Trade union and business leaders are negotiating a joint agreement on traineeships over the issues of pay and work experience quality.
Tom Wilson, director of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) learning and skills organisation Unionlearn, revealed that talks had been held with the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) on the issue.
He tweeted: “Joint @unionlearn agreement between CBI and TUC on @TraineeshipsGov includes need for safety, pay, allowances and quality work experience.”
The firm defended the offer, saying learners could finish the programme sooner and could progress to an apprenticeship, but then it pulled the scheme in December having been given a grade three (‘requires improvement’) inspection result from Ofsted with only grade one and two providers able to run traineeships.
However, neither the TUC nor CBI would reveal further details about their agreement on traineeships, nor provide a date for when final negotiations might be completed.
A TUC spokesperson said: “We are working on a joint statement which is near completion, but not yet finalised.”
A CBI spokesperson said: “We have been engaging with the TUC on ways to promote traineeships and we’ll be publishing details in due course.”
Traineeships, which combine work experience with maths, English and employability training, were designed to help 16 to 24-year-olds without experience or qualifications into work.
Nine more colleges could take on learners from the age of 14 next academic year, FE Week can reveal.
The Education Funding Agency (EFA) has received nine expressions of interest from colleges hoping to start ‘direct recruitment’ of full-time younger learners from September.
Seven colleges already recruit 14 to 16-year-olds having gone through the same process last year.
An EFA spokesperson told FE Week: “Nine colleges have applied to commence direct enrolment of 14 to 16-year-olds to full time programmes in 2014 to 2015.
“We will assess each expression of interest received against the required, published, criteria. Once confirmed we will notify Ofsted of the participating colleges. Ofsted will plan in a monitoring visit of these colleges in the first year of delivery.”
Colleges can recruit directly if they meet certain criteria, including a dedicated 14 to 16 area on the college estate and separate leadership for 14 to 16 education. And EFA funding for 14 and 15-year-old learners is only available to colleges which have been rated as outstanding or good.
The EFA declined to identify the nine colleges, but the seven which began direct recruitment in September were Halesowen College, Middlesbrough College, Leeds City College, Newcastle College Group (at Newcastle College), Accrington and Rossendale College, Hull College Group and Hadlow College.
Of these, Hull and Accrington and Rossendale were both rated ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted before opening 14 to 16 provision, and the rest were rated ‘good’.
The five colleges which have had their 14 to 16 provision inspected during monitoring visits since last September – Leeds, Hull, NCG, Middlesborough and Accrington and Rossendale – were all rated positively.
Middlesborough College principal Zoe Lewis (above) said: “Middlesbrough College is proud to be one of the first colleges to implement the Wolf reforms and to recruit and 14 and 15-year-olds directly onto the college roll. The college worked in partnership with one local school and with the pupil referral unit in Middlesbrough and enrolled 15 year 10 students and 11 year 11 students in September 2013.
“Like with any new initiative, the college learned a lot in the first term of implementation and in particular around the need for additional welfare and support roles.
“The positive difference we have made to the young people involved has been rather extraordinary. Comments from both students and parents confirm not only the academic improvements but the wider social and behavioural changes in these young people and reaffirm that what we are doing is without a shadow of a doubt, ‘the right thing to do’.
“For 2014/15, we are expanding our offer and are now working with 6 Middlesbrough schools and 1 other local authority school with 25 new year 10 students starting in September following a range of vocational pathways alongside GCSEs.”
Greg Smith
Newcastle College vice principal Greg Smith said: “It has been very positive both for us, as a new area of work, and more importantly for the young people. We have an awards event on Thursday for the 21 learners we worked with this year who have successfully achieved a range of academic and vocational qualifications which were tailored to their needs.
“We have seen them develop and mature as a group and the feedback from parents has been extremely positive. We were also encouraged by positive feedback from an Ofsted monitoring visit in January which found our provision had made either significant or reasonable progress in all areas, which was a great outcome as this was a completely new area for us and at that time had only been running a few months.
“We are now aiming to incrementally increase provision next year and are looking to recruit to 35 places.”
Professor Wolf’s recommendation on direct recruitment was that the Department for Education should, “make explicit the legal right of colleges to enrol students under 16 and ensure that funding procedures make this practically possible.”
She said: “Colleges enrolling students in this age group should be required to offer them a full Key Stage four programme, either alone or in collaboration with schools, and be subject to the same performance monitoring regime (including performance indicators) as schools.”
Joy Mercer
But the Association of Colleges (AoC) has said that problems with careers advice need to be resolved before the system could work properly.
Joy Mercer, education policy director at the AoC, said: “Colleges are working very closely with partner schools to ensure there is a good offer for 14-year-olds.
“The crucial issue that remains to be resolved is that children and their parents are not receiving the good careers advice and guidance that will encourage them to consider what’s still seen as a very different choice to what’s been on offer for many years.
“Until this is resolved, we’re pleased to see the careful consideration that colleges are giving to ensure students who do enrol at 14 have a very motivating experience which will put them on the path towards qualifications and ultimately a good job.”
You can read an expert piece from Hull College Group deputy chief executive Lee Probert on direct recruitment here.
Hackney University Technical College (UTC) is to shut at the end of 2014/15 because of low recruitment numbers — just 29 out a target of 75 pupils signed up for September. Dr Lynne Sedgmore looks at whether the UTC project as a whole is actually the problem.
I have been working in FE Colleges for 34 years and have seen many, many initiatives come and go — some of value, others purely political vanity projects.
I have never been opposed to FE colleges being rattled and shaken by politicians, learners or stakeholders. It is vital that we constantly prove our worth over and over again — that comes with the territory when in charge of taxpayers’ money.
What does pain me however, is when new ideas are born out of ideology, a limited evidence base and, it seems, an almost wilful determination to prove that FE colleges have failed.
This view seems still to have currency despite the rich evidence that FE is a huge success on many fronts, and has been for many, many years.
In this context I find it sad (though not surprising) that the very day after a commons debate on vocational education, during which the Edge Foundation was praised profusely and MPs queued up to announce a new University Technical College (UTC) in their constituency, we hear that the Hackney UTC is closing down. It will have only been open for three years.
Despite considerable hype in national and local media inspectors had made wide ranging criticisms of its performance and recruitment remained well below target.
This follows poor reports at other UTCs, serious problems of under-recruitment across the country and the Bedfordshire UTC being in such a state that an FE college was brought in to help sort it out.
How should we in FE react to this news when we are constantly being told that UTCs are the new way forward, vastly superior to anything we have ever done or achieved?
What should be our response to the proposals from the Labour Party to open 100 UTCs across the country to solve the problems of technical and vocational education?
Sadly our only option is to grit our teeth and help policy makers dig themselves out of a hole of their own making.
We need to help because at the heart of the UTC proposals is a good idea — that young people can be energised by learning in a setting that demonstrates the relevance of their studies to the world of work; that learning with state of the art technical facilities, from staff with recent industrial experience and with the strong engagement of employers boosts motivation and drives quality.
We know this because it happens every day in FE colleges up and down the country.
These ideas are too important to be allowed to fail simply because impatient politicians, anxious to claim credit for something new, set up fragile institutions that are not always fit for purpose.
In a world of rational policy making we would have to ask why universities should be asked to take the lead in this area when they know little about the teaching of 14 to 18-year-olds; why are UTCs being set up as tiny institutions without the scale to weather variations in recruitment or deliver financial economies; why are they set up as free standing entities without the opportunities for progression upwards or across disciplines; why are they essentially mono-technics, lacking the social and intellectual benefits of learning alongside other students from other sectors?
Alas the answer, as we know only too well, is that policy making in England is far from rational.
FE colleges, built around the same core philosophy as UTCs, were nevertheless not involved in policy formulation and only grudgingly engaged at the implementation stage.
All we can do with this, as with other political playthings is stand by and catch them when they fall.
Education and Training Foundation (ETF) chief executive David Russell has spoken out to defend the awarding of a £1m learning technology contract to Gazelle as he acknowledged “scepticism” about the organisation.
The Gazelle Foundation beat three other bidders to win the learning technology contract, due to end by November next year, thanks to the “depth of knowledge and understanding” it displayed, Mr Russell (pictured above) told FE Week.
It comes just weeks after a month-long FE Week investigation into multi-million pound funding of Gazelle by UK colleges resulted in criticism from the University and College Union that public money was being used on “expensive initiatives which have little educational impact”.
It raked in around £3.5m with the group’s five founding colleges having dished out more than £530,000 each, according to figures obtained from Freedom of Information Act. More than 20 current and former member colleges had been asked what they spent on the organisation, which was launched in January 2012 with standard annual membership priced at £35,000.
Gazelle chief executive Fintan Donohue (pictured below) defended the organisation at the time, claiming “enrichment of student experiences and outcomes” was its “overriding goal”.
Nevertheless, ETF chief executive Mr Russell approached FE Week to defend the learning technology contract going to Gazelle.
He said: “I read the papers. I know there is scepticism in some quarters about Gazelle, who will lead the consortium on this delivery work for us. I understand some teachers and lecturers have asked pointed questions about whether Gazelle deliver on their promises, and about whether they always act in the interests of learners.”
He added: “They [Gazelle and its partners] won the contract because their bid was convincing in the depth of knowledge and understanding it displayed; dynamic and innovative; pedagogy-focused not technology-focused; and above all with learner benefit at its heart.
“This programme will provide support across the education and training sector, including colleges, private training providers and others (it is not aimed at any particular group of providers).
“Gazelle will be assisted by its consortium partners — the Association of Colleges (AoC), Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) , 157 Group, and National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER), together with a wider steering group that they are convening to oversee the programme.” [The rest of Mr Russell’s statement can be read here]
Gazelle has also previously been awarded five ETF contracts, totalling £168k, for work including strategic consultation on learning companies, and two stages of strategic consultation on vocational education training, technology in teaching and higher level apprenticeships.
However, its latest ETF contract is easily the biggest it has won yet, at £1m.
Mr Donohue said: “The ETF’s learning technology programme will give a boost to innovation and the sharing of best practice across the sector.
“By coordinating input from teachers and leaders across all of the education and training sector, employers and the technology industry around the emerging themes for development, Gazelle hopes it can contribute to the success of the programme.
“The Feltag [Further Education Learning Technology Action Group] report makes the challenge for our sector clear. The ETF has a clear vision on what they want from the programme and we are pleased to be working very closely with them to deliver their requirements. We look forward to bringing all our energy and networks together to help the ETF achieve its vision in the year ahead.”
Jenny Williams, ETF director of vocational education and training, said the contract drew on Feltag findings and recommendations of the Commission on Adult Vocational Teaching and Learning.
She said: “A suite of innovation and action research projects will sit at the heart of the programme, and communities of practice will enable the spread of learning from these projects through local and regional networks.
“The projects will be inclusive and innovative, engaging with staff and organisations right across the education and training sector, and involving both learners and employers in their design, delivery and review.”
A Gazelle spokesperson told FE Week: “An initial advisory group has been convened that already includes representatives from the 157 Group, AoC and AELP. This is being extended to bring in the widest possible representation of colleges and training providers from across the sector.
“Expert advice is being sought from organisations such as NFER and Coralesce, and the programme will engage with a range of technology organisations and entrepreneurs.
“A more detailed prospectus and overview of the project and partners will be produced in the coming weeks.”
The name of Warwickshire College’s Madelyn McAlpine can be listed with World Cup-winning German stars such as Mesut Ozil, Philipp Lahm and Manuel Neuer.
The PR and communications officer also proved World Cup winner, when it came to the FE Week prediction fundraiser in aid of the Helena Kennedy Foundation (HKF).
With Germany crowned champions and Argentina the losing finalists after a 1-0 scoreline last night, she had correctly guessed first and second — and even picked the Netherlands and Brazil in her top four (although unfortunately she had Brazil, who actually came fourth, in third).
Nearly 200 people submitted their top four, in order, and Madelyn came closest to getting them all right.
Her predictive powers earned her a year’s free subscription to the newspaper, along with an FE Week mug.
“I thought Germany would be up there as they are always so consistent and their club teams are top quality,” said Madelyn (pictured right).
“I watched the final at home with my partner, John. It would have been good to see Argentina win as Aguero, Zabaleta and DeMichelis all play for my team, Manchester City, but Germany were definitely the best team in the tournament.”
A further five entrants will also be getting their hands on FE Week mugs having selected Germany as winners.
Among them was Richard Huish College enterprise manager Gavin Whitworth, Social Enterprise Kent’s National Skills Partnership management information officer Chris Smith, and Blackpool and The Fylde College senior management, information and funding officer (funding and curriculum development) Kevin Chadwick.
But the HKF proved the ultimate winner.
It will be receiving a cheque for £250 from FE Week after nearly 200 people gave their predictions. The HKF exists to overcome social injustice by providing financial bursaries, mentoring and support to disadvantaged students from the further and adult education sectors, enabling them to complete their studies in higher education.
Baroness Kennedy QC (pictured below), who correctly predicted the identity of two of the last four teams, said: “I should like to thank FE Week enormously for having a bit of fun and raising some money for my foundation.
“Clearly, if I ever stop being a human rights barrister, I will not find employment as a football pundit based on my own predictions of who would win.”
Madelyn added: “It’s great news about the donation as that’s why I took part — and I got Japan and Honduras in the workplace sweepstake so knew I was onto a loser with those.”
The best predictions came from Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief executive Stewart Segal (below left) and Shadow Skills Minister Liam Byrne (below right).
They both guessed that Argentina would be the losing finalists, and also correctly predicted a further two of the last four (both opting for Brazil and Germany — but both mistakenly thinking they’d come first and fourth, respectively).
HKF founder and chair Dr Ann Limb OBE, who also picked two of the last four teams, said: “What have Liam Byrne and Stewart Segal got that I haven’t? The ability to predict Argentina would come second in the World Cup when I had Germany as runners up instead — that explains a lot in my life.
“Huge thanks to everyone who took part and to FE Week for doing this for the HKF students.”
A new national forum for family learning which met this month for the first time looks set for membership from FE sector bodies.
The National Family Learning Forum, launched by the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (Niace), met for the first time on July 2 in London.
It was formed to look at boosting family learning, and representatives from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, local authorities and family learning providers, including the Esmee Fairburn Foundation, Campaign for Learning and Booktrust, were at its fist meeting.
The Association of Colleges (AoC) and Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) were not invited, but a Niace spokesperson said “one of the outcomes of the meeting was the agreement to extend the membership to other national organisations with a role in family learning. This includes representatives of the AoC and AELP”.
An AoC spokesperson declined to comment on whether it had received an invitation to join since the meeting. However, she said: “We’d like to be involved and for FE to have some input into this.”
An AELP spokesperson said: “Discussions have taken place with Niace on how we might contribute to the work of the forum and we are happy to contribute in any way.”
Carol Taylor (pictured right), chair of the forum and deputy chief executive of Niace, said: “There was a great deal of enthusiasm around the table [at the July 2 meeting] for the establishment of a national forum to bring family learning providers, practitioners, researchers and policy makers together to develop this extremely important and effective way of developing skills and attainment of adults, children and families.”
Family programmes aim to encourage family members to learn together, providing learning to both adults and children and provide progression for the adult to other learning.
They are usually delivered by teachers from FE colleges, local authorities, or charities at primary schools.
Skills Minister Matthew Hancock has ruled out joining a European apprenticeship development body, despite his counterparts in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland saying it could have benefits.
Responding to a written question from Democratic Unionist Party MP Nigel Dodds, Mr Hancock said England would not be joining the European Alliance for Apprenticeships.
However, governments in the devolved nations have all expressed interest in joining the European Commission-managed body, launched in July last year.
Mr Hancock said: “The UK recognises the value of learning from others by keeping abreast of developments in Europe and internationally.
“However, we believe that this can be achieved through less bureaucratic routes than a European Alliance for Apprenticeships.
“In England, we do not propose to participate but the devolved administrations are free to do so if they believe that the Alliance is the appropriate framework for sharing best practice.”
The European Alliance for Apprenticeships aims to bring together public authorities, providers, youth representatives and other body to promote apprenticeships, assist in apprenticeship reform programmes and maximise use of funding and resources.
Twenty one European Union member states have so far committed to the group, including Germany, Netherlands, Spain and Austria. Businesses across the EU have also pledged support, including Tesco, Nestle, Siemens and Scottish Power.
The Northern Irish Department for Employment and Learning announced its strategy for apprenticeships last month, which included a commitment to ensure apprenticeships were transferable between countries and explore the possibilities for international placements.
Its Employment and Learning Minister, Dr Stephen Farry, said: “It is envisaged that the European Alliance for Apprenticeships may offer the potential to share best practice, benchmark provision and develop networks for the purpose of supporting placements and exchanges of apprenticeships across Europe.”
Dr Farry, FE Week understands, has had discussions with the European Commission over joining the alliance.
A Welsh government spokesperson said: “We are currently considering whether we should join the European Alliance for Apprenticeships and a decision will be made very shortly.”
A Scottish government spokesperson said: “We are currently looking at whether the European Apprenticeship Alliance would be a helpful addition to our programmes supporting more people into work.”
She added that an independent Scottish government would also adopt the European Youth Guarantee where young people are guaranteed a job or further training after four months of unemployment.
Vocational education will be the focus of the House of Commons Education Select Committee’s last inquiry before the general election, its chairman has announced.
Conservative MP Graham Stuart (pictured) told the Higher Ambitions Vocational Education Summit in London yesterday (Tuesday, July 8) that his committee would use its last inquiry before the election next May to shine a light on the sector.
Chairing a session on vocational education, Mr Stuart said: “This country has traditionally struggled to give vocational education anything close to the status it enjoys in countries such as Austria and Germany, which both noticeably have far lower youth unemployment rates than we have in Britain.”
He added: “My committee, its last inquiry before the general election will be into vocational education.”
According to official archives, it will be the committee’s first inquiry on the subject since the predecessor education and skills committee examined post-16 skills in March 2007.
Mr Stuart’s office would not elaborate on his plans for the inquiry, but a spokesperson for the committee said it could happen before the summer parliamentary recess.
She said: “The committee has agreed in principle to look at certain aspects of vocational education.
“The terms of reference have not been drafted. They will be developed, discussed in private and agreed over coming weeks, and the inquiry will then be announced.
“It is not clear if this will happen before the House rises for the summer but I would tend to expect that to be fairly likely. That is all I can say at this stage.”
It comes after Ofqual’s policy director Jeremy Benson told the same summit that his organisation had an “important role to play” in vocational education, and would be increasing its involvement in the area.
He said: “At best, our regulatory arrangements can support awarding organisations in developing good qualifications, and at worst, they can get in the way and create unnecessary burdens, so we need our regulatory arrangements to drive all qualifications to have a clear purpose and to be fit for that purpose.
“Qualifications should be, in the jargon, ‘valid’. They should measure effectively the skills and knowledge that that they are intending to measure.
“I don’t want to labour the comparison with academic qualifications. We at Ofqual have focused a lot on GCSEs and A levels in recent years, and rightly so, but we are now ramping up our work on vocational qualifications too.”
He added: “We are raising our expectations for vocational qualifications and planning to remove poor quality qualifications that provide weak progression opportunities.
“We will be setting out more about our approach over the next few weeks. We will be proposing to remove the accreditation requirement, by which qualifications have to be checked with the regulator, a process which for most qualifications has little value.
“We have reviewed the current regulatory rules, the qualifications and credit framework (QCF), and found it wanting. It focuses too much on process and structure and not enough on quality and validity, so we will be proposing significant changes to that.”
Skills Minister Matthew Hancock challenged Labour’s understanding of apprenticeship starts following a week in which the Opposition’s fact-checking has been called into question.
During an Opposition day debate on vocational education in the House of Commons yesterday (Wednesday, July 9), Shadow Education Minister Tristram Hunt and Mr Hancock clashed over whether the overall number of apprenticeship starts among under-25s had risen or fallen under the current government.
Mr Hunt said: “Let us be clear about the government’s record. The number of apprenticeship starts by under-25s has fallen by 11,324 since 2010.”
However, Mr Hancock disputed the figures.
He said: “The honourable member for Stoke-on-Trent central [Mr Hunt] stated that the number of apprenticeships for those under 25 has fallen by 11,000 since 2010… . Figures show that since 2010 the number of apprenticeships for those under 25 has risen by 49,000.”
The statistical first release published last month reveals that from 2009/10 to 2012/13, the overall number of apprenticeship starts among under 25s rose by 49,300, from 230,600 to 279,900.
However, it also showed that the 11,400 drop mentioned by Mr Hunt also took place — but between 2011/12 and 2012/13, where 291,300 apprenticeship starts among under 25s fell to 279,900.
It comes just days after Labour leader Ed Miliband’s proposal for technical degrees at university were labelled “confusing” by Professor Alison Wolf, whose government-commissioned review of vocational education for 14 to 19-year-olds was published in early 2011.
The Kings College London academic criticised the plan with Labour appearing to retain the aim of university education for all.
She said: “This is a surprisingly confusing speech. Apparently it is about the ‘forgotten 50 per cent’ who don’t currently go to university. But it seems to imply that the Labour Party is as convinced as it ever was that higher education is what everybody needs — and that an apprenticeship is only going to be worthwhile if it leads to this new thing called a technical degree.”
But the apprenticeship figure gaffe was the latest in a string of fact-checking spats between the Labour Party and the Conservatives.
In draft of a speech launching Labour’s support for the Adonis Review, Mr Miliband claimed that “four fifths of net new jobs since 2010 have been in London”.
However, it emerged that the figures were two years old and contradicted by official government statistics.
The figures were removed from the final version of the speech, but not before they had been repeated in radio and television interviews by Lord Adonis and Shadow Business Secretary Chukka Umunna.
Mr Umunna was also referred to the UK statistics authority by George Osborne’s parliamentary aide after claiming in an article that the number of young people claiming jobseeker’s allowance had increased by 60 per cent nationally and by 263 per cent in the north east since May 2010.
The chancellor’s office said overall data showed youth unemployment had fallen by 38 per cent nationally and 27 per cent in the north east since 2010.
Mr Hancock took to Twitter saying: “Labour caught out AGAIN getting the stats wrong. They hate the fact Britain is recovering so keep trying to deny it.”
However, Mr Umunna defended the figures, saying they were official figures on the number of young people unemployed for more than a year, although this had not been mentioned in the original article.
