Awarding organisation (AO) NCFE is set to appoint Loughborough College principal Esme Winch (pictured above) as its first managing director.
The Newcastle upon Tyne-based AO has also unveiled a new commercial and finance director as part of a senior team revamp.
A spokesperson for the AO said Ms Winch, whose post had been newly-created due to the “ongoing growth of the company” and would begin from January, would oversee day-to-day operations in awarding, and work closely with NCFE chief executive David Grailey.
Ms Winch said she was “delighted” at her appointment “at a time of such rapid change and development” in the sector.
“NCFE’s well-recognised strengths underpin an ambitious and confident outlook on the future,” she added.
Ms Winch has been principal and chief executive of Loughborough College since September 2012 and before that was group director for finance at Newcastle College Group (NCG). Her 35-year career has also included a management buy-out of Paperchase and senior roles at high profile companies such as Timberland, Laura Ashley and Polo Ralph Lauren’s office in Paris.
Audrey Traynor, chair of governors at Loughborough College said Ms Winch was “leaving the college in an excellent position for the future”.
“The governors, staff and students of Loughborough College would like to wish Esme all the very best for her new appointment with NCFE,” said Ms Traynor.
Heather MacDonald, who was principal of Sheffield College until June, replaces Ms Winch as interim principal from October 1. Ms Winch will be on leave from October 2 until taking up her post with NCFE.
Joining Ms Winch at NCFE is chartered accountant Phil Murray (pictured right) as commercial and financial director. The role was previously known as director of business services, and was most recently held by Graeme Walker, who left the post in September last year.
Ms Winch and Mr Murray are joining NCFE shortly after the awarding organisation’s acquisition of the Council for Awards in Care, Health and Education (Cache).
“I’m pleased to be working with an award-winning organisation that has such a strong reputation nationally for awarding and customer service,” said Mr Murray.
“I was keen to join NCFE as I recognised it was an organisation that was looking to grow, and that although there are of course challenges within the FE sector, there are also opportunities for consolidation.
“The recent acquisition of specialist AO Cache is a major milestone in NCFE achieving its ambitions. I’m looking forward to helping NCFE to grow and develop further in the coming years, and to being part of this forward-thinking organisation’s exciting vision for the future.”
Mr Grailey said: “Our new directors’ extensive experience will be crucial as we move forward with this as well as other developments and projects we have in the pipeline.
“We’re thrilled to welcome Esme and Phil to NCFE and are confident that they will play a significant role in our ambitious short-term and long-term plans for growth, helping our strategic management team to drive NCFE forward.”
Anyone that works in the awarding sector will understand that for us change is the only constant. I was involved in qualification development during the introduction of the Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF), and now we are at the dawn of another new qualifications framework, the Regulated Qualifications Framework (RQF).
This is the third qualifications framework I have experienced during my time at OCR and the framework is only one aspect of the qualifications system that is subject to reform. You would be forgiven for thinking that all this framework change matters only to the awarding bodies (and for a large part, I think you’d be right), but the framework does fundamentally affect what we develop and therefore what is delivered in classrooms and work places.
I recently gave an update to one of our teams at OCR about what the implications were of replacing the QCF with the RQF. I used a slide containing two pictures; the first was of a person whose arms had been freed from chains that were binding them and the second was a sign that said ‘this changes everything’ only ‘everything’ was crossed through and ‘nothing’ was written over the top. I think the reality of the implications of the RQF is probably somewhere between the two.
The introduction of the RQF provides awarding bodies with greater flexibilities when we are creating qualifications or reviewing and refreshing or replacing existing ones. The QCF relied too heavily on structural regulations that stifled rather than supported innovation.
The RQF, created to be a descriptive framework, allows us to design and develop qualifications in ways that meet the identified purpose of the qualification, in a size and structure that supports that purpose.
It also supports Ofqual’s role as the regulator of awarding organisations. It is their expectation of us that we have processes, procedures and experience in place to design, develop and award valid and reliable qualifications.
So if the RQF gives awarding organisations greater flexibility, it also brings greater emphasis on our responsibilities. The RQF once again returns us to the role of owners of the content and design of our qualifications and it is a responsibility we welcome.
If the new framework gives awarding organisations greater flexibility, it also brings greater emphasis on our responsibilities
It is an opportunity that awarding organisations must take full advantage of. We want to be able to directly engage with stakeholders about the content and assessment of our qualifications; we want to ensure that they lead to positive outcomes. The changes to the framework and other associated changes have removed some obstacles that became barriers to this sort of engagement.
Part of the difficulties with the QCF came with the speed of its implementation, which were as much the responsibility of funding drivers as the introduction of the QCF itself. We are particularly glad to see that this is not a step that will be repeated. Although the RQF officially comes into effect on October 1, there is to be a phased transition for existing qualifications with the requirements on removing reference to QCF from qualification titles and ensuring that all qualifications assign a total qualification time value by December 31, 2017.
So what does this mean for those providers offering QCF qualifications? In the short-term, probably very little. Ofqual has confirmed that where qualifications are valid and reliable they can continue. Awarding organisations must keep their qualifications under review to update and withdraw or redevelop when they no longer meet the need they were designed to address. As those reviews happen you may see changes to qualifications that replace them, but these changes will not necessarily be due to the framework, unlike when the QCF was introduced.
Frameworks, like qualification reforms, need time to settle in and embed themselves. So, we and other awarding organisations have again a big responsibility to explain our qualifications and their position in the system in a way that is clear and easily understood by learners, educators and employers. And hopefully, this framework acronym will be the last one we have to explain.
There’s understandable angst in FE colleges about the area reviews. It’s an issue that’s been playing on my mind and so I’ve tried to get down some of the main points about these that are bugging me.
Government says that the ‘post-16 education sector is critical to our strategy of raising productivity and economic growth’. Yes, everyone says they love FE — but no one wants to pay for it.
Schools are safe (at least in cash terms) and higher education has the benefit of uncapped loans. However, the imminent Spending Review will signal less public money and more cuts.
Meanwhile, Scotland has gone from 37 to 20 colleges saving (allegedly) £50m through a 9 per cent staffing cut.
And so we hear there is ‘significant scope for greater efficiency in the sector’ — really? Overall, the sector makes 1 per cent profit. That’s a miracle given the cuts since 2008.
It’s therefore clear that the number of colleges in financial difficulties will increase unless things are sorted quickly. And that’s tough. Sacking people is no fun and the other option is to be ‘rationalised’ by someone else.
There are 1,232 providers, of which 341 are colleges making up just 28 per cent and 48 per cent of funding — 45 per cent of 16 to 18 and 53 per cent of Skills Funding Agency funding.
It’s clear therefore that area reviews must include all post-16 providers — including school sixth forms and independent learning providers.
But does ‘area’ even make sense? Travel to learn and work patterns do not easily align with area reviews. Many colleges have regional or national coverage across local enterprise partnerships (LEPs) working where the business is. Using geographical boundaries makes little sense for modern, forward-thinking colleges.
Area reviews won’t reflect modern delivery systems — borderless e-learning and globalisation in education. Digital is transformational.
And analysing supply and demand for skills and training is difficult and out of date by time of publication. It might just work for 16 to 18s but adult markets are complex and dynamic; trying to plan them is nigh on impossible.
There is however over-supply in the 16 to 18 market and the government has allowed too many new school sixth forms, free schools, private trainers, etc.
There are 1,200 schools in England with fewer than 100 learners in each. A review of these should come first for value for money with average class sizes that would be unaffordable in colleges
There are, for example, 1,200 schools in England with fewer than 100 learners in each. A review of these should come first for value for money with average class sizes that would be unaffordable in colleges.
Government wants “fewer, often larger, more resilient and efficient providers” — but there’s no guarantee that bigger means better, either in effectiveness or efficiency. It’s how an entity is managed and responds to markets that counts. Indeed, there’s little correlation between size and financial performance — some big ‘uns are running big deficits.
Colleges and other providers should always work together where it makes sense to (it was ever thus), but forced merger or federation will only happen if you are in serious financial trouble.
Mergers can make sense but only half of them work — in business and education. Is this evidence that supply-side restructuring improves quality and value for money? Time will tell.
And UK PLC? Localism can be a myopic distraction. We’ve been here before. Remember how Trade and Enterprise Councils tried to impose dirigiste economic plans. Their impact? No, me neither. FE delivers generic and employability skills which transcend local LEP skills plans.
Keep focussed on learners so they value FE and pay for it. Lobby for uncapped 19+ adult loans for all provision to give us a chance to survive — it’s worked for higher education.
Work it out yourselves before you are ‘done unto’ No expensive consultants telling us what to do. Markets move faster than reports. Be there first.
Graham Taylor is principal and chief executive at New College Swindon. He has more than 25 years’ experience in further and higher education across six colleges and writes exclusively for FE Week on the last Monday of every month.
The Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) has issued a list of more than 50 colleges that have looked to shed jobs in the last year as it warned of the effect “savage and unrelenting government cuts” were having on the sector.
Dr Mary Bousted (pictured), ATL general secretary, said that budget cuts over the last five years had “led to colleges continually restructuring, merging and rationalising curriculum provision”.
It comes with the ATL having produced a list of around 5o colleges from across England that have launched job cuts consultations, placing the employment of nearly 3,000 college staff at risk. Dr Bousted said: “Savage and unrelenting Government cuts to the FE sector over the last five years have led to college’s continually restructuring, merging and rationalising curriculum provision.
“The inevitable redundancies are having a devastating effect on hundreds of thousands of young people, who rely on FE colleges, as well as those adults who need to develop their skills or be retrained to stay in work.”
Providers were told in July that they would be be hit with a 3.9 per cent cut to the adult skills budget combined with the 24 per cent cut announced earlier this year.
And ATL has reported that around 400,000 young people will lose out as a result of the cuts.
The Association of Colleges (AoC) meanwhile has said that 190,000 adult skills courses could be lost within the next year as a result of spending cuts with health, public services and care being the hardest hit.
Dr Bousted said: “FE is vital to developing the skilled workforce necessary for increased productivity and economic growth, but over 440 redundancies are being announced at colleges in Birmingham alone.
“The government must take responsibility for the ludicrous situation where colleges are making their staff redundant when they are the very people who have the knowledge and expertise to develop the skills which businesses are currently crying out for.”
The warning comes with University College Union (UCU) member lecturers in FE currently voting on whether to accept the AoC’s refusal to recommend a pay rise.
A UCU spokesperson said voting closes on at Thursday, October 15.
Other unions have been involved in the talks, but have not put the AoC offer to a vote of members.
Marc Whitworth, director of employment policy and services at the AoC, said: “There is a willingness from the employers’ side to work together to protect the prospects of FE, its skilled workforce and the students it serves.”
The Regulated Qualifications Framework (RQF) was unveiled by Ofqual last week and was designed to be more descriptive and less prescriptive than its predecessor, the Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF).
FE Week spoke to Jeremy Benson (pictured above), Ofqual executive director for vocational qualifications, to find out more about the new framework and what it means.
How would you explain the new approach to regulating vocational qualifications?
Awarding organisation accountability is at the heart of how we regulate. In other words, we hold the awarding organisations to account for the qualifications that they offer. Which means the awarding organisations, they need the skills and experience to design and award good, valid qualifications that the user needs, so it’s focusing very heavily on the responsibility and the capacity of the awarding organisations.
And the reason that’s important is – and one of the reasons why we have a problem with the QCF is because the QCF blurred that accountability. So it prescribed how things should be done. It set some very detailed design rules, everything must be unitised and so on.
But it also required awarding organisations to recognise units awarded by others which made it harder for us to hold them to account for those. So we’re moving to a position where we’re saying to the awarding organisations, right, you go and do good qualifications but you’ve got to be completely accountable for them.
Whereas in the past, with the QCF, they were very detailed, you must do things like this, but now effectively our approach is asking a simple question, which is, are these qualifications any good? And then asking the awarding organisations to show us how they know that they’re good.
That’s really what it boils down to. Obviously there’s a lot of detail on top of that. But it’s a different way of thinking about the way we regulate.
How confident can Ofqual be that the new conditions that you’ve created for the RQF do not become bureaucratic, and that the new framework will not become as restricting as the QCF was?
Of course, we will keep things under review. I’ve got someone in my team whose job it is to look at the burden of regulation and constantly to challenge us to make sure we’re not introducing unnecessary burden.
At the moment I’m pretty confident. The requirements we’re setting are outcome focused, they say what awarding organisations should do. They don’t prescribe in detail how they should try and do them.
What will the move to the RQF mean for a college principal or the managing director of an independent learning provider? How will it affect them, their staff and their organisation?
So in the short-term, it shouldn’t need to affect them very much, because we’re not requiring every qualification to change.
When the QCF was brought in every qualification had to change to meet those requirements. We’re not requiring every qualification to change because we know that there are many good qualifications out there.
So if people have got good qualifications that they’re working with, and they trust, there’s no reason from our point of view why that should change.
What will happen over time is two things.
Firstly, the way that qualifications are described and explained will become clearer. Our bookcase leaflet helps people to understand something about qualifications.
And then we’ve also got our register, which is a list of all the qualifications, which we’re making more user friendly, and more easily searchable. Part of the role of us as the qualifications regulator is to help people understand and choose qualifications, and to find out information about them, and gradually that will improve.
The other thing that will change over time is that qualification will potentially become more different.
So not every qualification will be unitised. Some of them will be developed and assessed in different ways. There will be more flexibility for awarding organisations to design qualifications to meet the particular needs of whatever it is they’re trying to do, particularly the employment sector. So some of the detailed design of the qualification will perhaps become a bit more flexible and will be more different.
Ofqual documentation on the shift to the RQF which, it says, is “like a bookcase in a library, with qualifications indexed by their ‘level’ and ‘size’”. Click on image to view document
But really I would encourage principals and other people in FE almost not to worry as much about the qualifications framework as they have in the past.
How should learners, parents, employers and providers understand the difference between these frameworks?
There will be some people who for some purposes will need to understand different aspects of how the qualifications are regulated, but really people should be focused on the qualifications themselves and what they’re trying to do.
They should be confident that because they’re regulated they will be good. It’s a bit like, I’m driving my car to work, I don’t understand the detail of how the car works, I just understand that I can drive it. It’s a similar thing really. Occasionally I’ll need to open up the bonnet, but really I try to avoid it as I don’t really understand it.
So the answer is that for most learners, parents and employers they shouldn’t need to understand that. They should be confident that it’s happening and it can give them assurance about the qualification.
Almost every qualification has QCF attached as a suffix – does that have to be removed?
From October 1, next week, all new qualifications shouldn’t have QCF in the title because QCF no longer means anything. For existing qualifications that have QCF in the title, we will expect that to have been removed by the end of 2017.
We’re giving the awarding organisations quite a long transition period to shift the current qualifications with the current titles and the current GLH and so on over to the new world where they will no longer be talking about the QCF.
Can you explain what total qualification time (TQT) is, and how is it different from guided learning hours?
Essentially, TQT is the time the awarding organisation would expect to be taken by a typical learner to study for the qualification. So some will take longer, some will take shorter. It’s a guide, really, for how big the qualification is.
Guided learning hours is the amount of time spent, whether it be in the classroom or in tutorial, actually being guided, actually being taught. Guided learning hours doesn’t include time for assessment, and it doesn’t include the time taken for individual study.
So you’ve got guided learning hours, and then TQT is guided learning hours plus the other bits – the assessment time and the self-study time.
Given that some people will take longer, and some people will take less time, why does it matter what TQT a qualification has? Isn’t it indicative, rather than a requirement on each learner?
It’s absolutely indicative, and there’s no requirement on any learner to take a certain amount of time.
But it’s useful for administrative purposes, for people who are funding qualifications or people who are planning curricula, or who are planning performance tables, or indeed for employers who want to have an idea of how long their employees are going to be out of work, to have an idea of whether this is a qualification that can be studied typically in 10 hours, or is it going to take 200 hours.
Qualifications that are used as part of apprenticeships and may have been developed jointly with other AOs and Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) — so who will do the Total Qualification Time (TQT) work? Will it be a lead AO or will the group have to reconvene?
This comes back to the first point I made, which is that every AO is accountable and responsible for its own qualifications. So regardless of how a qualification was developed – whether an AO was working with others or with SSCs – if an AO wants to award a qualification it has to be accountable for it, therefore it has to be accountable for the TQT and the Guided-Learning Hour values as well.
Awarding organisations have said that some of the issues with QCF implementation were heightened because of the impact of funding decisions requiring qualification to be on the QCF by a certain date. What work has been done to make sure that these external pressures do not cause issues again?
We’re actually just based down the road from the Skills Funding Agency (SFA), in Coventry. The decisions about how the funding system should work are for them, so we can’t answer for them.
What I can say is that we’ve been spending a lot of time with them talking to colleagues in the SFA to help them to understand what we do, and help them to think through the sorts of things they need to do, both operationally and then at a higher level to make sure they understand what we do, and make sure they think through what they need to as funder.
I think there’s still some more work for them to do, and there’s some more things that they need to consider once our changes have gone through in terms of what it means for the funding system and how they need to develop in order to achieve their objectives and the government’s objectives.
You’ve set criteria for determining whether a qualification is relevant for the purposes of the Education and Skills Act 2008 – do you have criteria for determining when learning becomes a qualification?
A qualification is effectively a certificate that’s awarded to someone because they’ve done an assessment which shows that they can do something, whether they’ve shown particular skills, knowledge or understanding. And that’s generally based on having done some learning up to that point. So the qualification recognises the learning.
Now you can perfectly well have lots of learning that doesn’t lead to a qualification. It’s not for us to decide whether a particular set of learning should lead to a qualification.
If an awarding organisation decides that there is a market for a particular qualification, if there’s a reason for a particular qualification, then they can put it forward in line with our requirements. A lot of this is driven by government in terms of what they would fund.
I think the sort of expectations that we have of a piece of learning that leads to a qualification is, will having that qualification help someone to progress further?
So if you have some learning that helps someone to rebuild their confidence if they’ve had a difficult time for some reason and that gets them to point where they can start moving into more formal learning, that probably doesn’t need to be a qualification. It doesn’t necessarily add any particular value in having a certificate.
On the other hand if you’ve got learning that leads to a very specific set of skills that helps someone to get a job, then often there will be real value in that being a qualification, because they can then go to an employer and prove they’ve got particular skills.
But as I say, providing that an awarding organisation can be reasonably confident that there’s a reason for a particular qualification and they can assess it well, it’s not for us to judge whether something should be a qualification.
And, slightly off the RQF/QCF topic, what place does Ofqual have in the new Trailblazer apprenticeship standards? If the implication of reform of apprenticeships is to put them in the hands of employers, does Ofqual have a role in this? What action are you intending to take?
We’ve been talking to the apprenticeships unit in government for many years about the apprenticeships reforms, and discussing with them the issues around assessment of apprenticeships, both the individual qualifications and the end-point assessments that will be taken at the end of the apprenticeships, and our advice has been pretty consistent.
The new apprenticeships need good valid assessment to underpin them, and that’s what we’ve said to government, it’s what we’ve said to Trailblazers. And interestingly, when we talk to employers, they agree as well that the assessments need to be good, they need to be valid.
Now there’s various different ways of achieving that and making sure the assessments are quality assured and well-designed.
We have said that we will be happy to regulate the end-point assessments as qualifications if that’s what the Trailblazers want us to do. There are other alternatives available and we are obviously going to be interested to see what decisions government makes over the next few weeks and months in terms of how the quality assurance regime for the new apprenticeships is going to work.
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has again asked the Education and Training Foundation (ETF) to review Functional Skills (FS). Do you welcome this?
Yes we do. We were delighted because we worked well with the ETF on the review that they published earlier this year.
So our role is to look at qualifications, and to make sure qualifications are valid and well-assessed. What we’re not responsible for is thinking about what should be assessed, what the curricula should be. So we really need someone else, some other organisation in the system, for any particular qualification to work out what the curriculum should be.
Although we owned the way that the current FS qualifications are described, we don’t own the curriculum decisions that feed into that.
Click here for an expert piece on the new RQF by Gemma Gathercole, OCR’s head of policy — FE and funding
A former Newcastle College learner who planned a massacre on campus after being kicked off a course has been jailed for life.
Newcastle Crown Court today jailed 19-year-old Liam Lyburd, stipulating that he will spend a minimum of eight years behind bars for planning mass-murder at his former college in November last year.
Lyburd, who planned to target the college after being ejected from an English and maths course there in 2012, admitted nine counts of making or possessing weapons when he was tried in July, boasting that buying the gun online was “like buying a bar of chocolate”.
He had denied eight charges of intending to use the weapons to endanger life in November, but was found guilty of possessing weapons with intent to endanger life after jurors spent six-and-a-half hours deliberating.
The court heard valium addict Lyburd targeted Newcastle College having been ejected from a maths and English course after just over a month in 2012 due to disruptive behaviour and failing to turn up for class.
The jury was told he spent months in his bedroom making or buying weapons on the internet and posting messages on social media, before a woman he had contacted warned the police.
Officers later searched his home and found a 9mm Luger Calibre Glock gun, 94 jacketed hollow point expanding bullets, CS gas, a “kill bag”, five pipe bombs, including nails, and two handmade explosive devices.
A computer specialist also recovered a deleted file from Lyburd’s computer in which he wrote about getting revenge on the college.
It said: “You people ruined my whole life, don’t expect me to show mercy today. No-one disrespects me and gets away with it. I’ll teach you people a little lesson on respect with my 9mm jacketed hollow points. It’s time for extreme civil disobedience.
“Fantasy will become reality today for sure. Where the mind goes the body will follow and, yes, people will die, there’s no question about that.”
According to the BBC, Lyburd “laughed as he was taken away by police, telling officers they had saved lives and prevented what would have otherwise been a massacre at the college”.
A North East Surrey College of Technology (Nescot) lie-in pilot has won longer-term approval after bosses saw a rise in 16 to 18 attendance rates.
The Epsom college scrapped 9am starts for learners last September, as revealed by FE Week in May last year, in a trial responding to research by the National Sleep Foundation and the University of Minnesota.
The researchers claimed that exam results would improve if providers respected learners’ “circadian rhythms” by starting later in the day.
FE Week cartoon on the Nescot pilot, from edition 103, dated May 19, 2014
A spokesperson has confirmed to FE Week that Nescot, which had around 8,800 learners last academic year, will be broadly keeping the 10am starts for 2015/16, as “early indications” showed that “it has been a success.”
She said the experiment had worked because attendance rates for 16 to 18-year-olds improved from 88 per cent in 2013/14 to 89 per cent last academic year.
The learner retention rate for the same age group also increased from 90 per cent in 2013/14 to 91 per cent in 2014/15, she added.
She said that while later starts were continuing for most lessons, staff “have the flexibility to start earlier if they feel it would benefit their students”.
“The timetable also gives students the flexibility and responsibility to use the 9am to 10am slot in a way that benefits them, whether that’s studying in the Learning Resources Centre, or getting extra support from teaching and learning staff,” she added.
The spokesperson said that “teaching and support staff are in at 9am” and can carry out development training, team meetings and cross-college briefings before most lessons start an hour later.
A source at the college last year had raised concern at the time that the later starts could undermine learner motivation and was “not overly popular with the staff, particularly as it’s a vocational college and there’s the idea of being self-motivated”.
Has your college adopted a 10am earliest starts policy, or maybe even later? If so, email paul.offord@feweek.co.uk with your experiences.
Shakira Martin’s first brush with national politics came as something of a surprise — in fact, she didn’t even know it had happened.
In March last year, Martin was a newly-elected member of the National Union of Students’ FE and society and citizenship zone policy committees attending a work summit.
“There was a panel and it was the normal panel — white men in suits, maybe the occasional woman — so I put up my hand and I asked this man a question,” says Martin, the surprise victor in April’s NUS vice president for FE election.
“I said something about ‘How are you going to build a representation of colleges?’ or something, and the guy, he replied, but he really didn’t answer the question.
From left: Shakira Martin with daughters Kiara, aged two, and Kai’shay, four
“But then afterwards I started getting phone calls and texts saying: ‘Well done, Shakira!’ and I didn’t understand why — I just asked a man a question.”
The man, it turned out, was then-Business Secretary Dr Vince Cable.
Martin only discovered this when she happened to mention the incident during a phone call to her cousin on the bus home — and when she did, she wasn’t impressed.
“If I knew he was that person he wouldn’t have got away with answering the question like that,” she says, tartly.
The past couple of years have been a steep learning curve for Martin, she admits.
“At that time I wasn’t NUS-shaped. I was just going in raw,” she says.
“Now it’s more difficult — since I’ve got this title, it’s like people listen to me. I’m saying the same things as I did when I was just Shakira, but because I’ve got this platform, people take it more seriously.
Shakira Martin speaking at the NUS conference in April
“But on the other hand, now I know how to talk to my members and my audience, I phrase things differently now — but I don’t want to lose the authenticity of what I’m saying.”
When Martin, aged 27, was elected to the vice president role in April, the former Lewisham Southwark College student vowed to put FE centrestage in the NUS — where discussion can be dominated by higher education — and her experience of education is one many in the sector will recognise.
“I hated school,” she says.
“Well, I loved school when I got into Year 7, but then when I got to Year 8 there were barriers preventing me from reaching my full potential, as I wasn’t in the same position as some of my peers.”
Martin grew up in Lewisham, a borough with one of the highest child poverty rates in London, with mum Juliet.
“Growing up in a single parent family and being on benefits, it just makes things much more difficult,” she says.
“I never used to bring home those letters to my mum, like the trips to France and stuff like that, because I wouldn’t want to put them in a tough position.”
As a result, Martin began skipping school and was “disruptive” when she was there.
“I didn’t know why I was there, it wasn’t relevant,” she says.
A fortnight after her 16th birthday, Martin moved out into shared council accommodation.
Shortly afterwards, she left school with one GCSE — a B in RE — and moved to the now closed Crossways Academy sixth form to do a business studies course.
“I went there because I was just following friends,” she says.
Shakira Martin at an anti-cuts march in central London in May
“I didn’t have any aspirations or any end goal, and I dropped out of that course in the first six to 12 weeks.
“My excuse at the time was, ‘It’s winter’ — you know when you wake up and it’s the same moon that you went to bed with? I was like, ‘No, I’m not doing this’.”
Next, Martin enrolled at Bromley College for a legal secretary course, following in the footsteps of an aunt she’d “always looked up to”.
“I thought I liked it but then one week turned into one month and then you’re late, and winter comes and the weather, and the same thing happened again.”
For each of the next two years, Martin enrolled on a social science at Morley College, but once again, winter came and Martin stayed in bed.
“I didn’t understand why I was dropping out of so many courses because I thought I had an interest in it,” she says.
However, while this was going on, Martin got her first paid job at a doctor’s surgery in Camberwell.
“I really enjoyed it,” she says. “I loved the community spirit of it, the types of people, the challenge of working within a diverse range of people within the NHS.”
Martin decided she wanted to be a practice manager, but was astounded when one of the doctors told her she could make it — in 20 or 30 years.
“I was thinking, I could be a doctor three times over and you’re telling me I could be a practice manager in 30 years?” she says.
“I wasn’t disheartened, in fact, I thought, ‘let me tell you, I’ll get there in five’.”
“So it’s kind of like a push because I’m a bit cocky like that.”
So, following the birth of her first daughter, Kaishay, Martin headed back to college, this time at Lewisham Southwark to study a level three leadership and management course, and vowed to see it through — which she did, winning student of the year award for the course.
“It all started to make sense for me,” she says.
“I felt like I was being fed, like I was going home full and it was relevant.”
A job in a development and learning consultancy led to more courses — a 12-week Preparing to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector course, which Martin completed despite giving birth to her second daughter, Kiara, two days later, followed by a level five diploma in education and teaching.
Shakira Martin on a demonstration outside Lewisham Southwark College in July
One day at college Martin noticed a poster for the election of the student union women’s officer.
“I had done a few courses about confidence and communication, those type of things, and I was feeling really empowered,” she says.
“And I realised that, as much as I was a victim I was also a survivor in my own right.
“I wanted to go out and empower other women to understand the importance of knowing their value and their worth and stuff like that.
“So when I saw the poster — I didn’t know what student union was, I just saw ‘women’s officer’ and I was like: ‘Right, that’s what I want to do’.”
She won the position and the following year she won the presidency of the college union and was elected into the zones, where she had her encounter with Dr Cable.
Her move into politics was, she believes, therefore “accidental really”.
“I’ve never been political, but I’ve gone from watching Jeremy Kyle to BBC Parliament and finding it interesting — I’m like, ‘whoa, I’ve changed’,” she explains.
But she says, her politics remain shaped by her upbringing in what she only semi-jokingly calls “the ghetto”.
“So for me, in my role, I’m in a national position and I have the ears of people, decision-makers and stuff like that, but I think it’s important for me to let people know within the sector that I’m adaptable,” she says.
“So when things go down, I’m ready to be at the front of the line, shouting, protesting, occupying, doing whatever I need to do, but I can also articulate myself around a board table.”
And it’s this active view of politics which she brings to her plans to fight for FE.
“Everyone is talking about FE at the moment — but don’t do it because it sounds good because your actions aren’t going to show,” she says.
“FE is a very bespoke institution where the diversity and the experience and the negative and positive things that the students bring need to be understood by the decision-makers. Because if it’s not relevant to the people what’s the point in us wasting time, resources and money?”
Within the NUS, she says, the lack of focus on the 4.1m of the 7m members who are in FE is “frustrating, and almost insulting” she says.
“My overall big piece of work that I want to do is to build student unions within FE colleges. I believe that’s what got me involved, and it allowed me to link my personal and social issues and realise how policy is important,” explains Martin.
“So I want to develop student unions across the FE sector, but also in sixth forms and apprenticeships.”
This work within the NUS, she hopes will lead to “a domino effect of getting FE recognised in society”.
“It’s about general conversations that people have. I want secondary school and Year 11 students to be excited about going to college and not going because they got a U,” she says.
“So it’s one thing changing policy, which mandates organisations to work on it, but it’s another thing changing a mindset — and it’s not until a mindset is changed, that the policy will.
“People like me don’t normally get this type of opportunity so I am going to do what I can to save FE.”
It’s a personal thing
What’s your favourite book?
Who Moved My Cheese by Dr Spencer Johnson. I’m not really a big reader, to be honest, but what I did find about the book and it was really easy to read. It was quite descriptive, so you could imagine it yourself. I like that you can read it again and again and get something different from it each time. It’s about anticipating change
What do you do to switch off from work?
I think just chill with my family and friends and watch The Housewives of Alabama
What’s your pet hate?
People that tell lies. I hate lies. Also, my family is from Jamaica and there’s a saying there — Duppy know who fi frighten — which means people take advantage of the people that they think that they can do.
So at certain times in my life, or in situations that have arisen, it kinds of gets me more agitated, because I’m like: ‘You’re only doing that because you think you can get away with it.’ And that’s a pet hate
If you could invite anyone living or dead to a dinner party who would it be?
My grandma. Her name was Cochita. I would ask her a load of questions I didn’t get to ask her when she was alive – I was 10 when she died, so I was still young. I’d like to get some history and for her to see who I am now
What did you want to be when you grew up?
I wanted to dance for Destiny’s Child. And then I realised there was no money in it, and then they broke up. So I used to like dancing
Twenty one general FE colleges and 13 sixth form colleges (SFCs) will be involved in three extra post-16 education and training area reviews announced by the government this morning.
They will be for the Tees Valley, Sussex Coast and Solent regions, launching on October 1 and 22, and November 5 respectively — with the government warning that more area reviews will be announced “shortly”.
It comes after FE Week reported on September 8 that 22 general FE colleges and 16 SFCs were to be involved in the first round of three post-16 education and training area reviews announced by the government.
The reviews for the Birmingham and Solihull and Greater Manchester areas launched on September 18 and 21 respectively, while a further one for Sheffield city region is set to begin on Monday (September 28).
And, just like the first round of reviews, those announced today do not list any schools sixth forms or independent learning providers.
A spokesperson for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and Department for Education said this morning: “We are announcing three further area reviews that are part of the first wave.
“These will be Tees Valley, Sussex Coast and Solent. This statement sets out the scope of six of the first wave reviews. Further area reviews will be announced shortly.”
The reviews will be led by steering groups consisting of college chairs of governors, local enterprise partnerships, local authorities, regional schools commissioners, SFC Commissioner Peter Mucklow (pictured right) and FE Commissioner Dr David Collins (pictured below left).
Dr Collins will chair the steering groups for the Tees Valley, Sussex Coast and Solent area reviews.
He is also chairing the Birmingham and Solihull, and Sheffield City Region steering groups, but the Greater Manchester group’s chair is chief executive of Trafford City Council Theresa Grant.
Each review will start with an assessment of the economic and educational needs of the area, and the implications for post-16 education and training provision, also including school sixth forms and independent learning providers.
The reviews will then focus on the current structure of FE and SFCs, although the BIS spokesperson said “there will be opportunities for other institutions (including schools and independent providers) to opt in to this stage of the analysis”.
Regional School Commissioners will consider the implications of the first stage of the analysis for school sixth form provision.
The process has come in for criticism from sector leaders for not directly including school and academy post-16 providers.
They included James Kewin, deputy chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association, who told FE Week: “A genuine process of area based reviews would be extremely welcome, as it would scrutinise the performance and viability of all 16 to 19 providers – including school and academy sixth forms.”
The results of an exclusive FE Week survey published on September 11 also showed that almost 90 per cent of principals affected by the first three area reviews announced on September 8 were unhappy with the government’s guidance.
It comes after five FE colleges and SFCs facing “significant financial challenges” announced on July 21 that they are “actively considering” collaboration plans, following a review of post-16 provision in North East Norfolk and North Suffolk.
It was overseen by Dr Collins and Mr Mucklow during the first five months of this year.
They included James Kewin, deputy chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association, who told FE Week: “A genuine process of area based reviews would be extremely welcome, as it would scrutinise the performance and viability of all 16 to 19 providers – including school and academy sixth forms.”