Latest news from FE Week

There’s more to FE and skills on Twitter than apprenticeship vacancies

It’s more than five years since Ruth Sparkes first applied her FE and skills marketing knowledge to the sector’s use of Twitter — so what has changed since then?

I wrote my first article on colleges and Twitter in 2009, so I’m guessing that by now every college and independent learning provider (ILP) must be a member of the Twitterati.

Early Twitter adopters from ‘back in the day’ were Deeside, Havering, Regents and Sunderland colleges, and my then-own college, Cornwall.

We’ve all moved on. Six years later some colleges are using Twitter very effectively and creatively. They are properly communicating (that’s two-way engagement — not just spewing out their news), engaging, monitoring and evaluating.

Some colleges understand the value of Twitter and are using it professionally and carefully, as part of the marketing mix.

Some FE chief executives and principals now have their own Twitter accounts and are using them with varying degrees of success. There have been a few duds (these have been reported on in this very newspaper), but NewVic’s Eddie Playfair, Harlow College’s Karen Spencer and Milton Keynes College’s Dr Julie Mills are examples of welcome visitors to my Twitter feed.

We FE types still struggle a bit when it comes to writing in 140 characters — a principal’s PA recently told me that she didn’t have time to write succinctly.

But, is there really a right way to use Twitter, and what should colleges and ILPs be using it for?

Well, personally, I think there’s definitely a wrong way to use Twitter and I’m seeing it more and more. I believe this down to the pressures that FE is under to recruit the right ‘sort’ of student, and lots of ‘em.

Some FE chief executives and principals now have their own Twitter accounts and are using them with varying degrees of success

My main gripe is the constant tweeting and retweeting of apprenticeship vacancies. FE providers are more than apprenticeships; it’s a major turnoff.

Case studies, news stories and informed comment about apprenticeships are far better topics of Twitter conversation than blurting out lists of apprenticeship vacancies. You should be allowing and encouraging your followers to properly engage, whether they’re in the market for an apprenticeship or not.

What is required is a grown-up social media strategy, aligned with your other marketing and communications activities.

Strategies ought to include identifying relevant issues and topics to stimulate conversation, debate and participation from your target communities and influencers.

The key to success online is to develop memorable and remarkable content that is relevant to those you are seeking to engage.

Your strategy should include analysis of relevant influencers and communities so you can build online relationships and achieve your campaign objectives.

These days there are excellent tools to analyse what’s going on with your tweets. Twitter’s own analytics is very good, and it’s free. To check out what’s happening in your twittersphere, make sure you’re logged in to the Twitter account that you want to analyse then go to analytics.twitter.com.

Click on the “view all tweet activity” and it takes you to a 28-day overview. There’s a graph that gives you the total number of impressions you’ve received over the period, the number per day, and the daily average. This lets you instantly view trends.

You can work out the best times to tweet, what day of the week is best, whether your images and videos increase engagement. You can compare one sort of tweet with another.

Students, staff, parents, employers, schools, alumni — they’re all out there, and you need to keep them engaged and interested.

If you really must have this ‘roll’ of apprenticeship vacancies, why not set up a new, apprenticeship-specific Twitter account? Redcar & Cleveland College has done this, take a look: @Apprenticeinfo

FE providers should be projecting their personality using Twitter; communicating a sense of humour, expertise, passion and quality. You don’t want to be known as a Twitter bore.

Bank fines to fund 50k apprenticeships and traineeships for unemployed 22 to 24-year-olds under Tories

A Conservative-led government would use a £200m fund from bank fines issued in the wake of the Libor scandal to create 50,000 apprenticeships and traineeships specifically for unemployed 22 to 24-year-olds, David Cameron will announce today.

The Prime Minister is expected to say that the money from the fines, which were issued to those banks found to have been manipulating the London interbank offered rate, or “Libor”, will be used to create a specific funding stream for 50,000 apprenticeships or traineeships over three years for 22 to 24-year-olds who have been unemployed for six months or more.

The additional starts would be on top of the 3m already pledged by the Conservatives over the course of the next Parliament, but the Tories are yet to outline how they would persuade businesses to take on the 50,000 learners.

Mr Cameron will say: “We’re going to take the fines from the banks who tried to rig markets – and we’re going to use it to train young people and get them off the dole and into work.

“This is about taking money off those who represent Labour’s failed past, and giving to those who through their hard work and endeavour can represent a brighter Conservative future.

“This is about offering hope, spreading opportunity, sharing prosperity – it’s about securing a better future for you, your family and for Britain, and from now until polling day I’m going to fight for that future with every ounce of energy in my body.”

But Labour has criticised the Tories’ record on apprenticeships, while the Liberal Democrats accused them of panicking.

Shadow Business Secretary Chuka Umunna said the proportion of apprenticeship starts by young people was down by almost a quarter during their time in office, with figures in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills statistical first release showing the proportion of starts by 16 to 24-year-olds fell from 82.3 per cent of the total in 2009/10 to 63.2 per cent in 2013/14.

He added: “At the same time, we’ve seen the quality of apprenticeships undermined. One in five apprentices is receiving no formal training, while almost four in ten firms are unaware the in-work training they provide is branded as an apprenticeship by the government.”

A Lib Dem spokesperson said: “This is another panicked election pledge from David Cameron as it finally dawns on him the Conservatives are not going to win the election. It is a short-term announcement that doesn’t give any hope of sustaining apprenticeship training and support into the future.

“Instead of gimmicks David Cameron should come clean about the ideologically driven cuts he will make that will slashing support for education, training and apprenticeships. Only the Liberal Democrats have been clear that we will ensure that young people are given the opportunity to succeed by protecting spending from cradle to college.”

What makes FE political

I read a blog the other day that talked about how there was so much political consensus around in our sector at the moment and how this was a ‘job done’ for the sector’s PR and lobbying efforts.

The evidence for this was a skills hustings event where representatives from the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats basically agreed with each other about everything.

After reading this blog, I found myself with a nagging feeling somewhere between disbelief and frustration.

So as the General Election campaign finally comes to an end and we gear up for a new parliament, now seems a good time to get this off my chest. Further and adult education is deeply, deeply political, if not, at times, party political, and we must not be lulled in to a false sense of security just because all parties say that apprenticeships are a good thing.

An observed consensus like this might give the impression of party political consensus, but that says more about the quality of debate than anything else.

So how to raise the quality of that debate? To me it means being honest about the politics of further and adult education, given, the sound-bite to-ing and fro-ing of a General Election campaign in this climate often doesn’t lend itself to the ‘deep and meaningful’ kind of debate I’m arguing for.

In hindsight, I think we have to learn lessons from the cut to funding for 18-year-olds last year, how the sector responded and why we were, ultimately, unsuccessful. And it’s the same with the 24 per cent cut announcement

But without it, as a sector, we run the risk of becoming complacent; accepting and supporting government policies that we know in our hearts are not good enough.

Our sector has a proud history in political movements. Many FE colleges can trace their origins back to workers’ education and trade union movements. To this day they attract and educate working class learners in deprived communities, as well as migrants and, albeit in alarmingly and drastically declining numbers, older people.

So when our core constituency are mostly the poor and we view our collective mission to be about social justice, equality and society, then we become deeply ingrained in the politics affecting people’s lives.

We’re pretty well versed in reciting the social return on investment of FE but I think we can be better at talking about the difficulties and barriers people without advantage and privilege have to overcome in order to navigate through the education system.

The notion that someone can’t afford the fees to do a part-time course at a college for example is one that most people can grasp, but I think we can be much more real and honest about the other barriers we know that some of our learners come up against that students from wealthier backgrounds don’t.

In hindsight, I think we have to learn lessons from the cut to funding for 18-year-olds last year, how the sector responded and why we were, ultimately, unsuccessful. And it’s the same with the 24 per cent cut announcement.

Were we really vocal enough about the cumulative impacts that government cuts had already done to poor people’s life chances? Did we say enough about the disproportionate impacts on people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, older people or people with mental ill health, for example, and how by reducing the resource we have to provide education and training for a group with the odds already stacked against them?

I think this is really important if we want to improve the quality of policy in our sector. Policy-makers make all sorts of assumptions about the learners that you work with, their backgrounds, their social capital, and their access to support, which are probably wrong.

So next time there’s an opportunity to influence policy and there are potential impacts on access, retention, achievement, wellbeing or progression, let’s not be afraid to be honest about the politics of and its inherent inter-relationships with poverty and equality. Consensus isn’t always a good thing.

Education and Training Foundation workforce survey highlights Functional Skills teacher recruitment problem

A third of work-based learning providers are finding it difficult to recruit Functional Skills (FS) teachers, a survey by the Education and Training Foundation (ETF) suggests.

The ETF has published the results of its latest annual workforce survey, which is based on responses from 186 work-based learning providers, showing that 16 per cent of respondents found it “very difficult” to recruit FS teaching staff in 2013/14, while 18 per cent found it “quite difficult”.

The results of the survey come the same month as FE Week analysis of Skills Funding Agency success rates tables, which for the first time included FS data this year, showed how nearly 40 per cent of under 19 FS enrolments at general FE and tertiary colleges and independent learning providers (ILPs) failed to achieve their qualification last academic year. The combined FS success rates for colleges and ILPs was 62.9 per cent, with 203,680 enrolments out of 323,320 achieving their learning aims — meaning 119,640 did not.

It prompted a call from a range of academics for the government to provide added support for FS teaching to boost 16 to 18 success rates from 64.3 per cent for general FE and tertiary colleges and 52.9 per cent for ILPs.

Among them was University of Wolverhampton education lecturer and researcher Dr Matt O’Leary, who told FE Week: “I don’t think these success rates are lower than might be expected — that’s not to say they shouldn’t be higher, but in order to improve them then there needs to be recognition on the government’s part that they have a responsibility to invest in adequate resources to enable the FE sector to staff these courses with specialist teaching staff.”

The survey also shows an apparent decline in the proportion of FE staff who had a relevant teaching qualification. Providers reported that, on average, 61 per cent of their teaching staff held relevant teaching qualifications in 2013/14, compared to 80 per cent in 2012/13 and 83 per cent in 2011/12.

It has also revealed that 28 per cent of the 1,637 staff identified by providers as being part-time were on zero-hour contracts.

David Russell (pictured), chief executive of the ETF, said he would encourage everyone working in FE to use the data, and said he hoped more providers would take part in future years.

He said: “You might want to see how your place of work compares to the national average, or look at where the opportunities and recruitment challenges persist.

“We are planning some exciting developments to this annual dataset, and the reports that users will be able to generate from it. To achieve this we need to ensure as many organisations as possible contribute to the process.

“I hope that leaders and governors will use it as part of their annual planning and most importantly I hope that your organisation commits to contributing to it in future years. With sector wide commitment to data collection we can identify specific issues and support smart sector-wide solutions. Without provider support on data collection we are all in the dark.”

A separate survey of adult and community learning providers revealed part-time contracts remain prominent in that area of the sector, with respondents reporting that 83 per cent of staff were part time in 2013/14, setting it at odds with the work-based learning results.

However, a pattern does emerge when comparing the proportion of teachers with relevant teaching qualifications, with a decline also seen in the adult and community learning sector, from 84 per cent in 2011/12 to 75 per cent in 2013/14.

The survey also reported a big slump in the proportion of staff on zero-hour contracts.

A report on the results said: “The option of reporting staff as engaged on zero-hour contracts was included for the first time in the 2012/13 survey and almost a quarter of teaching staff were identified as falling into this category.

“This pattern does not appear to have continued in 2013/14 with just 5 per cent of teaching staff identified as being retained on this basis,” it said in the latest report.

New lead sponsor for Skills Show revealed

Vocational education charity the Edge Foundation is the new lead sponsor for the Skills Show, it has been announced.

Show organisers Find a Future revealed today that the three-year lead sponsorship deal with City & Guilds, in place for the first Skills Show event, was ending.

The pricetag of the Edge Foundation’s one-year sponsorship of the Skills Show, which takes place in November, was not disclosed.

David Harbourne (pictured below right), Edge Foundation acting chief executive, said the charity was “really looking forward” to becoming the lead sponsor, having offered some sponsorship in previous years.

“Everyone at the Edge Foundation is thrilled that we’re sponsoring The Skills Show,” he said.

“It’s our mission to champion and celebrate all forms of technical, practical and vocational learning, and The Skills Show is a brilliant way to see some of the country’s most talented young people show off their skills in a remarkable range of competitions.

“Tens of thousands of young people — not to mention their teachers and parents — will find out about careers, courses and apprenticeships, and even try their hand at new skills.

“We’re really looking forward to it.”

Last year’s Skills Show attracted 75,000 visitors to the Birmingham NEC to watch the national finals of more than 60 skills competitions, try more than 50 have-a-go activities and access careers advice.

Find a Future chief executive Ross Maloney (pictured left) has: “The Edge Foundation believes, as we do, that all young people should have the opportunity to achieve their potential, and that the UK’s future workforce needs to be equipped with the skills they need to be successful in the modern, global economy.

“Their support and involvement with this year’s event is invaluable in ensuring that we continue to spread the vocational message to all our target audiences — it’s good to be working with them again.”

This year’s Skills Show will run from November 19 to 21 and will also feature squad selection for the 2017 WorldSkills championships in Abu Dhabi.

Let’s stop banging our head against the brick wall over vocational education

While the major political parties’ focus on FE and skills is to be welcomed, they need to look beyond qualifications reform says Tim Oates.

When you recognise that banging your head against a brick wall actually hurts, the most sensible course of action is to stop doing it.

Strange then, that while all the major parties announced that vocational education and training would be an election priority for May 2015 (which is a good thing), the emphasis was yet again on qualifications reform, something which has repeatedly failed to increase quality and volumes in vocational education and training (Vet) to any significant extent.

Wholesale qualifications reform is one of the seductive options for policy-makers. It is easy to announce, can be put in place swiftly, and seems to promise much.

But it is as seductive as a siren song, and equally deceptive.

Of course we need high quality, relevant, and effective qualifications. They do indeed set standards, define curricula, and assist labour-market signalling — enabling employers to find where skills are, and helping employees gain benefit from skills and knowledge which they have developed. But they are part of a complex jigsaw of measures which needs to be in place within Vet, not the sole thing upon which policy hopes should rest.

The UK economy continues to suffer from significant, acute and chronic labour shortages, particularly in technical occupations; long duration initial vocational training volumes have suffered a decline, not an increase.

If arrangements were working, we would have an excess of training places, low youth unemployment, and imperceptible skill shortages.

The route to increased quality and volumes lies in complex action, including a reduction in bureaucracy, careful management of incentives and drivers, and policy sensitive to different sectors

The oft-cited figures relating to employer expenditure on training include a massive chunk of spending on health and safety and other instrumental, short term courses — hardly the provision which upskills the workforce and trains young people in the manner required by an advanced economy.

Thank goodness that the recent Education Select Committee report on apprenticeships has not only seen past the surface of the data but also recognised that the route to increased quality and volumes lies in complex action, including a reduction in bureaucracy, careful management of incentives and drivers, and policy sensitive to different sectors.

This greater subtlety in analysis and policy recommendations is sorely needed.

Cambridge Assessment has long-argued that the same qualifications reform policy has been blindly used to apply to forms of Vet which should be sharply distinguished: work experience in schools; vocationally-oriented learning in full-time educational settings; initial Vet; upskilling and development provision for employed workers; and provision for unemployed workers.

These forms of Vet are different in form, content and aim, and require different policy support from the state. Policy-makers frequently have underestimated the complex issues which affect different forms of Vet: ownership of the curriculum, links with a changing labour market, pay rates, marginal costs, regulation, sector demarcations and other interacting factors.

Overall Vet policy has been relatively insensitive to the way in which incentives, drivers, and specific conditions operate in particular industrial sectors. Unless policy moves away from a preoccupation with wide-sweeping policy such as wholesale qualification reform, ‘grand plans’ for Vet are likely to continue to result in disappointment.

General Election 2015: Education, Education, Education

Takeover agreed for A4e to create ‘biggest’ Work Programme contractor

Welfare-to-work provider A4e has been sold to recruitment services firm Staffline in a £35.4m deal that includes £11m of debt being taken on.

Nottingham-based Staffline Group claims the move will make it one of the biggest contractors of the Work Programme of the Department for Works and Pensions (DWP).

It will mean Staffline has a presence in half of the programme’s 18 regions as a prime contractor — through its Eos and Avanta divisions, and now A4e — and six further regions as a sub-contractor.

The firm claims the takeover will give it access to learners through 150 sites throughout the UK — which, it claims, is the largest geographical reach of any Work Programme contractor.

Staffline chief executive Andy Hogarth (pictured right) said: “We are delighted to be announcing today the acquisition of A4e.

“This is an exciting milestone in Staffline’s growth, considerably expanding the size and geographic reach of our employability offering and will result in the combined business being one of the largest Work Programme providers in the UK.”

Its Staffline Recruitment division, which had a final 2014/15 Skills Funding Agency (SFA) contract worth £540k, was rated as good by Ofsted last month. Its Eos Works division was allocated £955k of European Social Fund (ESF) cash by the SFA while Avanta, a £65m acquisition last summer, had an SFA allocation of £8.2m and was rated as good by Ofsted last month.

It is understood that Avanta and Sheffield-based A4e will be “integrated” and rebranded PeoplePlus over the coming months.

It comes three months after 10 former A4e employees were sentenced for fraud and related offences after falsely claiming to have found work for learners who were unemployed or did not exist. Its control systems were since said to have been improved.

A4e, which employs more than 3,000 staff and had a £30m SFA allocation, posted pre-tax losses of £11.5m in 2012-13, but had climbed to a pre-tax profit of £2.2m for the year ending March 2014.

Mr Hogarth said: “The significant strengths of both businesses will be united and we are confident that our leading position will be a strong platform from which to develop our strategy, services and innovation.

“We look forward to creating a winning team and business, and delivering significant shareholder value.”

Staffline has agreed to acquire A4e’s entire issued share capital for £23.5m and will assume A4e’s net debt of £11m. The sale is thought to have netted A4e founder Emma Harrison, owner 85 per cent of shares, around £20m.

Andrew Dutton, chief executive of A4e, said the buyout meant “starting a new chapter in the history of A4e”.

“Staffline is exactly the right fit for us: its ambitions, robust financial position and its people and business values will all support the combined business as we grow together and build on our position as a leading Work Programme provider in the UK,” he said.

“A4e is now in the perfect ownership to both develop our customers and support our employer relationships and I wish the combined business every success in the future.”

Extra freedoms for FE ‘limited’, claims 157 Group report

Delivery of extra freedoms for the FE sector has been “limited” despite being central to government policy for years, a report commissioned by the 157 Group has said.

The consortium of colleges worked with law firm Eversheds LLP on the report, which is a result of interviews with sector leaders including Business Secretary Vince Cable on the subject of freedom and flexibility.

According to the report, entitled Freedom and flexibility: colleges and skills in 2015, the survey results show the “limitations of what has so far been offered and the real potential for future policy development”, and that a “real difference” could be made in terms of implementation of policies, not by new policies themselves.

The 18-page report calls for widening of colleges’ statutory powers and also calls on government to heed a warning that initiatives like sponsoring academies carry “significant risks” for colleges as well as benefits.

It also calls for a more “sensible” framing of employer engagement, with the “encouragement of strategic partnerships and mutual respect”, and goes on to say that “neither employers nor providers have all the answers to our future skills needs”.

It says the apprenticeship funding debate should be re-visited, with a “more realistic outlook”, to establish how to maintain employer choice without “disincentivising their increasing participation”, and says the government may wish to consider asking the Competition and Markets Authority to clarify what steps the law would allow providers to take to collaborate further with businesses.

Dr Lynne Sedgmore CBE (pictured), executive director of the 157 Group, said: “Freedom and flexibility have been two of the buzzwords of the last five years and, in this publication, we aim to provide an overview of what that has meant – for institutions, for communities and, most importantly, for employers and students.”

The report goes on to call for a drive towards “more strategic relationships” between the FE sector and employers after the election, and that the services of the Education and Training Foundation should be “developed, strengthened and supported” beyond May 7.

Other suggestions include one that proposals for a Royal College of Teaching should include the FE sector and that a clear focus on learners should be reflected in policy, with learners encouraged to help govern FE institutions and more support with travel and subsistence costs.

Sarah Robinson OBE, chair of the 157 Group and chief executive of Stoke on Trent College, described the report as a “high-level commentary on the skills landscape in April 2015”, adding: “In particular, we build upon the principles articulated in our manifesto for FE and skills: that future policy should be guided, wherever possible, by stable structures, equal treatment, the freedom to innovate and durable funding.

“Our analysis, published today, indicates that while our skills system is undoubtedly more ‘free’ than it was five years ago, there is still a long way to go in matching the reality of policy with the rhetoric of politicians.”