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Prison teachers ‘must get the support and resources to help learners’

Prison learning practitioners attended a conference organised by the Prisoner Learning Alliance (PLA) last month. Alexandra Marks outlines the FE and skills sector concerns that emerged.

Ofsted Inspector Stephen Miller, addressing a conference of 200 delegates including prison education professionals and managers, highlighted many challenges to those teaching in prisons — classes fluctuating as prisoners are released or transferred, learners possessing widely differing and complex needs, and many prison learners having been let down by the school system.

The conference, organised by the Prisoner Learning Alliance (PLA) to improve policy and practice, took place at Open University’s Milton Keynes campus on April 25.

Ofsted’s most recent annual report revealed that prisons came bottom in the whole FE and skills sector. More than half (58 per cent) of prisons Ofsted had inspected in 2012/13 were graded inadequate or requires improvement in terms of leadership and management.

This is hugely disappointing when we know that enabling prisoners to learn reduces reoffending by more than a quarter, according to new research on Prisoners Education Trust’s (PET) work by the Ministry of Justice.

When the cost of crime committed by ex-offenders is up to £13bn per year (equivalent to hosting the London Olympics annually), it is vital we do something about this.

PLA’s vision is that learning should be at the heart of every prison’s approach to rehabilitation.

We want to support teachers and encourage managers, governors and policy-makers to recognise the value of a wide range of learning opportunities.

Our conference presented discussions, workshops and three films of good-practice in action.

One of the key inadequacies troubling Ofsted is the focus on lower level qualifications in prisons, rather than enabling learners to progress beyond level two. We agree

The conference focused on the themes of PLA’s report, Smart Rehabilitation, setting out a blueprint for prison learning that is value–driven, outcome-focused and joined-up.

We were pleased to hear Mr Miller announce that this May, inspectors will begin a ‘support and challenge’ package for the 30 prisons rated as inadequate or requires improvement last year to help them move at least to good.

One of the key inadequacies troubling Ofsted is the focus on lower level qualifications in prisons, rather than enabling learners to progress beyond level two. We agree.

Basic understanding of maths and English is clearly essential, but once a prison learner is beginning to achieve and overcome his or her pre-associated fears of the classroom, we must encourage them with FE opportunities.

Ofsted has repeatedly said it wants prisons to have ‘the best teachers, the best managers and the best advisers to improve the quality of teaching and learning in prison. In February this year, a report by the University and College Union (UCU) found prison teachers weren’t getting enough support to do their jobs.

At the conference, prison tutor Ros Foggin, who has had a varied and extensive career working in schools and FE colleges described herself ‘the naked teacher’ with few resources to cover herself.

Often, she found herself the main, sometimes the only, resource. Trying to engage a challenging class for three hours at a time, without access even to a photocopier let alone other ICT tools, left her feeling adrift from teachers in the rest of the FE community.

Ros told delegates her three wishes for herself and colleagues; first, improved staff development opportunities; secondly, access to secure e-learning; and thirdly, a more enriched and holistic curriculum.

The idea of using informal support mechanisms resonated with other teaching staff at the event. During a workshop on developing excellence in prison teaching, a group of tutors discussed the importance of mentoring and debated the lack of formal teacher training for working in prisons.

PLA strongly endorses the need for improved resources and continuous professional development (CPD) in prison teaching.

After all, it is usually the belief a teacher places in a student that makes all the difference.

Alexandra Marks, chair of the Prisoner Learning Alliance (PLA)

Colleges: so much more than classrooms

One of last month’s interesting discussions was with colleagues from the Association of Colleges (AoC) and our own sports development manager around the increased promotion of fitness and wellbeing to students.

Any readers who’ve met me will have registered that I’ve hardly got the physique of a great athlete, and they’d be right. Captaining my school’s second badminton team to a number of defeats remains my proudest sporting achievement.

Perhaps it’s that which makes me even keener to see colleges with proper facilities and resources to offer a full programme of sporting activities.

There are significant issues with delivery, of course.

For urban colleges in particular, space is already tight, and while our college has invested time and energy in improving sports facilities, we are inevitably limited by our locations (whatever the other advantages they bring).

This is where partnership becomes so important, whether with other centres of education, with voluntary organisations, or with council facilities. Staff resources can also pose challenges, although the AoC and its partners have made great steps in supporting the needs of colleges.

Unlike schools, most of our students are part-time, so ensuring access at convenient times — and increasing awareness of the gym’s very existence — requires dedicated personnel and effort.

But if the challenges are great, so too are the benefits.

A recent study by the AoC found a “positive relationship between engagement in sport, future income and employability from both the employer and admissions tutor perspective”, and concluded that participation in sport was “a ‘good investment’ for students in both the FE and higher education sector”.

Other research, here and abroad, has confirmed this view. A 2007 study in Germany concluded emphatically that participation in sport “has significant positive effects on educational attainment,” but also pointed to lessons for policy and parenting: “Positive effects of sport activities should encourage politics to strengthen sport activities in school and out of school [and] parents should … encourage their children to get involved”.

More broadly than sport, there is growing evidence on the impact of other non-classroom activity on learning.

There is compelling evidence thwat the creative arts, for example, have a tangible positive impact on achievement in other subjects, and on a range of social measures such as community engagement and less boredom in education.

Like sport, the arts can also have a positive effect on attendance and behaviour.

For older adults, 2013 research by the Institute of Education concluded that those participating in music were happier, healthier and had more positive relationships.

Extra-curricular engagement, therefore, doesn’t just contribute to colleges’ core aims of improving student achievement, progression and employability, but can make students more rounded citizens with higher levels of wellbeing too.

The implications of this, for colleges and policy-makers, are therefore wide and evidence-based.

Colleges will clearly wish to focus on anything improving their students’ lives and experiences, but the capacity for FE to provide extra-curricular activities also meets wider goals on engaging with our communities and offering a service to a whole local area.

Of course, capacity costs. As every reader knows, colleges are facing a period of unprecedented financial attack, with cuts to various funding streams precipitating some difficult times ahead.

It may be tempting (and necessary), under such circumstances, for leadership teams to focus on what we believe to be colleges’ “core business,” but to underestimate the non-classroom aspects of that would perhaps be shortsighted.

Colleges, which have proud traditions of open access and of a holistic view of education, will doubtless want to find ways of continuing their commitment to extra-curricular activities — and the work of organisations like the AoC in supporting that are to be applauded.

Having quoted Enid Blyton in a previous FE Insider column, I’d hate to seem obsessed with the venerable first-form teacher Miss Roberts, but she might well have been speaking for FE colleges when she said that “there are other things as important as lessons”.

As the evidence-base — from our own knowledge and from research — grows and grows, we must make sure that cuts and policies do not damage this aspect of our students’ attainment and experience.

Edition 101: Neil Fowkes

Former Rolls-Royce apprenticeships learning and development manager Neil Fowkes has been appointed director of apprenticeships and engineering at Derby College.

Mr Fowkes studied at Mackworth Tertiary College, which is now part of Derby College during his own apprenticeship, and has worked in engineering for the past 27 years, initially at International Combustion and then Rolls-Royce.

As lead for apprenticeships and workforce development at the Ofsted grade one-rated car firm, Mr Fowkes has worked in partnership with Derby College for a number of years.

He said: “I am joining Derby College at an exciting time both for the organisation and the regional business community.

“Engineering and manufacturing is expanding in the city and beyond but employers face widespread skills shortages with their established workforce heading towards retirement.

“Employers are going to find it increasingly difficult to find the skilled staff that they need to retain and improve their competitive edge. Young people and particularly apprentices will become increasingly important to their business across all sectors as the pipeline of talent for future growth.

“And the challenge and opportunity for Derby College is to work more closely with employers to support them in the recruitment, training and development of these young people.

“The college is committed to expanding its apprenticeship programmes and its engineering provision to support employers’ needs both now and in the future.”

Derby College chief executive Mandie Stravino said: “Our core objective is to work with employers to ensure the training support that Derby College provides — whether at college or the workplace — meets their needs both now and in the future and provides them with the skills to be competitive and grow.

“Neil’s credentials of working with a global business and understanding employers’ training requirements will be invaluable as we develop our engineering curriculum for future decades and embrace the needs of businesses large and small.”

Lorna Fitzjohn, director of FE and skills, Ofsted

She is charged with keeping England’s FE colleges and independent learning providers on their toes, but Lorna Fitzjohn hasn’t let go of her rural roots.

The new Ofsted director for FE and skills, who replaced Matthew Coffey last month, says she still takes time off in lambing season and enjoys helping out on the working farm in Hertfordshire she calls home.

Born in Welshpool, mid-Wales, in 1956, Fitzjohn grew up in a rural community and attended local schools where her father knew all the staff before training to be a teacher herself.

She is no stranger to transition, having been catapulted fairly early in her career from tiny primary school classrooms in Wales to large institutions in London.

“When I came down as a primary teacher to London, I had more children in my class than there were in the whole school when I started in a primary school,” she says.

“One was very rural and the other was a very urban setting, so it was a substantial change but I very much enjoyed working in those kind of environments, particularly in London.

“I had lots of opportunity for promotion within the primary sector, but more importantly, the bulk of my time has been spent teaching in FE and in management roles in FE.”

By her own admission, a career in FE was not something Fitzjohn had considered until a friend approached her about working in a college. By then a mother of three young children, she accepted the offer and never looked back.

What appealed to me in FE was the employability side of it — you are preparing people for employment

“I went in as a part-time lecturer for two hours a-week, and I loved it,” says Fitzjohn, who completed a master’s degree in business administration at the University of Hertfordshire in 1998.

“I absolutely loved teaching in FE. I enjoyed the young people, I enjoyed teaching that age group, I enjoyed teaching adults, and very soon I became a full-time lecturer, then a senior lecturer, then a head of department, then I became a senior member of staff, senior management team, at more than one college in London.”

Rising through the ranks in FE, the frustrations which plague professionals across the sector were only too familiar for Fitzjohn.

“I’ve always been very learner-centred,” she says, “and I suppose the frustration with me sometimes, in FE, is that some of the colleges might have lost their way a little bit in that they spent more time than I wanted to talking about premises and buildings, and perhaps the financial side.

“Important as they are, I have always wanted to be very much centred around learners and learning and the quality of teaching, and getting learners from their starting point to where they need to be.

“And what appealed to me in FE was the employability side of it — you are preparing people for employment, ultimately — so you’ve not only got the qualifications that they need to get, but also that more well-rounded education with them as individuals to do with their attitudes and behaviour and where they wanted to be, things like work experience, things about linking the workplace to what they are learning at college, was always, you know, an exciting part of it for me.”

While in a senior post at Oaklands College, in Hertfordshire, Fitzjohn was approached and asked to join the Training Standards Council, which then became the Adult Learning Inspectorate before it merged with Ofsted in 2007.

She says her teaching background had prepared her well for inspecting.

It’s really nice to get home and deal with some of the — perhaps you might call mundane — parts of farm life, like looking after animals. I think that’s a nice balance, actually

“I actually think that being inspected yourself is a very good training ground for how you want to be treated when you are being inspected,” she says, “so my experience of being inspected and how much I valued the feedback that came from inspectors, and their view of what we were doing, and the respect they showed me, is what I think we then need to do when we’re inspectors.

“And as a senior manager in an FE college, I was observing people’s teaching and feeding back on people’s teaching and feeding back on people’s teaching as part of performance management and as part of the training programme, so doing that in someone else’s establishment wasn’t as much a jump as you might have thought, really.”

By the time of the merger with Ofsted, Fitzjohn was already in a management role, and would go on to become deputy director for FE and skills, and role in which, she says, she was keen to make a difference.

“I think we can always improve what we do,” she says. “You can always improve, either as a teacher or working in FE. We, as Ofsted, can always also improve what we are doing and how we inspect.

“The sector is changing, policy’s changing, the economy has changed since I have been working, so we’ve got to move with the times.

“So actually, changing and moving the framework and, inevitably, raising the bar in the framework, as we do, is an important part of it. I enjoy doing that. I enjoy doing the policy work. I have particularly enjoyed working with people in the sector — the Association of Colleges, the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, 157 Group, the wide range of stakeholders that are out there — as well as learners and parents, but particularly employers, to get their view of how useful inspection is.”

Despite being in what many in the sector might see as a desk job, Fitzjohn has no intention of staying seated. She retains her brief as a regional director and, living on a farm in Hertfordshire, hopes to split her time between London’s Ofsted HQ near Holborn and her office in Birmingham.

She says: “I wouldn’t want it to be a desk job. I’m also regional director for the West Midlands, so I have kept that role.

“That’s really useful because it does actually give me an oversight of provision, right through from early years, through schools, FE and skills, social care, so right across whatever happens in the West Midlands.

Lorna-2=tractoe-e101 — Lorna Fitzjohn and her dog, Dylan, out for a spin on the tractor at her farm in Hertfordshire

“I’ve got a team of senior inspectors who work for me, some of which are specialists in FE and skills, some in schools, some in early years — so, that role, but also then the policy role, is I suppose a general overview of how effective inspections are. I need to keep tabs on government policy, I need to keep talking to the sector, I need to involve myself with employers and learners.

“I will certainly be out on inspection where I get the chance. I don’t have time to lead inspections any more, but actually getting out there and talking to people is the best way of finding out the impact of what we do. Because it’s really important that we have that kind of impact.”

Fitzjohn says she still enjoys life on the farm near Bayford, Herts, run by farmer husband Alan, and adds that her slightly unusual home life is often a talking point.

She says: “People have almost always got someone in their family who has been involved in farming, so they are interested in that bit of it. Actually it’s really nice to get home and deal with some of the — perhaps you might call mundane — parts of farm life, like looking after animals. I think that’s a nice balance, actually.”

And with two grandchildren of school age and a son just starting an apprenticeship in engineering, Fitzjohn certainly has her eyes and ears in education, beyond those of her trusty inspectors.

She says: “It does actually give you that interest in another generation coming on, and you would want it to be better for them. My children, I wanted it to be better for them than perhaps it had been for me, and you would want your grandchildren to have the same — so it keeps you interested.”

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It’s a personal thing

What’s your favourite book?

So many, it is difficult to choose, but I would have to say The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

What do you do to unwind after work?

I live on a farm, so there is always plenty of farm work to do

Who would you invite, living or dead, to your ideal dinner party?

Verdi, a farmer and composer who not only composed beautiful opera but was a compassionate human being

What is your pet hate?

Rudeness

What did you want to be when you were growing up?

As a double bass player I always wanted to play in a jazz band

Careers advice report shows ‘how little’ a quality service would cost

A new report which puts an annual cost on a “benchmarked” careers guidance provision in schools has been welcomed by the Association of Colleges (AoC) as showing “how little” the service would hit taxpayers.

In the report, PriceWaterhouseCoopers LLP presents the findings of a costing exercise, and reveals providing a careers service which reaches eight benchmarks set out by report commissioners the Gatsby Foundation could be as low as £38,472 a-year for some schools.

The findings have been welcomed by the AoC, which has long campaigned for effective careers advice and guidance.

The report said: “We estimate that the total cost of delivery will range from £45,209 to £92,466 in year one and £38,472 to £77,445 from year two onwards in small schools in the rest of England and large, Inner London schools respectively.

“We then use DfE data on school size and location and the total number of pupils to estimate the overall school delivery costs across England as a whole. We estimate the total cost of achieving all the benchmarks across England will be £172m from year two onwards.

“This is equivalent to approximately 1.8 per cent of gross expenditure and £54 per pupil. Considering these costs over the course of a pupil’s journey from year seven to year 13, we estimate the total cost per pupil will be £196.”

Joy Mercer (pictured), director of policy at the AoC, told FE Week: “Good careers advice and guidance is important at all stages in a student’s education and it is crucial for schools and colleges to work together to make sure all students have information about all their options post-16.

“The benchmarks set by the report would certainly make sure this was available.

“For the first time a report on careers education has attempted to cost how much, and in fact how little, schools would need to spend to meet a definition that AoC shares of good careers advice.

“We hope that this calculation and what this investment would realise to the economy, the individuals who ‘drop out of the system never to return, will be persuasive to policy makers.

“It seems that the tide of enthusiasm for ‘fixing’ careers advice is coming from all quarters. A fundamental change is needed.”

Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief executive Stewart Segal said: “We agree that schools must have the responsibility for delivering effective careers advice but accept that schools have a vested interest. That is why it is important that guidance for schools establishes a minimum requirement to providing employers and other training organisations access to their students and parents.”

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Eight IAG benchmark costs:

1.
Every school and college should have an embedded programme of career education and guidance that is known and understood by pupils, parents, teachers and employers. Cost: £18,525 (year one), £9,564 (thereafter)

2.
Every pupil, and their parents, should have access to good-quality information about future study options and labour-market opportunities. They will need the support of an informed adviser to make best use of available information. Cost: £2,864

3.
Pupils have different career guidance needs at different stages. Opportunities for advice and support need to be tailored to the needs of each pupil. A school’s careers programme should embed equality and diversity considerations throughout. Cost: £3,652

4.
All teachers should link curriculum learning with careers. Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subject teachers should highlight the relevance of STEM subjects for a wide
range of future career paths.
Cost: £15,435

5.
Every pupil should have multiple opportunities to learn from employers about work and employment and the skills that are valued in the workplace. This can be through a range of activities such as visiting speakers, mentoring, enterprise schemes and a range of other enrichment activities. Cost: £1,363

6.
Every pupil should have first-hand experiences of the workplace through work visits, work shadowing and/or work experience to help their exploration of career opportunities, and expand their networks. Cost: £8,074

7.
All pupils should understand the full range of learning opportunities that are available to them. This includes both academic and vocational routes and learning in schools, colleges, universities and in the workplace. Cost: £1,633

8.
Every pupil should have opportunities for guidance interviews with a careers adviser, who could be internal (a member of school staff) or external, provided they are trained to an appropriate level. These should be available whenever significant study or career choices are being made and should be expected for all pupils, but should be timed to meet their individual needs. Cost: £2,091

Projections by PriceWaterhouseCoopers LLP based on employment costs and expenses associated with implementation in a typical school (i.e. a medium sized school outside London and the Fringe Area). Source: The Gatsby Foundation

Higher apprenticeships in line for UCas applications

The University and Colleges Admissions Service (UCas) has welcomed an invitation for talks on promoting higher apprenticeships.

The organisation, which already matches learners to some higher-level FE courses under the banner of UCas Progress, responded to a call from Business Secretary Vince Cable for it to cover higher apprenticeships.

Dr Cable, during a University of Cambridge public policy lecture, said: “We already have a well-recognised and effective system for applying to university through UCas, which operates independently of government. What is less well known is that UCas also acts as a portal for candidates applying to study Higher National Certificates and Higher National Diplomas, including at FE colleges.

“I have asked my department to work with UCas to examine the scope for integrating higher level apprenticeships into their services.”

Helen Thorne, UCas director of policy and research, said: “Our website encourages students to think about a wide range of future options, including alternatives to higher education such as apprenticeships, and the conventions that we hold across the UK have dedicated ‘CareerZones’ where students can discuss work-based learning. We also email unplaced students with information about a broad range of educational opportunities.

“In UCas Progress we offer a search and apply service that helps younger teenagers make the right choices after GCSEs — whether that is an A-level in maths, a BTec in business or a plumbing apprenticeship.

“This year, around 700,000 young people are using the service and we will be delivering a more comprehensive national service from autumn this year. This will include information and careers advice and the ability to search and apply for courses right across the country. It will be free to use for all learners.

“We look forward to discussing higher apprenticeships with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and working together to ensure that students have access to the best possible information as they make decisions about their future education and career pathways.”

The number of higher apprenticeship starts has rocketed to 9,800 in the last academic year from just 200 in 2008/09 and their potential inclusion by UCas has

been welcomed by sector leaders, including Association of Colleges (AoC) senior higher education policy manager Nick Davy.

He told FE Week: “We’re very supportive of Dr Cable’s comments and the government’s backing for developing higher vocational education in England, including higher apprenticeships.

“Applying through UCas would probably raise the profile of higher vocational education in colleges, but AoC would want to discuss with officials how it would work in practice.

“Applications for higher apprenticeships tend to be made locally, which means it’s not the same as traditional higher education where students apply from across the country, so we need to look at that.”

And Stewart Segal, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), said: “AELP has been encouraged by the growth of higher apprenticeships over the last two years and welcomes the Secretary of State’s latest commitment to tackling the parity of esteem issue.

“Our members have been taking on school leavers with good A-levels as apprentices for a long time and we saw an increase in numbers when university tuition fees were raised.

“Nevertheless there is still much to be done in terms of increasing awareness about higher apprenticeships and so we are pleased that the government has asked UCas to use its website to promote them as an alternative option.”

Workplace bosses get provider rating website

Employers will be able to anonymously rate, review and compare providers using an online tool launched by Ofsted.

Employer View allows staff to share their thoughts on providers they have worked with, and find out what other employers think about any provider which trains it’s employees, apprentices and work placement or work experience staff.

The site was launched on Monday April 28 and is open to the public, but employers’ details will be kept confidential.

Ofsted national director for FE and skills Lorna Fitzjohn said: “The tool will inform inspectors’ understanding of the effectiveness of provision, increase employers’ engagement in education and training, and help them and employees to choose the provider that is right for them.”

A questionnaire on the site asks employers to rate their provider partners on the quality of their communication, monitoring of employee progress, training provision, and feedback and support.

“Employers in the past have often not been sufficiently included in the education and training of learners, including apprentices, and we recognised that this needed to change,” said Mrs Fitzjohn.

“Engagement with employers was highlighted as a major theme for improvement in Ofsted’s Annual Report and we hope Employer View will facilitate a dialogue between employers and providers.

“I therefore urge all employers using a provider inspected by Ofsted to visit the Employer View page on our website and contribute.”

A statement by Ofsted said safeguards would be in place to prevent the site from abuse, such as user registration and systems to flag signs of potential misuse, and that the site security compared well with similar public sector sites.

Mrs Fitzjohn said: “We have worked hard to make sure we strike the right balance between security and accessibility when deciding the measures to put in place.

“If a provider or employer believes information is being skewed they should let us know and we will investigate.”

The Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) chief executive Stewart Segal said: “We are pleased Ofsted is giving more recognition to the views of employers.

“We have always said that the more focus we put on outcomes and views of the ultimate customers the better.”

However, he said there was already a “crowded marketplace” for information on providers.

“Employers now have a number of sources of information and support including National Apprenticeship Service website, FE Choices, Ofsted main site, Ofsted Employer Choices, Apprenticeship Makers, National Careers Services which will confuse many smaller employers,” he said.

“We are now looking at how access to these services and support can be made more effective through one single information source.”

He added: “Ofsted need to use the informal information generated by Employer Choices carefully and ensure that this is balanced with the more formal survey information already generated by training providers.

“Responses to the system will be anonymous and may not be statistically significant so there has to be a process where the information is reviewed with the provider as the responses may not be a balanced sample.”

The tool will use the same model as Learner View, which was launched in September 2012 to allow learners to rate their providers.

Visit www.employerview.ofsted.gov.uk to use Employer View.

Just seven learners at college used FE ‘TripAdvisor’

Ofsted has defended its TripAdvisor-style website where learners review providers after it emerged that just seven learners at a college inspected in March had logged on to share their views since the start of the academic year.

The education watchdog launched Learner View, which allows learners to rate their provider, in September 2012 — and since then the site has received an average of just 48 responses per provider.

At West Thames College, which received a grade two result following inspection in March, just seven of its 7,562 learners contributed to the site this academic year.

And at Chichester College, which was achieved a grade one rating last month, 86 of its 14,629 learners, or one-in-170 contributed, while at West Cheshire College, given a grade three last month, 58 of 15,257 learners shared their view on the site — one-in-263.

At London’s grade four LeSoCo college, 292, or one-in-60, of its 17,618 learners shared their experiences.

But Ofsted national director for FE and skills Lorna Fitzjohn told FE Week she was standing by the website.

“In the last year Learner View has received over 60,000 unique responses from learners eager to voice their views on their provider,” she said.

“We believe this shows the role the tool is playing in enabling learners to get involved in improving education and training provision.”

There are currently 1,250 providers registered on the site, and given Mrs Fitzjohn’s 60,000 figure, this would average out to 48 contributions per provider over the 18-month period since its launch.

However, she did acknowledge that greater awareness of the tool among learners would boost the number of visits to the site, and the amount of feedback on providers it received.

She said: “We will continue to promote the tool so that more learners can contribute and benefit from it.”

Learners are asked to rate whether their training programme has met their needs, the support they have received the quality of the teaching, assessment and feedback.

They are also asked whether they would recommend the provider to a friend.

Mrs Fitzjohn said: “As well as giving learners a better insight into which provider is right for them, the tool has also proven a vital asset for Ofsted inspectors in helping them understand the effectiveness of providers.”

She added: “The launch of Employer View, a tool for employers to rate the providers they use, will complement Learner View and help further a dialogue between learners, employers and providers that will ultimately benefit the quality of education and training.”

Hopes for traineeship boost with employment pilot

Skills Minister Matthew Hancock has revealed hopes for 5,000 new traineeships through the employer ownership pilot (EOP) scheme.

He said National Grid, Everton Football Club, Somerset-based electrical installation firm Rogers Restorations, and Berkshire-based construction and engineering firm Costain aimed to create the traineeships.

The announcement was made during the Minister’s speech at a UK Commission for Employment and Skills event in London on Wednesday (April 30), and came around two months after official figures revealed there had been just 3,300 traineeship starts in the six months following the scheme’s launch in August last year.

He said: “Under this [EOP] scheme, employers combine their own money with government funding, to invest in the training they need. It’s simple, direct, and focused. Figures released today show that the
first projects will create over 5,000 traineeships.”

A Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) spokesperson said the EOP traineeships would be subject to the scheme’s usual delivery rules, so they could only be run by providers with an Ofsted grade one or two inspection result.

The government has said it has no target for traineeship numbers, but Access to Apprenticeships, which is seen as the scheme’s previous incarnation, saw 7,200 starts in its maiden year of 2011/12 and then 5,500 in 2012/13. It stopped at the end of the last calendar year with 1,500 starts.

And take-up for traineeships had already been dubbed “disappointing” by former Ofsted FE and skills director Matthew Coffey at the Association of Colleges (AoC) annual conference in November.

Keith Smith, the Skills Funding Agency’s executive director for funding and programmes, also said at the AoC conference that — despite no official target having been set — “colleges have indicated they will deliver around 57 per cent of projected 19 to 23 traineeship starts for 2013/14”.

Mr Hancock also announced in his speech that £20m was being made available for skills training in the automotive sector.