A Hampshire principal caught up in a Twitter row in which BBC presenter Jeremy Clarkson was labelled a c*** has called off his move to become a chief executive.
Anthony Bravo (pictured above) was signed up to leave Basingstoke College of Technology (BCoT) for the job at Bradford College Group but, less than a fortnight after apologising on the social media website for retweeting the offensive message, he has now “withdrawn his application”.
Mr Bravo, who was due to start at the 25,000-learner Bradford college in September, declined to comment on his retweet, which he followed with a further tweet saying a complaint had been made to Bradford and BCoT and that “if people don’t like it they should unfollow”. The tweet was also later deleted, before tweeting his apology (pictured). However, he said his decision to pull out of the move, announced by Bradford College on April 11, was down to “the potential impact on my family”.
Bradford College said the retweet had no bearing on Mr Bravo not moving to the new role and his current employers at BCoT said he would be staying on with them, but a social media and FE sector expert has nevertheless called for colleges to adopt Twitter policies to protect their reputations.
Mr Bravo returned from a month long trip to China to create links between Basingstoke, which has around 11,000 learners, and Chinese colleges at the beginning of the month. He said: “While I was away I had time to reflect on the decision and the potential impact on my family and felt the distance would be too disruptive. There are lots of exciting projects underway at BCoT, especially new relationships with colleagues in China that I look forward to developing.”
A BCoT spokesperson said: “The governors welcome the decision and look forward to supporting Anthony in continuing our growth and quality improvement strategy.”
A spokesperson for Bradford College said: “Having reflected on his domestic circumstances, Anthony Bravo has decided to withdraw his application for the post of group chief executive. We wish Anthony every success for the future.”
Social media expert Ruth Sparkes, director of education PR company EMPRA, said: “This is a reminder as to why colleges should have a social media policy, and a strategy that is understood by everyone in the organisation. Reputations can be won and lost in a single tweet.”
Bradford College is expected to re-advertise the chief executive role — the fourth time it has done so since the beginning of the year, when current chief executive and president of the Association of Colleges Michelle Sutton said she would be stepping down.
Editorial
It’s no word game
The brief history of Twitter is already littered with ill-judged postings.
It’s a history that now counts avid tweeter Anthony Bravo among its victims, regardless of why his move to Bradford is off.
He has walked a fine line with tweets from China — while ‘on duty’ as a college principal — that some may see as silly, fun, or even welcome proof of a human face in a usually out-of-reach position of authority.
Meanwhile, others may think they cast too unprofessional a shadow on the college, and even the sector.
But there’s no doubt his public use, albeit retweeted, of such an offensive word was something exceptional.
Mr Bravo is a popular and friendly figure so it’s easy to believe his apology (printed on the front page) was sincere.
If only he hadn’t had to issue it in the first place.
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has confirmed to FE Week that the traineeship minimum duration rule of six weeks has been scrapped.
In new joint guidance from BIS and the Department for Education out today and due to come into force for new starts from August, the rule has been replaced with an “expectation that work placements will last between 100-240 hours”, effectively between two and 7 weeks at 35 hours a week.
The new guidance continues: “Longer placements may be necessary to prepare young people for work, but these would need to be based on clearly identified learner needs.”
It comes after a slow start for the programme and Skills Minister Matthew Hancock said: “The guidance published today highlights further improvements to the programme based on feedback from those delivering and undertaking traineeships.
“This will enable the programme to be expanded and allow more young people to benefit from Traineeships, whilst maintaining a strong focus on quality.”
The rules scrap the existing requirement that trainees complete no less than six weeks and no more than five months of work experience as part of their programme.
The maximum duration of six months will remain in place.
The change is part of new guidance on traineeships which include new rules to allow good or outstanding providers to provide apprenticeships even if they have been given a “financial notice of concern” by the Skills Funding Agency or Education Funding Agency.
Mr Hancock, pictured, hailed the changes as making traineeships more accessible.
He said: “Traineeships have had a successful first year and thousands of young people have benefited from the chance to get the skills and work experience they need for an Apprenticeship or other job.
“But there is more to do. We need more employers to offer traineeship places; I want more young people to have the opportunity to embark on a Traineeship and take the first step in working towards a successful career.”
It comes after a rule allowing 24-year-olds to take up traineeships was included in February’s Skills Funding Statement, and the Department for Work and Pensions 16-hour rule, which limited the amount of time trainees aged 19 and over could train every week and still receive benefits, was removed in March.
The new guidance adds: “For benefit claimants from 2014/15 the work experience element can be up to 240 hours (or extended if the offer of an Apprenticeship place is accepted) at a maximum of 30 hours a week, and can be done over the duration of the Traineeship if necessary. This replaces the previous rule which restricted the work experience to 6-8 consecutive weeks. This new flexibility will support providers and employers to design programmes which meet the needs of young people and enable work experience to take place alongside the other training elements of the Traineeship.
The rules have also been relaxed concerning the need to identify the work placement host at the start of the programme. From August providers with be able “to identify the employer providing the work experience placement up to four weeks after the traineeship has started.”
The number of jobless young people is as its lowest level in five years, but at the Youth Employment Convention it was a pressing issue that was still very much on the agenda.
The latest statistics show the number of 16 to 24-year-olds not in employment, education or training (Neet) fell by 48,000 to 868,000 in the first quarter of 2014 but, Lord Kenneth Baker said in his keynote speech, this wasn’t far enough.
Jigar Patel
The target for the UK education system, he said, should be that no one should leave to become unemployed.
“No Neets — that is our target,” he said, at the event in London on Tuesday and Wednesday (May 13 and 14)
“We have nearly 900,000 young people unemployed who have undergone 11 years free, state education and they cannot find a job — that is a national disgrace.”
He added there was a “skills mismatch”
Youth Delegates panel, from left: chair Lottie Dexter, Jamal Campbell, Gulwali Passarly, Armend Jashari, Francis Augusto, Aisha Aminu and Ben Prayal
“There is a huge shortage in our economy for skilled workers — we’re going to need nearly a million SET professionals at degree level, 450,000 at levels three and four.”
Part of the solution to the problem, he said, was to engage with students about their career choices at a younger age.
He pointed to his University Technical College project, where students are recruited at 14 to start a specialist technical education alongside core subjects such as maths and English.
“We found by 14, youngsters know where their interests lie, and they’re quite capable as to making the decision as to which range of studies they wish to pursue,” he said.
However, the type of careers advice given to young people is important, according to Jigar Patel, principal at consultancy firm McKinsey and Co, which has carried out research into the transition between education and employment.
“The most effective services are where employers come in and do things like mock interviews, face-to-face discussions and mock assessments centres,” he said.
“In places where that existed there was a direct correlation with the number of people that were then unemployed after six months — there was no one.”
Mr Patel was joined in the session by chair of the House of Lords European sub-committee internal market, infrastructure and employment, Lady O’Cathain.
“In February 2014 the seasonally adjusted youth unemployment rate across the 28 member states stood at 22.5 per cent, more than double the overall rate of unemployment,” she said.
“I personally believe the challenge has been totally underestimated, because the psychological and social implications for young people who are left without any respect and no hope and really quite disastrous.”
Lady O’Cathain
She argued that the UK should be prepared to learn from other countries.
“No country has the monopoly on good ideas,” she said, pointing to youth guarantee schemes where young people are guaranteed a job or further training after four months of unemployment.
“Finland has such a scheme which has been put forward by commentators as the reason for its low unemployment rates.”
She also called for young people to be consulted about issues which affect them — an idea taken up in the final event of the convention, a youth delegates panel, where several current and recent learners told Labour MP Rushanara Ali, Lady O’Cathain and Lord German, co-chair of the Liberal Democrat parliamentary committee for work and pensions, what they wanted to see on the political parties’ 2015 election manifestos.
Many of them called for improved careers advice at school and beyond, and more work experience.
Panel member Armend Jashari said: “The main problem I had was that I wasn’t really employable, some of the things missing were communication skills, teamwork skills, presentation skills that kind of thing.
“One of the main things missing in schools is that practical side of recruitment, that’s an issue that needs to be addressed – we need more structured work experience.”
Rushanara Ali
Rushanara Ali MP agreed.
“The government’s decision to scrap work experience as an entitlement I think was the wrong decision — every young person whatever their background should have an entitlement an offer of work experience so they get a taste of what the world of work is like,” she said.
“That’s not enough, they need a continuous exposure to the world of work and that require proper support proper careers guidance.”
Closing the conference, Dave Simmonds OBE, chief executive of Inclusion, warned that the latest unemployment statistics might not give the full picture.
“Those unemployment figures will continue to tip down over the coming months,” he said.
“But the plain fact is, that even before the recession the levels of youth unemployment were too high and in fact going up, so there can be and should be no complacency.”
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Mystery surrounding Heywood report leads to breakout question
“Whatever happened to the Heywood report?” asked Tony Wilson of Inclusion (pictured), during a breakout session on the youth employment challenges the next government will have to tackle.
Mr Wilson was complaining about the number of defunct employment initiatives started over the last few years — an issue Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg announced in September he would be tackling, by asking Cabinet Secretary Jeremy Heywood to conduct a review.
However, the report failed to materialise, and an FE Week investigation has revealed it may never be published — in fact, it may not exist at all in hard
Tony Wilson
copy form.
When FE Week asked for a publication date in February, a spokesperson for Mr Clegg said: “The review was an internal review and was not intended to be published.”
Following this, FE Week submitted a Freedom of Information request, but was told: “The information… is not held by the Cabinet Office.”
When we asked for extra clarification, we were told by a spokesperson: “Nothing has been written down.”
She added in a statement: “It’s internal policy advice that has been provided to the Deputy Prime Minister and Prime Minister on an ongoing basis.”
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VOICE OF A LEARNER
Ben Prayel, studying for an HND in media production at Barking & Dagenham College, as well as running his own film production and photography business, took part in the Youth Delegates Debate at the Youth Employment Convention on Wednesday, May 12, where the panel discussed: “It’s 2015,
Ben Prayel
what would young people want to be promised in the election manifesto?”
Here’s what 21-year-old Ben had to say.
“I would certainly be looking for the government to improve careers advice, especially for teenagers. It also needs to be advice which is linked to what’s happening in the local, regional and UK job markets. I would also call for more to be done to encourage companies to take on apprentices.
I would certainly be looking for the government to improve careers advice, especially for teenagers
“At 16, straight after school, I spent two years on a full-time carpentry and joinery course and my next step was to find an apprenticeship, but there just weren’t any around so I had to start again.
“I was really good at Theatre Studies at school at got the best possible grade, but no one at the time suggested video and film production.
“I came to Barking & Dagenham College really by chance, but it has been a fantastic experience because it has given me a real work experience — I’ve been able to set up my own business and have had so much help from the tutors. My friends at university on similar courses haven’t had anything like the positive experience I have had.
“My other request is for university tuition fees to be reduced or at the very least held at the current rate.”
It’s time for colleges to “acknowledge publicly that their primary purpose is their contribution to the economy,” believes Lynne Sedgmore.
Skills Minister Matthew Hancock officially launched our paper, A New Conversation, written together with our partners at the UK Commission for Employment and Skills and the Gazelle Group, on Tuesday, May 13.
This timely paper, and initially published on Tuesday, April 29, sets out key challenges for ‘raising the game’ of college-employer relations.
We propose that to fulfil the massive potential colleges have for contributing to growth in the UK, these relationships must become far more strategic than transactional.
Our report reflects the array of excellent practice already out there — many colleges have excellent partnerships with high-profile employers which already go beyond the commissioning and supplying of individual training programmes and are having genuine impact on the economy in their own localities.
But these examples have not been harnessed into something we might recognise as a truly national approach until now, and we intend the report will contribute to doing just that.
We make no apology for presenting challenging questions and messages for both colleges and employers
What is clear from Ministers, and our own research, is that we cannot wait for the government to fund and shape the future for us.
Mr Hancock says repeatedly that he wants colleges to break free from the constraints of funding rules and to establish their own place as social enterprises and drivers of economic growth.
The prize is a big one — recognition by employers, and others, of what we in sector already know is true — that colleges are a vital part of both economic prosperity and personal wellbeing for a great many people.
Now is the time to demonstrate that we are willing, and well-equipped, to lead more strategic and effective employer engagement. We make no apology for presenting challenging questions and messages for both colleges and employers.
The time has come, we believe, for colleges to acknowledge publicly that their primary purpose is their contribution to the economy. This may require, for some, a re-examination of who we believe we are accountable to, a deeper understanding of local economic drivers and a soul-searching re-appraisal of the qualities needed by our leaders and our teachers. This does not need to negate the crucial social role we play in our communities.
As the report by the Commission on Adult Vocational Teaching and Learning made plain, we need a ‘two-way street’, and our paper challenges employers to step up to the plate also.
They must not ignore their local college, and they must develop an understanding of the future workforce pipeline that will enable them to continue to grow by engaging with college leaders. If we believe Confederation of British Industry director-general John Cridland’s words at the recent national Gazelle conference, employers have never been more ready to do this. We know that they, too, must ‘put their money and commitment where their mouth is’.
So — what next? This cannot be a report which sits on shelves and gathers dust.
The future prosperity of our skills system is too critical for that. The Education and Training Foundation will build on our action points in designing their future programme, and colleges must create chances, both locally and nationally, for strategic relationships to grow and flourish.
We hope also that there will be a much more concerted approach to showcasing the excellent examples already in existence.
The 157 Group, in partnership, will continue to do all it can to help colleges to ‘up their game’ and be recognised for the important engines of economic growth that they truly are.
The new Skills Funding Agency director of apprenticeships and delivery service has taken up her post.
Former McDonalds UK education boss Sue Husband started in her new role on Tuesday (May 12), with FE Week having exclusively revealed the move three months ago.
Her agency duties include providing expert advice and support to Local Enterprise Partnerships, and other local partners, on the funding and skills elements of local growth plans; and encouraging colleges and providers to deliver more good quality apprenticeships and traineeships, and intervening in cases of failure or high risk.
She will also aim to help the delivery of high quality national careers and apprenticeship vacancy services.
She said: “I am thrilled to be joining the organisation and I’m looking forward to meeting the team and getting to work.
“I want to support the ambitious reform agenda and work with the sector to continue to raise the profile of apprenticeships and traineeships while also promoting the benefits of these training opportunities and the success it can bring to individuals.”
Ms Husband was in charge of training at McDonald’s when its apprenticeship scheme received a grade two rating from Ofsted, in November 2010, following the company’s only inspection to date.
Barbara Spicer, interim chief executive of the agency said: “I am absolutely delighted to be able to welcome Sue. Her wealth of private sector knowledge and experience will be a valuable asset to us, ensuring that quality and reform is driven forward in the sector.”
Meanwhile, Lincoln College Group has appointed a new chief executive. Gary Headland will take over from current principal and chief executive John Allen, who will retire in July after 14 years in the post. It is understood the principal’s post will be reviewed by Mr Headland.
Mr Allen said: “I’ve enjoyed many happy years at the college and have been lucky enough to oversee some major developments. I would like to thank the college staff and students for their support and hard work over the last 14 years and wish Gary every success in his future role.”
Mr Headland said: “I will build upon the excellent work that has already been started and combine my deep public service experience and motivation with the strong commercial acumen that I have gained during my time in the private sector to deliver innovative and highly collaborative ways of providing top-quality education and training.”
Main pic from left: Sue Husband, Gary Headland and John Allen
The challenge facing young people is the same as the one facing college principals — develop your skills and your offer if you want to survive, explains Signe Sutherland.
The entrepreneurial mindset has become a necessity for the next generation workforce, faced with an unprecedentedly challenging and volatile employment market.
It is no different for college leaders, who must lead this change from the front, setting the right example and creating new income sources.
That is the challenge we have sought to address at North Hertfordshire College, having decided three years ago to invest in a long term transformation with the aim of becoming a leading and recognisable entrepreneurial college.
It has meant fundamental changes to pedagogy: the need to provide our students with a more commercial and applied learning experience has been at the core of a curriculum change programme that has now been underway for two years.
We are creating new learning environments that allow students to develop an understanding of commercial realities alongside development of skills and progress towards qualifications.
Although in their infancy, we are already seeing how this model can prepare learners to succeed either within an existing business or by creating their own employment.
Our challenge now is to continue to develop with the scale and efficiency more typically associated with the corporate world.
At North Hertfordshire College, we cannot afford to make the level of investment in technology-supported delivery that is needed, if we simply try to secure that innovation from within our college budget.
Our challenge now is to continue to develop with the scale and efficiency more typically associated with the corporate world
Instead, by clustering together with a group of like-minded colleges in Gazelle, we can explore bigger solutions and begin to test our ability to make the sort of large investments that will be needed to deliver affordable learning to increasing numbers of employers, employees and students in our communities.
There is of course a financial as well as a curriculum imperative in the redesign and the re-engineering of our curriculum delivery processes.
Put simply, we don’t think the funding exists, in either the short or longer term, to deliver vocational programmes in the manner and style that we have delivered in the past.
The notion of a wholly tutor-supported vocational learning environment, timetabled for convenience in a constrained organisational structure is no longer acceptable either to students or staff.
The good news is that we can deliver better learning experiences by having the courage to embrace self-organised learning, and develop commercial learning opportunities, embedding students within college or local businesses.
Teaching must be paid for, but learning can occur in a wide variety of settings that do not always need to incur the cost of the teaching process.
Students can access the college resources and learning environments 24/7 and we need to enable them to do so.
Across our group, and indeed across the wider sector, we are seeing real innovations in the imaginative planning and creation of opportunities for students to engage in
college across the whole day while accessing tutoring for a reducing part of their programme.
Our ambition is to embed science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem) in our vocational curriculum and indeed to use Stem centres as experimental areas for learners where they can experience both self-organised learning and sustain project developments that meet with a different financial and learning vision than had hitherto been possible.
We need more initiatives and innovations and we are likely to achieve those by working collaboratively and by sharing the best practice that undoubtedly exists within almost all of our colleges across the UK.
North Hertfordshire College has put innovation and entrepreneurship at the very core of its investment and its mission to sustain a vibrant and successful college over the next five years.
With traditional funding and revenue sources set only to diminish in the years ahead, for colleges the only way is surely innovation.
Signe Sutherland, principal, North Hertfordshire College
The role of FE colleges is changing, explains Sharron Robbie. Viewing businesses as customers, stakeholders and strategic partners is key, she says.
Recently, we’ve seen a real change in the way FE colleges connect and engage with employers.
There has been a major shift from the traditional, transactional attitude to a more strategic, partnership-focused approach. This change has been borne out of a number of key drivers.
The economic downturn is an obvious place to start. Employers require training that’s relevant, responsive and affordable rather than a ‘one-size-fits-all’ offer focused on NVQs and apprenticeships.
Industry needs to be leaner and sharper, with a workforce that’s multi-skilled, adds value and delivers efficiency savings. In response, colleges have to place employer engagement at the very heart of what we do.
To keep abreast of changing industry demands colleges have had to evolve, developing stronger communication strategies, building robust and sustainable partnerships that provide mutual benefits to both parties, and ensuring that we are perceived as well-established and credible by our local economic community.
Add to this the constant changes in government funding, in particular recent cuts to the adult skills budget and changes to the funding of apprenticeships.
Colleges have to be far more creative and entrepreneurial in our approach to identifying new income streams in order to realise income targets.
The FE sector needs to be more entrepreneurial, not only in what it delivers to students, but also in how it ‘does business’. Employers demand work-ready students. Enterprise and entrepreneurial activity are integral to ensuring students leave with the depth of technical knowledge and also the breadth of employability skills required by employers.
The positive impact FE has on the economic community cannot be underestimated — whether it’s our alignment of the curriculum to local key priority employment sectors to develop a labour market skilled in the competencies required for growth and competitiveness, or the support for business start-ups through incubation activity to promote wealth and job creation. Yet to continue to have this impact FE colleges need to think big and develop multi-purpose relationships with employers.
Employers should be seen as customers — purchasing skills training, not necessarily accredited. They should also be seen as stakeholders — participating in college governance, curriculum development and skills development to benefit the wider community. Finally, employers are also strategic partners — collaborating on new developments, infrastructure and joint ventures.
By developing this three-pronged relationship between FE and employers we can drive the local, national and global community forward, and still remain student-focussed.
At City College Plymouth we believe in the need to fundamentally transform our educational offer for a changing world of work, one driven by new businesses, new technologies and a global economy. This impacts what we deliver and how we deliver, and we have defined this in collaboration with employers.
We have developed and implemented
a robust employer engagement strategy over the past five years, and this is
yielding positive and mutually beneficial results. We have not achieved this overnight. It has taken time and money to establish and manage the excellent relationships
the college now has with industry. However, this investment is paying real
dividends.
Our students and staff have access to a range of industry-focused activity enhancing the learning experience and supporting continual professional development. Our curriculum is designed and developed by industry. Our employer endorsement scheme ensures there is constant dialogue with the business community. We are seen by business and the wider communities as a valued strategic partner.
At City College Plymouth we have built a strong reputation with employers, ensuring our provision is employer-led and focused on growth areas identified as vital to the economic regeneration and success of our city and beyond. FE must embrace the opportunity to develop long term relationships with employers, providing as they do, strong partnership working, sustainable collaborations and community cohesion, helping to stimulate wealth and job creation.
Sharron Robbie, Head of corporate relations, employability and enterprise, City College Plymouth
While PAYE has figured heavily in coverage of the government’s apprenticeship funding proposals, the other option of an apprenticeship credit account has enjoyed less focus. Mark Corney looks at the latter option.
An interesting juncture has been reached on apprenticeship funding reform now the technical consultation has closed.
Employers are urging the Coalition to ‘get the mechanism right’ if it decides to route public grant funding for post-16 apprenticeships to each employer.
This is exactly the message to send to ministers and officials at this stage in the policy-making process, but a stronger proposal is needed.
Presumably the Coalition will finally announce its choice between the PAYE and the apprenticeship credit models in the Autumn Statement, due in early December.
But employers and their representative bodies should be calling on the government to publish a ‘technical specification’ consultation on the PAYE and apprenticeship credit models before parliamentary recess on July 22 with a closing date three months later.
The case is simple.
Employers and other stakeholders have had more than twelve months to become acquainted with the PAYE model and through the technical consultation appreciate the problems facing employers who require a reimbursement from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) if the grant funding for apprenticeships exceeds their monthly PAYE/NI payment.
The reimbursement systems looks good on paper but there is scepticism about whether HMRC and the Treasury can make it work.
The fact is the Coalition issued an unfair and unbalanced ‘technical funding consultation’.
Unfair because more time has been available to assess the PAYE model than the apprenticeship aredit model, and unbalanced because there was insufficient explanation of how the Apprenticeship Credit model would work operationally.
Indeed, the key dimension of the apprenticeship credit model was only surfacing late in the consultation. The Coalition has asked for views on an apprenticeship credit ‘account’ model, with the key word being neither apprenticeship nor credit but account.
Each employer would have an account into which they pay their contribution in cash, which then triggers the government contribution.
From the employer perspective, if a cash contribution led to being overdrawn on their general account they could face bank charges.
Employers will want to know that they can retrieve their cash instantaneously if the apprentice fails to turn up after registration or leaves before completing because they find a job elsewhere, becomes injured or ill, or dies.
To limit their financial exposure employers will also want to release their cash contribution by instalments. After all, the government is expecting to release its contribution in relation to 80 per cent on programme and 20 per cent on achievement.
Indeed, the response to the proposition that employers need to ‘put some skin in the game’ could be ‘we will when you do’.
Critically, the government contribution will be a ‘credit’ released at the point of purchase, hence the title ‘apprenticeship credit’ model. There is no way the Treasury is going to put cash into the account for any length of time which might not be used for apprenticeship training.
Each employer will have a single apprenticeship account. Yet, employers with more than one apprentice will need a separate budget line for each because their own cash contribution will vary according to the sector standard — engineering is more expensive than business administration, and age of the apprentice. The cash balance on the account will be almost meaningless for employers with two or more apprentices.
Finally, there is the question of the agency that will manage the apprenticeship account system. An employer with more than one apprentice in two different sectors will only want to deal with one account managing agency. The Student Loans Company, HMRC or a single sector body or local enterprise partnership could fulfil this national agency role.
And yet, all these issues have a familiar ring to them. They applied to Individual Learning Accounts. Then the goal was to route public grant funding through to each individual via an account. Today, the goal is to route public grant funding through to each employer via an account. This has not been attempted before in post-16 education and skills policy.
Good careers guidance, financial support for learners progressing to FE and an end to colleges being run for profit are election issues for the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL).
The union has launched its general election manifesto in the run-up to May 2015.
Dr Mary Bousted
Launching the manifesto, general secretary Dr Mary Bousted called for “an end to education being run for profit” and said policy needed “to be based on solid evidence, rather than political whims”.
She said: “The government must stop making schools and colleges behave like rival businesses, with teachers and heads pitched against one another competing for pupils and resources. When schools and colleges work together they are better able to raise pupils’ attainment.
“Children are not products like tins of baked beans; they are individuals with different skills, abilities and interests. And taxpayers’ money intended for education should not be creamed off in profits by private companies or individuals involved in running schools or colleges.
“Young people need education policy to be based on sound evidence, and not on ministers’ whims or pet projects. This coalition government has already diverted at least £637m (between the 2010 general election and the end of December 2013) from the education budget to set up free schools which educate fewer than 22,000 pupils – just 0.3 per cent of pupils in schools in England.
“The best performing education systems have coherent education policies and long-term goals. They carry out proper consultations with a range of stakeholders including parents, employers and education professionals. They invest in high quality teacher training and effective continuing professional development.”
She added: “It is vital our schools and colleges offer the highest quality education, and are led by the best and most experienced professionals. But something urgently needs to change because currently nearly a million young people are not in education or employment, 40 per cent of newly qualified teachers leave in the first five years, and schools have increasing difficulty recruiting new heads.”
The manifesto sets out the ATL’s principles for a world-class education system, including financial support to enable young people to make the transition from school to further education, along with “excellent careers information and guidance”.
It also calls for a return to a “nationwide system of teacher training” where students gain a professional qualification and the broadest preparation for teaching.
leave Basingstoke College of Technology (BCoT) for the job at Bradford College Group but, less than a fortnight after apologising on the social media website for retweeting the offensive message, he has now “withdrawn his application”.
