Shortly after the election in 2010, the government asked Professor Alison Wolf to lead a review of vocational education for 14 to 19-year-olds.
The 27 recommendations that came from that report led to the review and revision of funding and accountability regimes and changes to qualifications.
There has been so much change that employers would need to work hard to keep up
Fast forward to 2015 and following another election a further review of vocational qualifications is announced.
Any external commentator would probably assume that the previous review didn’t work. When the reality is the reform agenda hasn’t matured enough for us to know its relative success or failure.
Fortunately (or unfortunately) as a country we have a number of attempts to revise vocational education to look back on.
There is something to be said for relative stability in educational systems, the often-cited German vocational system has in fact changed very little over the course of the last two (or even more) decades, whereas our own system has been subject to much reform.
One of the difficulties of explaining the education system to anyone who is not immersed in it is that there has been so much change that employers would need to work hard to keep up.
This has been exacerbated by a lack of consistency around names and types of qualifications so employers do not know what the right choice is for them.
In ‘Avoiding the same old mistakes’ the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) warned about the tendency for reforms in England to focus ‘excessively’ on qualifications rather than on the wider system. This is something the review panel needs to consider.
In the recent past, attempts to develop a new system of composite qualifications that blended general and vocational education, the 14-19 diploma, have left scars on those of us who were involved.
Not just in terms of the loss of time and significant investment that was wasted on developments for programmes that were only available for a limited amount of time, but also the wasted enthusiasm of employers and the lost promise to the young people. But I could cite other examples, NVQs, GNVQs — the list goes on.
I have before called for a more comprehensive review than this one. I think we need a once-in-a-lifetime review of the whole education and skills system and clarity on which institutions deliver what.
A review of only one side risks creating imbalance in the system and perpetuating the disparity of understanding of the different pathways that already exist.
While there is much to learn from international comparisons, we must look at the history and context for those reforms and successes, rather than a snapshot of how they are currently constructed. At a seminar run by the Cambridge Assessment Network recently, Tim Oates, group research director of Cambridge Assessment, and Gabriel Heller-Sahlgren, founding director of the Centre for the Study of Market Reform of Education, spoke about the research they did into the sudden rise of Finland to the top of PISA tables.
Their analysis into the time-lag effect and taking a historical view of Finland’s education system and cultural development shows the potential pit-falls of ‘education tourism’.
When Finland’s success in the PISA results came about, visitors came to see what about the system in Finland was producing such exceptional results. But the immediate perception was to forget the time-lag effect.
The esteemed panel completing this review will no doubt look for evidence and analysis in order to make their recommendations.
We hope that they look broadly, deeply and with historical and cultural sensitivity to ensure that, even though this review is not as broad in scope as we have called for, it does become an once-in-a-lifetime review we don’t have to revisit after another election.
It might be a busy few days at Association of Colleges (AoC) conference, but that is set to continue with an extensive programme of reforms hitting the sector, as Graham Hasting-Evans explains.
Many will be focused on their post-16 area reviews or looking forward to their ‘turn’ with apprehension.
FE Commissioner Dr David Collins has already revealed early findings from the first wave of these reviews.
Speaking at this year’s Higher and Further Education Show following he said during the next 18 months he and a team of advisers would be travelling the country “endeavouring and encouraging marriages, federations and divorces between colleges to try and set up a sustainable FE sector”.
But this is not the only major policy change happening. Arguably we have change overload.
Let’s start with funding — always a good place to begin.
For many, funding will be seen as the major and immediate challenge — but that is only the start
Budgets are being cut. Everyone is expecting the November 25 autumn statement will tell us how bad it will be.
There is also likely to be a major shift in the funding mechanism. We are expecting this to probably include a de-centralisation of whatever is left of the Adult Skills Budget and a move to funding on the basis of outcome performance statistics. In other words a lot less money cut up differently.
Local Enterprise Partnerships (Leps) have a place in all of this but not all the country has a Lep in place and many are still trying to work out what they should be doing and how to do it.
For many, funding will be seen as the major and immediate challenge — but that is only the start.
The whole focus for the curriculum will be changing. There will be more focus on improving English and maths, through GCSEs and an upgrading of Functional Skills (reform of Functional Skills is likely to happen in 2016).
There will be an increase in professional and technical courses and qualifications from now; and there will be courses and qualifications aimed at getting people into a job in a certain sector as well as into a specific job role or apprenticeship.
There will be a ramping up of the apprenticeship numbers to achieve the 3m target; and root and branch reform of apprenticeships with the ‘old’ SASE frameworks frozen and all ‘new’ apprenticeships modelled on the Trailblazer approach complete for delivery by September 2017.
There will be changes to the funding of apprenticeships from this year as a transition to the introduction of full employer funding through the new planned HMRC-administered levy from September 2017; and major changes on how apprentices are regulated and governed by Government and employers.
There will also be replacement of the QCF with the RQF by Ofqual; new EU procurement rules with the AoC initiative already underway; and support for the unemployed and those with learning difficulties.
All of which is a very ambitious programme of change for 2016-17 and much of these policy changes lack the necessary detail.
There is a complete lack of clarity over how much of this will work, despite the fact that much of the change is due to happen over the next nine to ten months.
People are also questioning how the current Trailblazer process can ramp up from some 400 apprenticeship registrations against the 50 completed Trailblazer standards to 3m in this Parliament. The concern is it will only be achieved by cutting the quality which is in direct conflict with the objective of the reforms.
And all of this policy change is happening as the area reviews and fundamental restructuring of provision is being carried out leaving the area review teams facing some challenge.
They have to first review the present provision against current known demands. Then (using perhaps a crystal ball) they have to decide what will be the impact of all the policy changes in their area, many of which are still not clear.
Mr Hasting-Evans is due to chair a one-hour AoC conference fringe session, Delivering innovative routes to employment with Local Enterprise Partnerships, on Thursday (November 19) from 9am.
Sam Parrett outlines her view of the role of colleges in delivering careers education to as young an audience as possible.
The conversation about careers education is a long running one. However, there is little doubt that young people need more guidance at a much earlier stage.
For me, this must begin at primary school. Children should be presented with a balanced view of what ‘success’ means and the understanding that there are a huge number of equally valid ways to reach hundreds of exciting and rewarding careers.
The importance of academic success is highlighted very early on in a young person’s educational journey, with little mention of vocational and employability skills. The result? Employers bemoaning the fact that school leavers are not fit for work despite being armed with an array of academic qualifications.
We need to work together, as a society, to dispel the myth that academic achievement is the only marker of success that matters. Going to university is a fantastic option for many people but by no means the only one and certainly not ‘the best’ route for everyone.
I talk to students at my college who have embarked on several pathways before finding the right one. Although not irreversible, much damage can be done to a person’s confidence and self-belief when their chosen educational route doesn’t ‘work out’.
Recent research by think tank Demos revealed that as children get older, they get unhappier. Final year students are half as likely to be happy in their lives as 14-yearolds and much less likely to think parents or teachers believe in them.
I believe this is a direct result of an education system that is constantly narrowing to focus solely on academic achievement. Little room is available in the curriculum to work on building confidence, practical skills and team building — ultimately essential employability skills.
FE colleges must step in here. Our establishments are unique in that we provide people with many options to upskill, retrain and follow career ambitions. With a huge range of flexible learning programmes, people can fit study around existing jobs and commitments, re-focusing and ultimately achieving their true aspirations.
But are there ways for FE colleges to get involved at an earlier stage? Can we reach and influence young people before they feel compelled to pursue a route that is not right for them?
We are doing all we can to help provide people with guidance and options from a younger age
I believe the answer is very much ‘yes’. FE colleges are the hub of communities and in Bromley we are doing all we can to help provide people with guidance and options from a younger age.
From our Children’s University, which encourages 5 to 14-year-olds to develop new skills outside of the classroom, to our pioneering, employer-led Hospitality, Food and Enterprise Career College for 14 to 19-year-olds — we have been breaking new ground for some time.
We are also currently undertaking a Growth Mind-Set pilot project with our Year 10 students. Research has shown that young people who are encouraged to adopt a growth mind-set as opposed to a fixed mind-set are more likely to persist in the face of failure and achieve their full potential.
Rewarding effort and avoiding praise that focuses solely on intelligence or talent is key. This type of approach can be implemented easily within an FE environment and helps both staff and students to recognise the many elements of success.
Going forward, 2017 will see the opening of our new University Technical College for 13 to 18-year-olds, specialising in Health and Wellbeing sciences in partnership with Kings College Hospital and other key employers.
All these initiatives will provide young people with new and exciting pathways to fulfilling careers — as well as helping employers secure a skilled and ambitious future workforce.
Times are tough right now and diversifying within the FE sector is not for the fainthearted.
However, we must be bold and pick up where the rest of the education system is failing by opening up opportunity and filling the vocational void.
Cash-strapped West Cheshire College has lodged a formal complaint over its inadequate Ofsted rating and called on the education watchdog to send inspectors back in to look again.
Inspectors said teachers at the college, which has a Skills Funding Agency (SFA) allocation of £6.8m, did not expect enough of learners, who were also not given enough advice to improve.
They were among a host of other issues identified at the college, including finances with inspectors reporting that its “financial future is not currently sustainable”.
But principal Nigel Davies (pictured above) hit back, claiming the college had achieved an operating surplus in 2014/15 for the first time in four years and that inspection so early into the academic year meant it was “not practicable or realistic” to produce evidence of standards.
“Everyone at the college, including myself, is extremely disappointed by the outcome of the inspection which does not accurately reflect our achievements to date and our current position today,” he said.
“In light of this, we have significant concerns relating to the inspection and have already submitted a formal complaint to Ofsted, including an invitation to re-inspect the college.”
He reported how a series of blunders over the “size, location and financing” of two college builds, costing a total of £68m, left it with crippling debt as he told Skills Minister Nick Boles “it makes sense” that one — its Handbridge site (pictured below)— be sold off.
owever, the college still has both sites and recently even put up new signs at Handbridge.
A Department for Business, Innovation and Skills spokesperson told FE Week that Dr Collins’ work with the college had not concluded and would continue taking into account Ofsted’s findings.
The education watchdog dished out five inadequate grades among the headline field ratings, with two ‘requires improvement’ and one ‘good’ — for apprenticeships.
“Senior leaders and governors acknowledge that the college’s financial position is precarious,” it said in the report.
“Senior leaders have been managing a considerable period of upheaval, trying to resolve the financial problems which have beset the college since before their arrival, including overspends on significant capital projects and poor financial control. Although expenditure has reduced, they have not yet taken actions to secure long-term financial sustainability.”
But Mr Davies disagreed and said his leadership team had indeed “taken action to secure the college’s long-term financial sustainability”.
“However, this remains unresolved as we are working with a number of external agencies,” he said.
Mr Davies said: “While we have always welcomed and encouraged critical evaluation as part of our overarching strategy to positively change and move forward, we believe that during the inspection there were inconsistencies in standards applied which will form the basis of our formal complaint.”
He added: “The terminology used by Ofsted within the report does not truly reflect the college’s position and we do not agree with some of the analysis and conclusions in it.
“The style and language used within the report is confusing and misleading. Although it is valid to highlight poor provision we feel that the report does not give judgements on the college’s significant success and achievements.”
An Ofsted spokesperson said it did not comment on individual inspections.
Celebrity Professor Brian Cox was guest of honour at Middlesbrough College to open a new £20m science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem) centre.
The TV presenter said the centre — which has facilities including process operations and maintenance, an advanced manufacturing centre, and logistics and warehousing to replicate a real industrial environment — was “an incredibly impressive place”.
[slideshow_deploy id=’41454′]
Professor Cox, speaking to scores of youngsters, added: “It’s ground-breaking — there’s a real understanding here of what industry needs and the new centre is delivering the kind of training that provides real experience.”
Principal Zoe Lewis said: “Five years ago we had fewer than 100 apprentices. This year we will train more than 1,000 across a wide range of disciplines.
“We and our partners firmly believe that Stem education and training has the potential to transform this region’s economic competitiveness.”
A ten-point plan to help deliver the government’s 3m apprenticeships target has been issued by senior apprenticeship official Jennifer Coupland (pictured above).
Ms Coupland, head of the Department for Business, Skills and Innovation (BIS) and Department for Education (DfE) apprenticeship unit, reeled off the points at a seminar themed ‘Where next for apprenticeships’ on Wednesday (November 11).
An audience of more than 300 delegates at the Westminster Employment Forum event listened to her discuss hitting the “huge” 3m target, but little detail was given on the apprenticeship levy with the spending review looming.
She said: “It [the target] actually means having more than one apprentice starting an apprenticeship every minute for the next five years — so that is quite a sobering thought.”
To tackle the target, Ms Coupland revealed her ten-point strategy to grow apprenticeship starts from “2.4m in the previous five years” to 3m by the end of this Parliament.
Jeremy Benson
She said: “The first round of the strategy is all about quality.
“The key here is that we ought to take forward that we have started trailblazers — so putting employers in control of designing the standards that apprentices train against and the assessment plans that they will be assessed against to insure that they really are competent to do the job that they have been training to do.”
She then said the second was “employerrouted funding”, the third focused on “the public sector”, to encourage more apprenticeships, and the fourth strand was helping “small businesses”.
It was followed by the fifth strand which will be focused on engaging with “large businesses”.
The other strategy points listed for apprenticeship success were “marketing and communications”, “careers advice and guidance”, and “delivery of training and working with providers”.
She said: “This bit of the strategy is around the supply and delivery of training and working with providers, and getting FE colleges and training providers geared up so that they’re in a good position to offer the training that employers will want.”
A “steady state system of apprenticeship governance” and, having more focus on “degree and higher level apprenticeships” were the final points.
She said: “If it works and we have come on the right track, I think we should have taken on 20 apprentices in the time that I have been speaking”.
Following Ms Coupland’s talk, Ofqual executive director for vocational qualifications Jeremy Benson discussed, among other issues, the “life cycle of qualifications”.
He said: “For a qualification to work effectively it needs to do more than to be well designed — it has to be delivered and it has to be kept under review.”
Mr Benson said: “Ofqual looks at what awarding organisations are doing and how they regulate.
“We don’t just look at the qualification, we look at all the other things as well.”
He added: “People often think our focus is up front on checking the qualification process, but we don’t rely on that being the only thing that is important.”
Outlining the ten-point plan
1. Quality
With reference to Trailblazers, Ms Coupland said this part of the strategy aims to put employers “in control of designing the standards that apprentices train against and the assessment plans that they will be assessed against” to ensure that apprentices are really competent in the job they have been training for.
She added: “The idea here is that if employers really value an apprenticeship programme, then more employers will come on board and offer apprenticeships.”
2. Funding
Full apprenticeship funding details will be announced in the upcoming Spending Review.
Ms Coupland said: “If employers have already invested in apprenticeships, we think many more will be wanting use the programme to get back what they’ve put in.”
She said that this money can then be used to generate useful training for people they want to employ.
3. Public sector
Ms Coupland said the government is “looking into measures to increase the public sector’s contribution to employing apprentices”.
She said the public sector employers around 1.7 per cent of their workforce as apprentices in comparison to the private sector which employ 2.3 per cent.
4. Small businesses
This strand of the strategy is about helping small businesses take on more apprentices.
Ms Coupland said teaching small businesses about how “easy to use tools” like Find an Apprenticeship can help “businesses fill their apprenticeship vacancies.”
5. Large businesses
Ms Coupland said: “We are also looking at large businesses and trying to make our strategy for engaging with very large companies much better.”
This will involve joining up with the cabinet office to make sure they are hearing a consistent set of messages about apprenticeships.
6. Marketing and communications
An efficient marketing and communications strategy to support the programme to generate more interest in apprenticeships is the next part of the strategy.
Ms Coupland said: “From research, it was interesting that parents were the main group who didn’t really understand types of things you can do as an apprentice.”
7. Careers advice and guidance
Ms Coupland said this strand is about good careers advice and guidance so “people are able to hear about apprenticeships and get the right information to make the right choices”.
The government will be working with enterprise advisers to spread the messages about the benefits of apprenticeships “successfully around”.
8. Delivery of training
Delivery of training and working with providers is the next part of the plan.
Ms Coupland said that this strand will aim to get FE colleges and training providers prepared so that “they are in a good position to offer training that employers will want” to expand programme take up numbers.
9. Steady state system
Ms Coupland said: “We are going to need a steady state system of apprenticeship governance.”
She said that after speaking to employers over the summer, they are quite keen that they move to a steady state set of arrangements where individual responsibilities are “very clear.”
10. Degree and higher level apprenticeships
To reach the 3m apprenticeship target, Ms Coupland said that “this does include growing more at the higher and degree level as a proportion of the overall programme”.
The government will be working with universities and other providers to develop higher apprenticeships to meet the needs of employers.
Like father like son is a fitting phrase to sum up the first career step of David Pollard who followed the footsteps of dad Bert into the Royal Air Force.
At the age of 18, Pollard found himself applying for numerous jobs after leaving King James’s Grammar School in Huddersfield, but what he wanted most was a job that filled him with adrenaline.
The current Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) chair for education, skills and business support says: “My ambition when I was younger was to become a fighter pilot — which was the big thing at the time.”
He begins to smile and adds: “However they [RAF] said: ‘You’re slightly short-sighted, so you can’t be a pilot — but will you be an engineer?’ and, like a fool, I said yes.”
The aspiration to become a fighter pilot runs in the family and 68-year-old Pollard explains his father “would have loved to be a pilot also, but he lost an eye as a four-year old”.
Pollard (front row, second from left aged 17) with members of the Rodney Watch at Outward Bound Sea School
So while Pollard senior compromised because of his eye sight and became a motor mechanic, Pollard junior’s career path ventured from engineering and lecturing to the FSB.
“My FSB chair post is not an elected one — for the more junior roles like this, we apply and go through a selection process and they appoint the appropriate people with the advice of the team. It’s voluntary and it’s unpaid,” explains Pollard, who got the chairjob two years ago.
He had joined the RAF in 1964 and carried out a degree in aeronautical engineering and management at the RAF College Cranwell in Lincolnshire.
Then he worked as an engineer for the RAF for six years where he served at a range of locations across the country. During this time he started to develop an interest in FE.
He says: “One of the things I remember as an 11-year-old was that my father started evening classes at the local technical college because he was a motor mechanic and he wanted to do something more.”
His father completed a higher national certificate in mechanical engineering to develop his career and Pollard also remembers one of his sergeants doing the same course when he was in the Air Force.
“The Air Force was very big on the training development of people, so that became a feature of my life and the jobs that I did,” says Pollard.
He then worked in Algeria for the construction company Bectel on a gas refraction plant and helped train the locals to be able to operate and maintain the plant.
Pollard says: “They were coming from a low education level and I worked closely with a lot of the young Algerian technicians and engineers who hadn’t got much experience.
“It was also good working on the development and educational side of things.”
From left: Pollard’s wife Jane, sons Sebastian and Nicholas
and Pollard at a wedding in 2010
Pollard’s interest in training and FE began to grow and he had a variety of roles managing engineering companies, working as an assistant lecturer in higher education and FE providers, and being a consultant to numerous growing businesses.
The grandfather-of-one today “represents the interests and aspirations of small
businesses” via the FSB.
He carries out a combination of responsibilities which include working with young people through Young Enterprise as a business ambassador.
“The first part of the role is to lobby government to try and make sure that government policies in the education, skills and business support arena work for small businesses,” explains Pollard.
“I have been very active on the apprenticeship front, first with the steering group on the Jason Holt report on apprenticeships and SMEs, and then the Richard Review.
“I was in there with lots of other people, but standing up for small businesses and the reality of the world of small businesses, and being involved with the review of the trailblazer apprenticeship standards, and I’m on the apprenticeship stakeholder board, representing the interests of small businesses.
“So I’ve had a lot of discussion with government on things like funding of reformed apprenticeships and the co-investment side of things, and particularly when they were looking at all sorts of different routes for finance for collecting the co-investment bits.
Pollard holding grandson Corrin two
years ago
“We put in a strong case of various routes were really going to be extremely disadvantageous to small businesses, and one of the consequences of that in government would quite likely be that a lot of small businesses would say: ‘This is a step too far – we can’t do it. We can’t pay out the full cost of the training and then hope that the bureaucracy or HMRC’s systems will deliver us the two-thirds that we’re entitled to before we have to pay all the bills’.”
Pollard also works as the director of a company in Hampshire called Southern Business Growth Network which is “trying to set up a network and create facilities to help people, to help businesses, and support people starting up a business”.
Pollard then draws attention to the City & Guilds ‘rich list’ that has named the wealthiest people who have done their apprenticeships.
The list includes a range of billionaires and millionaires like vacuum tycoon James Dyson (net worth £2.5bn) and TV chef and restaurateur Jamie Oliver (net worth £240m).
He explains that promoting the City & Guilds qualifications through the list was a great mechanism for gaining the attention of a range of people debating whether to study FE.
“Because it shows you can have a dream, have a job, build a business and grow it — and we need a similar sort of campaign now so people can see why, by doing an apprenticeship, they can get to the top,” he says.
Apprenticeships are key for Pollard, but he believes there is room for improvement.
Pollard says: “A footballer told me at a Referees’ Association meeting that ‘the difference between the continental players and the British players is the continental players go to the training ground on a Monday morning to train, but the British players go to be trained’.
“There’s a subtle difference there — a different mental attitude — and I think we’ve created that mental attitude in people.”
A drawing of Pollard, by artist Pat Rooney,
when he was in the Royal Air Force in 1964
Pollard recalls an unspecified meeting at which an ex-RAF sergeant made a comment about the high standard of staff in German banks, some of who had done financial service industry apprenticeships.
Pollard explains this could be down to the German apprenticeship being three years long and the English equivalent being one year long.
He says: “By the time you’ve had three years you have seen 70 per cent of what you are likely to get in the actual role — so you’re very competent at doing that job and you can be left alone to do it.
“Whereas we’ve got the idea that as long as we can throw a little bit at them [apprentices] and they can then quickly tell us that they’ve remembered what we’ve told them, then we’re competent.
“And it’s this difference between doing something because you’ve got a qualification and actually having the time to embed it and learn from some of your mistakes, to discover that you are really good and competent at the job.”
It’s a personal thing
What’s your favourite book and why?
I get things I get interested in and then I move on. But I like reading, I have done for years, and I like reading anything that’s really interesting and challenging. I am in the process of reading Keith Devlin’s book called Introduction to Mathematical Thinking
What do you do to switch off from work?
I pick up a book, get a glass of whisky and sit down, which is a nice way of relaxing. If it’s [wife] Jane and myself, then we will watch television together, like a murder mystery or a drama of some sort, and discuss it and spend an evening together
What’s your pet hate?
Pollard aged four in 1950
That people equate qualifications with skills, and competency, and we use this word ‘skills’ in a very loose way to mean several different things, which is confusing, because sometimes when politicians talk about skills, they mean qualifications and other times they mean competency
If you could invite anyone to a dinner party, living or dead, who would it be?
Douglas Bader, an ex Cranwell cadet like me, who lost both legs in a flying accident and left the RAF but returned at the start of the Second World War and was a fighter pilot during the Battle of Britain. The second one, on the same theme, is a guy called Captain Eric Winkle-Brown, who is a test pilot. The third person is Angus Deaton, the economist who has won the Nobel Memorial Prize for Economics. He’s very interesting, because he’s done a lot of work on economics, which is something I got into when I was in the Air Force
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
When I was a 16-year-old I wanted to be a fighter pilot, then a test pilot, then an astronaut. That was the dream career path
The FE and skills sector has never been more in need of clear-minded leadership and focus. Ayub Khan outlines how Fetl hopes to help develop such thinking.
There is no doubt that the FE & skills sector has reacted and to some extent adapted to the changes required of it by government.
Its strength in delivering basic skills — A-Levels, NVQs, foundation degrees, diplomas, apprenticeships, work-based training, and personal and community learning — is admirable.
I can testify to the good work of the sector having been a learner in FE after leaving school many years ago.
Yet for all of the wonderful things that the sector has delivered it is still poorly defined and understood.
It’s strength can be seen through its workforce, the practitioners who everyday serve its learners in all types of settings as well as its leadership that focuses on the daily pressures, navigating through each policy change and interpreting every page of the latest funding guidance. That’s is part of the sector’s DNA.
Yet there is something different required in the change the sector now needs.
The sector needs leadership that is able to look beyond the current crisis that engulfs it.
Thinking as a critical dimension of leadership too often gets squeezed out by the pressures of day to day management and delivery
In particular for FE colleges, the anxiety of focusing on area reviews means that the conversation will predictably lead to structures, jobs and funding. Yes, this is a difficult time, but it has always been so.
There are opportunities on the horizon if practitioners and leaders in FE and skills take time to reflect, think and be creative in response to the challenges the sector faces.
Thinking as a critical dimension of leadership too often gets squeezed out by the pressures of day to day management and delivery.
We need to support present and future leaders to think beyond immediate priorities and practice in order to shape the future — this is not just a place we are going to, it is a place we are actively making.
The sector has a chance to do this and there are opportunities to shape the future.
Take one example, Fetl fellowships. The programme offers a unique chance for practitioners and leaders to pursue a research interest that benefits FE and skills in the UK.
Fellowships take at least six months to complete, during which time fellows will be supported by a prestigious higher education research institution to develop work that will support change in the FE and skills sector.
The first cohort of Fetl fellows will publish their research at the Association of Colleges conference on Wednesday (November 18).
Applications are now open for the next round and the deadline is November 30. Fetl is not prescriptive on themes. This is about generating ideas to help shape the future.
There are also opportunities through the Fetl grant programme to help the sector think about its future. So far we have funded seven projects ranging from innovation in governance to identifying new leaders in the sector.
The research through these projects will provide another valuable source of evidence of what works and what could be applied to the sector.
There is no doubt that in times of austerity, the importance of organisations and individuals working together to make changes and meet the challenges ahead cannot and should not be underestimated.
Simply getting through the current crisis and carrying on as before will not be acceptable to learners, employers and the sector.
Yet the truth is, that despite the current difficulties, there is a new prize on the horizon. The prize that awaits the sector is one where we have true autonomy, institutions and providers working collegiately, yes inevitably leaner but so much more fit for purpose serving learners and helping employers.
A sector that is served by strong research and evidence and therefore better informed and understood by policy makers and individuals.
FE and skills needs a new vision and a new narrative to secure its place in the future.
To do this requires an environment where the leadership of thinking is second nature.
The opportunities through the Fetl fellowship and grant programmes will help.
