The impact technology has on learners is more important to Ofsted than the technology itself, a former inspector told delegates at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers’ Learning Technologies Expo 2015.

Kerry Boffey (pictured above), director of the Adult Learning Improvement Network, said providers needed to think about what technology “will do for learners”.

“Does it speed up their learning? Does it make it more enjoyable? More interactive? More accessible? What difference does it make to their learning?” she said.

“That’s how technology is used in your self-assessment and in your inspection preparation and while you’re being inspected.”

Ofsted inspectors, she said, “don’t want to see technology — they want to see how you use technology, and the difference it makes to those learners”.

“Technology is only good if we actually use it, if we embrace it, if we find out how to use it and think about the impact it’s going to have on our learners,” said Ms Boffey.

Meanwhile, Stewart Segal, speaking at the event held at the ILEC Conference Centre, London, on November 5, said technology was “no longer an option” for providers, and that he didn’t see “too many training providers surviving this change unless they maximise the effective use of ICT”.

He described the “era of flexibility” being opened up by government “standing back from telling providers how to deliver things” as an opportunity that training providers should “grab”.

“The challenge is great, the pace of change is great — but I think the opportunity is great,” he said.

“More employers will be paying for the training that they get, and more learners will be paying for the training they get, through loans. It’s really important that we use ICT to develop that focus,” he said.

However, he cautioned providers against thinking that technology is an “end in itself”.

“You can’t just buy yourself some new equipment and think that that is changing the way we deliver. But if you use ICT properly, it can reengineer your business,” he said.

In addition to the main speakers, the event featured 12 workshops grouped into three themes — e-learning, mobile learning and e-assessment.

Stratford-upon-Avon MP Nadhim Zahawi (above left) today told how his “experience as an entrepreneur” would help him in his new role as Prime Minister David Cameron’s apprenticeships adviser.

The announcement came during today’s Prime Minister’s questions and will see the remit to help the government deliver its General Election pledge to create 3m new apprenticeships over the next five years pass to the Iraqi-born co-founder of YouGov internet-based market researchers.

And, just like his predecessor in the role Richard Harrington, who stepped down in September to become Syrian Refugees Minister, Conservative Mr Zahawi will be co-chair of the Apprenticeship Delivery Board along with National Apprenticeship Ambassadors Network (NAAN) chair David Meller.

“It’s a great honour to have been asked by the Prime Minister to be his new Apprenticeships Adviser,” said Mr Zahawi in his blog today and on his Twitter account (see below).

“I have already started my work, holding regular meetings with BIS, Number 10 and the Skills Funding Agency.

“I’m excited to be part of the government’s revolutionary work on apprenticeships, drawing on my previous experience as an entrepreneur to ensure that the new qualifications meet the needs of businesses and provide excellent life-long skills to those who take them.

“I’m determined for apprenticeships to be a real alternative to attending University, and to ensure that they’re a route to better paid, highly skilled jobs that really enhance productivity in our economy.”

According to TheyWorkForYou.com, Mr Zahawi has asked four questions featuring apprenticeships since he was first elected, in 2010.

However, the most recent of these was to then-Skills Minister Matthew Hancock in November 2012 when he asked: “Can he [Mr Hancock] say a little more about the drive for quality, as opposed just to quantity, of apprenticeships?”

He has already served on a number of committees, including Foreign Affairs, Arms Export Controls (formerly Quadripartite Committee) and Business, Innovation and Skills Committee and joined the Number 10 Policy Unit two years ago.

News of Mr Zahawi’s new post was also broken on Twitter via the Number 10 account (pictured below).

“In this new role I will be working closely with Number 10, the Department for Business Innovation and Skills and the Skills Funding Agency to ensure that the Government’s pledge for 3 million apprenticeship starts in this Parliament is met,” added Mr Zahawi.

“This is an exciting time for apprenticeships in the UK as the Government reforms the qualifications and introduces degree level and higher level apprenticeships, ahead of an expected increase in demand as the Apprenticeship Levy on large businesses is introduced in 2017.”

Main image: Mr Zahawi speaks to an apprentice during a visit to his local Stratford-upon-Avon College this year

The prestigious Festival of Education has unveiled The Telegraph as its new UK media partner and announced a leading role for FE Week publishers Lsect.

The news broke on Thursday (November 5) that The Telegraph had signed a two-year contract to replace The Sunday Times in a deal that will see the event renamed The Telegraph Festival of Education.

Lsect, which also publishes FE Week, will play a leading role in the curation and management of the two-day Berkshire festival, which opens on June 23, as majority shareholders of festival organisers Summerhouse Events — a new partnership between Lsect and Summerhouse Media.

Managing director of Lsect and Summerhouse Events Shane Mann (pictured right) said: “The directors of Lsect and Summerhouse Media met this summer to look at how our organisations could bring together their wealth of expertise in event management and education.

“The result of this, I am delighted to say, is that we will be playing a leading role in the Festival of Education over the coming years. It truly is a fantastic event.

“And in the coming weeks we will also be announcing plans for a new national event for staff working across the FE and skills sector.”

Louise Hunter, managing director of Summerhouse Media and director of the Festival of Education, said: “The options are endless for education, and we’re really excited to have created Summerhouse Events with Lsect.

“We believe the festival is the very best value continuing professional development [CPD] people can get. The diversity of speakers is unparalleled.”

Julian Thomas, Master of host site and festival founder Wellington College, told The Telegraph there were big plans to make the festival “even more interesting, relevant and exciting”.

“The festival is, in my experience, the very best example of the independent and state sectors coming together to learn from each other and from the finest minds in education,” he said.

Skills Minister Nick Boles has ruled out a blanket ban on new university technical colleges (UTCs) where post-16 education area reviews are taking place.

Shadow Skills Minister Gordon Marsden grilled Mr Boles in a series of written parliamentary questions on the details of the area reviews, including whether any UTCs or post 16 school would be allowed to open.

And Mr Boles answered: “All applications to open a free school, academy, school sixth form or university technical college will be assessed on a case by case basis against the published criteria and taking account of local needs and circumstances.”

The government has said the post-16 area reviews were “designed to achieve a transition towards fewer, larger, more resilient and efficient providers, and more effective collaboration across institution types.”

And James Kewin, deputy chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges’ Association, condemned the decision against a blanket ban.

He said: “The government’s position is now as clear as it is absurd — it is simultaneously committed to reducing the number of sixth form colleges while increasing the number of less effective and efficient 16-19 providers.

“It is clear manifesto commitments on school expansion and increasing the number of free schools and UTCs will be met even if this results in a worse deal for young people at a higher cost to the public purse.”

Mr Kewin added: “The Government is quite prepared to hit the target but miss the point.

And while the area reviews are busy creating ‘fewer, larger providers’, more smaller providers will be opening at exactly the same time — this does not look like joined up policy making.”

It has also come as a blow to the Association of Colleges, which has called for a freeze on new provision during reviews, with chief executive Martin Doel saying that it would be “unreasonable and illogical for the government to allow more new sixth forms and other post-16 education to be created during the course of reviews”.

And in response to refusal of a blanket ban, Mr Doel said: “We expect the area reviews will take into account the sustainability or otherwise of all post-16 school provision and while the reviews are ongoing, government should refrain from opening any new post-16 provision.”

Mr Marsden’s questions to Mr Boles on the area reviews also queried whether any assessment had been made of the possible savings from the post-16 area-based reviews.

Mr Boles conceded that early evidence indicates there is “potential for the reviews to secure efficiency savings”.

Area reviews have so far been announced for 83 general FE colleges and sixth form colleges in the West Yorkshire, Tees Valley, Sussex Coast, Solent, Birmingham and Solihull, Greater Manchester, and Sheffield city areas.

More reviews are expected to be announced shortly.

Government representatives today dismissed the suggestion of targets for different apprenticeship levels in the race for 3m new starts by 2020.

Lord O’Neill of Gatley, commercial secretary to the Treasury (pictured above), and Small Business, Industry and Enterprise Minister Anna Soubry were challenged by the House of Commons Business, Innovation and Skills Select Committee.

The duo were quizzed on how their work would ensure that apprenticeship starts counting towards the target were of high quality – but both said focusing on the levels was not necessary.

Committee member Peter Kyle (pictured right) appeared to equate apprenticeship levels with the issue of programme quality when he challenged the duo as to why government had not set a target for higher level apprenticeships — at level four and above.

“All evidence presented to this committee in this inquiry has been that the emphasis should be on quality not quantity — the only target you have is for quantity not quality,” he said today in the third evidence session of the committee’s inquiry into the government’s Productivity Plan.

Ms Soubry (pictured left) responded by saying apprenticeships would be “quality-assured by virtue of the Enterprise Bill”, which includes a measure to prevent providers — but not employers — from labelling courses as apprenticeship if they do not meet the statutory programme’s rules, but added: “I don’t know your levels; I don’t know the detail of that.”

Lord O’Neill said: “I don’t see, at this particular point, identifying numbers between various levels of apprenticeship as that crucial to this particular policy — where we’re trying to change the game of who drives and contributes to the skills agenda.”

The clash came just a fortnight after Business Secretary Sajid Javid, in front of the same committee in a different one-off hearing inquiry on the work of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, ruled out a degree apprenticeships target — warning it would be “too complex” and could “lead to the wrong kind of behaviour”.

It also comes with Pippa Morgan, head of education and skills policy at the Confederation of British Industry, having argued in an FE Week expert piece that “there is a distinction to be made between the level of an apprenticeship and the quality of that apprenticeship”.

Nevertheless, committee chair Iain Wright described the Productivity Plan overall as very wide-ranging, to the point of being “vague” on details such as measuring success in the different areas it covers and determining whether productivity is actually improving.

The launch of the inquiry into the government’s Productivity Plan, which sets out plans for the apprenticeship levy, per-learner funding for adult learning, new institutes of technology to replace some FE colleges and further devolution, was reported in FE Week on July 21.

The results of the first Ofsted short inspection of a good provider were positive for the Cheshire college visited — but fears have emerged that it was “more of a case of how much you can cram in within two days”.

The 4,100-learner Riverside College, in Widnes, was the first FE provider to experience the two-day visit under Ofsted’s new common inspection framework (Cif), which was introduced from September.

The college was inspected from September 23 having previously been visited by Ofsted nearly six years ago when it secured a good rating — putting it on Ofsted’s radar for a short inspection.

The new report said the college “continues to be good,” but assistant principal and Ofsted nominee Alan Brown (pictured right) said: “The key difference is how the new inspections operate and it is now more of a case of how much you can cram in within two days”.

The latest report paints a similar picture to the previous one, but this time it is only five pages long, as opposed to 27 last time, and comes in the form of a letter to the principal,with contents comparable to monitoring reports.

The new Ofsted Cif has specified that all providers with a good Ofsted rating will have shorter inspections more frequently — rather than the traditional five-day full scale inspections.

And Mr Brown said his college inspection was “very firmly focused on the lines of inquiry to see how the previous issues have improved”.

“So the main issue was that the inspectors didn’t move away from the lines of enquiry and couldn’t veer away because of the time frame restraints,” he said.

He also said that for other colleges undergoing a short inspection it was “important to know the inspection framework as Ofsted is currently using the handbook as a clutch”.

Principal Mary Murphy (pictured left) said: “You have to be prepared for when you are getting these short inspections because they are carried out in such a short space of time and you are informed just 48 hours before they take place.

“However, I do prefer them and so do the staff here as [Ofsted] coming in with such short notice gives us less time to anticipate the inspections and not build the college up with as much worry.”

Mrs Murphy also said that the less time you are given, the “more chance the inspector can see you as you really are”.

An Ofsted spokesperson said it was too early to comment on any lessons about short inspections.

A rename for the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (Niace) following its merger with the Centre for Social Inclusion (Inclusion) has been approved by members.

Niace held its annual general meeting this afternoon at City Lit, in London, with the new Learning and Work Institute name the key item on the agenda.

Members voted to approve plans, exclusively revealed by Niace chief executive David Hughes to FE Week on October 21, to rename.

Mr Hughes (pictured right) said: “We had a big majority in favour of the new name, with only two members and one organisation [whom he declined to identify] voting against it.”

He added that there was debate among members over why the word ‘adult’ had been dropped from the new name.

“There were some people saying ‘if we drop the word, let’s make sure that we don’t lose our commitment to learning for older people’ and we were able to assure them that we are still committed to lifelong learning,” said Mr Hughes.

“It’s important to us to ensure that our society allows for good quality learning and development right through from apprenticeships for younger people to old age.”

The Niace board is set to give final legal approval for the merger on December 10, before it comes into effect on January 1.

Mr Hughes said: “Waiting until the new year will give us a little bit of time to tie up all the loose ends and come up with things like the new logo.

“The plan is for the new website to go live on January 2.”

It was confirmed in July, as reported in FE Week, that Niace, based in Leicester which employed 65 people at the time, and Inclusion, based in London which employed 20 people, would be progressing from their previous “strategic alliance” to a full merger.

Mr Hughes told FE Week after the AGM that “there is no plan for job losses”, or to close offices in Leicester, Cardiff, and London following the merger.

However, he added that “the determining factor” for future decision over jobs would be the results of the government spending review due to report later this month.

“We get a lot of commissioned work from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Department for Work and Pensions, and other government agencies, so will have to see if cutbacks lead to a big loss of income for us,” he said.

Maggie Galliers (pictured above left), chair of Niace’s company board, said: “Throughout the summer, we listened carefully to our stakeholders, members, partners, funders and staff and the changes today reflect the hundreds of conversations we’ve had.

“Our members are committed to ensuring the new Learning and Work Institute will follow in the traditions of its parent organisations and as a wider-reaching, stronger entity find even more ways to make learning and work count and improve the lives of millions.”

Dave Simmonds (pictured right), Inclusion chief executive, said: “We welcome the decision of the Niace membership to back the merger and the new name of Learning and Work Institute.

“We’re looking forward to 2016 and forging a new organisation firmly based on improving life opportunities for all.”

Members at the AGM also approved a new impact report of the work in 2014/15 of Niace.

It reported, for example, on how Niace had helped the government improve referral rates on to traineeships by Jobcentre Plus staff and trained 16 to 24-year-olds as researchers for a project geared at finding out what employers want from training.

Visit www.niace.org.uk/sites/default/files/resources/4.%20NIACE_Impact%20Report%202014-15.pdf to download a copy.