to check the suitability of external speakers.

“Even in some of the 31 providers that had appropriate policies and procedures to check external speakers and events, these did not always work well in practice,” it added.

“Too often, learners were potentially at risk because leaders had not ensured that suitable checks had been completed.”

Ofsted stressed that “the majority” of providers had implemented the Prevent duty guidance well.

But the report added: “Some viewed the duty as a list of conditions just to comply with and have adopted a ‘tick-box’ approach.

“This goes against the spirit of the government’s guidance, which seeks to promote meaningful ways to reduce the specific risks of radicalisation.”

Risk assessments lacked sufficient detail in around a third of the providers visited.

And staff training was found to be “ineffective” in a third of the providers visited.

This comes after an Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) survey, reported on by FE Week in September, indicated that 45 per cent of FE staff had not trained to implement Prevent before it was applied to FE later that month.

Highlights from day two of FE Week’s Festival of Skills

Day two of FE Week’s Festival of Skills proved to be every bit as insightful, thought-provoking and fun as day one.

We have again put together a selection of photos to try and capture the atmosphere of the continuing professional development event of the year for FE and skills, held at the stunning Capel Manor College in North London. We hope you enjoyed it!

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MPs launch inquiry into post-16 area reviews

A parliamentary inquiry has been launched today into post-16 education and skills reviews.

The probe by the Education, Skills and the Economy Sub-Committee will look at their progress, effectiveness and impact on the FE sector.

It will also seek answers to why other providers, such as school sixth forms, are not directly involved.

The deadline for written submissions to the inquiry, announced this morning, is September 30.

It comes the day after FE Commissioner Sir David Collins revealed that 10 areas involved in the reviews had so far completed, including all of those in wave one.

Ian Wright MP [pictured above left], co-chair of the ESE sub-committee and chair of Business, Innovation and Skills committee, said: “We want to challenge and scrutinise the process of area reviews to ensure they improve the provision of post-16 education in every area.”

Neil Carmichael MP [above right], fellow co-chair of the sub-committee and chair of the Education Committee, said: “Area reviews are taking place with relatively little public scrutiny.

“The sub-committee’s inquiry will shine a light on the process, which could have wide reaching implications for the way both young people and adults are educated.”

The area reviews, first unveiled in July 2015, are intended to create financially viable, resilient and efficient institutions that meet their local area’s education and economic needs.

Wave one of the reviews was announced in September and October.

So far all the FE and sixth form colleges involved in the first three waves have been revealed, with indicative areas given for the fourth and fifth waves which are due to start later this year.

The reviews have faced criticism from sector leaders, including the Sixth Form Colleges’ Association, for not directly including other providers of post-16 education, such as school and academy sixth forms and independent training providers.

The process has also taken longer than was originally planned.

Guidance published by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills at the start gave a typical timescale of three to four months for each review – but this was extended to four to six months when the guidance was updated in March.

Only one area from the first wave – Birmingham and Solihull – actually managed to complete in this timeframe, while another – Greater Manchester – took more than nine months.

FE Commissioner Sir David Collins told delegates at FE Week’s Area Review Summit at the Festival of Skills on Thursday (July 7) that all of the areas in wave one had completed as well as a number in wave two.

He acknowledged that the first wave had taken “a bit longer than we’d hoped” partly because it had included “the most complicated cases”.

These included Greater Manchester, which, as previously reported by FE Week, had been subject to deep tensions between the Greater Manchester Combined Authority leading the review and the colleges involved.

Nonetheless, Sir David told delegates: “We’re not behind, and we’ll complete very happily by March 2017”.

His remarks echoed comments last month by Skills Minister Nick Boles, who told the audience at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers conference that the reviews had gone “surprisingly well”.

Choose academic or technical route at 16 – radical government plans reveal

The post-16 vocational qualification system is set for a radical overhaul to replace 20,000 courses with “15 high-quality routes”, according to a government report to be published later today.

And each of the 15 routes, first reported exclusively by FE Week in May, will controversially only be available by a single awarding organisation.

The first ‘pathfinder’ routes will be taught from September 2019 and will be two-year college based programmes suitable from the age of 16, as well as those 19+, with close alignment to the new apprenticeship standards.

All 15 routes will be rolled-out for teaching by September 2022 and four of the 15 routes will be “primarily delivered through apprenticeships.”

The Skills Minister Nick Boles says in the ‘Post-16 Skills Plan‘, published at 10:30 this morning, that “we accept and will implement all of the Sainsbury panel’s proposals, unequivocally where that it is possible within current budget constraints.”

Lord Sainsbury’s ‘Report of the Independent Panel on Technical Education’, also published today, recommends each route has a ‘common core’ which will include English, maths and digital skills as well as a “specialisation towards a skilled occupation or set of occupations.”

Many within the FE sector will feel a sense of déjà vu. The Labour government’s 14-19 Diplomas, were announced in a white paper in 2005, launched in 2008 and scrapped within a few years. There were 14 lines of learning consisting of qualifications comprising the components “principal learning, generic learning and additional and specialist learning.”

However, this latest attempt will be different says Mr Boles, who blames past attempts at reform for failing “because they lacked real commitment, with governments changing plans before they could have real impact.”

This latest plan states the government ambition is for 16 year-olds to be “presented with two choices: the academic or the technical option” in the form of these 15 routes covering “college-based and employment based (apprenticeship) education”.

A binary “choice” between academic and technical is likely to raise fears of creating a two tier education system, although bridging courses for those over the age of 18 are promised.

The plans include:

– A controversial move to have just one awarding organisation for each of the 15 routes. The report says the government will “put in place only one approved tech level qualification…we intend to grant exclusive licences for the development of these tech levels following a competitive process.”

– An expansion and renaming of the Institute for Apprenticeships, due to be launched in April 2017. New legislation will be needed for it to become the “only body responsible for technical education” and it will be called the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education.

– Every 16 to 18-year-old on a college based technical education programme will be “entitled” to a “quality work placement”

– Colleges and other training providers could be permitted to deliver traineeships for up to a year (a doubling of the current six month maximum) as part of a ‘transition year’ for 16 to 18-year-olds progressing onto one of the 15 routes

The 15 routes listed within the Skills Plan are as follows:

– Agriculture, Environmental and Animal Care

– Business and Administrative

– Catering and Hospitality

– Childcare and Education

– Construction

– Creative and Design

– Digital

– Engineering and Manufacturing

– Hair and Beauty

– Health and Science

– Legal, Finance and Accounting

– Protective Services*

– Sales, Marketing and Procurement*

– Social Care*

– Transport and Logistics*

* primarily delivered through apprenticeships.

Post-16 Skills Plan Timeline

– April 2017 : the Institute for Apprenticeships begins operating

– April 2018 : the Institute for Apprenticeships becomes Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education

– October 2018 : Procurement begins for new technical qualifications

– February 2019 : Technical qualifications approved for ‘pathfinder’ routes

– September 2019: First teaching of ‘pathfinder’ routes

– September 2020 – September 2022 – Phased teaching of other routes

Streamlining technical education routes for highly-skilled workforce

If we are to compete in today’s global economy against low-wage countries such as China, industry needs to have a highly-skilled technician workforce. Many other areas of our national life, whether it is hospitals, the armed services, or agriculture, today also depend on highly-skilled technicians if they are to operate efficiently.

But the simple truth is that today we do not have the highly-skilled technician workforce that we need. International comparisons suggest the UK performs relatively well when it comes to graduate-level and higher skills. But at the sub-degree, skilled technician level our performance is appalling. By 2020, the UK is predicted to rank just 28th of 33 OECD countries in terms of developing these intermediate-level skills.

But we do not need international comparisons to throw into sharp relief the problems we are facing: our own employer surveys consistently paint a bleak picture. A survey last year by the CBI and Pearson found 47 per cent of construction employers and 37 per cent of manufacturing employers reporting current difficulties in recruiting technicians. Across all sectors, 46 per cent of employers reported suffering or expecting soon to suffer a shortage of technicians.

That we find now ourselves in this position is as unsurprising as it is depressing. It is over a hundred years since the first report was produced which highlighted the failures of technical education in the UK, the Samuelson Royal Commission on Technical Instruction which reported in 1882-4, and since the 1940s there have been very many attempts to reform the system. In the last 35 years alone there have been 28 major Acts relating to vocational and further education and skills training in the UK.

Young people will only work hard to get a qualification, and value it highly when they get it, if employers when recruiting give priority to individuals who possess it.

These have all been unsuccessful because they tinkered with technical education instead of learning from what works in other countries, and then embedding an easy-to-navigate system that everyone understands but which is flexible enough to respond to a changing economy. As a result of these past failures, at the same time that UK productivity is suffering due to a serious shortage of technicians, over 400,000 16-24 year olds are unemployed. It is hard to believe that none of these young people have the ability and motivation to train as technicians if only given good opportunities to do so.

Last year the UK government asked me to chair a panel of experts to look at how and why our competitors seem to be doing things better than us and how technical education in England could be put on par with the best in the world. Our findings were clear: successful education systems elsewhere in the world have, as a central feature, a well-understood national system of qualifications that works in the labour market.

Young people will only work hard to get a qualification, and value it highly when they get it, if employers when recruiting give priority to individuals who possess it.

It is only this labour market currency that gives technical courses the prestige they possess in high-performing countries such as Norway, Germany, Netherlands, Singapore and others. Any talk of governments being able to endow technical education with prestige – or parity of esteem with academic options – without first ensuring its genuine currency with employers is nonsense.

To achieve such market currency for technical qualifications, employer engagement in course design cannot simply be an afterthought.

Instead, while it is the role of government to design the overall national system, it must be experts from industry who determine the knowledge, skills, and methods of assessment, for each qualification.

Equally, high-quality work placements must be part of every technical qualification, as they are in other countries, with the government contributing to the cost of these placements for young people in recognition of the critical role they play in developing transferable skills which employers value.

In industries like engineering, construction, healthcare and finance, the most-skilled nations have clearly defined occupational routes that set out clear technical education standards, resulting in recognised national qualifications. Germany has six main routes for dual apprenticeships with around 320 national training standards.

The Netherlands has a total of eight technical routes but is aiming to reduce the number of technical programmes to approximately 170 main qualifications. In comparison, England has no specific routes and a ridiculous 22,140 certificates offered by 160 different awarding organisations. For example, someone aiming for a future career in plumbing has 33 qualifications to choose from – a bewildering prospect for employers and candidates alike.

Taking all of this evidence into consideration, the panel I chaired is recommending that a new set of 15 technical education routes is introduced in England.

This clear organising framework will cover all technician-level occupations where there is a substantial requirement for technical knowledge and practical skills. It will streamline the system substantially, and allow individuals and employers to see how college-based courses sit alongside apprenticeships as equally valid pathways to skilled employment. Most crucially however, it will give this country – for the first time – a national system of technical qualifications that works in the marketplace because it delivers the knowledge and skills employers need.

The proposals that we have made are essential if we are to compete effectively in world markets, and operate our public services efficiently. They are also important because they will provide many opportunities for our young people to gain the skills which will enable them to get better paid and more secure jobs. Our report is not only about industrial efficiency but also social mobility. And, finally, our proposals, I believe, provide an opportunity to reverse a hundred-year failure of our educational system, a prize surely worth fighting to achieve.

We welcome vision of excellence

We have never had a system which gives everyone a clear choice of an excellent academic or technical education. Lord Sainsbury sets out a vision of high aspiration and technical excellence for our country, which I welcome.

His review explicitly rejects a model where vocational education is a route of second-choice, the aim of which is to provide purposeful activity for those who will not succeed academically. Instead it envisages a technical education route of choice which is rigorous, relevant and demanding, with a clear line of sight to the occupational areas needed in our society and economy.

The Sainsbury review is realistic in its assessment of the challenges facing our country. It is serious about setting a reform timescale that can be delivered. And it is unambiguous that our FE and Training system is the solution, not the problem. The government’s skills plan is commitment to these important objectives.

The key understanding must be that academic and technical education are different in purpose.

Technical education is highly relevant preparation for work. We need to promote technical education as that, and stop pretending it is something else.

Young people’s perspectives can change with each birthday so we need to build their confidence to think about what they want at each stage of their development.

When both academic and technical education are equally committed to rigor and excellence, then they will be seen as different approaches to different ends, rather than- as they too often are – a stream for the successful and a stream for lower achievers.

Grouping technical education into broad pathways based on occupational areas is a good idea. It was a good idea the last time government had it, and the time before that.

However, the power of the idea must be converted into reality in two key ways.

First, we must create the standards and content by asking employers and educationalists to work hand in hand, with neither expertise excluded from the room. Co-creation and the two-way street at the heart of technical education.

And second, we must implement on a human timescale, that allows the complex worlds of industry and education to find optimum solutions and partnerships that can be honed and refined, not ripped up and dumped if they do not produce instant nirvana. A stable, self-improving system.

We need to start discussions with young people about their interests and aptitudes long before they need formal careers advice.

Vocational education is not ‘what next?’ but ‘what do I want to do?’

Young people’s perspectives can change with each birthday so we need to build their confidence to think about what they want at each stage of their development.

It may annoy adult policy makers but a 16 year old not knowing what they want to do is very human and understandable. Indeed it is probably a sign of a very mature attitude to the world of work. That is why movement between academic and technical routes needs to be accepted and supported.

Achieving the Sainsbury vision will require an excellently skilled and highly qualified teaching workforce of ‘dual professionals’.

The ETF will work with other key partners to help ensure Government’s investment in this vision translates into excellent sustained outcomes on the ground. We are not starting from scratch – our Teach Too and Two Way Street programmes have already broken new ground in technical education practice.

Visit our new exhibition site at http://tvet.excellencegateway.org.uk to see how the future is already arriving.

Finally, as data improves and can be better linked to work, there will be challenges for education and training.

We will find many courses at many universities simply do not make economic sense for the individual. This will also expose those further education routes that do not deliver.

Our sector will need to step up and provide excellent alternatives in the face of economic accountability.

Highlights from day one of FE Week’s Festival of Skills

We’ve put together a selection of photos from day one of FE Week’s Festival of Skills at Capel Manor College’s glorious 74-acre site in North London.

The continuing professional development event for FE and skills is hosted by Summerhouse Events and in partnership with City and Guilds, the Education and Training Foundation, and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Join us tomorrow for day two!

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Chief Executive Officer