. . .  and the losers will be adults with low qualifications who are taking their first steps as learners, says David Hughes in his reaction to Wednesday’s Spending Review

Wednesday’s spending announcement was a highly political holding operation. It covers only one financial year (2015/16) and cuts just £11.5bn from an annual budget of some £745bn. But what it does is maintain the confidence of international bond markets (not unimportant) and potentially wrong-foots the Opposition in advance of the next election.

It’s fascinating to watch the dynamics of coalition politics, with Danny Alexander, chief secretary to the Treasury, playing ‘good cop’ by announcing capital spending plans the day after the Chancellor has been ‘bad cop’ by announcing cuts. The review was hardly ambitious in its scope, although the proposal to cap the welfare budget (annually managed expenditure in Whitehall-speak) was a shrewd and nakedly populist move. By ring-fencing health, international development, defence equipment and schooling (until Year 11), it was relatively predictable where the savings would be made.

Overall, Business Secretary Vince Cable and his officials at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) appear to have played their hand deftly, emerging with a headline cut of 6 per cent. This is rather better than local government, for example, which faces an eye-watering 10 per cent headline cut on top of a tough settlement in the 2010 exercise. Supporters of localism were also disappointed by the decision to set the size of the single local growth fund (the so-called ‘Heseltine pot’) at just £2bn in its first year. This is right at the bottom of what was expected and suggests that, as is usually the case, Whitehall trumps Town Hall.

That said, the protection afforded to the £5.7bn science budget within BIS’s £15.5bn settlement means that FE and higher education will take a painful hit, which will, undoubtedly, mean fewer adults learning.

The size of the single local growth fund (the so-called ‘Heseltine pot’) suggests that, as is usually the case, Whitehall trumps Town Hall”

It is good to see that some of our pre-Spending Review proposals, outlined in The Case for Investment in Learning for Adults, announced. These include the good news that traineeships will be extended to 19 to 24-year-olds, that spending on the National Careers Service will be protected and that spending on 19+ apprenticeships will be maintained, as will the £210m for the adult and community learning budget.

There will be a total reduction of £360m in the skills programme budget: £250m in funding for participation and £110m in non-participation funding. If savings are to be made “by prioritising higher value qualifications”, this prompts a concern that the losers will be those adults with low qualifications who are taking their first steps as learners.

While it is likely that basic skills will be protected, there is a risk that the next few rungs of the ladder of achievement will be reduced. In particular, the decision to end co-funding for level two retraining in SMEs (a legacy of Train to Gain) will privilege larger employers that have the capacity to secure funding through employer ownership pilots, even though it is the SMEs that are seen as the real engines of growth in the economy.

One of the real surprises in the Chancellor’s statement came when he announced that “if claimants do not speak English, they will have to attend language courses until they do. That is a reasonable requirement in this country.” We need to know how this will be funded, but equally we need to consider the capacity and capability issues.

Overall, the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) is encouraged by the government’s recognition that learning for adults is an investment in the country’s future, not only boosting skill levels but also improving employability, improving children’s performance at school and  ensuring better health. The breadth of learning that the government will invest in has been maintained, even if overall numbers will reduce. NIACE will continue to make the case for that breadth as well as overall levels of investment.

David Hughes, chief executive, NIACE

Former House of Commons Education Select Committee specialist Ben Nicholls is head of policy at London’s Newham College. He writes exclusively for FE Week, every month

“We are not out to cram facts and knowledge into the girls’ heads all day long, but to help them form strong and kindly characters too,” says Miss Roberts in Second Form at St Clare’s, the fourth book in Enid Blyton’s genteel girls’-school series.

Blyton is often, sometimes justly, maligned for antiquated views, but many of her books — most particularly those inspired by educators such as A. S. Neill — contain remarkably forward-thinking elements.

The principle that education is about more than facts and knowledge will seem obvious to most colleagues in FE. Many of our students come to us because traditional, formal education didn’t provide what they needed. The very name used for our sector — learning and skills — acknowledges that great education is about preparation for life, about recognising how to learn and learning to love learning itself.

And yet increasingly the rhetoric from the government focuses on the facts and knowledge that we, and Miss Roberts back in 1944, know aren’t enough. Before he became Education Secretary Michael Gove was already lauding the ideas of American educator ED Hirsch, whose Core Knowledge Curriculum is so prescriptive that it specifies songs, poems and dates to be learnt in each class.

What this fails to recognise — just like the English Bacc — is that every young person is different. This isn’t, as Mr Gove might have us believe, patronising; it’s pragmatic and personalised. Furthermore, a system like that puts facts and knowledge above the “strong and kindly characters” that Blyton thought education ought to help people to develop. Demeaning and reducing the roles of citizenship, of the arts, of careers guidance, reduces the role and the value of education itself.

Our greatest strength (and weakness) is that we are ‘everything to every person’”

However, I’ll robustly sing Mr Gove’s praises for his vision; it may be arguably wrong, but it is crystal clear. For this, I cannot help but admire him.

I wonder, at the risk of doing myself out of a job and any accrued favour, if our sector has quite such a clear vision. A colleague suggested recently that our greatest strength (and weakness) is that we are “everything to every person”. This might allow high levels of participation and success in a range of provision, but makes it difficult to express our vision for the sector. Nor do I think we should wait for politicians — even when, as with the Labour party’s skills taskforce, they engage with educators — to articulate that vision for us. That’s our job.

The raft of policy initiatives, from traineeships to direct 14 to 16 recruitment, and the number of colleges not jumping on to these bandwagons because, in the words of one, “we already do them”, shows how diverse the sector is.

But unless we begin to answer some questions, that diversity may not be enough. What, for example, do we really see as the role of higher education in FE? Do we want to be called polytechnics, and what does that label mean for our mission? Do we wish, in light of small A-level numbers at some colleges and the growth of many sixth forms, to continue offering traditional academic subjects at all? Yes, the new Education and Training Foundation must answer these, as must our representative bodies, but we in colleges need to know the answers ourselves.

However, we do know is the value of what we do and, unlike the Education Secretary, we have the confidence of many in doing it. Perhaps Enid Blyton trained in the FE sector . . . and perhaps she should have stood for Parliament.

The chief inspector is right: success rates are not the best way to measure FE. So why doesn’t he come up with an alternative instead of beating the sector with the same old stick, says Jayne Stigger

Inspections under the new Common Inspection Framework (CIF) although rightly focused on teaching and learning, still quote success as the main judgment. Reading through Ofsted reports released this month, I found in 14 pages that they mention, on average, “success rates” 18 times, “retention” and “outcomes” both four times, and “achievement” six times.

If it is, as chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw said last week, “palpable nonsense” to measure FE by success rates, (and I don’t disagree) why does Ofsted continue to use it as its first judgment? Measures of education need to reflect more accurately the comprehensive mission of colleges and the diverse student population they serve.

So, what about retention? No, just keeping a learner isn’t a good enough measure of what we do. Instead of twiddling with data types, let’s make the system work.

The problem is with the system of measurement. We acknowledge that one size of education doesn’t suit all learners, so why should we expect one size of judgment to suit all colleges?

There are 219 general FE, 94 sixth-form, 15 landbased, three art and design and 10 specialist colleges in England, all with different learners, different objectives and different outcomes. Measure us differently. If we continue to judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, we are condemning excellent teaching and learning to years of failure.

FE colleges are run as a business, so why not measure them that way in a way that is relevant to their aims — customer satisfaction; growing customer base; stakeholder satisfaction; employee satisfaction; and, finances.

The problem is with the system of measurement”

Put this into the annual self-assessment report to Ofsted; coupled with external quality reviews by peer colleges on teaching and learning. The college grade would encompass both reports and would be timely, relevant and more reflective of the true state of FE.  Any reports ringing alarm bells could warrant a visit by the new FE commissioner and his team.

You cannot measure academic, vocational, enterprise, entrepreneurship, apprentices, training, adult and foundation learning with the same stick, something that the current CIF tries to do.

Why not a financial incentive for every positive destination? As Doug Richard reports: “This can be most elegantly ensured by making sure that the funding of the system focuses everyone in the correct direction. In that spirit, I also recommend a redirection of funding.”

Success rates, driven by funding incentives, have played a large part in the growth of the number of qualifications and increased course success rates, but FE now works in a complex financial landscape, forced to make choices that may adversely affect students. How does this serve the poor, disadvantaged learners? Good education deserves good funding.

Sir Michael talks of dismantling “too large” colleges; are they, rather than their success rates, the target? A number of large colleges have been downgraded yet the latest advert for an Ofsted inspector says: “You might be the vice-principal or member of the senior leadership team of a large college.” A large college? So, you can’t run a college but you can inspect them?

Size isn’t the issue, it is management
and governance. Some principals have hung on to their role for years, whilst failing to improve; did Ofsted recommend they were removed? No, they left them in post. If 67 per cent  are good or outstanding and 4 per cent are inadequate, then the commissioner will have to deal with fewer than two or three a year. Could Ofsted, with learners and stakeholders, make recommendations to be reviewed by an independent commissioner instead?

Large or small we are focused on our learners; no matter how it is measured.

We’ve played by the rules of the organisation that judges us. But before you berate FE colleges further, Sir Michael, raise your own game by looking at more varied and reliable evidence.

Jayne Stigger, excellence and innovations manager, Basingtoke College of Technology

A pilot programme provides a platform for outstanding career development that will help to address the current lack of university-led research that focuses on FE, says Jonathan Backhouse

Shortly after leaving school with two GCSEs (B and C grades), dyslexia was diagnosed. I wonder what my teachers would have thought if they had seen me at the University of Oxford in September last year, about to embark on a practitioner research programme.

These days, I work in the UK at Middlesbrough College and elsewhere, Africa and the United States as an occupational safety and health practitioner and teacher. I am a graduate of the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH), and fellow of the Institute for Learning (IfL), the professional body for teachers and trainers in FE and skills. I hold two occupation-related diplomas: health and safety, plus environmental management. I have also completed a Master’s and have published my first book, Essential Study Skills for Health and Safety.

As a dual professional — with a dual focus on teaching, training and learning as well as on safety and health — continuing professional development (CPD) ensures that I stay up to date in my vocational area, as well as with teaching and training methods.

IfL has empowered teachers in FE to develop their own research and publication skills; and equipped them to undertake more research ”

When I heard about the pilot fellowship research programme (FRP), run jointly by IfL and the research centre for Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance (Skope) based at the Universities of Oxford and Cardiff, I jumped at the chance.

The aims of the programme are to develop participants’ research and publication skills; provide opportunities for demonstrating significant contributions to FE; and, extend and enhance the professional status of experienced and qualified IfL fellows and members holding Qualified Teacher Learning and Skills (QTLS) status.

I joined about 70 IfL members at the first workshop, where academics from Skope introduced us to research techniques and offered ideas for potential research topics. We met again in November to learn about research techniques, preparing research for publication and ways of analysing our data. We were divided into groups of about half a dozen and a mentor was allocated to each. We embarked on our educational research.

Even though I had completed a master’s degree in 2010, I was not fully prepared for what was to come. My research and publication skills developed greatly, and although I struggled to focus on the research area, my mentor and the Skope team provided guidance and support.

My action research project looked at the evaluation of lifting techniques in the workplace from a teaching perspective. A significant number of health and safety trainers, professionals and students seem to be unaware of the good handling technique advocated in guidance that came from a commissioned study by the Institute of Occupational Medicine.

They mistakenly believe that keeping the back straight is ‘correct’. My paper addressed this perception and advocated possible solutions.

By creating an opportunity for members to embark on action research projects, IfL has provided a platform for outstanding CPD options; empowered teachers in FE and skills to develop their own research and publication skills; and equipped them to undertake more research. This will help to address the current lack of university-led research that focuses on FE, compared with schools and higher education.

The programme has helped me develop research and publication skills for future work, which, in turn, will improve my role as a health and safety practitioner and teacher. It has also helped me achieve something beyond my dreams — studying at the University of Oxford.

Jonathan Backhouse, occupational safety and health practitioner, qualified teacher and author