An ex-offender who passed an exam less than 24 hours after giving birth has been honoured for her efforts to turn her life around through FE, writes Billy Camden.
Zoe Marie Roberts feared a traumatic past would continue to lead her to a life of crime — but she decided to change track and enrolled for studies at Coleg Menai Bangor and has not looked back since.
The 19-year-old learner studied a new direction course which consisted of health and social, IT and psychology, followed by a social sciences diploma.
Her determination to better her life was underlined when she sat her social work exam just one day after the birth of her third son, Harvey, and passed.
As recognition, Zoe was named winner of the No Offence Redemption & Justice Young Person Award, an annual award that recognises the achievements of people who have overcome adversity to change their lives.
Zoe being presented with her award. From left: sgt Stephen Williams, the officer who used to regularly arrest Zoe, Zoe Marie Roberts, Carys Jones from Gwynedd Mon Youth Justice Service and Lois Jones, Zoe’s former social worker
“When I heard I had been nominated for the award I was shocked as I didn’t think I was doing anything special,” said Zoe.
“I just wanted to give back to the community and to help others, to show them that there is a chance.
“When I heard I won it was an emotional time as it showed me the changes I had made in 10 years. It has been an amazing experience.”
At the age of 10 Zoe was abused which led to her committing minor offences within the community throughout her teenage years, usually while under the influence of drugs and alcohol.
She refused to attend school and later “became a danger” to herself.
Zoe’s life choices, along with her traumatic experiences, drove an escalation in her offending which led to two periods in custody and another of her being placed within a secure unit for her own safety.
On reaching age 18, Zoe decided she could no longer continue on this path and enrolled for her studies despite a four-year absence from education.
She has since progressed into work roles with a company offering young people the chance to live independently, and has also provided support voluntarily to the Edge of Care Team and helped to interview staff for the Youth Justice Service.
Zoe has also acted as a mentor to another young female with a similar offending history to herself.
Novus, a not-for-profit social enterprise which delivers education, training and employability services to people in custody, sponsored Zoe’s award.
The company’s director of justice services, Barbara McDonough, said: “Zoe clearly demonstrated to the judges her ability to make positive changes in her own life and sustain those improvements over a significant period of time. In addition, Zoe has helped others to change and has had a positive impact on people’s lives with similar issues to her own.”
Zoe added: “I still face difficulties now and my life is far from perfect but I’m far away from life of crime.
“Having my three children — Tylor, Sophea and Harvey — is what inspired me to change.”
Main pic: Zoe Marie Roberts with her No Offence Redemption & Justice Young Person Award
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is investigating a Midland man’s claim his local college is struggling with its legal duties under the Freedom of Information Act.
Julian Saunders complained to the ICO and requested that Sandwell College’s FoI practice be monitored after it issued a number of late responses to his requests.
Principal Graham Pennington (pictured right) has even sent him four apology letters for failing to disclose information that should have been released.
The college claimed that 60 per cent of FoI requests it had fielded so far this academic year had come from Mr Saunders and said that “unfortunately it can take time to collate complex information for so many different requests”.
The ICO has nonetheless agreed to discuss Mr Saunders’s case, which covered FoI requests into issues such as delays in revealing the number of student studying A-levels and publishing the minutes of the college’s governing board meetings.
A spokesperson for the ICO told FE Week it could not comment specifically on the case, adding that its role was to look into the complaint rather than investigate the college. “We cannot investigate other matters that may lie behind the request. We focus on only whether an organisation has complied with the Act,” she said.
She added: “There are circumstances under which we may monitor an organisation to check it is handling its FOI requests in a timely manner.”
Mr Saunders, who writes community news blog The Sandwell Skidder, began engaging with the college after it took over The Public — a public building in West Bromwich, where the college is based, that previously housed an art gallery and was run by his wife.
One of Mr Saunders’s FoI requests, made on June 6 last year, got no response, he claimed.
Mr Saunders followed up with a further email asking for an internal review on July 9, and received a response on August 4 apologising for the delay saying that his FOI request had been “forwarded to an incorrect email within Sandwell College”. His request was answered on August 8.
He said it was one of a number of internal review requests he had made to Sandwell College having seen his FoI requests go unanswered or contain significant redacted information.
He said these had resulted in four letters of apology sent to him from principal Mr Pennington. He wrote: “I consider that the college should have disclosed the information it held.” He added: “Please accept my apologies for the delay in providing this information.”
A Sandwell College spokesperson said: “So far this academic year we have received 10 FoI requests, six of which have been from the same person, requesting detailed information on various and complex subjects, including our A-level provision and arts provision at Central Sixth. In addition to these we have received five requests for internal reviews.
“These requests are all from the same individual, the husband of the former managing director of The Public, which the college has transformed from a loss-making arts facility into Central Sixth, a highly successful sixth form centre in partnership with Sandwell Council.
“These are the only areas of delay we are aware of. The college always endeavours to provide timely information but unfortunately it can take time to collate complex information for so many different requests. The college is constantly reviewing its processes to ensure efficiency.”
A typist course at Warwickshire College at the age of 29 was the moment Sarah Wright knew her “life was going to be different”.
Today she sits in the principal’s chair at Central Sussex College safe in the knowledge of when and where her next paycheque will come from — but such certainty and security was not always present in her life.
Almost from day one I knew that this was the sector for me because I absolutely loved the process of teaching and learning, and it became so fundamental and so important to me
Wright left school in 1975 at the age of 16 with “surprisingly to everybody, some pretty decent O-levels.”
However, with influential dad George not “overly impressed by academic qualifications,” Wright found herself married and settled for family life just two years later and by the age of 23 she had two children — Emma and James.
From left: Wright, aged two, with a monkey, grandmother Kathleen and mum Ann
But with her marriage having failed, and two small mouths to feed, Wright applied for a typing course at her nearby Warwickshire College.
She says: “When they interviewed me they advised me that I should do their mature A-level course — so I did that and I studied history, English and maths.”
It was a move that led to the realisation for Wright that “life was going to be different to how it had been before”.
She says: “I felt that, for the first time really, somebody in an educational environment believed in what I could do.
“So I did well in my A-levels, and then went on to Warwick University to do a history and politics degree.”
Wright, a grandmother-of-two, reflects with great passion on how much she enjoyed her university experience and explains how it made her grow in confidence.
Wright graduating from the University of Warwick with daughter Emma, who has two sons, and son James in 1993
And it was during her time at Warwick University that she met husband Gordon, who studied the same degree but in the year above. Wright, now aged 56, graduated when she was 33.
A move into journalism followed, before Warwickshire College asked Wright to do some cover teaching of GCSE and A-level English.
She says: “Almost from day one I knew that this was the sector for me because I absolutely loved the process of teaching and learning, and it became so fundamental and so important to me.”
Wright took up teaching part-time and also taught at an independent school. A year later she was offered full-time posts at both, but with “no doubt in mind” opted for the Warwickshire College post.
She says: “It just seemed to be such an exciting environment, and one in which I felt I could really make a difference.
Wright, aged seven, on holiday with dad George
“And I think the experience of not having done extremely well at school gave me an insight into the minds of the students there.
“I didn’t have the stereotypical ‘go through education, leave school, go to university and be the top of everything’ background,” adds Wright.
She worked at the college for a decade, working her way up through the ranks to the position of quality manager by 2003.
Her next career move was to take up post as director of quality at the nearby Solihull College, before returning to Warwickshire College in 2007 as vice principal until 2009.
Wright then landed the role principal of Seevic College, in Essex in 2010, before she secured her current role as principal of Central Sussex College in January 2013.
A three-year-old Wright enjoys what would become a lifelong pastime of reading
“When I arrived here and started looking at things, I felt a real thrill about being back in a large FE college,” she recalls.
Central Sussex College has 11,000 students and nearly 400 staff and Wright saw the job opening for the principal of the college as a great opportunity to make an impact on a sizable FE provider.
“However, it quickly became clear that the situation with the finances was not what I had believed — and we ended up that year with a £10m deficit,” explains Wright, who has overseen two Ofsted inspections at the college, both of which resulted in ‘requires improvement’ ratings.
She explains that the college had “a massive financial hole” due to building a new campus and says it took the college to borrowing more than 100 per cent of income — she says the average in the sector is around 40 per cent.
And a month after Wright’s arrival, the college received a notice of improvement for financial concern from the Skills Funding Agency (SFA), which was lifted in August.
Wright says she knew she had to build the college, which has a current SFA allocation of nearly £6m, from the “bottom up” when she arrived and so revamped the board and senior team.
Wright on holiday with husband Gordon in 2010
And while the finances blow soon after her arrival prompted a visit from FE Commissioner Dr David Collins in January, he would later praise the “well balanced” governing board which had “changed significantly over the past two years”.
“The senior management team has been completely revised following the appointment of a new principal in 2013,” reported Dr Collins.
“The incoming principal inherited a number of major problems including a debt representing more than 100 per cent of turnover and unsatisfactory internal auditing arrangements.”
Wright says the college has done all it can to enact the commissioner’s recommendations, but his involvement with the college has not ended there. He chairs the Sussex Coast post-16 education area review in which Central Sussex College is one of eight GFE colleges and three sixth form colleges whose futures could be in jeopardy.
“I am confident that the recommendations of the review will be sensible and sound, because of the people running it,” says Wright.
“So we do welcome it, and really we’re at an early stage, but we’ll work through it, and we’re pleased to be a part of it.”
Wright with grandsons George, aged six, and Sam, two
But back to the daily pressures of the college and Wright says “financial control now is extraordinarily strong” and she has made a “great effort to get their finances under control”.
And what keeps the college’s ethos strong, says Wright, is the effort and passion she and her team put into it.
She says: “I admire my team — I also really greatly admire the legions of staff in colleges across the country in what is a sector which has had successive cuts to funding and now must be considered underfunded, who every day go that extra mile to make that real difference.
“They help students achieve who wouldn’t necessarily have achieved, and they help them to have different lives to the lives they would have had if they hadn’t come to us.”
She adds: “I am very keen to walk around and talk to students to ask them about their experience of the college, and they tend to be very open and frank about things — and actually really mature about what they want and what they don’t want.
“Students do know when they are getting a good experience and when they’re not, so we do listen very carefully to that.
“I think some of the feedback that we’ve had very recently is that they like being taught by people who have been there and done it — and that has come through to me very strongly.”
But a great challenge remains, she says.
“I think the big challenge is the reputation of the sector and the lack of understanding sometimes about the good work that the sector does,” explains Wright.
“FE is about that fundamental change to the life of an individual who can then take their real part in the economic life of the country.”
It’s a personal thing
What’s your favourite book?
Hermione Lee’s Life of Virginia Woolf. I just think that’s an amazing read, and it’s non-fiction, which is quite unusual for me
What do you do to switch off from work?
Switching off isn’t something I’m particularly good at, but I see a lot of films and plays with my husband. I talk a lot to my sister, who is totally not in the world of education, but seems to understand it anyway.
But I guess really the only time that I completely switch off from work is when I’m playing with my two grandsons, George, aged six and Samuel, two. They are all-consuming, and I find them completely hilarious — I’m completely besotted
What’s your pet hate?
I really hate any form of smugness or pretention — pomposity. I just wonder who people are trying to fool when they behave like that
If you could invite anyone to a dinner party, living or dead, who would it be?
Both my parents have died in the last couple of years, so I’d definitely have them. I’d have the potter and fabulous writer Edmund de Waal. I’d also have Vanessa Bell, the artist, Nina Simone singing, and my dad playing saxophone. And my son would be cooking — he’s the best cook ever
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
I wanted to write, but until I started teaching at an FE college, I just wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. But I was completely sure, almost from day one, that that’s where I was going to stay
Abingdon & Witney College deputy principal Di Batchelor will take the step up to principal after the Christmas break when Teresa Kelly retires.
The board of governors said it appointed Ms Batchelor because of her “impressive personal contribution” to the college’s recent progress in curriculum development, teaching and learning, and the development of new facilities.
Ms Batchelor, who joined Abingdon College in 1992 as head of adult learning, previously worked at Oxfordshire County Council as part of the adult education team.
Stephen Dexter, chair of governors said the board was “unanimous in its decision and has utmost confidence in Ms Batchelor to continue the successful progress of Abingdon & Witney College”.
Ms Kelly said: “I am delighted that Ms Batchelor will take up the position as college principal when I retire at Christmas.
“I have worked closely with Ms Batchelor for the last 12 years and I have every confidence that I will be leaving the college in safe and inspirational hands. This is very good news for education and training in Oxfordshire.”
Meanwhile, awarding organisation Vocational Training Charitable Trust (VTCT) has appointed Alan Woods OBE to succeed Dr Stephen Vickers as its chief executive with effect from January 1.
Mr Woods arrives after leading on apprenticeships and vocational education with the University of Law (ULaw) for the past 18 months.
Before working with ULaw he led Skills for Justice, a sector skills council licensed by the government to work with employers on competences, skills and apprenticeships.
Mr Woods said: “I am particularly looking forward to leading, with a great set of staff colleagues at VTCT, on new areas of work including: on-line assessments, working with employers to engage with new, higher and more bespoke qualifications, new partnerships with education providers and centres to develop outstanding technical centres of excellence, particularly within hair and beauty therapy, and to support the ambition of our employers to support the apprenticeship revolution that is sweeping the UK.”
And Martin Doel will be standing down as chief executive of the Association of Colleges (AoC) from September to move to a new professorship for the Further Education Trust for Leadership (Fetl).
Mr Doel will continue in his post with the AoC until then, helping to establish his new role as Fetl Professor of FE and skills at the University College London (UCL) Institute of Education (IOE) from April 1.
A Fetl spokesperson said the role was “the very first professorial role for the sector and will help lead thinking to influence policy and help shape the future for FE and skills”.
Mr Doel said: “Working at the AoC has been the most rewarding job that I have had.
“In my new role on behalf of Fetl in the Institute of Education, I will look to draw on my experience at AoC to continue to enhance understanding of the FE and skills sector.”
A spokesperson for the AoC said it “will undertake the process of appointing a new chief executive in January”.
A cross-party group of MPs has won the backing of NUS FE leader Shakira Martin (pictured) with their bid to put first-year apprentices on a par with full-time learners in claiming free NHS prescriptions.
Labour’s Stephen McCabe’s early day motion (EDM) to Parliament had, at the time of going to press, been signed by 20 other MPs, including from his own party along with Conservative, Scottish National Party, Independent Democratic Unionist Party MPs.
It was tabled on November 18 and states: “This House notes that those on apprenticeships aged 16 to 18 or 19 and over, but in the first year of their apprenticeship, earn only £3.30 per hour but are required to pay for their prescriptions, whereas those of the same age but in full-time education receive free prescriptions.”
Shakira Martin, NUS FE vice president
Apprentices can actually get more than the £3.30 figure, which rose from £2.73 an-hour in October, depending upon their employer, but the EDM continues: “This a serious barrier to access to health care for such groups and a disincentive to those wishing to commence an apprenticeship.”
A Department for Business, Innovation and Skills spokesperson declined to comment on the EDM saying it did not relate to apprenticeship policy.
However, Shakira Martin, National Union of Students (NUS) vice president for FE, said she would “welcome any move to cut vital expenses for apprentices”.
She said: “Despite a raise this year, the current apprentice minimum wage is still exploitative and not enough to cover basic living expenses.
“This includes travel, accommodation, food and other living costs. This is a barrier to any young apprentice, but especially for apprentices with a disability, long-term health condition or those who are parents.”
Mr McCabe told FE Week: “It is clearly unfair that a young person on less than minimum wage completing an apprenticeship isn’t entitled to free prescriptions but someone studying for their A-levels is.
Stephen McCabe
“This disadvantages young people on apprenticeships and the situation is even worse if you suffer from a chronic condition which requires regular medication.”
A spokesperson from the Department of Health said that there were currently “no plans to extend the prescription charge exemption for 16 to 18-year-olds”.
They added: “If someone in an apprenticeship scheme is not already eligible for free prescriptions, they may be able to get these via the NHS Low Income Scheme, or lower cost prescriptions through an annual Prescription Pre-payment Certificate.”
According to the NHS website, an apprentice resident in England could apply for the NHS Low Income Scheme if their savings and investments did not exceed £16,000.
The scheme offers help with covering medical costs, including prescriptions. Alternatively, buying an annual Prescription Pre-payment Certificate costs £104, meaning you save if you require more than 12 items over the year.
The government spokesperson also said that an apprentice may be eligible for free prescriptions if their parents received specific benefits, such as income support, or if they had specific ongoing health problems such as certain types of diabetes.
Martin Doel has revealed plans to become the inaugural Further Education Trust for Leadership (Fetl) Professor of FE and Skills in the University College London (UCL) Institute of Education (IoE). He outlines the kind of issues he wants to be looking at.
The first task of leadership is to impart direction and define purpose — what then is the distinctive purpose and direction of institutions delivering FE? What does the term FE mean? Should skills follow FE like a horse and carriage in the phrase ‘FE and skills’?
As the Fetl Professor of FE and Skills in the UCL Institute of Education, these are some of the questions that I’m hoping to have the opportunity to explore and discuss. They’re the type of questions that, against the litany of day-to-day challenges, are often neglected.
Colleges, independent learning providers, adult learning providers and employer providers have proven themselves remarkably adept at surviving whatever is thrown their way
Further questions might be — how do autonomous institutions make themselves properly accountable to those they serve? If improved skills are a necessary, but not sufficient, condition to improve productivity, what are the other elements required and how do these elements interact with skills provision? What should be the balance between broad education and focused training, especially for young people? How do leaders of FE institutions contribute to leadership of ‘place’ with other agencies and local partners? How can collaboration co-exist with competition in the world of FE and skills as it does in other areas of business? How do we sustain and build further an entrepreneurial spirit in FE colleges and providers that is reconciled with the requirement for accountability for public funds?
But do those questions, and those being addressed by the Fetl fellows that I’m looking forward to working with, actually matter? After all, colleges, independent learning providers, adult learning providers and employer providers have proven themselves remarkably adept at surviving whatever is thrown their way.
In my opinion, they do matter. Unreflective action might achieve temporary respite, but it’s not the behaviour of a mature and autonomous sector. A sign of maturity is a secure sense of ‘self’ and a wish to be self-determining. These are indicators of underlying confidence that in turn inspire confidence in staff, students and in those that fund education and training, whether employers or in government.
Working with colleagues at the Institute of Education, Fetl fellows and friends and colleagues across the sector, I hope to find answers to the questions or at least form better questions — as you can see I’m already beginning to make the transition to being an academic. I think also that we should have the humility to learn from others who are engaged in addressing the same type of questions — providers in other educational sectors, in commerce, in other countries both near (we have our own experiment ongoing in the UK as the FE and skills systems in each of the nations diverge but retain very similar cultural roots) and far, in local government and in the voluntary sector.
In the meantime, there’s a day job to do at AoC until September when I will take up my full responsibilities at the IoE.
While beginning to think about more and even better questions and while working with Fetl fellows, there will more than enough to do in supporting colleges through area reviews, in making full sense of the spending review, in contributing to policy that enables colleges to deliver their full share of 3m high quality apprenticeships, in ensuring that colleges are at the centre of the rejuvenation of higher technical and professional education and in making sure that the achievements of colleges and their students are properly acknowledged and recognised. In fact, it’s business as usual.
A Derby College rapper featured on a BBC Lifeline TV programme to highlight the support he has gained from the Dame Kelly Holmes Trust.
Curtis May, aged 18, is a music technology learner and joined the Trust’s Get on Track programme two years ago to help him overcome the challenges he faced at school and home.
Curtis said: “When I left school I didn’t really know what I wanted to do and I had a lot of anger problems and depression.
“I was bullied at school and had a lot of family problems at home. My sister suggested that I join the Get on Track programme and it has been brilliant.
“After the eight week programme, I continued to receive a lot of help from my athlete mentor GB swimmer Ross Davenport and I am now able to focus positively on the opportunities that are available to me.”
Curtis is now a student at the Derby College’s Joseph Wright Campus and continues to compose and perform his rap-style music.
Pic: Curtis May performing his rap-style music in the Derby College recording studio
Within the next couple of weeks, we expect the Skills Funding Agency to finally begin the process of European Social Fund procurement, advised by European Structural Investment Funds (ESIF) committees within Local Enterprise Partnerships (Leps).
This will be the first time Leps will have influence over where and how public money is spent on learning and skills programmes.
Yet, with devolution all the rage, this is just the beginning of stronger local oversight over economic growth and public service reform. Since Lord Heseltine’s ‘No Stone Unturned’ report just over three years ago, devolution agreements have been made between central government and nine local areas.
From Cornwall to West Yorkshire, Liverpool to Tees Valley, more and more city regions and combined authority will be afforded devolved budgets and decision making powers over health, social care, transport, employment and skills.
The strengths, opportunities and potential benefits of devolved education and skills systems are persuasive. Skills is a good example of how England stands out as the European Capital of centralised skills policy.
As a democracy, we are facing up to the realisation that central government can’t solve all of the problems. Programmes from Whitehall can’t close skills gaps, they can’t eliminate lifetime low pay and they are not making progress in getting those furthest away from the labour market into work.
That’s why it is welcome that local areas have been promised co-commissioning roles for new employment support programmes.
Yet, I remain restless about a couple of things in particular when it comes to devolution of skills.
My first one is about political leadership. In return for powers, local areas have to commit to electing a ‘metro-mayor’. Working with the mayor will be a combined authority with its own cabinet of local authority leaders and its own executive. Combined authorities are networks of local authorities, each of which will have its own executive and cabinet of elected councillors.
The quality of local outcome agreements, skills and employment strategies etc rest on the quality of leadership, policy and oversight from councillors.
My real worry here is how much freedom local political leaders will actually be given to direct policy in their area. It’s all well and good devolving power and responsibility, but if it’s in HM Treasury wrapping paper with a massive un-Christmassy list of government policy requirements, then its not really devolution at all. So I think the quality, and freedom, of local political leaders are really important.
Following any discussion about political leadership usually comes accountability.
While the government’s consultation on outcome based success measures only closed last week, I know that many are concerned about this idea of a trade-off between accredited and employment outcomes verses non-accredited and other types of outcomes.
There’s potential for an ‘accountability paradox’ here for local political leaders in that if devolution only provides proportioned central government budgets, rather then actual power, local political leaders could find themselves satisfying their devolution conditions at the expense their constituents.
My hope though, is that in areas like Greater Manchester, local people feel a genuine sense of ownership over learning and skills and local politicians have the ability to prioritise those in most need in their communities.
Clearly, the devolution agenda at the moment throws up as many questions as it does theoretical benefits.
We know that it’s most likely at this stage that adult skills and community learning budgets are likely to be devolved under a combined umbrella package.
With that would also come learner support funding, but we don’t know the extent to which local areas will have powers of learner support policy or just the PIN number for the central government budget.
Now that learning loans are to be extended, it’ll be interesting to see what ideas local areas have in flexing local learning markets to boost demand for advanced-higher level learning and, again, whether localities will have powers over eligibility policy.
Chancellor George Osborne’s Budget last month was widely expected to be disastrous for FE. But while many are still awaiting the finer details, the sector appeared at least safe for now. Neil Carmichael outlines his view of the sector settlement.
The mood of the Association of Colleges conference when I attended on the closing day could be best summarised by the headline in the conference edition of FE Week — ‘Staring into the funding abyss’, following warnings from Skills Minister Nick Boles that “FE will not be insulated from further spending cuts”.
The reaction therefore when the spending review announced that the core adult skills budget would be protected in cash terms at £1.5bn was one of relief at a better than expected settlement.
Coupled with the announcement of the apprenticeship levy and increased availability of loans for students who wish to pursue higher levels of vocational education, the overall settlement in my view represents a clear recognition by this government that the FE sector will have an increasingly important role to play in delivering its policy outcomes around apprenticeships, workforce skills and productivity.
I am very alert to the challenges that still exist for the FE sector
The government wants strong local areas and for employers to take a leading role in establishing a post-16 skills system. The series of area-based reviews is already being carried out to establish how local areas can set up institutions that do this.
Colleges will be invited to specialise according to local economic priorities, and to provide better targeted basic skills alongside professional and technical education. Some of these will be invited to become Institutes of Technology which will be sponsored by employers, registered with professional bodies and aligned with apprenticeship standards.
In my own constituency the South Gloucestershire and Stroud College (SGS) has already made itself well poised to develop even more exciting opportunities for young people, building a new training centre at the now decommissioned Berkley Green power station focussing on energy renewables, advanced manufacturing and cyber security which is already proving to be highly popular, judging by the success of the recent open day.
The FE sector is not just in need of reform. For too long, it has been seen as Cinderella in contrast to higher education so parity between technical and professional training with academic outcomes is long overdue.
One way to achieve this is to introduce a properly valued and recognised National Apprenticeship Award — guaranteeing the quality of the training and saluting the achievement of recipients, which should be part of the government’s early proposals for an Institute for Apprenticeships.
Another useful change made in the Spending Review was to allow sixth form colleges to become academies. This will simplify the post-16 arena and, by extension, help to define more clearly the role of the FE sector.
The FE sector is currently charged with the task of dealing with the huge number of GCSE maths retakes — and I congratulate the way many colleges have risen to this challenge — but this policy needs to be reviewed.
While it is absolutely right for young people — wherever possible — to have a qualification in maths (and English), a numeracy qualification could suffice. Furthermore, maths should, in my view, be part of a post-16 curriculum through learning for a National Baccalaureate, formed through maths and English components plus traditional A-levels or technical qualifications.
I am very alert to the challenges that still exist for the FE sector — for example, between them the Department for Education and Department for Business, Innovation and Skills both still need to secure potentially £500m of savings outside the adult skills budget, and managing this will create challenges.
But both myself and the Labour chair of the Business and Skills Select Committee have long recognised the importance of the FE sector in addressing UK skills and this will be a focus of our joint inquiry into UK productivity over 2016.
The challenges of the spending review now present a real opportunity to create more resilient colleges taking the opportunities now available to them through greater employer engagement and an ability to embrace new innovative structures to meet students, and employer demands.
Principal Graham Pennington (pictured right) has even sent him four apology letters for failing to disclose information that should have been released.
