Key FE figures have spoken out in defence of the sector following a scathing attack by Ofsted boss Sir Michael Wilshaw.

During a speech on Monday (January 19) for thinktank CentreForum, the education watchdog’s chief inspector accused the sector of being “inadequate at best” and criticised the sector for offering “uniformly weak” careers advice.

“It is a real pity that Sir Michael chooses to use such outdated and incorrect language to describe the education and training provided by FE colleges,” said Martin Doel, chief executive of the Association of Colleges.

Far from being the “large, impersonal and amorphous” institutions failing to deliver “high-quality vocational education” that Sir Michael referred to in his speech, Mr Doel said that FE colleges “provide excellent pastoral support, work hard to ensure that all students are supported to help them succeed and advance their valuable employability skills and develop their career opportunities”.

Dr Sue Pember, director of policy and external relations at Holex and FE Week agony aunt, said that, while Sir Michael was “right to draw attention to vocational education” the sector should not be held responsible when government changes to the education system fail.

“Colleges and providers have been the pawns in these policy changes and really can’t be blamed if the systems that governments have advocated don’t actually succeed,” she said.

“What vocational education and training in England needs is policy stability and sustainable funding.”

In response to Sir Michael’s comment that 16 to 19 study programmes have “yet to make an impact” on maths and English GCSE pass rates, Dr Pember said it was “unrealistic to think that any college can turn round 6 to 10 years of poor schooling”.

“We need to put the emphasis on getting it right in secondary school,” she said.

Malcolm Trobe, deputy general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said that FE colleges should be “celebrated” for the “enormous contribution” they make to meeting the needs of learners and employers.

“They are doing extremely good work under circumstances in which they have received horrendous budget cuts,” he said.

Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union (UCU), agreed with Sir Michael’s call for better careers advice for college students, but warned that providing it “will require proper investment”.

She added: “Sir Michael is wrong to dismiss further education colleges as simply having failed the pupils that struggled academically at his schools.

“All young people deserve access to the best education that most suits their needs.”

During his speech Sir Michael also outlined his vision for what he called “federations” of schools, which would include university technical colleges “that would admit youngsters across the ability range to focus on apprenticeships at levels four, three and two”.

“It would not be a dumping ground for the disaffected and cater just for the lower-ability youngsters,” he said.

A struggling sixth form college is consulting on a restructuring plan that it is thought could lead to dozens of job losses.

Totton College, which was branded as inadequate by Ofsted in June last year, announced on Thursday (January 21) that it had begun consulting with staff in a process that it said will “determine the future path of the college”.

The move comes after the college merged with social justice charity Nacro, which uses skills and training to reduce crime and re-offending in English and Welsh communities, on December 1.

In a statement, the college said that 39 members of staff were “potentially affected”.

The college did not say how many jobs were at risk, but it did say that some of those affected would only see a reduction in hours.

A number of new posts – equating to 14 full time equivalent (FTE) – are likely to be created, it said.

Mark Sellis, interim principal at Totton College, said: “We have to make sure the college is ready to meet the challenges of the future.

“Change is therefore inevitable – difficult as that is for all of us here – and we now await the outcome of the consultation to see how far-reaching that change will be.”

“The future of Totton College depends on the decisions we make now,” said Josh Coleman, education principal at Nacro.

“These proposals would safeguard the college’s financial future,” he added.

Caryn Symons, regional official for the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), which represents some staff at the college, said that Totton’s future had been “uncertain” for a long time.

“Staff morale is already low due to the stress from a huge amount of change and uncertainty about the college’s future,” she said.

“It is sad that staff who have already been through such a turbulent time are now facing more stress as they fear for the future of their jobs.”

The proposed restructure comes after a troubled couple of years for the 3,600-learner college.

A financial notice to improve from the Education Funding Agency (EFA) in spring 2014 was followed by a visit from the Sixth Form Commissioner, Peter Mucklow, in October 2014, after concerns were raised about a lack of improvement in the college’s finances.

In December 2014, Mike Gaston, then Totton principal, announced the college would be seeking a merger after Mr Mucklow warned in his report on the college that it could no longer function alone.

The merger with Nacro was announced in June last year, after governors at Totton’s first choice partner Eastleigh College rejected the proposal.

At the same time, the government paid a “one-off settlement” to write off Totton’s pension liabilities, FE Week exclusively revealed.

The National Union of Teachers (NUT), which also represents staff at the college, was unavailable for comment.

The Education Funding Agency declined to comment.

Reformed apprenticeships have shown little sign of taking off in latest government statistics that indicate the programme could be on target for Prime Minister David Cameron’s 3m target.

Just 700 starts across all ages and all levels were listed for the new standards in the statistical first release, published on Thursday (January 21). There were 400 confirmed for the whole of 2014/15.

The figure, which relates to the first quarter of 2015/16, is a stark contrast to the 153,100 starts on apprenticeship frameworks, which are being phased out for standards. It compares to 147,500 starts for the same period last year.

All the figures are provisional, but it paints a picture in which starts across the framework board were up 4 per cent on the same figures last year.

And to hit the Mr Cameron’s 3m target in the next five years there needs to be an average of 600,000 apprenticeship starts per year, or 150,000 per quarter.

However, the final figures could yet call this success into question. Last year’s final figures showed the first quarter to carry the most new starts at 163,600 — subsequent quarters brought lower figures, resulting in total new starts of 499,900 for the year.

Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief executive Stewart Segal said: “Adjustment of the provisional data for 2015/16 may lead later to better figures, but we are concerned that the programme is not growing at a pace we would like and in particular for 19-24 year olds.

He added: “Not all 19+ growth requests during this year have been approved and we are still waiting on the 16-18 responses as well which is a real concern when we are already half way through the year.”

But the provisional figures also showed an increase in the number of new traineeship starts, with 7,600 starts recorded in the first quarter of 2015/16, compared to only 5,000 for the previous year. And the growth could well continue with news, reported by FE Week on January 20, that restrictions limiting who can deliver traineeships were to be lifted next month rather than from August.

Skills Minister Nick Boles said: “Apprenticeships and traineeships are creating the highly skilled and productive workforce that is supporting our country’s economic growth. We are on the right track to delivering 3m apprenticeships by 2020.”

The government has missed the first key deadline from its own timeline for apprenticeship reform implementation over the next five years, following delays to the launch of a consultation on the “public sector target”.

It published a document on December 7, called English Apprenticeships: Our 2020 vision document, setting out a number of imminent dates.

The first was that the government was supposed to consult “on the [apprenticeship] target for the public sector” before the turn of the year.

It explained that “through the Enterprise Bill, we [the government] intend to introduce new statutory targets for public sector bodies to employ their fair share of apprentices to contribute to our goal of achieving 3m apprenticeship starts”.

“The proposal is that the targets will apply to public bodies with 250 or more people working for them in England,” it said in the document.

“In December 2015, we will publish a consultation which will give the rationale behind a minimum target of 2.3 per cent and list the bodies proposed to be in scope.

“Following this and subject to Parliamentary approval, we will put these targets in place in 2016. Public bodies will then be required to report annually on progress.”

However, a Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) spokesperson admitted to FE Week on Thursday (January 21) that the “consultation has not yet been launched”, although he said “this will change in the next few days”.

The Skills Funding Agency (SFA) and BIS were also unable to comment ahead of publication on how the government was progressing with four other developments the 2020 document set for the first month of this year.

It said that a “National Careers Service digital platform will determine the potential suitability of a young person for apprenticeships, traineeships or the JCP work experience programme” from January.

“Data on apprenticeship wage returns by sector subject area” was also set to be published in the same month.

It added that “an integrated communications campaign to promote apprenticeships, traineeships and work experience opportunities” would also be created in January, and “guidance on funding both frameworks and standards for the 2016/2017 academic year” would be issued at the end of the month.

Shadow Skills Minister Gordon Marsden (pictured above) said: “It is the government that has set itself all these targets.

“Therefore, it doesn’t look good when it starts not being able to meet them. It raises questions over whether they have sufficient [staff] resources to do all these things.”

It comes as members of the Apprenticeship Delivery Board (ADB), which it is thought will be tasked helping ensure that the government doesn’t miss any more reform programme deadlines, were unveiled on Monday (January 18), five months after its creation was first announced.

But an SFA spokesperson told FE Week two days later that it was still “in the process of setting up the first meeting of the full ADB”.

Both BIS and the SFA declined to respond to Mr Marsden’s comments.

A Skills Funding Agency (SFA) decision not to introduce a reduced funding rate for online learning has been welcomed by the sector.

The SFA had been looking into online learning following the publication of the Further Education Learning Technology Action Group (Feltag) report in March 2014.

But speaking as a member of the audience during a talk at the Bett education technology show in London on January 20, Stephen Nichols, policy implementation manager at the SFA, said that online learning was not “the cheap option”.

“We’ve taken a lot of feedback on online funding rates,” said Mr Nichols.

“The Skills Funding Agency isn’t going to implement a cheap rate for online learning. I think we all appreciate that it’s not the cheap option,” he added.

Paul Rolfe, director of technology and innovation at Highbury College, Portsmouth, was part of the Feltag group. He said Mr Nichols’ announcement was “very much welcomed”.

He said: “Developing high quality online courses with interactive and engaging resources is incredibly time consuming and therefore expensive.”

The SFA’s acknowledgement of this “will enable innovative providers such as Highbury College to continue to invest in new delivery models which will respond to the changing needs of learners and employers,” he said.

A spokesperson for the Association of Colleges said the SFA was “right” that “developing and delivering high-quality online courses is not cheaper” than face-to-face learning.

“Colleges, and other providers, which choose to provide both types of course should receive funding that is accurate and commensurate with the type of content and means of delivery for specific courses,” she said.

Feltag also recommended that all publicly-funded learning programmes should have a minimum of 10 per cent online content from 2015/16.

In its Feltag progress report in February last year, the government said it had reviewed this recommendation “in the light of concerns raised about setting a target without first testing the impact”.

As a result, it said, the SFA would be undertaking “information gathering” to “baseline current activity”, as well as running a number of pilots and asking the sector to complete a “temperature check” survey.

Another Feltag member, learning technology adviser Bob Harrison, said: “What’s really encouraging, from an FE point of view, is that they are now actively looking to remove the barriers in the funding mechanism, which will allow teachers and FE providers to use technology in an innovative way.”

A spokesperson for the SFA said that the evidence they had seen showed that “there are a wide range of variables involved” in setting an online funding rate.

“Final recommendations on an online funding rate will be made when our online learning report is published in due course,” she said.

FE colleges that recruit learners from the age of 14 will be covered by tough new strike rules, the government has finally confirmed.

Its ballot threshold consultation response, published today, lists teaching and leadership of “pupils aged 5 to 16 in state-funded schools” as “important public services” which would be subject to the new 40 per cent support threshold for strike action, as part of the new trade union bill.

And a spokesperson for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) confirmed that “any teacher teaching a child under 17 will be covered by the 40 per cent threshold, whether in an FE college or a school”.

Under new rules in the trade union bill, which was introduced by the Business Secretary Sajid Javid (pictured above), a 50 per cent turnout requirement will be set for all strike action, with a separate requirement that strikes in “important” areas such as education and health have the support of 40 per cent of those eligible to vote.

According to the wording of the bill, the 40 per cent support threshold would apply to staff working with provision covering statutory school age pupils, meaning those aged five to 16.

At the moment, strike action can be called if a simple majority is in favour. That means that no matter how many eligible voters cast ballots, any vote share over 50 per cent in favour will count as support.