Every year South & City College Birmingham hair and beauty students organise a charity fundraising event and this year’s had personal resonance for learner Kerry Farrelly, writes Chris Henwood.
When South & City College Birmingham hair and beauty lecturers asked learners who should benefit from their annual charity event, Kerry Farrelly thought of her mum.
Kerry, aged 35, wanted to raise money for Marie Curie Cancer Care and local charity Ward 19, based in Heartlands Hospital. Both helped her mum, 67-year-old Sandra Nicholls, through a 13-year fight with leukaemia from which the grandmother-of-two is now in remission.
And, after a day of hair and beauty treatments where clients made donations, mum-of-two Kerry and her classmates raised £362, split equally between the good causes.
Alongside the pampering experience the students worked with local businesses, including Birmingham City Football Club, to contribute prizes for a raffle to generate more donations.
Sandra Nicholls and daughter Kerry Farrelly
“It turned into a bit of a family reunion for me — my mum was there and other relatives,” said Kerry, who runs a mobile hairdressing business and is in her third year of studies at college.
“I had got into a bit of a panic in the morning because I really wanted to raise as much money as possible.
“I was astounded by what we raised, and my mum was. She was really proud and said the money would make a big difference.
“One hour of Marie Curie nursing at home costs £20 an-hour and provides family members with respite care.”
Amy NcNaughton-Brown, from Marie Curie, said: “I’d like to thank everyone at the college for this donation. We could not provide care without the help of the local community.”
The Ward 19 Charity Fund raises money to buy equipment that will benefit the overall care of patients. The organisation also promotes people to sign up to the Anthony Nolan donor register.
Sister Kathy Holden, from Ward 19, said: “The efforts of the students at South & City College are much appreciated and without them we wouldn’t be able to do what we do.”
The fundraising event took place on Tuesday, December 17, at the college’s Hall Green Campus.
Main photo: South & City College Birmingham students, staff and ward 19’s Sister Kathy Holden.
Ofsted Chief Inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw’s second annual report on FE and skills pointed the sector in the direction of greater heeding of local enterprise partnerships. But to what extent is this deference warranted, asks Mick Fletcher.
The Chief Inspector’s annual report on FE and skills follows a now predictable format. It contains some useful analysis and important observations, noting for example that in many areas the major barrier to progress is government policy rather than provider practice.
Then someone, one must presume the Chief Inspector himself, superimposes some oversimplified headlines and tough talk aimed squarely at providers.
But this is damaging to the sector and diminishes the reputation of Ofsted.
The increased interest in employability outcomes in this year’s report is a case in point.
The report itself, and the survey of local accountability on which it is based, identify a range of factors affecting the complex relationship between education and employment.
They include the funding and accountability structure within which providers have to operate, the poor performance of many local enterprise partnerships (Leps) in terms of providing useful information about the labour market and the lack of progress at a national level in developing reliable and valid indicators of progression.
The Lep experiment is so similar to its failed predecessors in relation to FE planning that some healthy caution about the enterprise is called for”
Ofsted may have only recently prioritised employability, but the FE sector has seen successive failed attempts to ‘match the supply and demand for skills’ stretching back at least 30 years.
Inspectors may not remember the Work Related Non Advanced FE Development plans that all local education authorities had to produce in the 1980s, but they must recall the Strategic Area Reviews carried out by the Learning and Skills Council around a decade ago.
The Lep experiment is so similar to its failed predecessors in relation to FE planning that some healthy caution about the enterprise is called for.
Yet far from exhibiting caution the inspectors demonstrate a naive enthusiasm for the idea that all providers need to do is study the labour market information supplied to them and direct young people accordingly.
In this idealistic world, the very real difficulties of forecasting demand, or of separating projections from aspirations, let alone the practical and moral implications of denying choice to young citizens on the basis of other people’s guesswork, are ignored.
The City of Bristol is quoted as an example of bad practice in the annual report, which is curious because it had been an example of good practice in the survey on which the report is based. In this city we are told, only 20 per cent of FE provision matches Lep priorities.
It sounds shocking, but then the Lep priorities in Bristol were never intended to encompass all, or even a majority of the employment opportunities available. They represent areas where the Lep hopes to encourage growth. Andy Durnam of EMSI has estimated that the proportion of employment nationally in the 10 areas highlighted by the Lep can’t be far off 20 per cent — the pattern of college provision is more or less what you would expect.
Data experts at RCU, who have carried out detailed analyses of skills provision in several Lep areas, similarly warn against using general percentages as a performance indicator as there is no consensus about which qualifications should be included or excluded in the calculation.
Another criticism of colleges in the report is that in the preceding year only three of the 17 colleges visited had revised their curriculum ‘considerably’ to better meet employer demand.
The assumption, unsupported by any evidence, is that college curricula are so wide of the mark, and Lep analyses so clear and compelling, that nothing other than wholesale revision of the FE offer should be contemplated.
A more sensible interpretation would be that most colleges are too responsible to jettison years of incremental planning and proven student demand on the basis of some early crystal ball-gazing by an untested organisation.
None of this is to deny colleges need to carefully consider links between their programmes and the world of work. They should and almost all already do. Their attempts to do so however are not helped by the tabloid treatment of a complex issue.
Former House of Commons Education Select Committee specialist Ben Nicholls is head of policy and communications at London’s Newham College. He writes exclusively for FE Week every month.
‘Twas the week after Christmas and, bursting with glee,
Staff and students returned to the Land of FE.
For those not in the know, FE-Land is a place
Where all can achieve, whatever their race,
Whatever their creed or their colour or clan:
All ages are welcome, girl, boy, woman, man.
And this Land oh so fine has particular skill
In training the young who, too often, until
They had found FE-Land had struggled to learn,
Or to study in schools of conventional turn.
These young folk find homes in the Land of FE,
And are trained in new skills — and often for free:
For to deliver such skills, whether in social care,
Or media, or history, or travel, or hair,
Resources are needed, and people, and food
And the government pays, which is proper and good.
And though in this climate no spare cash can be had
FE-Land holds the answers to much that is bad:
For the skills FE teaches, and the students it trains,
Are the way for the country to bear current pains.
These students — most vitally, the youngest we teach —
Are the way to secure a fair future for each.
For politicians agree, in their rhetoric and spiel,
That skills and employment will help the wounds heal.
But just before Christmas, as the weather grew cool,
The rhetoric went; those in power, as fools,
Decided to cut by millions of pounds
The FE-Land funds which can turn things around.
For the least-hit of colleges, the damage was still
Over FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND taken straight from the till.
The students affected — the story grows worse —
Are those who the power-mad have already cursed
By the cull, at a stroke, of the old EMA
Replaced with a system which simply won’t pay.
They’re the students, moreover, which the powers decree
Must stay training for longer — and FE-Land agrees —
But a cut such as this gives a message so wrong
That the damage now starting will last deep and long.
It will weaken morale, will weaken provision,
Will weaken achievement, will further division,
Will damage the students already enrolled,
Will discourage others from being as bold.
The powers that be do not travel enough
To FE-Land, to see all the wonderful stuff
Which flourishes there – instead they prefer
To concentrate just on the narrow old world
Which they know: the world of Oxbridge and Eton.
The result: FE-Land being kicked, pillaged, beaten.
We know times are tough, that the coffers are low,
And that everyone must take a part of the blow.
But a cut of this scale will do the reverse:
Will make the recovery far, far, far worse.
So we make a loud plea to the powers, this New Year:
Asha Khemka was always certain that one day she would be “somebody”, but she says there was never a plan.
However, determination and success appear to be in the Khemka family genes.
At the tender age of 33, her grandfather became the youngest judge to ever be appointed in the Indian state of Bihar, before becoming the second most senior judge of the Supreme Court.
And even husband Shankar is a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Queen’s Hospital, Burton on Trent.
However, it was not until Khemka’s arrival in the UK in the winter of 1978 that she found her independence and the meteoric rise through the FE ranks to damehood would begin.
Born to a wealthy upper class family in one of the poorest Indian states, Bihar, from a young age Khemka’s life was planned for her and there were strict customs and traditions to follow.
Her marriage was arranged and at 14, just two years after the death of her mother, she was a wife with all the expectations of running a household.
“Around the age of 13 I recall lots of proposals coming through for a marriage,” explains Khemka.
“Then one day all of a sudden I found myself at my aunt’s house. ‘I am going to put a sari on you,’ she said. ‘Why? I said.
“She simply replied: ‘There are people coming to see you, for a marriage proposal.’ I started crying: ‘What is this? Why are you doing this to me?’
“Suddenly my husband’s family arrived, except for him, and were showering me with jewellery and I was engaged — just like that.
“It was not for about another eight or nine months that I finally met my husband. Our romance developed over time, through writing to each other initially.
I used to regularly fall over on the ice while wearing my saris and flip-flops”
“We first met at the opening of my father’s new shop, it was only briefly and my brother was present. But as soon as I left I felt a feeling of love, a lust for this man I hardly knew, but was clear that I wanted to be with him for the rest of my life.”
Shankar was a young medical student when they first married in India. It was the offer to undertake his Fellowship of the Royal College Surgeons that saw the family including three young children, move to the UK.
Asha Khemka, aged 15, with husband Shankar
“Honestly, when I arrived, my worries were: ‘Can I speak a proper sentence in English? Can I communicate with people? Can I own a car? Can I learn to drive? Can I learn to swim? Will I be able to take my children to playschool and other places on my own?’,” explains Khemka.
“We arrived on January 31, 1978, with three very young children, [sons] Sneh, Sheel and [daughter] Shalini, all of whom were ill during the flight, so it was an exhausting trip.
“I remember my first morning waking up and looking out of the window. There was snow. It all felt very strange — a shock. I was in an unrecognisable land with a limited grasp of the English language.
“I used to regularly fall over on the ice while wearing my saris and flip-flops. It was not long before we went shopping and bought more practical clothing.
“I started to learn English by watching children’s programmes, cartoons, speaking to mothers in the playschool and making a point of speaking with my children in English at home — things started to come naturally.
“Our plan was to go back to India after Shankar had completed the fellowship. But Britain had given me my independence and the space to grow.
“I was very reluctant to go back. I saw an opportunity, I saw space and I thought: ‘Wow. This is my life. Nobody else is controlling my life. Nobody else is telling me what to do or doing things for me.’
“That gave me a lot of independence a lot of hunger, and drive, and energy.”
After running the family household for two decades and with all three children having settled at their boarding schools, Khemka wanted a career.
“I found myself at home thinking ‘What am I going to do now? I have to do something.’ So I enrolled myself on a course and I did a secretarial course to become my husband’s secretary,” she says.
“But while studying, I was being told: ‘You can do this, you can do that, you could be very good at this…’ So I took teaching qualifications.
“There was an opportunity to undertake a teacher qualification in information technology. There were just seven candidates who took the exam and I was the only that passed. That gave me a huge confidence boost.”
It was her confidence to walk in to the local college in Oswestry and demand to speak with the principal that helped her land her first teaching job.
Over the following years Khemka rose through the ranks, impressing her managers with her ‘problem solving skills’. Her roles ranged from deputy head of school to a part-time Ofsted Inspector. And following several failed applications to become a principal, Khemka spent two years at New College Nottingham as deputy principal.
It would be a further six applications before Khemka landed the top job.
“I arrived at West Nottinghamshire College and immediately felt: ‘This is my college.’ There were five other candidates, all deputy principals from large colleges, and two other candidates for this job said to me: ‘You are hungry for this job, aren’t you?’,” she says.
“I was always hungry for the job, but also in hurry to get to the top.”
It was a determination that she concedes may have given the wrong impression.
“I have never regarded myself as a people person,” explains Khemka.
“I was always seen to be an ambitious individual, driven, clear, single-minded, focused, wanting to achieve something regardless.
“When I became principal at West Nottinghamshire College, all of a sudden I realised, ‘Wow — this is my college. This is my community. These are my people.’
“And I became a people person — and I discovered myself. That I am really different. And people started to see I am different. So when you have that ownership, and when you are in that position, you start to change yourself. I have surprised myself in that process, and I continue to do that.”
Her recent recognition in the New Year Honours list seemed unreachable when she arrived in 1978 and it comes after receiving an OBE in 2009.
And our interview paused on numerous occasions, interrupted either by a call from a well-wisher or for another media interview.
“The damehood is a big thing,” says Khemka.
“It’s the achievement of generations. It’s not my achievement. The way this honour is going to be regarded, it’s not my achievement alone; it is the achievement of the family.
“It’s the achievement of generations and for generations to remember and to cherish.”
The national picture of college governing boards is overwhelmingly one of white, middle-aged men, the results of an Association of Colleges survey revealed last month. Barbara Cohen looks at the legal issues.
The national picture of college governing boards is overwhelmingly one of white, middle-aged men, the results of an Association of Colleges survey revealed last month. Barbara Cohen looks at the legal issues.
hat middle-aged white men dominate the governing bodies of colleges in England seems fairly clear, not least from the results of the Association of Colleges survey and also the Review of FE and Sixth Form College Governors published in July 2013 by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.
It is likely that membership of boards will vary from college to college. It is also likely that most colleges will not be surprised by these findings, even though they have been “trying” to recruit more diverse boards.
Find out why there are too few women and too few people of different ethnicities on a governing board“
What is a surprise is that the current discussion omits reference to the public sector equality duty (the PSED) contained in the Equality Act 2010, which applies to the governing boards of all colleges in Great Britain.
What the PSED requires is that each governing board, in carrying out its functions, has due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination and to the need to advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations.
The Act explains that to have due regard to the need to advance equality of opportunity includes having due regard to the need to remove or minimise disadvantages suffered by members of particular groups and to take steps to meet different needs. It also requires the encouragement of participation by members of groups whose participation is disproportionately low.
The PSED means that a board must give proportionate consideration to equality in all that it does, including its appointment of governors. To fail to do so could result in challenge to the legality of a decision or a policy. Specifically, to comply with this legal duty, a college that is aware of disproportionately low participation on its board of governors by women, by younger people and by black, Asian and other ethnic minorities can no longer do nothing.
What a college must not do is immediately jump to the introduction of quotas. Imposing quotas is ill-advised for two reasons. The first is that to do so may very well amount to direct discrimination which is unlawful. The second is that imposing a sex or race quota will not guarantee that more female, or more ethnic minority, governors will have the “necessary skills and experience” which a particular college, serving a particular community, needs.
The essential first step is to find out why there are too few women and too few people of different ethnicities on a governing board. Where are the barriers? Are they external, for example a lack of information and local people, and are community groups unfamiliar with the work of the college and its governors, individuals’ lack of confidence? Are the barriers also internal, for example how does the college present itself to the community? What is the public face of the governors? Are the views of current board members when selecting new governors unduly informed by their own gender, race and age?
Once the causes of disproportionality have been identified a college can consider how the positive action provisions in the Equality Act 2010 could enable it to achieve a more diverse board.
Under the Equality Act it is lawful for an organisation to do anything which is a proportionate way of enabling or encouraging participation in an activity by members of a group if the organisation thinks that participation by that group is disproportionately low.
Quotas are rarely proportionate. Instead, a college could undertake action which is targeted at overcoming the external or internal barriers it has identified. This could include outreach to local organisations, open days for women only or for particular minority community groups, targeted support during governor recruitment. Colleges may also decide to provide equal opportunities training for governors.
To achieve a more diverse board of governors cannot be mere ‘window-dressing’. Greater diversity at the top of an organisation, incorporating a wider range of experiences and skills, not only assists it to comply with the PSED, but more fundamentally improves the quality of its decision-making, especially when determining strategic priorities and the allocation of scarce resources.
Barbara Cohen, chair, Discrimination Law Association
The FE Commissioner has slapped a second grade four college with administered status as an Ofsted monitoring report blasted its action plan for lack of results.
The senior management team at Stockport College, which fell from grade one at the end of September, has been stripped of control over staffing and finance following a review by commissioner David Collins.
Stockport joins K College, which was given administered status last month. Mr Collins has made two further college visits, to Bristol and Liverpool, and both have seen him issue recommendations.
Stockport’s Ofsted monitoring visit report last month blamed the college action plan for slow improvement.
Further, Ofsted called for principal Stephen Carlisle (pictured) to ensure there was “less time spent in meetings discussing the plans” and more “taking action”.
And, following Mr Collins’ visit, Skills Minister Matthew Hancock wrote to Stockport MP Ann Coffey about placing the college into administered status. The letter said: “I do not believe the existing leadership has the capacity and capability to deliver the quality improvement and financial recovery needed to protect learners and make efficient use of public funding.”
He warned that changes to the governing body and executive leadership team were “urgently needed”.
Stockport College deputy principal Karen Moss said: “Although we are implementing major changes which in turn will raise standards at the college, not enough time had passed to demonstrate any impact.
“Our main focus at present is to achieve the key targets we have set out in our post inspection action plan quickly and effectively.”
Currently, the commissioner’s findings are not made public, and a Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) spokesperson told FE Week they were unable to say whether the situation would be changing.
However, the BIS spokesperson added that the commissioner had “identified weaknesses in the governance” of Liverpool college.
She said: “The report makes a number of recommendations that will, once implemented, address these weaknesses and help steer the college in the right direction.
“The FE Commissioner will be monitoring and reporting back on progress regularly.”
Further, she said the commissioner’s review of City of Bristol College carried out in September had concluded that the college was “making good progress in delivering improvement”.
Vice principal Cliff Shaw said the outcome of the visit had been “positive” and “useful” and the commissioner had validated the college’s action plans. He confirmed the college would continue to be subject to further monitoring visits from the commissioner.
K College principal Phil Frier said the college would keep operating as normal, and staff would be paid as usual.
No one from Stockport College or City of Liverpool College was available to comment on the commissioner’s review.
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Editorial
Sharing the benefits of a busy FE Commissioner
The FE Commissioner certainly seems to have hit the ground running.
Four visits (that we’re aware of) so far and the results have been swift.
Administered status at Stockport and K College, plus recommendations for Bristol and Liverpool.
Skills Minister Matthew Hancock is getting nothing if not his money’s worth from David Collins.
But while we wait to find out whether the commissioner’s knowledgeable recommendations and calls for action work, how does the rest of the sector benefit?
Shouldn’t improvement for all learners at all colleges be a goal?
Ofsted reports are public documents and providers scour them to see if they can improve their own offer and practices.
On that basis, we should also see publication of the commissioner’s findings and recommendations.
It is understandable that the commissioner should focus his efforts on those most in need, but that’s no reason to deny successful colleges the benefit of his expertise.
To square that circle would be, for one, to make the commissioner’s findings accessible.
The Skills Funding Agency has beefed-up funding rules to stop rogue bosses setting up new providers to get their hands on public money.
The agency has carried out a host of changes to its eight-page Funding Higher-risk Providers and Subcontractors guidance.
It outlines the criteria that would stop a provider being considered for funding, either directly or through a subcontracting arrangement, and explains why bids might be rejected.
Among the key changes is that funding could be turned down if a senior member of staff is in place at a provider having been dismissed for gross misconduct from another provider.
The rule, which used to apply to just directors, is now in place for governors, senior employees or shareholders.
An agency spokesperson said: “The earlier version of the policy only mentioned a director and the change is intended to prevent these additional individuals from having any position of control or influence in an organisation seeking to be funded by the chief executive of Skills Funding.”
The agency can now also say no to bids if a provider has previously had their funding stopped early for any reason, failed to comply with a notice of funding withdrawal or failed to “remedy a serious breach of contract”.
It can even turn down bids where just a senior member of staff (or someone in a post already mentioned) was in place at a firm that had its funding stopped early — whatever the reason. The changes come just weeks after NTQUK bosses revealed how they were trying to breathe life back into their business after its agency contract was terminated early.
The move resulted in almost the entire 100-plus workforce losing their jobs, before the firm, which delivered apprenticeships in health and social care, customer service and business administration, went into administration.
But bosses at the 1,400-learner firm took the agency to an arbitration judge and successfully defended it against claims there had been “significant errors and missing data which constitute a serious breach of contract”.
Former NTQUK director Alex Mackenzie (pictured) said the new system was not “transparent”.
“Take the example of a training provider who has been through arbitration with the agency,” he said.
“If, for example, it is proven that the agency had acted unlawfully in terminating the providers contract, the agency could then restrict the trade of that provider — and its directors — without providing any transparent reason for doing so, other than the fact that it had previously terminated the contract.
“If a training provider considers, having won in arbitration, that it would like to re-establish itself, any future application for funding would certainly not be transparent. The application could be rejected automatically.”
The agency declined to comment on whether any specific instances had triggered the policy change. It also declined to comment on why the changes were needed.
