Politicians right across the UK have placed a high emphasis on the role that post-16 education and training can play in achieving a vast range of policy goals, from improving social mobility and productivity to increasing civic cohesion and individual well-being.
There have also been a dizzying array of policy reforms and changes over time. In a new joint EPI/SKOPE report released this week, we chart the different approaches to post-16 education and training across the four nations of the UK, and differences in educational and labour market outcomes. This article draws out the key lessons for England.
Participation is high
There are some clear positives on education participation in England. Participation in full-time education among 16- and 17-year-olds has risen from 40 per cent in the 1980s to about 84 per cent today. There are also fewer young people not in education, employment or training (so called “NEETs”), down from 7-8% in the 1990s and 2000s to about 5 per cent today. We have also seen rising levels of participation in higher education, with 37 per cent of 18-year olds in England accepted on to higher education courses in 2023 as compared with 25 per cent in 2006.
The growing level of participation in full-time education has come partly at the expense of young people doing part-time education, training or work-based learning, such as apprenticeships. In the 1990s, 12-13 per cent of young people aged 16 and 17 were enrolled in some form of work-based learning. This has fallen over time, and now stands at just 7 per cent. Indeed, only 20 per cent of apprenticeships are taken by under 19s in England today, which compares with 37 per cent in Scotland and 50 per cent in Northern Ireland.
This reflects active decisions by policymakers in Scotland and Northern Ireland to focus apprenticeship on young people. In England, apprenticeships have been more focused on adults, partly to achieve arbitrary and (now defunct) targets for so many millions of apprenticeship starts. Despite a cross-party consensus on the benefits of apprenticeships for young people in England, they have largely become a means of re-training for adults.
But inequalities persist
There are, however, many sources of concern when it comes to inequalities. Parental background still plays a disproportionate role in shaping children’s life chances in England. Around 80 per cent of young people whose parents working in professional occupations possess A level or equivalent qualifications, as compared with less than 60 per cent of young people from working-class backgrounds. This then further maps into differences in higher education participation, employment and earnings.
Of greatest concern is the difficulty in tracking inequalities across all areas of post-16 education and training. With the exception of higher education, it is surprisingly hard to examine socio-economic inequalities in post-16 education and training over time. It is even harder, if not impossible, to compare socio-economic inequalities across the four nations of the UK. This is a great shame as there is potentially much we could learn from the diverging approaches being tried across the UK.
And policy churn doesn’t help
Perhaps the most distinctive feature of post-16 education and training policy is the sheer volume of changes and reforms over time. The post-16 education sector has been in state of permanent revolution for at least the past thirty years, particularly technical and vocational education.
There are major changes almost every three years, and significant reforms are rarely left enough time to bed in or achieve their goals before they are replaced by new ones. The latest example is the creation of T Levels and their planned replacement by an Advanced British Standard even before they have been fully rolled out. Constant policy churn implies that the system is at best flawed and at worst failing. This has the potential to harm the morale of staff and students.
A political consensus is needed on the goals and ambitions that can be realised by the post-16 education and training system, well-funded institutions and structures, and a stable set of qualifications.
This may sound fanciful within the UK’s adversarial political system, but the main political parties are not actually that far apart on this issue. They all describe wanting to see a parity of esteem between academic and technical qualifications, a desire for well-funded institutions and the potential benefits from young people doing apprenticeships. The missing elements have been delivery, funding and a willingness to leave reforms to bed in.
Despite its faults, the Butler Act of 1944 was a clear example of political consensus across parties that enabled policymakers to achieve ambitious goals for schools, and it created a system that remained in place for decades. The same is needed now for further and technical education.
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Colleges are waiting months longer than expected for government approval on severance payments to outgoing staff, in the latest red tape headache imposed on leaders since reclassification.
Following the Office for National Statistics decision in November 2022 to class colleges as public instead of private sector bodies, the government outlined that colleges must apply for approval for special severance payments to departing employees.
Approvals must be sought for payments of £50,000 or more, where they are equal to three months’ salary or more, an exit package of £100,000 or more, or where the employee earns over £150,000.
The application must go to the Department for Education, who claim the process should take just a few weeks to confirm or deny approval. The process can however take longer if it decides to consult with the Treasury department or requires further information about the payment.
Experts told FE Week that the process of seeking severance approval has been “inconsistent” in cases to date.
“We advise clients that they should expect at least a couple of months on any application, even for a fairly straightforward one. In some cases, they have seen it has taken a lot more than that,” said Ben Wood, a partner at law firm Eversheds Sutherland.
“What we’re hearing from clients is that there is some uncertainty around timescales and information, particularly in regard to decision making processes. Efficiency is key here, and colleges are seeking a consistent, streamlined process.”
In one case, involving Bishop Burton College, leaders appear to have applied for approval retrospectively.
According to its latest 2023 accounts, the land-based college made two special payments of £15,636 during the financial year and £12,430 on 31 August 2023.
Both payments were equivalent to three months’ gross salary and fell under the rules for approval.
The accounts state: “The college has applied for retrospective approval from the ESFA for both cases and await their response.”
It is not clear why the college made the payments before going to the ESFA for approval.
Bishop Burton College declined to comment when approached by FE Week, but it is understood it is still waiting for a response.
Wood said: “I think it’s so easy to fall foul of some of these rules. We’re always saying to be cautious, be prudent about these things. But I can see how some colleges wouldn’t think about it necessarily.”
Wood, an employment law expert who works with colleges on reclassification rules, added that he didn’t understand why FE colleges are subject to the three-month salary contingent when academy trusts are not.
“Colleges are uncertain why they are subject to that extra limit. I don’t believe that applies to government departments or academy trusts,” he said.
Julian Gravatt, deputy chief executive of the Association of Colleges, also questioned the rule.
“The three-month threshold is low, and with college pay averaging £30,000. This means DfE sign-offs will be required for payments of less than £10,000 in some cases.
“There will be odd cases where a college made a mistake, and we assume that officials will take a sensible approach to allow everyone to focus on the more important issues.”
In the government’s support and intervention guidance, published a month after reclassification, the DfE said it could place a college into intervention if it makes a “significant or recurring” unauthorised transactions.
Concerns over the severance approvals delays come just weeks after college leaders raised issues about delays in receiving government permission to hire senior staff on salaries of £150,000 or more which is causing waiting times of up to five months.
DfE admitted approvals were taking longer than planned and promised to “streamline” the assessment process an update the guidance.
Colleges and training providers face fines of around £45 million annually, if current trends continue, under the government’s bombshell English and maths resit funding reforms, FE Week analysis suggests.
Enraged leaders have warned of the “significant” financial damage this will inflict on their budgets as they slam ministers for blindsiding the sector without consultation.
Demands for the “out-of-the-blue” changes, described as a “sledgehammer to crack a nut”, also appear to have fallen on deaf ears with ministers expected to reject calls for a suspension.
The Department for Education announced plans last week, during half term, for post-16 providers to teach students a minimum of three hours a week of English and four hours of maths if they failed the subjects at GCSE, or risk losing funding. Teaching must be in person.
Under the controversial and refreshed “condition of funding” policy, the Department for Education will clawback funding for any eligible learners who have not enrolled to do resits from 2027.
Currently, penalties only kick in when the number of students breaking the condition of funding rule exceeds 5 per cent of a provider’s total 16 to 19 cohort. Funding is removed for each student above the tolerance level at half the national funding rate.
The tolerance was put in place in the early days of the policy after officials recognised there were some students who could not meet the condition of funding for reasons outside a provider’s control.
For example, learners who are on their core aim for more than 42 days and then withdraw without having 42 days on their English and Maths, or those who cannot cope with a programme where they are studying English and maths as well as their core aim due to health challenges not covered by an EHCP (education, health and care plan).
But DfE officials have decided to halve the tolerance to 2.5 per cent in the academic year 2025/26, before removing it completely from 2026/27.
FE Week analysis of the government’s 16 to 19 allocations data shows that since the condition of funding policy was introduced in 2014/15, funding reductions of £43.6 million have been made across the sector.
But if the total number of students who did not meet the condition of funding is multiplied by half the national funding rate, those fines would have ballooned to £375 million if zero tolerance had been applied.
For 2021/22 there were 22,490 students not meeting the rule across 2,811 providers, but only 209 providers (7 per cent) were above the tolerance and received fines of £3.58 million. If zero tolerance was applied, then 1,313 providers would have been penalised to the tune of £47 million. This is based multiplying the non-compliance numbers with half the then-national funding rate of £4,188.
FE Week’s analysis shows that levels of non-compliance have dropped since the policy was introduced but has remained between 20,000 and 25,000 students in recent years – a level which has concerned officials.
Asked why the DfE has decided the scrap the tolerance, the department only said: “Currently, use of the 5 tolerance of non-compliance with condition of funding prior to funding penalties is leaving students without mathematics and English support that they are eligible for.”
But a source close to the DfE told FE Week the department decided to clamp down on the resits policy after internal research showed the most economically disadvantaged students were not meeting the condition of funding, and the tolerance was being misused.
“In some cases, colleges are just not enrolling the most disadvantaged learners in English and maths because they are the hardest to convert in terms of attainment,” the source said.
They explained that the 5 per cent tolerance was “left there as a flexibility” amid calls for the condition of funding policy to be scrapped altogether. But for many years the threshold has been used routinely instead of exceptionally, in the eyes of the DfE.
“The tolerance was meant to be used as a margin for error at the start of the policy. But some colleges are now using the 5 per cent as their starting point.
“A number of schools and sixth form colleges have completely flown under the radar because their entire resit cohort is under 5 per cent of their total study programme cohort, so the condition of funding penalty hasn’t applied to them.”
James Kewin, deputy chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association, said there “should always be a tolerance to allow institutions to make professional decisions about individual students”.
He added: “If there is a problem with how the tolerance is being used, publish the evidence and focus on those with a very high level of non-compliance.”
General FE colleges are the provider type most impacted by the resit policy changes as they take on most students who finish their GCSEs without a pass in English and maths.
‘This is a sledgehammer to crack a nut’
London South East Colleges consistently goes above the 5 per cent tolerance and receives six-figure fines annually. Without the threshold, its fine in 2021/22 would’ve been £735,000 instead of £250,000.
A college spokesperson said this is predominantly due to high numbers of low-level ESOL learners who cannot access entry-level 1 or higher.
“These are often looked after children or unaccompanied minors, many of whom will, in time, have an ECHP assessment but have not been in the country for long enough. Language is a huge barrier, as well as many having significant mental health issues due to previous experiences,” the spokesperson said.
“In an already challenging financial context, removal of the tolerance will further impact our ability to provide high-quality education and skills for the most vulnerable learners.”
United Colleges Group (UCG) had 359 students not meeting the funding conditions in 2021/22 which resulted in a £270,000 fine. If zero tolerance was in force the penalty would’ve grown to £750,000.
A UCG spokesperson said the removal of any tolerance “presumes that colleges are not already working to ensure that all learners understand the importance of continuing to study English and maths, which is not the case”.
Colleges that have sat between zero and the 5 per cent tolerance in recent years are angered about being brought into scope for penalties after claiming to have followed the process diligently for years.
Activate Learning had 163 eligible students who did not meet the condition of the funding in 2021/22, which is 2 per cent of its 7,943 cohort of 16- to 19-year-olds. Without the tolerance, its fine would have been £340,000.
Cheri Ashby, deputy chief executive of Activate Learning, said: “When the condition of funding policy was first implemented, there was no tolerance and it was soon deemed to be financially punitive on colleges.
“For many colleges, Activate Learning included, there are students who we simply cannot get to meet the threshold for reasons out of our control. This includes people who may have been withdrawn from their main aim after day 42 but whose last English/maths enrolment didn’t pass day 42, or those who are struggling with attendance due to mental health challenges not covered by an EHCP.
Cheri Ashby
“We have diligently followed the process, yet despite this we see on average 2 to 2.5 per cent of our students not meeting the criteria. This means that while the first year of the phased removal won’t impact us, after that there will be significant financial implications.”
Ashby added this move, coupled with the introduction of the face-to-face minimum teaching hours for English and maths, means “we will need to recruit more teaching staff to deliver this, something that presents us with a challenge in an already competitive market where there is a shortfall of qualified staff”.
Over 100 independent training providers also deliver 16 to 19 study programmes each year and are set to be hit by the condition of funding changes.
Nacro has scores of non-compliant students each year. The provider’s principal and director of education and skills Elise Temple said: “Nacro Education works with some of the most disadvantaged young people, some of whom have disengaged from education entirely before coming to us. The 5 per cent threshold ensures we can apply careful professional judgment to individual student needs and make decisions about the most appropriate programme mix at a given point in time.
“Taking away this threshold reduces our ability to do this. A one-size-fits-all approach to educational funding risks compounding the challenges of the most vulnerable young people.”
Learning Curve Group also has a large 16 to 19 cohort annually. Chief executive Brenda McLeish said the reforms “disproportionally impact those learners who are most disadvantaged and struggled to engage with maths and English at school”. She suggested: “Perhaps improvements to this area in school would have been a better starting point.”
Funding consultant Steve Hewitt said removing the tolerance needlessly penalises providers for circumstances that the department has agreed for nearly a decade are out of their control.
“This is a sledgehammer to crack a nut,” he told FE Week. “Where is the evidence that DfE are using to make this decision? It feels to me like someone wanted to look ‘cool and hard’ in front of a minister rather than working with the sector to understand why there might be more learners failing to meet the condition of funding.”
Minimum hours here to stay
Department for Education rules haven’t stipulated a minimum number of teaching hours for those resit students until now.
From September 2024, full-time resit students will be “expected” to study at least three hours per week for English and four hours for maths and pro-rata for part-time learners.
This study should be “stand-alone, whole-class, in-person teaching, with any additional support, such as small group tuition or online support, supplementary to these minimum classroom hours”, according to the new rules.
The minimum hours will only be an “expectation” in 2024/25 to “reflect that despite best efforts not all institutions may be able to meet this from as early as September 2024”.
But they will become a strict rule from 2025/26 from which point funding reductions will be made in cases of non-compliance.
FE Week understands the DfE had become concerned that colleges had moved away from offering these sorts of teaching hours after the Covid-19 pandemic.
The DfE said: “The minimum hours of classroom teaching reflect established practice across providers pre-pandemic, and we know that most settings are already meeting them or on a journey towards this. By mandating teaching hours, this will ensure this progress is consistent across the country, so no learner is left at a disadvantage.”
Association of Colleges chief executive David Hughes has called for the new rules, which go alongside the “modest” funding of £375 per learner, to be suspended while alternative solutions are drawn up.
“It will damage the life chances of the students it is meant to help, it is unworkable because of the low pay in colleges making recruitment of new maths and English teachers almost impossible, and it flies in the face of the work DfE is doing to simplify the system. Perhaps most worryingly, it shows how little trust there is from DfE in colleges,” he said.
The DfE appear to have rejected the demand. Asked if it would suspend the rules, the department told FE Week: “We will continue to work closely with the sector through this phased implementation to deliver on the shared ambition to support students to progress in these crucial subjects.”
Tightened up rules you may have missed
FE Week understands the DfE had become concerned that multiple colleges and providers were entering lower attainers on the same level of English and maths courses, instead of progressing them to higher level courses in line with the rules.
Condition of funding guidance has now been changed to explicitly state: “Institutions must be able to demonstrate progression for students enrolled on maths and/or English qualifications. In most cases, we expect that it will be appropriate for students to study for a qualification at a higher level than they have already attained, rather than just improving their grade at the same level as their previous achievement.
“When a student is studying for a qualification at the same level as a previous achievement, institutions must have evidence of why the qualification is the best choice for the student.”
Students with special educational needs and/or disabilities and an EHC plan, who are assessed as not able to study towards either GCSE or stepping stone qualifications, can be made exempt from the condition of funding.
FE Week understands the DfE had become concerned that providers were exempting all SEND students with EHCPs, so officials have changed the wording of the rules to state: “Institutions must consider all exemptions on a case-by-case basis. There is no blanket exemption for whole institutions.”
The government’s “shock” decision to stop collecting destination and progression data through the individualised learner record (ILR) has angered mayoral combined authorities.
Department for Education officials released next year’s ILR specification on January 31, and revealed the destination and progression entity is to be removed.
It means that colleges and training providers can no longer log their destinations and progression data, often used for Ofsted inspections and mayoral combined authority (MCA) performance meetings for adult education budget contracts, through the central ILR system from September 2024.
The DfE told FE Week the data field was “identified by the FE sector” as “something they struggle to complete, with providers claiming it as time-consuming and that it results in poor quality data”.
A spokesperson added that the department had also ceased to use the destination and progression data for monitoring outcomes and instead was now using the longitudinal education outcomes (LEO) dataset which has “better quality data on destinations”.
The decision has prompted mixed reactions from different provider types across FE.
Julian Gravatt, deputy chief executive of the Association of Colleges, said he understands the destination field has been dropped as a “simplification measure, and we welcome this”.
“The ILR is a lengthy process for colleges, with at least 100 data fields for each student, and more if they’re taking multiple qualifications, so there is definitely scope for rationalisation and improvement,” Gravatt added.
However, Holex, the representative body for community education organisations, said the announcement was a “surprising turn of events” that was made without consultation or rationale and no alternative way to record the data offered.
There are now fears that learning organisations will have to scrabble around to find individual new systems to demonstrate the effectiveness of their programmes to MCAs, without any new funding to cover costs and no framework to give advice on what definitions should be used.
Sue Pember, Holex’s director of policy and former skills lead in the DfE, said: “While the process of inputting data into the ILR may not have been flawless, many learning organisations successfully extracted meaningful insights for Ofsted inspections and mayoral combined authorities’ performance meetings.
“The sudden disinterest from the DfE has raised concerns within the sector. Learning organisations are now faced with the challenge of selecting systems that not only meet their needs but also produce comparable data for inspection and performance reports.”
Simon Connell, chief executive of the Baker Dearing Educational Trust, which represents University Technical Colleges, called for the decision to remove destination and progression data from the ILR to be reviewed.
“Knowing where young people progress to once they leave – whether that is university, an apprenticeship, employment or nowhere – is useful for measuring how education is tackling skills gaps and promoting economic growth,” he added.
The types of destination data submitted through the ILR includes whether the student moves into employment, unemployment, an apprenticeship or another further level of study like higher education. Progression data is when a student moves from one year of a course to the next.
Officials have however been concerned that the data mostly shows intended destinations rather than real destinations.
LEO data links together administrative data from education, social care, and the labour market to enable DfE to study people’s journeys through education and into the workplace. While it is more robust than ILR submissions, LEO data works on a five-year lag.
Experts who spoke to FE Week predict that there could be a rise in mayoral combined authorities creating their own destinations data collection tools because they want to know that the money they are spending through the adult education budget in one year is helping people get jobs next year.
MCAs appear to have been blindsided by the DfE’s decision.
A West Midlands Combined Authority spokesperson told FE Week: “We are hugely disappointed in the DfE’s decision to remove the destinations field from the ILR. It is a collection and measure that we have found incredibly important in MCAs over the past few years. It has enabled us to work with our providers to get a full understanding of the impact of what we’re funding.
“We weren’t consulted by DfE which is equally disappointing considering well over 50 per cent of the AEB is now devolved. We will now have to replace the ILR destinations data with our own form of collection.”
An investigation has been launched into “potential concerns” over a university’s subcontracting arrangements which include a further education college and multiple private providers.
The Office for Students (OfS) is looking into the governance arrangements and quality of courses delivered by partners of Leeds Trinity University.
The OfS said it has identified “potential concerns that require further scrutiny”
This is believed to be the first time the higher education regulator has launched an investigation specifically into a university’s franchising and validating arrangements.
Leeds Trinity lists seven domestic and two international “academic partners” that deliver foundation to master’s level degrees on its behalf.
For example, Waltham International College, a private provider which was graded ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted in 2022, delivers three bachelor’s degrees with foundation years in partnership with Leeds Trinity.
Leeds Trinity badged degrees are also offered at Applied Business Academy, Global Banking School, LD Training Services, Results Consortium and Scholars School System.
Degree courses at Barnsley College are validated by the university.
Just over 7,300 students were on subcontracted out courses in 2021/22 according to OfS data. Most of them, 6,540, were full-time undergraduates.
Student numbers in four UK partner private providers grew to “over 9,000” according to the university’s 2022/23 accounts.
The OfS refused to explain whether its “potential concerns” related to a specific contractor but said its investigation will check the quality of courses on offer, the effectiveness of the university’s management and governance and its compliance.
“The investigation will consider whether Leeds Trinity University has complied with general ongoing conditions of registration, and any matters relevant to the provider’s authorisation for degree awarding powers in relation to its partnerships,” the OfS said.
It stressed that launching an investigation does not mean the university has necessarily broken any rules.
If the investigation reveals a breach, the OfS can impose conditions of registration, monetary penalties or revoke degree awarding powers.
A Leeds Trinity University spokesperson said: “As a responsible higher education provider we understand and take seriously our obligation to comply with all relevant rules and guidelines to meet the sector’s regulatory requirements. Leeds Trinity University will work with the Office for Students to ensure transparency and assurance in relation to the institution’s franchise partnership arrangements.
“Widening participation is at the heart of Leeds Trinity’s ethos and has been for many years. Franchise partnerships are one of a number of ways in which the University enables social mobility and raising aspirations in groups traditionally under-represented in higher education.”
It comes a month after the National Audit Office published a damning report on higher education franchising which called for greater oversight in light of fraud and abuse.
The government’s audit watchdog found that 53 per cent of the £4.1 million of student loan fraud in 2022/23 was at franchised HE providers, even though franchised students only make up 6.5 per cent of Student Loan Company funded students.
The transition to electric vehicles (EVs) presents an unparalleled opportunity for the education sector to lead by example in the shift towards sustainability. With over 200 FE Colleges embedded in the heart of local communities, they are uniquely positioned to spearhead this change. By integrating sustainability across operations, they can enhance their appeal to prospective students and employees.
As reported in these pages last month, the DfE intends to “meet the strategic commitment for all settings to have a climate action plan in place by 2025”. Pressure is building, and arguably there will very soon come a point when climate action plans will undergo the same level of scrutiny as other policies such as safeguarding and health and safety.
But how does this all play out on a practical basis? There are an ever-increasing number of companies specialising in advising on all aspects of reducing carbon emissions focusing on things like heat pumps, solar panels and improved insulation. Rewilding schemes and recycling programmes don’t directly reduce carbon output from a college estate but are important additional options for creating sustainability.
However, one of the biggest practical impacts that will be felt over the next few years is the move to electric vehicles (EVs). With over half (52 per cent) of all domestic transport emissions coming from cars and the transport sector being the largest emitter of carbon in the UK, there has been a focus on driving down emissions from combustion engines and moving to zero-emission vehicles.
While government policy pushed back a ban on the sale of new combustion engine cars to 2035, the zero-emission mandate (ZEV) means a minimum of 80 per cent of all new vehicle sales will have to be EV’s in 2030. Combined with the Labour Party stating they will revert to a complete ban in 2030 as well as manufacturers continuing to remove combustion engine products from their portfolios, the reality of college car parks full of EVs looms.
The reality of college car parks full of EVs looms
Charging at home is an option for some, but those with no off-street parking will have to rely on a network of publicly available charging points. Range anxiety and access to charging facilities are two of the most common barriers to individuals moving to EVs, but the big barrier of cost is rapidly falling: price parity with combustion engine cars is only a few years away.
The rapid rise of EVs on the roads to over 1 million by December 2023 has been helped further by schemes such as the removal of road tax and the car salary sacrifice initiative as well as cheaper running costs. The salary sacrifice has been a very popular route for organisations to offer real value to an employee at no cost to either party. Employers lease the car from a recognised business and the employee pays for it via their gross salary, saving on NI and income tax. Given the pressures on pay within FE, this is a great way of providing employee benefits without impact. It’s also arguably a necessary incentive to compete for prospective employees’ attention.
Charging is also becoming simpler and more accessible, not just for users but for those with the capability to make it available. FE colleges are at an advantage in that they tend to benefit from having the electrical infrastructure to allow charging to take place on site – an incentive for students, staff and visitors alike.
Therefore, the government’s announcement at the start of this month that, through an enhanced Workplace Charging Scheme grant, they will now cover up to 75 per cent of the cost of each charging point (up to £2,500 per point) installed at an FE College should be welcomed and embraced.
The route to Net Zero will take many forms but the barriers will mainly exist around how practical some of the initiatives are to implement. Without adequate charging facilities, uptake (and therefore our ability to reduce overall emissions) will falter.
Strategically embracing EV technology offers a dual benefit: colleges can contribute significantly to environmental sustainability while simultaneously bolstering their attractiveness as forward-thinking, environmentally responsible institutions.
The good news is that the incentives are there, enabling us to jump before we are pushed.
When I was 14, my mother became a teacher. From then on, she would regularly come home after work and fall asleep in front of the TV news. We used to tease her: how could she could be so tired when she only had a part-time job? And then life had its revenge and I, too, became a teacher.
Now well into my third decade in the job, I am still perennially surprised by how very, very tiring the job can be, especially at this time of year. Now it is me slumped in front of the evening TV news every evening.
And it’s not just our own tiredness, The pressures of the job mean any responsibilities at home or in ours wider lives take a knock too. It’s no surprise that home tensions are so common among the profession.
In teaching, everything seems urgent, even though little of it might actually be important. Most enervating, perhaps, is having to complete tasks for the sake of accountability – tasks that take us away from the real job. What really wears teachers down is the weight of knowing what we do makes such a significant difference to our students’ lives. We won’t not do those things, and we can’t not do what managers ask us to do to prove we’re doing it. And so we do both.
More exhausting even than this consistent over-burdening is the holistic nature of the job. A good teacher is physically, mentally and emotionally engaged. Spiritually, even. A teacher simply cannot turn off.
Each of us is only a few generations away from working on the land. Among my ancestors, there are farmers, ship builders, lorry drivers, shopkeepers, builders and policemen, among others. As I leave for work some mornings feeling tired and sorry for myself, I try to remind myself that they would have jumped at the chance of a life like mine, doing the job I do.
A teacher simply cannot turn off
I spend my days reading poems and plays. I am often caught in various sorts of crossfire, but nobody shoots at me. Teaching is a privilege. Nevertheless, there is such a thing as teacher-tired.
In 2021, a YouGov TeacherTrack survey suggested that 50 per cent of teachers suffered at least one characteristic associated with work-related burnout ‘all the time’ throughout the academic year. Further, 89 per cent reported that they felt a lack of energy or exhaustion in relation to their job ‘some or all of the time’. The mental health consequences of this are patent. Teachers are not just tired; they are dangerously tired.
One former colleague managed the demands made upon him by only ever submitting information or data on the second request. If it was really necessary, he reasoned, managers would ask again. Many tasks seemed to evaporate for him that way.
Another committed to only ever doing things in a half-arsed sort of way so that she would never be asked to do those things again.
These are desperate measures, and they speak of desperate times.
For my part, I approach each term a little like a military campaign. I plan. I prepare. Physical fitness, good diet, a sound sleep regime, all these things will sustain you through the initial skirmishes of the term rushing towards you. Experienced teachers also know that sometimes simply getting to the end of the day in one piece is enough. So they let themselves have those days.
Teacher tiredness sometimes plays a conversational role akin to the weather. It is a safe topic on which agreement is assured and debate limited. So teachers can talk about their weariness without fear of being controversial.
Until government funding is increased and contact time reduced, maybe that is the key. Talking about things normalises them and allows the people who experience them to see they are not alone.
We need to admit that teaching is uniquely tiring. That way, perhaps more managers will be inclined to reduce the burden however they can. And more importantly, perhaps more trainees will enter the profession with a true idea of what it means to be a teacher and they, too, will give the job a few decades to grow on them.
On 15 February, a year to the day since Greater Manchester signed a landmark strategic partnership with InnovateUK to drive innovation in the region, InnovateUK unveiled a new Further Education Investment Fund. FEIF is a groundbreaking £7.5 million initiative to build capacity and capability in 33 colleges nationwide.
Launching FEIF, Indro Mukerjee, chief executive of InnovateUK, passionately emphasised the pivotal role further education colleges play in driving innovation, citing their unique connection to local businesses and communities.
We agree. Having recently become engaged in the Greater Manchester’s innovation ecosystem as outreach delivery partners for the Centre for Digital Innovation led by Manchester Metropolitan University, GMColleges leveraged this experience to seize the opportunity presented by FEIF.
Our nine Greater Manchester general further education colleges united for a single collaborative bid, recognising the necessity of contributing to the ecosystem in a coordinated manner, rather than duplicating existing approaches or adding to confusion of provision.
We also aimed to introduce fresh and exciting elements that create new areas of activity and understanding for our sector and staff.
Our unity of purpose and the creativity of our bid have been recognised, and we now look forward to delivering a comprehensive plan that we hope will be a model for other regions.
In each Greater Manchester borough, there will be a business innovation centre complete with a business innovation adviser and a local coordinator who will facilitate business community engagement. Our goal is to promote the adoption of new technologies and processes, aiding business growth and productivity. We will collaborate closely with the innovation ecosystem partners to bring expertise out of the centre into the boroughs and into businesses who can sometimes seem distant from business support programmes.
This opportunity is not just exciting for us but for the entire sector
Crucial to our project are four ‘innovators in residence’ who will offer sector-specific knowledge to all GM colleges, enhancing their FE staff capabilities through CPD, industry visits and advice on procurement of equipment. Each innovator in residence will be expert in one of Greater Manchester’s frontier sectors, as outlined in combined authority’s innovation plan: advanced materials and manufacturing, health innovation and life sciences, digital, creative and media, and clean growth.
A highlight of the Greater Manchester programme will be the creation and deployment of apprentice innovation ambassadors. This dynamic initiative will foster ‘innovation literacy’ among apprentices from all sectors, empowering apprentices to champion and support incremental innovation in their workplaces.
Through these apprentices, our aim is to demystify innovation and make it relevant to everyone, gradually building a movement towards decent work and increased productivity across the city-region.
This opportunity is not just exciting for Greater Manchester colleges but for the entire sector. With a team of 36 staff to be assembled over the next two months, our ambitious program embarks on a year of initiation and experimentation. In building the team, we will even test new ways of bringing knowledge and capacity into the colleges.
With initial funding and contracts for 12 months, these posts will suit people who are excited to break new ground, so we are open to full- and part-time employment, but also secondments, academic-sabbaticals and contract working.
Each day in this project is a learning opportunity, and we eagerly seek collaboration with partners to propel this knowledge into the future, solidifying further education colleges as vital partners in propelling UK innovation. We want partners to join us in shaping a new frontier of innovation, where each day presents a chance to contribute to something extraordinary.
Not for the first time in recent years, Greater Manchester is leading the way, not just in driving business innovation but in modelling that innovation through its own approach to meeting economic challenges.
At the heart of that approach is a genuine recognition of further education’s unique capability to bridge businesses and communities. The combined authority’s aim is to create the country’s first integrated technical education system. We hope this new stream of work will ensure it is far from the last.
