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Reflections on a Trailblazer journey

The number of Trailblazer apprenticeship standards is growing as the 2017/18 cut-off date for the current frameworks system approaches. Writing in a personal capacity Iain Mackinnon outlines the journey of one such standard that is now ready for delivery.

I was at a seminar the other day run by Nautilus International, the Merchant Navy officers’ union, and the General Secretary wove Beatles’ lyrics into all his comments.

Following his example, I’d have to say that ‘long and winding road’ won’t do to describe our Trailblazer journey because it implies that the road was at least clearly headed in the right direction at all times.

And ‘hard day’s night’ rather underestimates the time it’s taken, and the slog involved.

Despite our frustration over the process we have found new flexibilities in the new rules

But I’m not writing this to criticise or moan.

Our first completed Trailblazer has taken far longer than any of us thought possible, and been far more tortuous than any of us thought possible.

And after 18 months of effort we have won approval for something we already have — an apprenticeship for deck ratings (operatives at sea) which satisfies both the industry and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).

And yet I think we have we gained something worth gaining. Let me explain.

One of the prime drivers for us in getting involved in Trailblazers when we did was a worry about how BIS’s explicit ‘employer-led’ approach would work in a sector subject to international regulation.

That regulation lays down competence standards for different grades of seafarer (giving them certification, incidentally, which is valid across the world), and those standards are enshrined in law — we cannot change them.

Our job in the Trailblazer therefore was to get BIS to accept that fact, moderating a pure form of employer leadership — and they’ve done so.

We know that what we do is good quality, giving apprentice ratings a broad-based foundation for a career which can take them all the way to ship’s Master and beyond.

Getting BIS to see how they could accept what we do without damaging anything was the tough bit.

Despite our frustration over the process we have found new flexibilities in the new rules.

Under the previous system, SASE — Specification of Apprenticeship Standards in England — ruled, and ruled inflexibly. Despite BIS’s default position that it prefers apprenticeships not to include qualifications, we now have two core vocational qualifications, and some specialist ones, such as the Entry Into Enclosed Spaces certificate, which trains people to avoid a major cause of death on ships.

SASE did not allow us to do that, so the new standard is better than the existing one.

To its credit, BIS has tried hard to understand what’s different about the maritime sector — a sector one of them called ‘quirky’.

We don’t mind ‘quirky’ — quite like it, in fact — so long as they listen and learn. That’s taken time — a lot of time.

We took two civil servants to HMS Raleigh (the Royal Navy’s shore-based training facility) to show them what ratings were.

And we took three to Dunkirk and back on a ferry, introducing them to five existing apprentice ratings, with briefings from several off-duty officers. That was a big investment in time for the employers involved.

BIS also accepted that our working group, while employer-led and employer-dominated, includes two trade unions, two colleges, and SQA (as the sole awarding body we work with), as well as the regulator. That’s the way the maritime industry works.

The final stage was to win approval for the end-point assessment, and that took a frustrating 27 weeks. It took so long because we needed BIS to approve a procedure enshrined in international law and see how it could fit its own criteria. They had to compromise (on interpretation only); we did not, and both the approved Standard and the longer Assessment Plan effectively re-state in BIS’s language what already happens.

‘Trailblazer’ is a hackneyed term — but not a bad metaphor. We have blazed a trail, and I think we have shown BIS how it can recognise and accept difference while in no way compromising its commitment to high standards — which we share.

Provider involvement in prison learning review ‘essential’

Justice Secretary Michael Gove’s wide-ranging review of prison learning is set to include the system of provider contracting. Alexandra takes a closer look at the current system and what she thinks is needed of the review.

This term, prison education is high up on the political agenda. Following a rousing speech prioritising learning for prisoners in July, Justice Secretary Michael Gove returned from recess to launch a review of prison education to be led by Dame Sally Coates.

Days after this announcement, Mr Gove addressed staff from the FE colleges and organisations delivering education in prisons via an exclusive video message at a conference organised by the Prisoner Learning Alliance (PLA) on Friday, September 11.

He said: “I don’t think there is anything more important than making sure that when we have people in our care, in custody, that we give them an opportunity to change their lives for the better and nothing is more central to that act of rehabilitation or redemption than education…Having visited prisons and seen the impact that education can have on offenders, one of the best ways of providing people who’ve perhaps made wrong choices in the past with the right path in the future is high quality education… This is an opportunity to transform education for the better and to give thousands of individuals for whom we’re responsible a new start in life.”

The PLA welcomes this timely review of education in prisons. We have long called for improvements to be made to the current system, which operates under the Offender Learning and Skills Service (Olass 4) contracts.

Our vision and solutions are summarised in our reports ‘Smart Rehabilitation’ and ‘The Future of Prison Education Contracts’.

While there is a strong focus on Functional Skills in prisons which is necessary for many prisoners (47 per cent of prisoners have no formal qualifications), we argue there should also be opportunities for learners to progress beyond level two qualifications.

In addition to the Olass delivery, there are also many organisations across the country offering a diverse array of learning opportunities for prisoners, including further and higher education, arts and personal and social development, family learning and peer to peer literacy support.

And these organisations are achieving results. For example, in the latest government Justice Data Lab report, analysis of almost 6,000 prisoners who studied distance learning courses funded by Prisoners’ Education Trust (PET) found them more than a quarter less likely to reoffend compared with a matched control group. This includes accredited courses such as GCSEs, NVQs, A-levels and degree modules, in subjects ranging from academia to the arts. Prison education contracts could encourage providers to make much more use of the expertise the voluntary and community sector offers.

PET, which set up and provides secretariat for the PLA, aims to highlight the evidence of what works to reduce reoffending. PET’s chief executive, Rod Clark, will represent our 23 member organisations on an expert panel supporting the Coates Review.

The PLA believes it essential that the providers — Milton Keynes College, The Manchester College, Weston College and PeoplePlus (formerly A4e) — which currently deliver the Olass contracts also feed into the Review. Their staff are on the frontline of delivery, and their views are crucially important.

That is why our conference included an interactive session to initiate a Theory of Change for the sector, asking the critical question — what is prison education for? The day closed with a ‘Wordle’ highlighting key responses from our audience, and ‘confidence’ came out as the chief benefit of delivering prison education.

Throughout the event, we included contributions from current and former prison learners.

Their main ask was for more former prisoners who have made a success of their lives to be allowed to go back into prison to be role models. The other central message from learners was that the focus of prison education should be as a tool for empowerment, agency, self-awareness, empathy and developing a new identity away from that of ‘offender’. We would urge the Coates Review to offer learners meaningful opportunities to be involved in the process.

Fetl research grants awarded to the Association of Colleges and Policy Connect

The Further Education Trust for Leadership (Fetl) has awarded research grants to the Association of Colleges (AoC) and Policy Connect.

The AoC’s project will see it work alongside the University of Oxford to investigate the impact of the government’s devolution and localism proposals on FE.

Meanwhile, a Fetl spokesperson said that parliamentary networking group Policy Connect will research “how innovation is led in FE and skills across the UK”.

More than 46 applications were submitted to Fetl, with proposals totalling £2.8m, in its second round of grant applications that closed on May 1.

While Fetl declined to comment on how much AoC and Policy Connect will receive through the grants, it said that sums of up to £100,000 had been available to recipients.

Reflecting on her organisation’s research plan, AoC deputy chief executive Gill Clipson (pictured) said: “FE colleges have a vital role to play in the development and delivery of high-level professional and technical education and training that is necessary to supply the skills that are required to grow a modern local economy.

“Colleges are firmly part of their local communities. However, the concept of localism is being promulgated at a time of fiscal constraint and this may bring challenges that are as yet not fully appreciated.

“Leadership in a world of change will help inform policy makers, as well as colleges, as all parties strive to ensure that any system of reform protects the positive things that are known to work as well as introducing changes that will stand the test of time and deliver the envisaged improvements.”

A spokesperson from Policy Connect said: “We are providing a real opportunity for people in the sector to get involved as we will be bringing inquiry sessions to different parts of the UK.

“We are looking forward to hearing what people have to say about the challenges the sector is facing today and how these could be overcome in the future through innovation.”

Fetl selected five organisations to receive a total of £270,000 in research grants following its first round of applications, as reported by FE Week in March.

The winning organisations, chosen ahead of 51 other applicants, were the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, Coleg Gwent, EMFEC, the University of Hull, and Working Well.

It comes after Fetl, which was launched last summer with a budget of up to £5.5m left over following the closure of the Learning and Skills Improvement Service, announced in January the names of the first four individuals it had chosen for research fellowships.

Alex Day MBE, Ruth Allen, Tim Ward and Ann Creed received up to £40,000 each to fund their research on attitudes to risk in leadership of sixth form colleges, leadership challenges among third sector providers, the impact of leadership on part-time teachers and fostering creative leadership in FE.

Ayub Khan (pictured right), interim chief executive at Fetl, said: “Fetl was set up to facilitate and share the knowledge and thinking of professionals and leaders in the sector, so we are really pleased to be able to take this forward with Policy Connect and the AoC.”

Vince Cable, secretary of state for business, innovation and skills

Many would say the Liberal Democrats were a moderating force on the austerity policies of their Conservative Coalition partners.

Many others still would say that they failed to hold back the tide of cuts that has swept across government spending since the General Election of 2010.

It is a tide against which Dr Vince Cable claims to have struggled on behalf of the FE sector as Business Secretary, and it is one that need not be spelled out to regular FE Week readers.

I don’t pretend that we avoided pain for FE during my time in office, because clearly it has been very difficult, but what I was fighting in government was this assumption that university education was the only thing that mattered

But if the slashing of budgets was one issue he had to contend with, then a lack of appreciation for FE among his civil servants was another.

“I don’t pretend that we avoided pain for FE during my time in office, because clearly it has been very difficult, but what I was fighting in government was this assumption that university education was the only thing that mattered,” he says.

“I was leaning against the wind.”

Speaking in his first interview on his old FE and skills brief since losing his Twickenham seat in May, the 72-year-old adds: “You can’t underestimate the extent to which the Civil Service and the establishment generally doesn’t understand FE, doesn’t care about it.”

Cable had to find huge savings from across the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills after the Coalition was formed in May 2010, and has claimed that civil servants advised him to “effectively kill-off FE” to help fund his party’s pledge to axe university tuition fees.

But it was guidance the Cambridge University-educated Liberal Democrat was never going to follow given his passion for FE, inherited from father Leonard, who was a lecturer in building science at York Tech College.

“You remember the damage that raising university tuition fees [to £9,000 a year] did to the Liberal Democrats politically,” he says.

“The problem is that if we hadn’t done that, a much deeper cut would have been taken out of FE and training. The Treasury’s original plan was that there was going to be a 40 per cent cut in 2010 in FE support.

“As a result of taking some of the really painful things out of student tuition fees, I reduced that significantly, so the FE sector effectively had a 25 per cent cut.”

It is perhaps surprising that father-of-three Cable describes his relationships with most of his Conservative colleagues as “much better than it appeared outside of government”.

“I was always portrayed as difficult, left wing and awkward, certainly in the right-wing press,” he says.

“But actually the working relationships with the Conservatives were mostly very good”.

It was, however, a different story with Michael Gove, Conservative Education Secretary from May 2010 to July last year.

“He was formidably intelligent, but difficult when he had taken up a strong ideological position,” says Cable.

“He had, for example, a very traditional view of reinstating academic education and standards, which is fine, as obviously we want high standards, but he didn’t have much interest in people who may not be very academically inclined.

“I tried to push the more vocational side.”

He adds: “Gove cut post-16 FE very deeply, where it was funded by the Department for Education, because his commitment was to maintain the schools’ budget.

“He also pushed very hard to make post-16 English and maths study compulsory [for learners who fail to secure at least C grades at GCSE]”.

And Cable recalls having to push “very hard” to retain Functional Skills as an alternative to resitting maths and English GCSEs from 2013/14.

“If it had just been left to Gove, I don’t think that there would have been that option,” he says.

“You would have just had to do GCSEs and if you failed you would do it again.”

“Nick Boles [current Skills Minister] was softer and Nicky Morgan [current Education Secretary] were more open-minded. This debate was going on throughout the Coalition.”

Cable says he considered trying to improve the general perception of FE, particularly apprenticeships, both within government and among the general public as a “key priority”.

He says that John Hayes, Conservative Skills Minister from May 2010 to September 2012, was an ally who played a key role in helping to achieve this.

“He was very committed to the FE agenda and I found him very supportive,” he says. “We had a good working relationship.”

Cable also considers Hayes’ successors Matthew Hancock [Skills Minister from September 2012 to July last year] and Boles to be “very capable guys”.

He’s proud that they all helped to “improve the quality of apprenticeships and I think you saw the level one and very short apprenticeships disappear”.

“The real growth area now is level three, four and five, which is what is needed,” says Cable.

A significant legacy of the tight spending restrictions following the 2010 spending review, says Cable, was the introduction from March 2013 of FE loans for learners aged 24 or above and studying a course at level three or higher.

“It was something that we had to take on board as part of the funding deal with the Treasury,” says Cable.

“Their view was that we should have FE loans for everything, including level two provision for younger students.”

However, he says that he “thought it was completely inappropriate for younger people on lower level courses”, so “comprised” on introducing them for level three and above courses for 24+ learners.

Cable exclusively told FE Week in December 2013 that the government was “dropping” loans for apprenticeships, after just 404 applications were received in seven months.

He says now that the policy was “a mistake. We saw that the evidence was pretty damning and had to back off. I don’t mind admitting when something goes wrong”.

The question of how growing numbers of apprenticeships should be funded in an age of public spending austerity plagued Cable while in government.

“The idea of using a tax relief system [PAYE] obviously came up through the Richard Review [published in November 2012] and I thought that we should explore it,” he recalls.

Cable initially thought that the “concept was fine”, but he and Boles were persuaded to drop the idea because of “vociferous opposition” from small businesses that feared it would be too bureaucratic.

He supports plans announced by Chancellor George Osborne in July to launch an apprenticeship levy for large businesses.

“Some of the big companies do a lot of training but some of them don’t,” says Cable. “In order to prevent the free riders picking up skilled labour at the expense of the others, it’s important that everyone pays the levy.”

Cable admits that he was “disappointed” with the slow take-up on traineeships, after there were just 3,300 starts in the six months following the scheme’s launch in August 2013.

“The idea was to provide a route into apprenticeships and I was frankly a bit disappointed with the very low numbers,” he says.

“I never quite got to the bottom of why the sector wasn’t able to do more in terms of taking on learners. I never quite understood why it was so difficult to offer them.”

Cable is still optimistic about the long-term prospects for “enterprising” FE colleges, despite concern about the 24 per cent cut for the non-apprenticeship part of the adults skills budget for 2015/16 which he said “could have been a lot worse”.

“What was very striking [between 2010 and 2015] was that there was a big disparity between the colleges,” he says.

“Some of them were cutting back very substantially and some were actually expanding.”

He adds: “A fair amount of that was due to their ability to mobilise the extra apprenticeship money made available.

“I always hoped that the sector would offset some of the cuts through taking on additional apprentices, doing more higher education in FE, and gaining funding through the extra English and maths provision.

“The basic lesson is that the future is difficult but it doesn’t have to be a disaster and really enterprising colleges will do well.”

Hairdressing skills put crown on wedding day

When clumps of hair began falling out of hairdresser Ellie Baker’s head just before her wedding day, she feared she might be a bald bride. But thanks to the skills gained on her Cornwall College course she was able to walk down the aisle with her locks flowing and now uses her skills to help other alopecia sufferers, writes Billy Camden.

Ellie Baker’s dream wedding three years ago almost turned into a nightmare when her hair started falling out just weeks before her big day.

Thankfully, the lessons she learned at Cornwall College Saltash while doing a hairdressing diploma level three course meant she was able to use extensions to cover the patches, and has now put the experience to good use in advising others going through similar ordeals.

It was husband Daniel who initially saw the “10 pence” shaped bald spots back starting to appear in 2011.

Ellie, whose youngest son, Aiden, was two at the time, assumed it might have been a result of her pregnancy, but doctors diagnosed alopecia.

“I wasn’t too stressed out at first because the more stressed you get the more hair you’ll lose,” said Ellie.

“But it got to the point when it started to really affect me emotionally.

“My wedding day was literally a couple of months away and I didn’t want to be a bald bride.

“Luckily Daniel was brilliant. He is really laid back and would say stuff like ‘just shave it off and we’ll have a his and hers hairdo’.

“But when I did get a little tearful he would reassure me that it is just hair.

“He would make me realise that I haven’t got cancer and I’ve got my health. If it wasn’t for him I’d be quite panicky about it and feeling a lot more judged.”

The 35-year-old was however still trying to find a solution to the bald patches.

She reflected on her training at Cornwall College and cleverly used hair extensions to ensure her big day wasn’t ruined.

And now, still happily married to Daniel, she’s putting her experience to use in helping other alopecia sufferers.

Ellie set up her own support group in November last year which she runs on a voluntary basis in Plymouth every month. A decision that was helped by son Aiden.

“Aiden would rub the spots to try and make them better, he always said ‘mummy you’re going to fix people’s hair’.”

She has also launched her own business called Opia, which provides a hair restoration and wig fitting service.

“The work I do can’t solve people’s problems, but it can offer a solution and I feel that my own personal experience with alopecia helps,” said Ellie.

“I’ve had people walk in and just burst into tears, so to help them in any way is really pleasing.”

Director of health and wellbeing at The Cornwall College Group Lisa Clarke said: “Ellie faced many challenges throughout her hairdressing training at Cornwall College Saltash and was determined to fight them which she did.

“She completed her hairdressing qualification and changed her challenges into fantastic opportunities.”

Edition 147: Movers and Shakers

Bradford College has welcomed David Harwood as its new principal.

He was previously the senior deputy principal of Leeds City College. He said he was “keen to focus my energies on what really makes a difference” in his new role.

“My belief is that students come first where we have a collective approach in providing a teaching environment that is inspiring, with excellent resources and support, along with providing the skills and opportunities for student success and future employment,” he said.

Mr Harwood wants the college to “be at the heart” of supporting and serving its community.

He said: “The community and employers in the district deserve to have a first class education provider giving them the progression routes for lifelong learning and success.”

Mr Harwood considers himself a product of FE having started his working life as an apprentice electrician working for the Unilever Group and after gaining extensive industrial experience while studying at college, he later graduated from Huddersfield University. He has worked in FE since 1987.

In Manchester, Salford City College has appointed Saf Arfan as its vice principal for development and innovation.

The newly-created role follows the publication of the college’s new business transformation plan and Mr Arfan will lead the college’s estates, IT and ITL strategies.

Having previously worked for seven years as an executive director at Hopwood Hall College, Mr Arfan said: “I decided to move to Salford City College as I felt that it was time to take on a new challenge.

“My role will involve overseeing physical infrastructure, capital investments, e-learning and commercial opportunities.”

He added: “Bringing these elements together to add value to the student experience is key and I am really excited about this role, in particular e-learning and the opportunities this presents our students, given that digital technology is a growing feature of the education landscape.”

Lastly, training provider Paragon skills has furthered its leadership team with the appointments of Mark Botha as chief executive and Ian Bamford as operations director.

Mr Botha joins the institute having returned to the UK from Dubai, where he spent four years as group operations and marketing director overseeing the expansion of Fitness First MENA.

He has more than seven years of director experience as well as involvement in the education sector having previously been the chief operating officer for Premier Global, the parent company of Premier Training International and awarding organisation ActiveIQ.

Mr Botha said: “By incorporating our new internal quality measures with our employer and learner centric focus, we will ensure Paragon Skills will deliver outstanding teaching and learning to every learner, every time.”

Mr Bamford joins from First4Skills. He has more than five years’ experience as an operations director in the training sector and is also an experienced Ofsted inspector.

Mr Bamford: “My experience as an Ofsted inspector and sector knowledge will ensure that I have a high emphasis on continuous improvement implementing outstanding practices across all areas within the business.”

Sector commissioners in recruitment drive

Two new advisers have been appointed by the Education Funding Agency (EFA) to help Sixth Form Commissioner Peter Mucklow haul in under-achieving providers.

The first of them is chair of governors at Blackpool Sixth Form College (SFC) and national leader of governance advocate at the National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL), John Boyle.

The other is Mike Southworth, who retired as principal of Priestly College in December after serving in the post since 2002.

Mr Southworth and Mr Boyle started their new posts on August 11, and the Department for Education (DfE) told FE Week on Tuesday (September 15) that they are the only two SFC advisers that have been appointed.

It comes after FE Week reported online on Monday that FE Commissioner Dr David Collins would be appointing a new intake of FE deputy commissioners (FEDCs) and advisers.

A DfE spokesperson said that the roles of the advisers will, for example, involve “supporting the intervention process [led by Mr Mucklow] to tackle poor performance [in SFCs], either in terms of financial management or quality”.

They will also work alongside Mr Mucklow and FE Commissioner Dr David Collins on upcoming area reviews, covering 16 SFCs and 22 general FE colleges in Birmingham and Solihull, Greater Manchester, and Sheffield city region, which were announced by the government on September 8.

The advisers will carry out “the institutional analysis which underpins the reviews and their recommendations”, the spokesperson added.

Mark Bramwell, associate director of SFCs at the Association of Colleges (AoC), said: “We congratulate John and Mike. We have worked with them both closely for a number of years as active members of AoC’s sixth form college portfolio group.”

James Kewin, deputy chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges’ Association, said: “Both [Mr Southworth and Mr Boyle] are well known and respected in the sector, and it will be helpful to have advisers with SFC expertise assisting the SFC Commissioner.

“But our view remains that the area review policy and process is deeply flawed — we await the outcome of the Birmingham review with great interest, particularly the extent to which they include school and academy sixth forms.”

The area reviews for Birmingham and Solihull, Greater Manchester, and Sheffield city region will start on September 18, 21 and 28, respectively, but affected principals have told FE Week of concerns that the reviews do not cover school sixth form provision.

Mr Boyle and Mr Southworth are on reactive contracts, meaning that they have no minimum or maximum number of hours to fulfil, so will work when they are called upon at a rate of up to £600 a-day.

A Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) spokesperson confirmed that it was looking to recruit three FEDCs, who will earn £700 a-day, and an unspecified number of advisers, who will earn £600 a-day.

The application window for the two-year positions closes on September 30.

Interviews are then pencilled in from October 26, with appointments expected from November 1.

The last round of appointments took place in November 2014 — raising the number of Dr Collins’.

FE Week reported in November that five former principals and one ex-vice principal made-up the new intake of advisers for Dr Collins.

They were Phil Frier, Dr Beri Hare, John Hogg, Steve Hutchinson, Chris Jones and Lynne Craig.

Their appointments took the total number to advisers to 11, with existing advisers David Williams, Joanna Gaukroger, Marilyn Hawkins, Malcolm Cooper and Lynn Forrester-Walker.

New Ofqual framework to focus on outcomes

Ofqual’s replacement for the Qualifications Credit Framework (QCF) will give awarding organisations more freedom to review and develop their qualifications, the watchdog’s vocational qualifications boss has said.

The new Regulated Qualifications Framework (RQF), which comes into force on October 1, will take away the rules and structure of the QCF and instead focus on outcomes.

Speaking at the Skills and Employability Summit in London, on Thursday (September 17), executive director for vocational qualifications at Ofqual Jeremy Benson said: “A valid qualification must assess skills and knowledge sufficiently well.

“It enables assessment results to be interpreted and used appropriately, and allowing people to be confident that those results can be relied upon.

“Having a detailed set of rules specific to vocational qualifications is not the best way of securing validity,” he added.

Mr Benson said that the change is part of Ofqual’s aim to improve people’s confidence in vocational qualifications, and comes after a review and consultation over the QCF, carried out over the past year.

First introduced in 2008, the QCF was intended to take a “building block” approach to learning, he added.

Each student could put together their own learning pathway, made up of different building blocks, or units, each worth a certain number of credits.

However, Mr Benson said that this approach did not work as well as it could have done.

“To achieve the QCF’s ambition, the rules placed much focus on consistency of structure, but did not focus enough on validity — or put another way, it didn’t consider whether the qualifications might actually be any good.”

As part of the recent review, Ofqual looked at the impact of the rules and regulations of the QCF on those who work in the vocational sector, including colleges and training providers.

What they found was that “the rules too often get in the way of – rather than support and enable – good qualifications.”

“Even if these rules made life easier for awarding organisations, many of them told us that the rules were in fact stopping them from innovating, or even from taking the approaches to assessment that most suited the topic being taught,” Mr Benson said.

He also said that they would not be replacing one set of prescriptive rules with another.

The new RQF is intended to act as a tool to help people understand the different qualifications regulated by Ofqual, not to be a rule or process, he said.

He described the new RQF as a library and said: “There’s a range of books on offer, and as libraries do, we’re stacking the books in an order. Our shelves are arranged to fit books from entry level one up to level eight.”

Mr Benson said that these levels are generally well understood, both in terms of existing qualifications and how they relate to levels in other frameworks.

The books on the shelves would be arranged in size order, he added, with the shorter reads on the left and the bigger books – “War and Peace, for example” – on the right.

The size of the books represents qualification sizes, he said, which will be described in terms of total qualification time (TQT).

This is defined as an estimate of the number of hours that would be required for a learner to reach, and demonstrate, the level of attainment needed for a particular qualification.

Part of the TQT will be made up of guided learning hours, Mr Benson said, as they are helpful to people planning curricula and timetables.

He added that the TQT will also recognise the amount of time a learner can expect to spend in any form of study or training — but not under the immediate supervision of a tutor or any other education or training provider.

Continuing the analogy, Mr Benson described Ofqual’s role within the RQF as a librarian.

“Now, a librarian doesn’t decide what should be in a book, or the number of chapters it should have — though they may take a closer interest in some more than others, as we do,” he said.

“Rather, a librarian helps people to understand the different books available and to find what they’re looking for.”

As well as providing a catalogue of registered qualifications, Ofqual’s role will be to carry out a range of regulatory activities, he said.

These will include audits, to test how far awarding organisations can show they meet the new requirements, he added.

He said that it will also be encouraging and reporting on good practice, to ensure that awarding organisations do more than just meet the bare minimum requirements, and had written to all awarding organisations about
the changes.

Apprenticeship target is ‘once in a generation’ opportunity

Skills Funding Agency (SFA) and Education Funding Agency (EFA) boss Peter Lauener told delegates that the government’s 3m apprenticeship target amounted to a once-in-a-generation opportunity.

The SFA and EFA chief executive said at the Skills and Employability Summit that hitting the figure by 2020 would be difficult.

But he said that it was “not quite as big a challenge as it would have been had we not laid the foundations as a country in the last parliament”.

Mr Lauener added the special emphasis that will be placed on the vocational qualifications over the next five years presented a “once in a generation opportunity to embed apprenticeships in a new way in the structure of society, as a high quality and structured route to jobs and careers”.

Apprenticeships make a strong contribution to the economy, Mr Lauener said, offering a return on investment per pound of between £18 and £28.

“That’s a return to employers, it’s a return to wages for young people. They are, in short, a good investment.”

Mr Lauener said there was significant scope for more apprenticeships in some sectors, including construction, information communication technologies, and engineering and manufacturing technologies.

He acknowledged that there was work to be done to encourage more employers to take on apprentices and suggested that employer-to-employer communication was the best way for employers to learn about the benefits of apprenticeships.

Sixth Form Colleges’ Association chief executive standing down

Chief Executive of the Sixth Form Colleges’ Association (SFCA) David Igoe will be standing down at the end of March.

Eddie Playfair, chair of the SFCA Council, announced this morning that he had received and accepted his resignation.

Mr Igoe will though be carrying on in the post until March 31, he added.

Mr Igoe, who was SFCA executive chair from 2007 to 2009 before becoming chief executive, told FE Week this morning that “there is nothing untoward”.

“I have been thinking about it for a while and am of an age [he is 65], so now seemed a good time to stand down, after I have served my six-months notice,” he added.

Reflecting on his time in the post, Mr Igoe said that he was “most proud of how SFCs maintained their quality and their offer to young people over a period of relentless cuts and changes to the post-16 landscape.

“The SFCA itself has grown to meet these challenges but remains a small highly committed team which punches well above its weight”.

Mr Playfair thanked Mr Igoe for his “outstanding leadership of the Association through a period of great change”.

“He has been our first chief executive and has established this role as a key one on the education landscape, providing eight years of exemplary service,” he added.

Mr Playfair said that Mr Igoe had “represented, supported and championed our sector skilfully and effectively in contexts which have not always been easy for us.

“We all appreciate the quality and depth of his commitment to the cause of sixth form colleges across England”.

He said that Mr Igoe had assured him that it would be business as usual for him right up until the end of March.

“He is well aware that the sector is facing unprecedented challenge on funding and structural review and he is committed to ensuring the SFCA will not be deflected from its crucial task of supporting colleges,” he added.

Mr Playfair added that the SFCA council will meet on Friday (September 25) and will be discussing the arrangements for appointing a new chief executive.

“We will keep members informed about the process,” he added.