I’m sure you would agree that change is happening in the vocational education sector – and in the world of skills and work generally – at an unprecedented pace.
As Senior Product Director for Vocational Qualifications here at Pearson, I was actively engaged in designing our new BTEC 2025 (AAQ) qualifications. Our insight and data on the future of skills tells us that if we are to give learners the best chance of finding their brightest and best future, we must think differently about how we evolve and update vocational qualifications to reflect the changing landscape.
BTEC qualifications have existed for over 40 years and over that time we have worked with educators, HEIs and professional bodies to evolve the qualifications to ensure they remain current and future-facing. I know our college and school partners have always taken incredibly seriously their responsibility to ensure learners are equipped with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes they need to thrive in an ever-changing world.
Transferable skills: All together now
According to our Pearson Skills Outlook 2022 research, while technical skills remain highly valued, the top five most sought-after skills by employers are all human skills. These include communication, collaboration, attention to detail, leadership, and customer service.
Transferable skills are essential for a changing workforce and bring about personal and social benefits for individuals and society. However, there is a gap between the skills that employers seek and the skills that graduates possess. This highlights the need for an approach to developing transferable skills that goes beyond just aligning skills to the curriculum.
In response to this insight, we have identified transferable skills as one of the three critical skill areas and have integrated them into all our new BTEC qualifications.
Digital Skills: For the connected world
In addition to transferable skills, digital skills are essential for effectively operating in an increasingly digital and technology driven planet. However, the digital skills gap is widening, with over 80% of all jobs advertised in the UK now requiring skills that over half of the UK’s workforce lacks *Lloyds Bank UK Consumer Digital Index 2020
To address this gap, we have integrated digital skills into our new BTEC National qualifications.
Sustainability: Learning that supports our planet
Despite the growing importance of sustainability education, only a small percentage of FE students are enrolled in qualifications with significant sustainability content.
At Pearson, we are responding by incorporating sustainability education throughout all our new BTEC National qualifications. We have used the UNESCO Sustainable Development Goals as a frame of reference and worked closely with sector experts on this.
Putting skills front and center
Our Pearson Skills Outlook 2022 research has given us the opportunity to embed these all important human skills into our most recent qualification developments. The current Level 3 reforms have meant that we have embedded these in our new BTEC 2025 (AAQ) qualifications should any changes be made.
By focusing their curriculums on transferable skills, digital skills, and sustainability, colleges and schools can be confident that learners will have the knowledge, skills and behaviours to thrive in the rapidly changing world we are all navigating. My sincere hope is that, using the very latest insight and research, together we can deliver future–proofed vocational qualifications that properly prepare learners – helping them to flourish no matter how fast the world changes.
Further education leaders have expressed their “alarm” at the lack of detail on education funding in the main party political manifestos.
Closing the end of ‘manifestos’ week, leaders of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, adult education body Holex and the Association of Colleges told FE Week editor Shane Chowen what they thought about the pledges and promises, as well as what was missing.
See below for a recording of the discussion from this morning’s free webinar sponsored by NCFE.
The leaders unpicked Labour’s plans to transform the apprenticeship levy and analysed what would make Labour’s proposed new skills body, Skills England, a success.
The Conservatives’ planned apprenticeships boost was broadly welcomed, but there was consensus on the need for the party to do more to improve access for young people.
A former skills adviser to the prime minister and author of a major FE review has been made a dame in the King’s birthday honours, as has a former UCAS chief executive.
Baroness Alison Wolf, author of the 2011 review of vocational report, and Clare Marchant, who left the University and College Admissions Service last year, are among more than 20 people recognised with links to further education and skills.
Other well-known figures honoured include former Department for Education apprenticeships director Peter Mucklow, college turnaround specialist Martin Sim, and the current UCAS boss Jo Saxton until last year led exams regulator Ofqual. They each received a CBE.
Alison Wolf
The honours list, published today, awarded FE and skills individuals with two damehoods, five CBEs, three OBEs, nine MBEs and four British Empire Medals.
Wolf was a key figure in the Number 10 policy unit during the pandemic, where she advised the prime minister on skills and workforce until last year. She was also a panel member of the Augar review of post-18 education and funding and the Sainsbury review which led to the creation of T Levels.
She previously led the Wolf review in 2011, which led to major 14 to 19 reforms in vocational education.
Dame Alison told FE Week she was “deeply honoured” by the recognition and is now supporting the rollout of the lifelong learning entitlement.
“I’m deeply honoured by this recognition of my work on skills, which also, of course, involved a very large number of wonderful and dedicated colleagues. The LLE, in particular, could transform the relationship between further and higher education, and the opportunities open to adults. I very much hope that the cross-party support it enjoyed will mean it fulfils its potential in the years ahead.”
Saxton said: “I will continue championing parity and opportunity for students as UCAS’ chief executive. I am also absolutely delighted to see my predecessor, the inspirational Clare Marchant, honoured today.”
Martin Sim is currently leading Bath College after several troubleshooting jobs at West Nottinghamshire College, Barnfield College, Gateway College, Nottingham College and most recently City College Southampton.
After hearing of his CBE, Sim said: “I am deeply honoured and humbled to receive this prestigious award. I am fortunate and privileged to be a part this fantastic further education sector. I am eternally grateful to the many talented individuals who have supported and guided me along the way.”
Mucklow, who left the civil service last year after 25 years in education and skills, said of his CBE: “I am surprised and of course very pleased to have been recognised in this way. I want to pay tribute to everyone who has worked to build the quality and sustainability of apprenticeships and FE over the last decade – you are the heroes of the skills system.”
Arinola Edeh
Meanwhile, Westminster Adult Education Service principal and head of service Arinola Edeh was also awarded a CBE for her services to adult community education and London.
“I am truly humbled and share this honour with all my colleagues and all our inspirational learners,” she said.
Sue Pember, chief executive of Holex, said Edeh was an early adopter of the Multiply programme and championed skills for life courses and skills bootcamps.
“We are delighted that Arinola has been awarded a CBE for her exceptional contributions to adult learning. Arinola has positively impacted thousands of students and staff through her 30-year career in the public sector, with a focus on adult education.”
Also receiving a CBE was Bridgwater and Taunton College principal Andrew Berry.
Individuals in the apprenticeships sector were also recognised in the King’s birthday honours list.
Amy Marren, a solicitor apprentice from BPP Holdings, was awarded an MBE for services to further education and apprenticeships while Thomas Culley, co-vice chair of the Apprenticeship Ambassador Network accepted a medal of the British Empire (BEM) for services to apprenticeships and skills.
Carole Thorogood, who has been Nottingham College chair since 2017, was recognised with a BEM for her services in FE over the last 18 years.
“I’m truly thrilled to have been included in this year’s the King’s birthday honours list and I draw a huge sense of pride knowing that I have played my part in a much larger ensemble cast, throughout the last 18 years, who have led the charge for further education in this city,” said Thorogood. “I’ve loved every minute of it.”
Alan Twiddy, a technician team leader who has worked at City College Norwich for 36 years, also received a BEM.
He said: “The news that I will be getting this honour came out of the blue, it was quite a surprise. I’ve just been doing my job to the best of my ability, supported by a great team of technicians. It really is a team effort. I’m not one for fame and glory, but it is appreciated.”
On the one hand, we are preparing learners for a rapidly changing workplace where automation, artificial intelligence and technological advances are reshaping the very fabric of employment where machine-to-human relationships may become as important as human-to-human ones.
On the other, we are fostering a lifelong love of learning, widening horizons and guiding students to recognise what they need to live a flourishing and purposeful life.
In this brave new world, the ability to adapt, to pivot and to stay curious, resilient and determined while retaining our sense of humanity are not just advantageous – they are imperative. And that means character education is more important than ever.
Character education has its roots in Aristotelian ethics and philosophy. In practice, it is a much more down-to-earth set of practices than this origin suggests. We recognise it in FE as the host of things we do to develop our learners into young adults who have the wisdom to make good choices and to live good lives.
What we are doing when we focus on these ‘power skills’ or ‘employability skills’ is providing deliberate opportunity for learners to develop positive character traits that they can then use in all aspects of their life.
Every time we get our learners to work as part of a team, we provide an opportunity for them to develop empathy, reflection and confidence. Every time they have a go at something new, we develop their courage and resilience. And every time they volunteer or take part in community events, we foster their civic virtues.
Foregrounding this type of work into a more formal character education curriculum enables us to be more deliberate. Done well, it offers us a roadmap to more effectively meet their needs.
It nurtures a growth mindset – instrumental for learners’ wellbeing
The Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues has created a framework for developing character that means we don’t have to leave it to chance. It offers a clear, evidence-based and deliberate pedagogy that follows a three-step approach.
Character caught
Character can be caught through the college culture: by seeing good character role-modelled by all members of the community, through positive relationships between lecturers and learners and through the implicit ways we show them we care about their futures.
Character taught
This part of the approach requires subtle shifts to the tutorials and subject curriculum courses, but it is something that can easily be implemented with deliberate design.
Once learners have a vocabulary to talk about their own character development and understand how to practise traits such as critical thinking, optimism, resilience and compassion, it’s easier for them to reflect on which character trait might help them be their best selves in any given situation.
Character sought
This means providing opportunities for students to develop their character through leadership roles, volunteering opportunities or learning experiences that challenge them. A rich extra-curricular programme, trips and charity weeks all contribute to this.
Character education enables learners to develop the skills and attitudes they need for the changing world they face – to adapt to it and to shape it to their priorities. It nurtures a growth mindset through which they are more likely to view challenges as opportunities, which is instrumental for their wellbeing.
It also prioritises the development of critical thinking skills, enabling students to analyse complex problems, evaluate information rigorously and make well-informed decisions. In an era marked by online misinformation, disinformation and harms, this ability to think critically is essential.
Finally it can foster creativity and innovation by encouraging students to cultivate curiosity, imagination and perseverance. These traits empower students to generate novel solutions and contribute fresh perspectives to their professional and personal endeavours. In a competitive and innovation-driven economy, this is paramount for driving progress and maintaining a competitive edge.
The world of business has always been clear that whilst academic achievements can help get young people through the door, it is their strength of character that will often get them the job.
So let’s teach it, deliberately and explicitly, so our learners flourish in the workplace and in their wider lives.
That Ofsted reports repeatedly mention the importance of the careers curriculum (and not just labour market information but as an integral measure of personal development) is music to my ears. However, demand for more sophisticated careers guidance without the resources to deliver can only be detrimental to the sector.
Students and apprentices want great careers advice that clarifies their progression and employment opportunities. But they also want to focus on completing their course of study successfully.
Colleges and training providers want their students and apprentices to be informed self-advocates. But there is also a focus on the successful completion of the provision they deliver.
Employers want employees who are engaged, resilient and adaptable. But they also want to retain talent and reduce turnover.
These are not contradictory priorities. They complement each other beautifully. All you have to do is start from the learner’s perspective.
A learner who is using their skills, appreciating their studies and operating in a fulfilling environment is more likely to stay the course and succeed. An employee whose skills are engaged, passions stimulated, and feels they are making a difference is more likely to reward their employer with loyalty.
Requires improvement
Aged 23, I walked into the Oxford careers office with a degree in politics and law and a toddler at my heels. ‘We don’t do women returners,’ was all the support I got.
A decade or so later, my daughter suggested she’d like to work with animals in her career questionnaire. Taxidermy came back as a recommendation. So yes, things have moved on. But they still require improvement,
A decade ago, I was seconded to the coalition government to help develop an all-age national careers service. The coalition crumbled, as did the idea. I’m pleased to see it being resurrected and I hope it can finally come to fruition.
I now work as career coach, and I am still astounded by how many people simply do not know where to turn for good careers advice. We spend an average of 80,000 hours at work, yet many of us spend more time planning our holidays than we do our career.
When we do, we are too often presented with an overwhelming array of choices and little guidance about the personal tools available to successfully navigate these choices.
There is a great need for good labour market information and details of progression routes. But I believe the greater need is the framework to help individuals make the right decisions for themselves.
Key questions
To address this means focussing on five aspects of the individual:
What does success mean to them?
What skills do they bring to their career?
What passions drive them?
What impact do they want to make?
What kind of environment brings out the best in them?
By working through these questions and prioritising their importance, learners can begin to devise their own unique career statement. This will serve as a reliable guide when they are assessing their options.
More than that, they can work out what is within their sphere of influence and how to get where they want to be. It provides material for meaningful reviews with line managers, talent coaches, tutors and learning managers. When everyone understands what you want, they’re much more likely to land on the right opportunity for you.
The main party manifestos mention careers variously and rather unimaginatively. The headlines are about skills-matching rather than the whole individual. There is still an emphasis on schools, colleges and young people, while adults and training providers appear to still be a mystery to politicians.
My challenge to the next government is to put more resources into personal development and careers guidance. If it really is important enough for Ofsted to judge, it should become a central component of funded provision.
I look forward to the day when I close down my business because career provision is so excellent that seeking private and individual support is redundant.
Until then, 23-year-old me will keep fighting for better.
For me, education is deeply personal. Going to college was my pathway to a career and a means to look after my family. It’s also where I learned I could help change the system.
Joining my Students’ Union empowered me to stand up for the things I believed in and gave me the confidence to put myself forward for, and get elected first as NUS’ Vice President for Further Education, and then as National President.
During this time, I met activists, enthusiasts, policy makers and protestors, as well as regular students who just wanted to make their bit of education a little better. It made me realise that if we want to see and effect real change, we need to ignite passion in others.
Now, this is not just my goal but my role, and heading into a general election is the perfect time to spark this interest and excitement.
As well as raising awareness of how the electoral process works, we want to give our learners confidence that their opinions and hopes for the future really count.
But how do you capture their interest in politics and make it relevant to them? And how do you do this while staying politically neutral? We can’t (and wouldn’t) tell our students who to vote for, but we must give them access to the right information so they can make their own, well-informed choices.
Here are some of things we are doing to encourage our students to have a say in issues that will be directly affecting them:
Politics starts at home
Students’ Union elections are a great way to get learners involved in political decision-making at a local level. Electing a student president is underpinned by the same democratic philosophy as a general election, helping students better understand the process.
Our SU elections also (coincidentally) take place in July, so we hope that the national political ‘excitement’ will drive engagement in our elections and vice versa.
Mythbusting the process
This will be the first election many of our students vote in. The earlier we can prepare them for what’s involved and needed, the better.
Photo ID is now a legal requirement for every voter, so we have organised a series of pop-up events to help students register for citizenship cards. This is a form of valid ID – meaning no one will be prevented from having their say if they don’t happen to have a passport or driving licence.
Breaking down myths around voting and talking through the benefits of having your say is also crucial. We are delivering a series of presentations over the next few weeks to help students feel more familiar with the system.
Tackling mis- and disinformation
Impartiality is key and must be at the heart of any election-focused college activity. However, students need to know where they can access trustworthy information about the commitments each MP and/or political party is making.
We help encourage critical thinking by signposting students to accurate information about issues that matter to them and making them aware of fake news. Explaining how some of these policies would work in practice is crucial to informed decision-making.
Reading and understanding manifestos is key to all elections. We want to encourage students to ask questions like: ‘What is important to this candidate?’, ‘How do their views align with mine?’ and ‘What changes would we see?’.
Hosting hustings
Giving students direct access to candidates is a great way of making the whole process more relevant and real. We have organised hustings at each of our campuses where students will put their questions directly to candidates.
Inviting representatives from every political party ensures the event remains neutral. It is also a great opportunity to develop stakeholder relations.
This generation of young people has the power to influence and effect change at a time when they are facing so many challenges, from inflation to a climate change.
We have a huge role to play in empowering our students to speak up and unleash their passion and a perfect opportunity to do it, so let’s help them find their voices, just like I found mine.
With general election fever in full flow and the rebuilding of Britain hanging by a thread, we are at a moment of national reckoning. Now more than ever, further education must step into action.
I’ve spent a lifetime in the sector: first as a teacher of English, communication and general studies, then as a curriculum leader, a faculty head and a college director. For the past twenty years, I’ve been contributing as a writer and consultant over a range of publicly funded national programmes.
Most recently I worked as one of two lead associates on a training/mentoring series commissioned and funded by the Department for Education for teachers preparing students for GCSE resits in English.
This programme was set up in the face of anxious cries from many who maintained that forcing so many students into this very precise qualification was counter-productive and a major contributor to student drop-out. There were also, simply, too many failures.
As a consultant, I am always learning. What I learned here (or rather had spectacularly reinforced) was this:
GCSE was devised as a culmination of the school national curriculum, not as the general ‘gold standard’ qualification it now tries to be.
Students who miss achieving GCSE grade 4 or above by the end of school do so for many, diverse and well-documented reasons.
Most students who fail carry with them a profound sense of inadequacy and assiduously avoid the humiliation of further study in that area.
For students who fail, development in English largely plateaus.
To help students gain grade 4 or above at GCSE, we must first enable them to believe they can succeed; second, give them the stepping stones to succeed; third, let them into the secrets of success that have so far eluded them; and finally, embrace them into a world of achievement in which they can be acknowledged and know self-worth.
The tendency for teachers preparing their students for GCSE resits is (understandably) to scramble those few extra marks: play the exam game, prepare model answers and try past papers.
In the case of English, this will also include practising spelling and punctuation, learning to discern your inferred meaning from your hyperbole, and working your way through a nineteenth-century text.
What is the purpose of what we’re doing?
All this seems to be the practical approach. Indeed, students in significant enough numbers do eventually capture that elusive grade 4 and enter the world armed with a currency previously denied them.
The DfE are happy, the government ticks its boxes, the students may or may not exhibit reliable English skills, and the world stumbles on.
However, teachers on my resit training programme had questions: What about the ones who don’t pass the resit? How do we get them to try again and again? How do we persuade them to stay in the exam room and not make a run for it (as many do)? How do we raise their level in so few hours when this didn’t happen in eleven years at school?
A final, ominous question really cuts to the quick because it sends up back to our first principles: what is the purpose of what we’re doing?
FE students are a goldmine. They are or will become our workforce and our citizens. Our duty to them is to empower them, cultivate their self-esteem and help them to take ownership of their own achievable learning agenda.
A just-past-the-post qualification doesn’t do that.
If we want students who are energised, learning and growing their English by the day, then we can’t keep letting qualification targets demotivate or belittle them. We must value all comers and inspire them with purpose.
So, though some may gain GCSE qualifications – or Functional Skills or Skills for Life – others will not. We must place diversity at the heart of our educational system and not impose an over-simplistic idea of what works.
This is the time. This is the moment. FE must take stock. Our country needs us to ensure the next government rethinks the current model – starting from first principles.
Seven years after the apprenticeship levy was introduced to reform the further education and skills landscape, its impact remains a hot conversational topic across the sector.
Maximising the opportunities presented by apprenticeship reform was never going to be a simple task, but what are the main barriers to progress?
Outdated attitudes
One of the broadest challenges for apprenticeships is difficult to influence and overcome: outdated attitudes towards the schemes themselves. Apprenticeships have developed hugely in recent years, and I have witnessed an encouraging shift in the attitudes of students when discussing their options.
However, it’s parents and guardians who may hold the key to unlocking a better understanding of the opportunities apprenticeships can provide. These stakeholders play a vital role in the decisions young people make about life after mainstream education.
A good proportion of Markerstudy’s applicants come via recommendations from friends and family who already work in the organisation. They’ve seen first-hand the commitment to and investment in our apprenticeships.
Inviting parents and guardians to our apprenticeship evenings has been an eye-opening and positive experience. It’s vital that our sector continues to find ways to change mindsets, demonstrating that apprenticeships are both a valid and valuable route into employment.
Schools weak
Unfortunately, it can be challenging to engage with schools in a meaningful and productive way. I’ve spent many hours supporting schools with their careers advice and suffered my fair share of frustrations with what appears to be a lack of strategic thought when it comes to engaging with further education providers.
In my experience, it isn’t particularly difficult getting in front of students in schools. Whether they are the right students at the right time is a very different story.
Yet there have always been and will always be a proportion who show no particular interest in university. Providing them with specific and relevant information and guidance early on works really well, but opportunities to do so are far too inconsistent.
In any case, showcasing apprenticeships can’t be confined to National Apprenticeship Week. There’s a lot more that can be done to help employers engage with the right student demographics at the right time throughout the year.
Tick-box events
But businesses don’t have the resources to support what can too often be tick-box-exercise careers events. That time would be far better spent collaborating with government, local councils and schools to help shape a more relevant careers advice strategy.
I’ve seen the very best and worst of this across the country, and it’s time we identified and shared best practice in a meaningful way. Take the Apprenticeship Ambassador Network (AAN), for example. My work with the AAN has forged relationships with like-minded staff members in schools and local authorities which, in turn, has helped to develop a more joined-up approach to advocating apprenticeships.
In addition, the AAN online hub is helping me and many others connect the dots between employers, students, parents and teachers on a broader scale. Among other things, it displays a list of careers events, often hosted by schools or colleges, that members can attend.
In my experience, these events are of higher quality and offer more value than those arranged on an individual basis.
Mismatched placements
Lastly, the provision of more targeted work experience programmes has obvious benefits for students and employers too. But before accepting any work experience placements, it is vital that all parties involved know exactly what their intended outcomes are.
This makes the matching process far more targeted at supporting students on an individual basis, and ensures their work experience is as relevant and valuable as possible.
In all of these ways and more, communication channels between employers, schools, parents and students are vital to improving the take-up of apprenticeships and changing any misconceptions about the opportunities they provide.
They should be easily accessible to businesses of all sizes with an interest in supporting apprenticeships, no matter where they’re based, and provide a more consistent platform to shine the spotlight on apprenticeships across the country.
Liz Bromley is feeling a little fragile today. She is heading home from NCG’s offices at Newcastle College by train instead of driving, because a “mad burst of floaters” in her eye, which she at first put down to stress, turned out to be a torn retina. Her eye is now filled with oil to hold the retina in place until doctors can operate.
Despite her affliction, she’s warm and open and exudes steely confidence. Bromley’s strength comes from her having grabbed every opportunity life offered her.
Her experience of both sectors has shown her that, “FE lacks the confidence that HE has. She says: “It says a lot [that] vice chancellors are in and out of education department ministers’ offices and not [college] chief execs and principals.”
Liz Bromley, chief executive, NCG
Eyeing opportunities
A torn retina hasn’t distorted her crystal clear vision for NCG.
It’s seven colleges – Carlisle, Kidderminster, Lewisham, Southwark, West Lancashire, Newcastle and Newcastle Sixth Form – are now on a “stronger financial footing” after NCG settled a four-year clawback dispute with the Education and Skills Funding Agency.
The “amicable resolution” enables NCG to repay cash over a number of years, so it won’t impact on the student experience.
Bromley says she is “hugely relieved” it’s over.
She is also eyeing the opportunities of devolution through the newly formed North East Combined Authority. Bromley says newly elected mayor Kim McGuiness is “really interested in what we do”.
The NCG head is pushing for a “far more joined-up education offer across the region”, so colleges “divide the curriculum between ourselves and have centres of excellence… rather than being in competition”.
Liz Bromley as a child
The big escape
Bromley had a “mixed childhood” on a farm in Cheshire. She said going away to study English at the University of Oxford’s Worcester College was her “big escape”.
Although Bromley was the first in her family to go to university, her mother only allowed to go if it was Oxford or Cambridge.
She got a conditional offer of two Bs, and credits Worcester College with being “sympathetic to my position”. “When people talk about Oxbridge not widening access, my experience is they really did in those days.”
After her escape, Bromley did not return to Cheshire for “many, many years”.
She married an accountant at 23, and had four children “really quite quickly”. She admits it was “far too quickly, probably”.
Her three daughters are now aged 38, 36, and 34 and her son is 31.
As well as spending six months in Abu Dhabi – then “a couple of hotels and roads that stopped in sand” – and in Oman, until their first daughter was two, the couple lived to Bahrain. This was before the island’s causeway opened to Saudis, and Bromley recalls it as a “really small, friendly island” with “very good expat and local integration”.
She worked there as an administrator for Japan Airlines, keeping their Middle East head office together as a “pidgin English translator [between] 11 Japanese, and six Arabic chaps for whom English was very much a second language”.
Liz Bromley in her younger years
Back in Blighty
Bromley returned with four children under seven and focused the next few years on raising them, while volunteering as a magistrate. The family settled in Aspley Guise, near Milton Keynes, where she got her first education role as an examinations officer for the Open University in 1997.
Four years later, an inquiry into the torture and murder of Victoria Climbié made recommendations to prevent such abuse going undetected by social workers again. The tightening of standards meant a move from the social work diploma to a new degree, and Bromley was tasked with leading its development.
Through the ’90s to the mid-2000s, Bromley saw the OU as “hugely influential”. It was “the university of the second chance” because much of the population was still not degree-educated.
Bromley took “all the CPD” she could and quickly rose to associate dean, then the first non-academic associate dean responsible for quality and students. She ran the OU’s 13 regional offices, which was “fabulous” as it meant “going about the country and seeing the OU in action”.
She learned to “seize every opportunity, never say no, and give people around you the opportunities to grow”.
“There’s no fun in being successful on your own… you have to watch others be successful. That all came from the ethos of openness at the OU and the inspiring people I worked with.”
University culture shift
Bromley became director of student life at the University of Salford in 2007 when students were starting to pay tuition fees. She said, “Suddenly, the focus was away from it being a privilege for students to get offered a place, into a business model to take students as paying customers. It was a massive cultural step.”
She was given a blank sheet to set up a new sector-leading student services department, with a mandate to “make people come visit us”.
At first, the students’ union eyed Bromley’s new department as competition. But Bromley proposed they go under one roof as an integrated service.
The two departments also began “cross-referring”, with students in financial trouble directed to Bromley’s and those with academic challenges signposted to the union.
“We talked about collaboration in the days when it just wasn’t fashionable. That was innovation in practice.”
Liz Bromley
Rebranding Goldsmiths
In 2012, Bromley became chief operating officer, registrar and secretary at the prestigious Goldsmiths, University of London. It had, until then, been massively research intensive and “wasn’t too troubled by its students until it had to be”. Bromley was tasked with remodelling how professional services supported its academic endeavour.
She says Goldsmiths had previously “always operated on a very financially challenged model. “It never viewed students as the way to solve that”.
Bromley saw the fact its senior professors who did research were actually teaching first years as a “wonderful marketing tool”. Goldsmiths had not until then thought it relevant.
During Bromley’s four years there, its student recruitment increased by several thousand students, putting Goldsmiths onto a financially stable footing.
A career low-point
Bromley’s next role as deputy vice chancellor at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) was “far less satisfying”.
UCLan had only been granted university status in 1992, and its “not particularly collaborative” working culture was very different from what Bromley was used to.
This was Bromley’s lowest career moment, and she was “very happy” to move on after three years.
She describes UCLan as having been a “very local university that drew a lot of local students in on a lot of courses that they probably wouldn’t use, because they were always going to stay in the community. They were overqualified to do the things they could do”.
UCLan was also a “very successful international student recruiter”, which meant the “money came piling in” but those students returned home after their degrees.
“That wasn’t the domestic inward investment that the university could have done with, to improve Preston,” Bromley explained.
Liz Bromley
Mickey Mouse degrees
Bromley believes that while some universities created since 1992, such as Nottingham Trent, Coventry and Derby, are “cracking”, there are “an awful lot who jumped on the bandwagon and are now taking a great deal of money from young people, probably unjustifiably”.
While Bromley would not go as far as to endorse the prime minister’s proposal to close ‘Mickey Mouse degrees’, she believes current student debt levels mean that “not everybody should assume a traditional university degree is the only way to become socially mobile”.
Turbulent times
When Bromley took over as NCG’s chief in 2019, she was “shocked that people weren’t more confident of what FE did”.
She started during turbulent times. Former permanent chief, Joe Docherty, had resigned with immediate effect the previous year after the group was downgraded to grade three by Ofsted amid poor achievement rates.
A free school NCG sponsored had been forced to close after being judged ‘inadequate’, and the group’s two private training providers, Rathbone Training and Intraining, were also closed, with a loss of 300 jobs.
Bromley sees it as “very lucky” that she had an education background, while Docherty had come from the social housing sector.
“I was recruitable at a time they were looking to recruit somebody like me – all the stars aligned.”
But things were not easy. NCG’s London colleges’ staff went on strike, with unions calling on the FE commissioner to de-merge them only two years after joining NCG.
Liz Bromley with Keir Starmer
Being a national college
The de-merger never happened, and Bromley is adamant that being part of a large college group benefits small colleges. She claims the group takes “challenged” colleges, “either financially or in terms of quality”, keeps them safe and boosts them.
Bromley said West Lancashire College, which joined NCG in 2007, is “always on the edge financially because it serves a very small community. But it’s so important that community is served by further education in Skelmersdale. Being part of NCG keeps it financially sustainable”.
Being the only national college group means NCG picks up policy and practice from all over the country.
She said they see “rural poverty” in Carlisle, “inner city challenges” in Lewisham and “being part of the creative industries” in Southwark, which gives them “a lot of understanding about the impact of education on different communities”.
That breadth of experience means Bromley has been invited into “a number of conversations coming out of DfE”. She has also engaged with Keir Starmer, who she impressed on to “never look over your shoulder at colleges”.
Liz Bromley
Reduce to produce
NCG is the biggest college group by turnover, but its apprenticeship numbers have dropped 23 per cent, from 2,504 in 2021-22 to 1,929 this year, as part of a deliberate move to “focus on quality”.
Its ‘reduce to produce’ programme means larger cohort groups, with less spread of subjects and standards and more quality and compliance measures.
Bromley claims NCG has halved the number of apprentices failing to make end-point assessment over the past three years.
Her plan is to build numbers back up again, because “now we’ve got a model that really works, so we can sell that to bigger employers who will provide a good student experience”.
Bromley’s proudest career moment came last year when NCG became the first and only college-based provider bestowed with taught degree-awarding powers on an indefinite basis. More than 10,000 students have graduated from its university centre over the past decade.
However, it wasn’t easy. Bromley described the award as “hard won” and “the devil’s job to get”.
But the hard work was worth it. “It put us on the same footing as a traditional university… with a really recognised qualification of our own,” she added.
The experience brought Bromley full circle, connecting her HE experience with her FE position.
Bromley reflects that she found FE similar to the Open University world she left almost two decades ago.
“It’s about life-changing opportunities for people who might not have had the best start.
