The Deputy Prime Minister has called for a “UCas-style” admissions system for FE, but Gina Bradbury says that one already exists.

A ‘UCas-style’ system for young people making post-GCSE choices is already here — and UCas itself is powering the service.

When Nick Clegg stressed the need for such a service last month, it was a welcome recognition of the challenges around raising the participation age and helping young people make crucial decisions about their future education and career choices.

That’s why, 18 months ago, I was proud to oversee the launch of UCas Progress — a search-and-apply website for courses like BTecs, A-levels, apprenticeships and foundation programmes.

Much like the UCas undergraduate scheme, students fill in their details via an online profile which enables them to prepare and submit applications at any time.

The system can be accessed in the classroom, with teachers alongside to advise, or at home with parents offering a helping hand.

It’s designed with young people in mind and can be viewed on mobile devices like smartphones and tablets too.

Going national is the most exciting step of the project so far, and is another reason why the Deputy Prime Minister’s comments were so timely

The application phase of UCas Progress went live in October 2012, receiving more than 7,000 applications in the first eight weeks and today around half of local authorities in England are part of the scheme in some form.

The system handled 88,000 applications in the last academic year and has already surpassed that figure so far in 2014. These numbers make it the largest provider of course search and applications services for secondary education in the country.

The statistics prove that launching this dedicated post-16 application system was the right thing to do, and this September UCas Progress will become a truly national service when the ability to list courses and make applications will be open to all students, schools and colleges.

This means that wherever they live, young people can use UCas Progress research study options locally or further away, whether that’s a BTec in plumbing or an A-level in maths.

Going national is the most exciting step of the project so far, and is another reason why the Deputy Prime Minister’s comments were so timely.

UCas Progress is also helping councils fulfil a whole range of statutory obligations to young people in their local authority area.

For example, it supports the delivery of Raising the Participation Age (RPA), which will extend to 18-year-olds next year and it is a powerful tool for early identification of young people at risk of becoming Neet (not in education, employment or training).

And we can help meet the requirements of the ‘September Guarantee’, ensuring that each young person will have an offer of a suitable place in education or training. It also provides essential tracking and student destination data as required by government.

UCas Progress can play a key role in helping schools, academies and FE colleges meet their obligations to provide impartial information and advice through our Inform service which will launch in spring.

This service will provide comprehensive, high quality information about post-16 options, videos and interactive content as well as signposting to other sources of information and advice.

At heart of all this work is that fact that UCas cares passionately about helping young people make the right choices.

We recognise that higher education isn’t right for everyone, but we believe everyone should have access to the right information and support to make informed decisions about their future.

Gina Bradbury is head of progress at the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCas)

Where qualifications are concerned, you should never assume, according to David Hughes.

It is all too easy to fall into traps based on the assumptions we all make on a whole range of issues.

Most of the time assumptions help, but the one trap I always remind myself to avoid is thinking that everyone has positive views about learning and qualifications.

Despite most of the people I work and mix with sharing both good experiences of and success in learning, it is important to remember that significant numbers of adults are not so positive.

For many adults their experience of learning at school or at work, or in both, has not been good and they might have few, if any, qualifications.

Those experiences make them suspicious about learning and perhaps frightened of ‘looking stupid’.

I remember talking to a successful learner who told me she started learning when she decided to ‘do something about my reading and writing’ by enrolling on a college course.

It took nine visits before she actually walked though the door; a truly brave move. Many others do not make it through the door and for anyone the motivation it takes to overcome bad experiences is enormous.

Motivation is important, but so too are opportunities.

My other concern is about how useful blanket rules about the size of qualifications are and whether good and useful qualifications will be axed

That is why I was so concerned about this month’s media release from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills [BIS] telling of public funding cuts for so called ‘low-value’ qualifications.

The fact is these types of courses could actually be useful on a number of levels.

For many adults, these so-called ‘low-value’ courses are a great way to step back into learning, to help build confidence and self-esteem and to try learning in a bite-size chunk. These courses are often the springboard to move onto further courses and qualifications.

Take the story of Amanda Scales, from Brighton [see page 13], who started on a belly-dancing course but who is now a teacher after taking an access course and attending university where she got a degree.

Nobody believed when she started the belly-dancing that it would motivate her to become an inspirational teacher, least of all herself.

But that is the beauty of learning — becoming a learner, believing that you can learn, understanding and seeing things differently always have profound impacts on people at any age or stage of life.

My other concern is about how useful blanket rules about the size of qualifications are and whether good and useful qualifications will be axed.

Many employers appreciate the benefit of bite-sized courses when providing opportunities for their staff to progress at work. Smaller qualifications can often help employers meet a skills need swiftly and with powerful results.

I understand that there are lots of pressures on public funding and that the government wants to help improve the recognitions and understanding as well as the value of vocational qualifications.

We all want the same outcome — it is just not as simple as size and it is unfortunate that the BIS media release was intent on rubbishing the qualifications.

We should not underestimate how highly many adults value qualifications.

Every year, while shortlisting through the hundreds of Adult Learners’ Week award nominations, we hear from people about how incredible it was to gain a first qualification and how this spurred them on to continue learning, to progress at work and in life and go on to achieve so much more.

Cutting off any ‘re-entry point’ could mean many thousands of people missing out in the future with the obvious knock-on impact for the well-being of the economy and society.

David Hughes is the chief executive of the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education

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Click here to read ‘Adult quals cull risks ‘ article by Freddie Whittaker

With statistics this month having shown a rise in the number of unemployed 16 and 17-year-olds not in education, employment or training, Nansi Ellis looks at whether the government’s policy of raising the participation age is working.

Statistics this month showed that the number of unemployed 16 and 17-year-olds rose over the last three months of 2013, despite the raising of the participation age (RPA) to 17.

While it’s too early to judge the impact of RPA based on a single set of figures, it does give us an opportunity to reflect.

We have has always supported RPA, but been very clear that participation is not the same as staying at school. This is about being in education or training (including employment with training).

There are many potential benefits of raising the participation age.

Unemployment has damaging effects on individuals, the economy and society generally.

It’s not clear that colleges are yet planning for RPA, and both schools and colleges are flooded with changes to curriculum and qualificationsv

Raising the participation age should allow young people more time to pursue their learning; and to enter paid work with more workplace experience and better skills, making them of more immediate benefit to employers.

And work provides an opportunity to be valued as a useful member of society, reducing the frustration of unemployment, as well as social and financial costs of being on benefits.

For many young people represented in the unemployment figures, school hasn’t worked out for the best.

Expecting them to carry on with more of the same will lead them to disengage or drop out.

Equally, this can’t be about getting out and taking any job that’s on offer — if you can find one.

The period from 16 to 19 must focus on the transition from education to employment — even for those whose transition may include a stint in higher education.

Currently the options for this age group are extremely confusing, so the first requirement is for an effective system of information, advice and guidance to support young people to make the choices that will work for them. This has to happen before the age of 16.

We need sustained links between FE colleges, schools and employers. This should include student visits to workplaces; and employers, employees and apprentices visiting schools to talk about work (and study), to develop work related skills and to enthuse pupils about what they can do with their chosen subjects. It should also include vocational teachers regularly engaged with workplaces, to support students to link study and work; and employers working with teachers, lecturers and leaders to understand the changing requirements of workplaces and links with curriculum study.

Again, these should happen well before the age of 16, as well as during the transition period.

The trouble is that these links aren’t yet developed, and government policies aren’t always helpful to RPA. It’s not clear that colleges are yet planning for RPA, and both schools and colleges are flooded with changes to curriculum and qualifications.

Employers no longer have a legal duty to monitor RPA, which makes it easier for them to see this as someone else’s responsibility. And funding cuts will lead to many colleges cutting courses and resources.

The increased focus on English and maths qualifications, while important, may mean that students will ‘use up’ their learning hours on these two subjects and have little opportunity for equally important and quite diverse study.

And of course there have to be jobs for young people, with fair pay and reasonable contracts.

RPA is often seen as something we have to do in areas of high unemployment or to support the less academically inclined.

But transition from education to employment is vital for all young people, and a truly inclusive system encourages all young people to think vocationally.

It values high quality apprenticeships as a route to university, views a healthcare diploma in FE as the start of a learning pathway that could lead to higher professional qualifications, and sees A-levels within expanded apprenticeships as a way of re-invigorating learning for its own sake.

Unions have a role to play here too, and our successful bid for Union Learning Funding means we can continue our own partnerships with the TUC and the Association of Employers and Learning Providers to develop high quality provision of traineeships, apprenticeships and functional skills. If we support RPA, we all need to work together if we’re to reap the benefits.

Nansi Ellis, assistant general secretary for policy, Association of Teachers and Lecturers

Nearly eight month since the government raised the participation age, Mark Corney evaluates a policy that will next year mean young people up to the age of 18 — increased from 17 — must remain in education or be in training.

No one seems to care about 16 and 17-year-olds. Perhaps the reason is that no one cares about the raising of the participation age (RPA).

Since May 2010, tuition funding for 3 to 15-year-olds has been protected for inflation, but not for 16 and 17-year-olds.

True, the Coalition has equalised funding rates between school sixth forms and FE colleges, but this has been achieved through levelling down rather than up.

In addition, financial support for 16 and 17-year-olds in full-time FE and unwaged training has been savaged as Education Maintenance Allowances have been replaced by more restrictive Bursary Grants.

And parents of 16 and 17-year-olds in full-time FE and unwaged training have faced the scaling back of means-tested child tax credit and below inflation increases in means-tested child benefit.

The only crumb of comfort is the extension of free meals to poor full-time students and unwaged trainees in FE colleges and independent providers in line with 16 and 17-year-olds at school sixth forms.

Last September the RPA was raised to the end of the academic year in which a young person reaches 17. It will be increased to the 18th birthday from September 2015.

The RPA should have made 16 and 17-year-olds a priority group for funding. Instead, it is being used as a rationale to support cuts in provision from 18.

The RPA should have made 16 and 17-year-olds a priority group for funding. Instead, it is being used as a rationale to support cuts in provision from 18

At a time when the deficit remains £100bn a-year, nearly double the total Department for Education spending, there is a case for reducing the funding rate for 18-year-olds in full-time FE to 82.5 per cent and mandatory employer cash contributions for apprenticeships.

But with progress to full participation at 16 and 17 so painfully slow, the Coalition must do more than ‘watch and wait’.

The categories which count under the RPA are full-time education, jobs with apprenticeships, and jobs of 20 or more hours per week with part-time education.

At the end of 2012, total participation in the above categories by 16-year-olds was only 87 per cent. This means an extra 13 per cent of 16-year-olds — around 85,000 young people — need to enter RPA-compliant education and training.

More worryingly, overall participation in 2012 was only 80.6 per cent. This means a massive 20 per cent of 17-year-olds — some 130,000 young people — need to enter RPA-compliant education and training from September 2015.

Expanding apprenticeships for 16 and 17-year-olds is clearly part of the solution. But it is difficult to imagine employers offering more places for this age group if they are confronted with mandatory cash contributions, however limited they might be.

Any fall in the 55,000 or so apprenticeship places for 16 and 17-year-olds implies even more young people outside RPA-compliant education and training.

Unless employers rush to offer jobs with part-time accredited training, presumably 16 and 17-year-olds will be expected to join sixth month ‘traineeships’.

A 16-year-old, for example, who has completed a traineeship will face a real dilemma if jobs with apprenticeships fall further and there is no expansion of jobs with part-time education.

Maybe the answer lies in a year-long highly vocational skills training programme for un-waged 16 and 17-year-olds with progression to job with an apprenticeship at 18 when apprenticeship opportunities become increasingly available.

Mark Corney, independent policy consultant

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Click here to read an expert piece on the RPA by Association of Teachers and Lecturers assistant general secretary for policy Nansi Ellis

For many small firms, the thought of taking on more than one or two apprentices at once is overwhelming. But that’s no reason to ignore their views on reforms to the programme, warns John Allan.

A year ago we published our apprenticeships manifesto outlining what the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) wanted to see from reform of the system to make more small firms involved.

We have been part of recent discussions to change the apprenticeship system and see the value that having a truly business-led system could provide to both business and the apprentice.

There is no denying that small firms see the value of apprenticeships and a survey of our members showed more than a quarter (28 per cent) have at some point employed an apprentice.

Encouragingly, this year around 20,000 new apprenticeship places were announced — by both large and small firms. While bigger firms will create thousands of places, small firms usually only take on one or two at a time.

Reforms must not alienate small firms from the system

There are 4.9 m small firms in the UK compared to around 7,000 large businesses, those with more than 250 members of staff.

Our research shows 11 per cent of our members want to take on an apprentice in the next 12 months — this equates to 539,000 of all small businesses.

And if each of those took on just one, it would vastly increase apprenticeship numbers. Proof why the small business voice must be heard and their needs taken into account.

National Apprenticeship Week showcased all that is good about the apprenticeship system. How it can put a young person on the path to a prosperous career.

But reforms must not alienate small firms from the system. One issue our Small Business Index has noted is the increased numbers of members who say finding appropriately skilled staff could limit their ability to meet growth aspirations. Taking on an apprentice could help.

Our apprenticeship manifesto said the new system should be designed with input from business.

And businesses should be able to directly access the funding. So far so good. But we need to work hard on the current consultation to ensure we get the details right.

Small firms don’t have pots of cash to pay for training up front, nor to wait until the apprentice has completed it to claim payment back from the government. Sometimes apprenticeships end and often the reasons for this are not the fault of the employer.

Some larger businesses with vast reserves and profits will also see apprenticeships not work out and when it happens, it has much less of a financial impact.

A small business will already be out of pocket in these circumstances, having invested in an employee the benefit of which they will never see. We do not want to see this situation further hampered by a payment by results system.

Now the reforms are under consultation we need to see government be innovative with how they reach out to small firms.

For example, using business organisations like the FSB and social media channel to get greater engagement will be a good start. Furthermore, putting the design of apprenticeships back into the hand of employers should empower them. What we would like to see is all draft apprenticeship standards undergo a full online public consultation with enough time for small businesses to contribute.

The past 30 years have seen much change to the system. If government is going to design something that doesn’t need another 30 years of change, it needs to make sure it has the right input. Otherwise it risks apprenticeships being just for big business but with a potential half a million that could be created by small firms it just doesn’t make sense.

John Allan, national chairman, Federation of Small Businesses

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Click here to read an expert piece from Pimlico Plumbers managing director Charlie Mullins

Further education has a key role to play in promoting diversity, says Toni Fazaeli, who calls for an independent commission to report on current sector practices.

Nearly 12 years after the publication of Challenging racism: further education leading the way, and six years after Niace published From compliance to culture change: Disabled staff working in lifelong learning, the Institute for Learning (IfL) is calling for an independent commission to look at improving diversity in FE and skills, focusing on the distorted patterns that remain apparent for sex, gender, ethnicity and disability. The time has come for a fresh appraisal of diversity in the sector, drawing on the excellent work done in the first decade of the century by the Commission for Black Staff in Further Education and the Commission for Disabled Staff in Lifelong Learning.

Like the previous commissions, it would be an independent body, comprising commissioners from a broad spectrum of relevant organisations.

Its role would be to investigate and report on current practices, commission research to gather evidence, and make practical recommendations for policymakers, colleges and providers, professional bodies, unions and careers advisers, with the aim of influencing culture and practice, and promoting career opportunities for all.

Teachers and trainers are role models. We know that there is still a strong sex bias in people’s work choices.

According to recent research by City & Guilds, young women are being discouraged from becoming apprentices, because the apprenticeship programme is seen as male-orientated.

The 17 per cent of women encouraged to take up apprenticeships (compared to a third of men in the survey) were also more likely to be steered away from careers like IT and engineering.

At a time when skills gaps are constraining so many industries and we continue to suffer high levels of youth unemployment, this seems to be a shocking waste of potential talent.

Across the sector, the uptake of apprenticeships by women and by men broadly mirrors the patterns of female and male teachers across vocational areas and subjects.

Analysis of IfL’s large data sets for teachers and trainers over a three-year period shows that the profession is predominantly female, with nearly twice as many women (62 per cent) as men, and that female teachers are more heavily concentrated in certain parts of the sector: adult and community learning, the voluntary sector and, to a lesser extent, sixth-form colleges.

Analysis of the Institute for Learning’s large data sets for teachers and trainers over a three-year period shows that the profession is predominantly female

In terms of vocational areas and subjects, women predominate in languages, health studies, administration, animal care, family learning, literacy, hairdressing, early years and child minding, and beauty therapy.

The armed forces are the only part of the sector where male teachers and trainers are the majority, and they are concentrated in prisons and work-based learning too.

Areas where male teachers prevail are bricklaying, carpentry and joinery, motor vehicle studies, electrical installation, mechanical engineering, plumbing and gas, and engineering.

Our analysis also indicated that subjects with very high levels of male or female involvement seemed to be less ethnically diverse.

On International Women’s Day, neuroscientist Gina Rippon of Aston University, said the notion that men and women have different brain structures is merely a myth pedalled by the “drip, drip, drip” of stereotyping, and that gender differences are environmental, not innate.

Children are influenced by stereotypical attitudes and unconscious bias, from an early age, which in many cases prevents them from being the people they really are. It is surely not right that we continue to reinforce these attitudes in FE.

Teachers and trainers are crucial role models for their learners, including apprentices, and greater diversity in the profession will help encourage young people to consider subjects or vocational areas typically perceived as being ‘male’ or ‘female’.

Stereotypes must not hold back ambition. Teaching or being an apprentice in engineering, construction or IT should be perceived as perfectly comfortable choices for everyone, as should careers in social care and hairdressing, or teaching these.

Toni Fazaeli, chief executive, Institute for Learning

Having left school at 15 to become an apprentice plumber, Charlie Mullins now sits as managing director of Pimlico Plumbers. He outlines his view of the apprenticeship system and how it should be used to tackle youth unemployment.

After leaving school at the age of 15, I took on a plumbing apprenticeship and that opportunity has given me everything I have today.

One of my proudest achievements has been growing Pimlico Plumbers to a size where we could start taking on our own apprentices and they now make up about 10 percent of our workforce.

I want to see other companies following this lead in using apprenticeships to grow the talent that will help them succeed in the future and to give opportunity to young people.

At the moment we have nearly one million young people stuck not in employment, education or training while at the same time firms are saying that they can’t get the skilled people that they need to grow.

This is an absurd situation which we desperately need to sort out. I believe that increasing the opportunity to learn on the job via apprenticeships is vital to sort out this problem.

Apprenticeships are a great investment for the future, but businesses are unlikely to get much return in the first couple of years

We need more apprenticeships to be available to young people and more of these to be high quality schemes giving young people skills which will set them up for life.

At the moment there are 11 applications for each apprenticeship place. This is a higher demand than for places at Oxford and Cambridge University. We want to see a situation where rather than having to turn so many people away; an apprenticeship is available for everyone who wants to take one up.

Boosting the supply of apprenticeships from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is important if we are going to deliver on this aim, but taking on an apprentice is very expensive for small companies.

A good quality three-year apprenticeship like the ones we run at Pimlico will cost around £45,000.

Apprenticeships are a great investment for the future, but businesses are unlikely to get much return in the first couple of years. This is a huge risk for smaller companies if the apprenticeship goes wrong.

This is why I believe that the government has a role to play. I believe that a national scheme to fund apprenticeships is needed to meet the shortfall in places.

A small grant of £1,500 to employers who are offering apprenticeships for the first time is available. That might go some way to encouraging companies to consider apprenticeships, but local schemes which have provided more generous support to SMEs have been most effective in boosting numbers.

Providing funding to help smaller firms to take on apprentices is a good idea, but the question is where is the money going to come from to fund it? My answer is that we need to switch funding from subsidising failure to investment in the future.

A recent report from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) shows that about £2.5bn is currently spent on out-of-work benefits for the under-25s each year and a further £6bn was spent on other benefits and tax credits for this group.

This is a huge amount of taxpayers’ money being invested into actually reducing the life chances of young people as time on benefits knocks back their future earning potential.

This money should be reinvested in supporting the expansion of apprenticeships or pre-apprenticeship training schemes.

As well as boosting the supply of apprenticeships we need to make sure that more young people understand the opportunities they offer.

A recent survey of apprentices from the Industry Apprenticeship Council showed that most found out information about apprenticeships on their own initiative. Very few got any information from teachers or careers advisers and nearly 20 per cent said that their school actively discouraged them from taking an apprenticeship up.

I think that a school actively trying to dissuade young people from taking up an apprenticeship is appalling. I believe that in the same way that university entry has been promoted to young people through, among other things, visits and summer schools, schools should be working to give young people a taste of what an apprenticeship could offer them.

This should be open to all their pupils, not just those that they have decided are ‘not up to going to uni’.

Delivering on this is not going to be easy, but given the extent of the challenge we face, the question should be can we afford not to take action?

Charlie Mullins, managing director, Pimlico Plumbers