A “lack of understanding” about salaries has been blamed on careers guidance failings after research released today showed teenagers under-estimated pay in skilled sectors by almost 40 per cent.
The research marked the launch of this year’s Vocational Qualification (VQ) Day awards, which celebrate the achievements of vocational learners and aim to raise awareness of non-academic options.
Image and figures supplied by Edge Foundation
However, the research, conducted by VQ Day organisers the Edge Foundation, revealed many young people did not know how much they could earn in technical or skilled roles.
In 2014, the sector with the highest annual earnings was electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply — but only one-in-six teenagers guessed it was even in the top three. What’s more, they thought average earnings would be around £23,000 — nearly £15,000 below the true median figure of £37,922.
Association of Colleges (AoC) president Richard Atkins said poor careers advice was responsible for young people’s inaccurate expectations.
“It is not surprising there is a lack of understanding around salaries. Careers guidance and advice is currently failing young people in this country,” he said.
“If, as a country, we are going to increase the number of young people opting for professional and technical education and choosing apprenticeships then we must improve careers education in schools.
Mr Atkins’s comments follow the creation of a “careers company” announced by Education Secretary Nicky Morgan last month with the aim of building links between schools and employers.
However, Mr Atkins called for advice to go one step further. “We would like to see the establishment of a careers hub in each local area, supported by schools, colleges, universities, local councils, employers and Jobcentre Plus to ensure that everyone has access to the high-quality impartial advice they deserve,” he said.
The Association for Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) agreed. “This illustrates why England should have an integrated all-age careers service with the Department for Education and Department for Business Innovation and Skills presiding over a single structure built around the services of the National Careers Service which parents and young people can access,” said a spokesperson.
Edge Foundation chief executive Jan Hodges OBE warned it was “essential” that young people were encouraged to take up vocational training.
“With the cost of education at an all-time high, future salaries are more important than ever to the majority of teens,” she said.
“But our research highlights a worrying gap in both theirs and their parents’ understanding around earnings. A skilled workforce is essential to the UK economy and high quality vocational routes need to be encouraged – not just for the personal fulfilment they bring but also the lucrative financial opportunities they offer.”
This year’s VQ Day on June 10 will be the eighth annual celebration of vocational qualifications, and nominations for the awards recognising outstanding vocational learners, employers and teachers open today. Visit www.vqday.org.uk/vq-awards by May 1 to nominate.
Approval of FE sector leadership and management has declined since last year, according to the results of an Education and Training Foundation (ETF) survey released today.
The survey revealed that 44 per cent of the 255 respondents thought the standard of leadership and management in the sector was good or very good, while 22 per cent rated it as bad or very bad.
In the previous survey, conducted in February, more than half (52 per cent) of respondents gave a positive response to leadership and management, while only 7 per cent had a negative response.
The survey report (pictured below right) said: “The difference between the two surveys may be due in part to the higher proportion of teachers and trainers in this year’s sample as there was considerable variation in the response depending on job role — 58 per cent of Principals or Chief Executives responded positively on the standard of “leadership and management” compared to just 28 per cent of Teachers and Trainers.”
Among teachers and trainers, 36 per cent rated leadership and management as bad or very bad as did 24 per cent of middle/functional managers, while 9 per cent of principals and chief executives and 7 per cent of senior managers did.
Almost 60 per cent of respondents thought professional standards within the sector were very good or good.
This is the same as last year’s survey, although this year, the percentage saying very good (10 per cent) was more than double that of the previous survey (4 per cent).
A third of respondents thought sector governance was very good or good although well over half did not know or gave a neutral response — this compares to 38 per cent giving a positive response in the previous survey. Of the 12 governors who responded, all but two gave a positive response.
More people are now aware of the ETF, launched in August 2013, the survey also revealed.
In February last year, 78 per cent of those who responded to the survey knew about the ETF — this went up to 90 per cent this year.
The survey also found three quarters of respondents were are ‘very likely’ or ‘likely’ to use the ETF’s services and 90 per cent of those who have previously engaged with the organisation would do so again, as would 63 per cent of those who have not.
Olivia Dorricott (pictured below), ETF director of leadership, management and governance, said: “It’s great to see that awareness of the ETF’s role and remit has risen significantly since we carried out our initial perception survey in the spring.
“Overall, the Perceptions Survey provides a positive and encouraging picture of our first year. Those of you who have engaged with us report consistently high satisfaction rates, often well in excess of 70 per cent.”
Eight out of ten respondents were ‘very aware’ or ‘quite aware’ of the ETF’s role and remit, compared to 63 per cent in February.
However, the survey also revealed low levels of awareness of the some of the ETF’s programmes, including governance and clerks support programmes, foundation online learning, the leadership register and FE advice.
Ms Dorricott said: “We clearly need to do more to achieve whole sector awareness of the range of programmes and support we offer, and will be striving to improve our communications reach in order to achieve that.
“Resources such as FE advice, foundation online learning and the leadership register are very popular with users, but the results indicated that awareness of these is still not high enough.
“We will be working hard to promote these more effectively, using all the communications channels at our disposal.”
Following feedback from the last survey, Ms Dorricott added, the ETF has made alterations to its website, such as changing fonts and colours which survey respondents said were hard to read.
Review of non-GCSE English and maths kicks off
The Education and Training Foundation (ETF) is tomorrow launching its review of teaching and accreditation of maths and English for learners unable to reach D grade GCSE.
The review, entitled Making maths and English work for all, is chaired by former Highlands College principal professor Ed Sallis and is expected to close on February 24 with the findings due out the following month.
It will look at how non-GCSE maths and English qualifications are understood by employers, how well they meet their needs, and how they might become validated qualifications with large scale recognition across the population.
It comes as learners who record a D in English and maths at GCSE will, from August, have to retake in pursuit of an improved grade, while those who get an E or below can try alternative qualifications in the hope of getting a C grade equivalent.
Professor Sallis said: “GCSE is a recognised brand among employers and the public. Government policy is to enable as many young people as possible to have the chance to achieve GCSE maths and English, at grade C or above, at 16 or shortly thereafter.
Professor Ed Sallis, OBE
“However for many groups of learners, GCSE retake is not the most appropriate route for acquiring the relevant skills.”
The ETF will not be reviewing GCSEs, rather, their alternatives, including Functional Skills — already the subject of an Ofqual review — and has called on employers, practitioners and learners to contribute to the consultation stage.
The review was announced by Skills Minister Nick Boles at the Association of Colleges (AoC) conference on November 18: “I have asked the ETF… to work with employers, colleges and awarding bodies to understand what kind of English and maths qualifications might give those who are not able to pass GCSEs a certificate of real value — something that is emphatically not a soft option, something practical and relevant but demanding.”
The review will include online surveys with employers, practitioners and stakeholders, in depth telephone interviews, workshops with a range of organisations and learners and webinars.
“With this review we are working to establish what kind of improvements might be needed to make sure non-GCSE English and maths qualifications have labour market respect,” said Professor Sallis.
“This means equipping people with relevant skills, being taught well, being accessible to learners at all starting points, and enabling steps to higher level learning.”
“I encourage anyone with an interest to contribute.”
Ofqual has issued a four-point improvement plan for awarding organisations (AOs) in a bid to make Functional Skills qualifications “more valid and more reliable”.
The qualifications watchdog today published the report on its review, launched last year, of level two English and maths Functional Skills, which concluded that they “need to be improved”.
The report said AOs had already responded “positively” to findings that action needed to be taken to improve the quality of assessment materials and reduce the risk of malpractice and maladministration. The report also said AOs needed to strengthen standard-setting procedures and evaluate better how far qualifications were meeting user needs.
“The majority of improvements will be in place by this summer,” it added. “We are also taking action to make sure standards are more consistent between different awarding organisations.”
Jeremy Benson (pictured), Ofqual executive director for vocational qualifications, said: “We take the quality of Functional Skills qualifications very seriously and have high expectations of the AOs that offer them.
“The changes awarding organisations are making should result in real and visible improvements to Functional Skills assessments — making them more relevant and more reliable.
“We will follow up on these changes and if we find that qualifications don’t meet our requirements, we will take further action.”
The Ofqual review included investigation of the Functional Skills offer in each of the 13 AOs that run the 28 level two English and maths qualifications.
The report, entitled Improving Functional Skills Qualifications, outlines how City & Guilds and Pearson “dominate” on Functional Skills, controlling almost 80 per cent of the market, and highlights how the total number of certificates issued has gone up from nearly 300,000 in 2010/11 to more than 1m in 2013/14.
Kirstie Donnelly MBE, UK managing director at City & Guilds, told FE Week: “We welcome Ofqual’s feedback which enables us to review and improve our qualifications to ensure our learners get the best possible outcomes.
“However, as we have noted in our recent Sense and Instability report we caution against change for change’s sake as learners and employers need stability to have confidence in measures of attainment.
“We have established a demand for the credible and valuable role of Functional Skills, reflected in the delivery figures the report highlights.
“We look forward to the ongoing and important contribution Functional Skills will make to improving the maths and English skills of learners and the overall functional literacy of the UK workforce.”
A spokesperson for Pearson said: “We have been working with Ofqual following their thematic review of Functional Skills, and welcome the opportunity to ensure that these qualifications continue to provide a valuable demonstration of a learner’s skills in literacy, numeracy and ICT.
“We will continue to work with Ofqual to make these changes to our qualifications and will be keeping our customers fully up-to-date as we progress.”
A spokesperson for the Education and Training Foundation, which today launched its review of teaching and accreditation — including Functional Skills — of non-GCSE maths and English for learners unable to reach D grade GCSE, said: “It is very helpful to have this Ofqual review of Functional Skills qualifications.
“It provides additional data for our Making maths and English work for all review [click here to take part]. We are working closely with Ofqual as partners in our review.”
The review marks a turnaround for Functional Skills, which were increasingly being seen as mere “stepping stones” toward GCSEs by some, including former Skills Minister Matthew Hancock. They were even due to be removed as a requirement for apprentices in favour of GCSEs from 2017.
But Skills Minister Nick Boles, describing Functional Skills as “important” as he appeared at an FE Week fringe event at Conservative Party Conference late last year, pledged to work with Ofqual on improving elements of the qualification, including the branding. He said he wanted to make the them “legitimate, valid, respected and admired”.
David Hughes, chief executive of the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (Niace), said: “We welcome the work Ofqual is doing to improve the quality of these important qualifications. It is vital that they are understood and valued by learners and employers, the quality of the qualification itself and the way it is taught are both important parts of that.”
A further Ofqual review of Functional Skills was due in the autumn, it said in the report, following up on changes made by AOs and to check they were meeting regulatory requirements.
“We will not limit this to level two English and maths, but will look across all subjects and levels. Where there is evidence that our requirements are not being met, we will consider formal regulatory action,” it said.
The Association of Colleges (AoC) has issued a plea to the Labour Party not to raid the FE budget to pay for higher education.
An Aoc spokesperson said Labour leader Ed Miliband (pictured above) was expected to announce a policy of cutting maximum university fees for students by a third, from £9,000 to £6,000.
And the BBC’s Robert Peston said yesterday that he had been told by the Labour Party that it was planning to cut the maximum fee higher education providers could charge by a third. Labour did not deny the claim.
But AoC chief executive Martin Doel (pictured below right) warned the FE and skills sector could not “stand by” while funding to pay for the higher education policy was taken from its budget.
“While we welcome Labour’s commitment to ensuring that higher education is accessible for as many people as possible, we must urge caution about how the funding for a reduction in tuition fees will be found,” he said.
“Great care would be needed to ensure there is not a knock-on effect for the rest of the education system.”
University tuition fees were raised from £3,000 a-year to £9,000 in 2010, despite a Liberal Democrat promise to abolish them.
However, in October, Business Secretary Vince Cable revealed he had blocked moves by civil servants to “effectively kill off FE” by taking from the sector’s budget to fund the pledge.
Mr Doel said: “FE for people aged 19 and over has already sustained heavy funding cuts of 22 per cent since 2009-10. We can’t stand by and see this budget raided to sustain higher education in universities alone, just as it was in Scotland.”
He said political parties should not forget that colleges also provide technical and professional education at levels four and five.
“As all parties look to increase the number of apprenticeships, we need to ensure that the money to fund university fees is not taken away from the FE sector which is expected to deliver this training,” he said.
He added the next government should conduct a “once in a generation funding review” spending at each stage of education.
A Labour spokesperson said: “In trebling tuition fees, this government has managed to find a system of university finance that puts a huge burden of debt on students, while almost costing the taxpayer more than it saves.
“It lets down both the next generation and the public finances.”
He added the party would announce details of its education policy in due course.
The FE sector has had one of its key spokespeople recognised on the 2015 Debrett’s 500 list of the most influential people.
Dr Lynne Sedgmore CBE, executive director of the 157 Group, has been named as one of the UK’s most influential people in the 2015 Debrett’s 500 list, which was first published in yesterday’s Sunday Times.
She joins other notable figures from the education world on the list, including Ofsted chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw, skills charity Achievement for All founder and chief executive Professor Sonia Blandford and UCas chief executive Mary Curnock-Cook.
Other names on the wider list, which covers a range of fields, including sport, new media and politics and recognises those who “persuade and inspire others” and those who have “instigated change over and above exception”, include Prince Charles, chef Jamie Oliver and film director Danny Boyle.
Dr Sedgmore said: “It is a great honour to be included in such a prestigious list, and I am particularly delighted with the recognition for FE, which is all too often overlooked. I have worked in this sector for 35 years.
“Colleges and training providers have a vital role to play in helping young people develop the skills that will make them employable and successful citizens and in giving adults the chance to upskill or reskill for meaningful and sustained employment.”
Her Debrett’s listing says: “As executive director of the 157 Group of FE colleges, Lynne heads an association of several of the UK’s largest FE colleges.
“A qualified teacher, over her career Dr Sedgmore has held a range of leadership roles in further education. She was chief executive of the Centre for Excellence in Leadership from 2004 until 2008, principal of Guildford College, vice principal of Croydon College and head of Croydon Business School.
“Today she is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and of the Institute of Directors, and was awarded a CBE in 2004.”
She added: “I applaud Debrett’s work to encourage social mobility through its not-for-profit foundation, which helps strong achievers from less privileged backgrounds develop the social skills and confidence they need to network and gain internships and work experience. I was born on a council estate and have succeeded in my career through the support of my family, hard work and a good education.”
Newcastle-under-Lyme-born Dr Sedgmore has been executive director of the 157 Group since 2008. Under her stewardship, the consortium of large and influential FE colleges has become established as a major organisation in the sector, regularly commenting on and influencing policy.
A regular contributor to the experts section of FE Week, Dr Sedgmore became interested in the sector when she landed her first job out of teaching college with a youth opportunities programme. Her career has included jobs at Croydon College, Hackney College and Guildford College, where she was principal for six years.
Following a four-year stint at the Centre for Excellence in Leadership (CEL), Dr Sedgmore cancelled plans for a retirement in the country when she was offered the 157 Group role.
Ofsted’s system for flagging up falling standards has been described as offering an “insecure comfort blanket” after two formerly outstanding providers fell straight to inadequate having gone uninspected for a total of more than 12 years.
The grade-four-across-the-board results for Four Counties Training Limited (FCT), in West London, and Venture Learning Limited (VL), in Greater Manchester, both came out on Wednesday (January 21).
Inspectors visited on December 1, which was six years and nine months after Ofsted was last at FCT and five years and 10 months since it was last at VL — with both inspections resulting in outstanding grades. But FE Week has discovered falling success rates at both providers that should have alerted the education watchdog to the need for reinspection long before last month.
Barry Lord-Gambles, contracts director for VL, said: “The current regime of inspections is of no benefit to providers. It provides a very insecure comfort blanket. Regular mini-inspections [for grade one-rated providers] would ensure that providers can stay on track and keep up with current Ofsted thinking.” He added: “To go from a grade one to four seems a long way to travel and we cannot emphasise the effect on staff, learners and employers.”
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Overall apprenticeship success rates for the 1066-learner FCT, which received £1.3m of Adult Skills Budget (ASB) funding and £259,859 16 to 18 apprenticeship funding for 2013/14, had fallen from 87.3 per cent in 2010/11 to 71.1 per cent by 2012/13. And they went from 76.1 per cent in 2010/11 to 69.5 per cent in 2012/13 at the 195-learner VL, which received £122,934 ASB and £661,313 16 to 18 apprenticeship funding for 2013/14.
Former Ofsted FE and skills inspector Phil Hatton, who now works as an adviser at the Learning Improvement Service, said: “The reports on FCT and VL both mention that the proportion of learners completing their apprenticeship has fallen significantly over three years. This should have made it evident to the Education Funding Agency (EFA), Skills Funding Agency (SFA) and Ofsted that something was going seriously wrong, at both, for some time. It raises the question of ‘why wasn’t this picked up on?’ so that Ofsted inspected sooner.”
An Ofsted spokesperson declined to comment on whether its warning system failed with FCT and VL, but said: “We prioritise those providers judged to require improvement or be inadequate to help raise standards in FE. Those providers judged to be outstanding are not routinely inspected.”
A spokesperson for the Association of Employment and Learning Providers said: “We have made it clear to Ofsted that more clarity as to when inspections might fall is needed.”
The Ofsted spokesperson said: “We will only inspect an outstanding provider when there is a clear basis to do so.”
An EFA spokesperson said it had terminated its contract with FCT. An SFA spokesperson said no decision had been made on whether it would cut ties with VL and FCT, which declined to comment.
Editor’s comment
Expect a reinspector
Something’s wrong if providers are not being inspected when evidence points towards declining standards.
A system of monitoring is meant to be in place, and success rates apparently play a part. So how then can the huge time lapse between inspections of VL and FCT be explained? The indications that something was up were there a while ago, just like they were for Chelmer last year.
For how long had these actually deserved the ‘outstanding’ honour? How many learners had passed through their doors assuming Ofsted’s grade one judgment of five or more years ago would be indicative of their learning experience.
But outstanding providers, unlike those at other grades, do not have a set timeframe within which reinspection will take place. They, according to Ofsted, will only see an inspector if there is something is reportedly going wrong.
While those with anything less than outstanding should rightly expect a visit from the education watchdog more often, there’s no reason to monitor the supposedly best performers by forever relying simply on alert system.
So, while it’s time for Ofsted to stop ‘outstanding’ providers on the slide from escaping inspection, it’s also time for these providers — whether standards are slipping or not — to get a date by which they will have been reinspected.
What do you think? Should outstanding providers face reinspection within a definite time period? Cast your vote above.
Association of Colleges (AoC) boss Martin Doel (above) has leapt to the defence of his members after a former Ofsted director and civil servant launched a scathing attack on colleges claiming “lots of them are frankly, rubbish”.
Richard Brooks (inset, above-right), who was the education watchdog’s director of strategy from September 2009 to August 2013 and previously a senior adviser to Ed Balls during his time as Education Secretary, made the comments at the Fabian Society’s new year conference on Saturday.
Mr Brooks, now a freelance strategy consultant who authored a paper published by the Society in December entitled Out of Sight, about those not in education, employment or training (Neet), has been accused of making “unsubstantiated” comments by Mr Doel, the AoC’s chief executive.
During a panel discussion at the conference, which also included Estelle Morris, who was Education Secretary from 2001 to 2002, Mr Brooks said improving FE provision was a key step in addressing the issue of Neets.
He said: “These people have been in full-time public education for 14 years, and we have failed to equip them with the skills and qualifications they need. It is a scandal, and it’s not something we talk about enough.
“It’s only 230 or 240 of these [FE] institutions, and lots of them are frankly, rubbish. They are huge public bureaucracies, sucking up public money and churning out young people who don’t have the skills and qualifications they need. It’s absolutely outrageous.
“The people who run them are paid always in excess of £100,000 a year. We should be angry about this, but because they’re below the radar, they get away with it by saying ‘these people are hard to help’ and ‘we’re doing the best we can’. It’s nonsense.
“They are failing to serve the very average-looking young people who want to get on in the way they should be served.”
He said many young people were failing because they received bad advice from colleges, giving one example of learners told to do level two childcare courses without being informed they would need to have English and maths qualifications to study later at level three.
He said: “It’s beyond a joke, and it happens to thousands of young people. They carry on their education on false promise this is going to lead them to where they want to get to, they get blocked because they don’t actually have the core skills they need.
“When they go into beauty therapy at level two, when they go into motor mechanics at level two, it doesn’t get them onto the apprenticeship they need or the level three courses they need. So they stay in education at 16 and 17 and they become Neet at 18. So the Neet rate is low at 16, low at 17 and doubles at 18.”
Mr Doel said: “While the Fabian Society report is a considered piece of work with some sensible recommendations, Mr Brooks’s spoken comments are unsubstantiated.
“Every year colleges educate and train over 830,000 16 to 18-year-olds. They offer some of the best professional and technical education with experienced teaching staff and industry-standard facilities supported by their local business community. Ofsted’s annual report, published in December, showed 82 per cent of colleges achieved a good or outstanding grade despite a swathe of funding cuts.
“It is extremely disappointing to hear Mr Brooks criticising a sector that is giving our young people the employability skills they need to take their first steps in their career or continue to university. In fact much of what colleges achieve with young people is in spite of education policy rather than because of it.
“Good English and maths skills are vital but the influx of 16-year-olds needing to retake GCSE English or maths as a result of the government’s new policy is going to prove challenging for colleges. For those unable to pass GCSE due to the way it is taught, we would like to see a post-16 qualification which teaches applied English and maths.
“To improve our education system at all levels, central funding needs to be allocated fairly across all education age groups. A once-in-a-generation review of education funding carried out by the next government is what’s needed to ensure all young people have the opportunities they deserve.”
Lambeth College has retained its grade three Ofsted rating despite inspectors visiting amid long-running industrial action that ended with staff returning to the classroom last week.
Principal Mark Silverman was praised in the report, out on Friday, for “resolute and resilient management,” while staff efforts and contingency plans “helped to mitigate some, but not all” of the effect of the strike on learners.
Courses in English for Speakers of Other Languages were most badly hit, according to Ofsted.
The report said: “Following the previous inspection, where success rates were exceptionally low, prompt and effective action by the new leadership team resulted in a significant rise in learners’ outcomes at the end of 2012/13, albeit that they still required improvement.
“In 2013/14, success rates declined due to a prolonged period of industrial action that resulted in many learners not being able to complete their courses.”
Mr Silverman, who was appointed just after inspectors visited in early 2012 and gave the college an inadequate rating before it improved a grade the following year, said: “We clearly have some work to do to improve, which will be monitored and controlled by a post inspection action plan specifically addressing the points raised by the report.”
He also thanked staff who “worked diligently throughout strike action to ensure lessons and support for learners could continue”.
University and College Union member voted on Wednesday to return to work and were back in the following day. Lecturers had walked out on Monday in the latest in a series of strikes going on since March, including an indefinite walkout in June that lasted five weeks, ending just before the summer holidays. The UCU claimed new contracts would leave staff with fewer holidays, less sick pay and longer working hours.
But the strike ended with the college allowing existing staff to change their hours without transferring to the new contract and made changes to the first year of sick pay.
Mr Silverman said: “I am pleased that we can now put the dispute behind us.”
A UCU spokesperson said: “We repeatedly asked for talks aimed at resolving the longstanding dispute over contracts. It has now emerged from their December report that Ofsted also wanted a swift resolution. It is regrettable that we had to wait until the middle of January and an indefinite walkout before things could finally be resolved.
“The very nature of industrial action means that it will have an impact, which is why it was a last resort for us after negotiations failed. Our members are glad to now be back to doing what they do best and we hope we to restore good working relations with the college.”
Main pic: Lambeth College staff on the picketing line
