Why FE needs trained teachers

Every learner in the English FE and skills sector deserves to be taught by qualified teachers and trainers — and that the right should remain in law, says Toni Fazaeli

The issue of teaching qualifications has been in the news again, following Stephen Twigg’s announcement that if Labour wins the next election, all teachers will need formal teaching qualifications or will need to gain them within two years.

In his speech, the shadow education secretary said that high-quality teaching was the most important factor in improving education.

The 2007 regulations requiring teachers and trainers in FE and skills to have teaching qualifications have been retained, for the time being, following a government consultation last year. The Institute for Learning’s response to the consultation drew on the views of more than 5,300 members, and their overwhelming support for initial teacher training and qualifications was echoed in the responses from other individuals and organisations throughout the sector.

It is possible that the government will choose to deregulate, so that employers can decide on whether they require teaching qualifications. I have, however, heard of no other profession where the government is thinking of removing a national requirement for initial training and qualifications. In fact, the coalition recently dropped proposals to remove the current requirement for street works operatives and supervisors to hold specific qualifications, following a consultation in which a number of concerns were raised, especially about the potential for a drop in standards of workmanship.

I hope that the government will listen to the case for requiring teachers and trainers in FE and skills to be qualified too. Does the quality of teaching matter less than the quality of roads?

More than four million 14 to 19-year-olds and adults are educated and trained through the English FE and skills system each year. They include those studying for A-levels on the way to higher education; young and adult apprentices; adults receiving specialised training in the workplace; and some of the most vulnerable people in society —  those with learning difficulties; adult and young offenders; and those for whom education has been a closed book.

Every one of them deserves to be taught by professional teachers and trainers, and that right to be taught by qualified teachers should remain in law.

If we are to attract the brightest and the best industry experts, we must be able to demonstrate that teaching and training in FE is a respected step up professionally”

The law is in the public interest; is not unduly restrictive; and is tailored for our sector: new teachers or trainers have up to a year to gain a short preparatory teaching qualification and up to five years to gain a teaching qualification. This gives time and flexibility for industry experts entering teaching to become dual professionals — and, if a person teaches fewer than 28 hours a year, there is no requirement in law to become a qualified teacher.

It is in the public interest that tomorrow’s engineers, accountants, technicians, mechanics, plumbers, chefs and healthcare workers are taught by teachers who know their specialist subject well and have good teaching skills too.

It may be tempting to employ unqualified teachers to drive costs down, but it is a false economy. Who thinks the decision about doctors, nurses, surgeons and paramedics being qualified should be left to individual hospitals? The FE and skills sector’s ability to make its important contribution to the well-being of our nation’s economy and society relies on the quality and professionalism of its teachers and trainers.

And if we are to attract the brightest and the best industry experts, we must be able to demonstrate that teaching and training in FE is a respected step up professionally, with good initial teacher training to support this second professionalism.

A national requirement for teachers and trainers to complete initial teacher training and be qualified is in the national interest and the interests of a highly regarded FE and skills sector — in my view just as much, and some may even argue more so, than road operatives.

Toni Fazaeli, chief executive,
Institute for Learning

Ross Maloney, chief executive, the Skills Show

Ross Maloney does not give much away about his personal life.

But the chief executive of the Skills Show does admit that he’s a perfectionist with a critical eye — one that he casts mainly on himself.

What is clear is that this conscientious 32-year-old has a lot on his shoulders. He’s responsible for carrying on the legacy of the 2011 WorldSkills Show held in London.

The event — the largest ever international skills competition and careers show —  was such a success that it led to an annual national skills show. And Maloney’s team is in charge of it, and its aim to promote vocational pathways.

“We now have the national public platform for skills competitions to take place,” says the information management graduate who grew up in Monifieth, a small seaside town just outside Dundee.

“I’m quite hard on myself and the team to always be striving for excellence. The local stuff is continuous, but the show comes only once a year — you have a window of opportunity to get that right.

“The biggest challenge is that none of us is 14, so we spend a lot of time talking to young people.”

The Scot, who now lives in Borough, London, says he first “earned his stripes” working for the Scouts. Did seven years working with this institution teach him what young people want?

“When I started, membership was in decline with fewer adults willing to volunteer,” says Maloney who was involved with the organisation throughout his teens.

“We’d gone through a review — a big bit of research that led to a programme of change including a new brand and uniform — which was a huge deal for an organisation of that size [Scouts has half a million members in the UK alone].

“All sorts of questions were raised: How do you really embed the change? Create impact and reduce waiting lists? We swapped lots of stuff over from manuals to online, moving away from printed resources. We could deliver stuff almost within the hour to adults; in some ways I earned my stripes doing that,” he admits.

He ended up as head of the Scouts international division, the “Foreign Office of the movement”, he jokes.

But the charity with a turnover of £25m is not to be sniffed at. These days there are groups in every country, except five communist states: China, Laos, North Korea, Cuba and Myanmar (formerly Burma).

“As we are the founding nation, we are quite important within the international division,” admits Maloney. “It meant I got to travel.”

It was also his responsibility to take on huge events such as weekends bringing leaders together at Windsor Castle, gifted to the organisation by the Queen once a year — and a European Scout jamboree for 10,000 people.

He moved on to manage flagship projects, such as developing online tools to help adults to plan programmes.

By the time he’d finished, he’d covered seven different roles. It was,  he says, “the best possible graduate scheme”.

“Lots of my friends have done more corporate training programmes and it’s been good for them. Mine was different because people believed in what I could do.

“The Scouts is now growing and is recognised as an organisation that has a real value for society. It’s interesting to have been part of that: a huge body with just 250 people working for it in UK — that’s actually a very small secretariat for that size and meant you really felt you were part of it.”

Maloney, whose father James looks after global planning for an American oil company while his mother Anne is a social worker, next took his passion to showcasing vocational education.

“In 2006 the UK bid to host WorldSkills was successful. We started ramping up more with the appointment of a chief executive who pulled together a senior team,” he says.

A 28-year-old Maloney was appointed as operations director in 2009, on a three-year contract.

“I had responsibility for venues such as City Hall, Westminster and the O2 and had to arrange thousands of  beds across London, catering, customer services, transport — a fleet of buses  — to make it all work,” says Maloney.

He also had to sort out education programmes for the young competitors and the show’s young volunteers.

“We had a small team, just the chief executive and six of us, so it was like starting with a blank sheet of paper. It was strange going from a really established organisation to one where you couldn’t even work out where to get paperclips from,” Maloney says.

“It was like an embryo but Chris Humphries [founding chief executive of the UK Commission for Employment and Skills], the chair of the board at the time,  said we’d done the hard work to get to that point . . . that we could all do it.”

He says while the event was a competition, the bigger picture was how to change people’s attitudes towards vocational education.

“It wasn’t just about creating a workforce, it was about inspiring volunteers. What were they going to get out of it? We needed this to be more than just a day out of school. It had to be engaging, with big ceremonies. We wanted to tell the story about skills. It was great to be a part of something you could be so free with.”

Held at ExCeL London, young people came from 51 countries to compete to be the “best of the best” in their chosen skill. It was the first time the UK had hosted the competition and more than 200,000 visitors were able to ‘have a go’ at hundreds of new skills, meet employers and get specialist careers advice.

The University of Dundee graduate says it was the “right time” as the financial crisis had exacerbated  a “significant decline” in the number of skilled young people.

“The London event was such a success after the team did exceptionally well, and I was asked to take on the legacy,” he says.

The first national Skills Show event was born and held in Birmingham’s NEC last year, continuing the theme of skills competitions and ‘have a go’ activities.

How has this keen cyclist, single but with friends forming a big part of his life, keep up the energy to drive the concept forward?

“The organisation moved on from WorldSkills but we’re still moving on . . . it’s a journey. I’ve got a very pragmatic approach to things,” he says.

“Some might say I’m risk adverse. I think I keep the day-to-day going, but also take the opportunities to look forward.

“Sometimes my team probably wish I’d just get off their backs but it’s about getting things right. My friends would say I’m a perfectionist but it’s important that doesn’t reflect on the team. They do an immense job.”

He adds: “I think there are tremendous opportunities out there for young people. We all have a responsibility to inspire young people and expose them to opportunities and make sure vocational routes are not seen as a second-class route to academic paths.”

It’s a personal thing

What’s your favourite book? 

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

What did you want to be when you were younger?

A doctor

What do you do to switch off from work?

I go out on my bike

If you could invite anyone to a dinner party, living or dead, who would it be?

Steve Jobs

What would your super power be? 

To be able to shapeshift

Agency losses top £6m mark

More than £6m of Skills Funding Agency cash was written off last year, an increase of nearly 50 per cent on the previous year.

The agency’s annual report and accounts show a 43 per cent increase, £1.871m, in its losses for the 2012/13 academic year.

The overall loss of £6.192m was largely accounted for by dealings with just four providers, who either went into liquidation or administration. They were responsible for £5.989m of taxpayers’ money being lost.

They were named in the report, because they were over the identification threshold of £250,000, as Leicestershire-based UK E-Learning Limited (two cases totalling £2.253m), which went into liquidation in June last year; and Rotherham-based Mymar Training Limited (one case at £1.585m), which went into liquidation in February.

London-based Apprenticeship Training Limited (one case at £1.289m), which went into liquidation in October, was also listed, along with Bury-based Real Time Training Limited (two cases totalling £862,000), which went into administration in June last year.

A spokesperson for the agency, which was recognised last year by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy for outstanding financial management, said: “It is important to note that although the gross value has increased, the overall number of cases has reduced by 55 per cent from 51 in the 2011/12 academic year to 23 last year.”

The report shows that £5.877m of the losses related to funding for workplace training and apprenticeships, including Train to Gain. The rest applied to European Social Fund provision (£313,000) and administration expenditure (£2,000)

The agency spokesperson added: “The agency has done everything it can to ensure the recovery of funds is maximised and only writes off debts . . . where necessary and as a last resort.

“While £6m is a significant amount in absolute terms, in relative terms to the actual budget it represents approximately 0.15 per cent of the total funds — £4.1bn — allocated to more than 1,000 colleges and training providers during the year.”

According to the report, the agency can write off individual losses of less than £10,000. Above that figure, and up to £2m, they can only be signed off by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). Losses above £2m need to be run by the Treasury.

The report says BIS allowed 10 cases to be written off (totalling £6.174m — so financially almost all of the losses). There were 13, totalling £18,000, written off by the agency. The Treasury’s permission was not required in any of the cases.

A BIS spokesperson said: “The department only considers writing-off losses after careful appraisal of the facts and is satisfied that there is no feasible alternative.”

Success rates are ‘palpable nonsense’

Ofsted chief Sir Michael Wilshaw has launched a scathing attack on the FE and skills sector, branding success rates among colleges as “palpable nonsense”.

Speaking at Westminster’s Church House on Thursday, he reissued his call — originally made at the time of the education watchdog’s annual report in November — for the government to “shine a spotlight” on the sector.

“Vocational and skills-based training has not been good for many years because successive governments have not shone a bright enough spotlight on it,” he said.

“Once again, these young people have remained in the shadows.

“I was critical of the FE and skills sector in my annual report and questioned whether the ‘system was fit for purpose’. We face an apparent paradox.

“Too few young people reach 19 with the qualifications they need for employment. Yet so-called ‘success rates’ in colleges have been very high.

“This is palpable nonsense. It has arisen because providers have focused on the volume of qualifications and not on the real needs of individual learners and employers.

“This unacceptable situation has been reinforced by the perverse incentives of post-16 funding streams.”

Sir Michael went on to say he was “encouraged” by the government’s response to his annual report. He welcomed the government’s Rigour and Responsiveness paper as setting a “new welcome tone of high expectations and rapid intervention to support all FE and skills providers to be good”.

“It also promised to take more rapid action where failure or inadequacy is identified,” he said.

In a speech entitled Unseen Children, Sir Michael described the creation of the FE Commissioner’s post as an “important position in an increasingly complex post-16 landscape”.

Sir Michael went on to outline three recommendations for the sector within a package of eight across the wider education system.

He said: “The government should be more prepared to dismantle inadequate colleges that have grown too large to assure quality across their different activities.

“Smaller specialist units, including University Technology Colleges, should be created with stronger links to business, commerce and industry.”

He added: “The number of apprentices is increasing, but mainly for the over-25 age group. The focus now needs to be on the younger age group — 16 to 19-year-olds — who would benefit from a rigorous level three apprenticeship over at least a two or three-year period.

“My seventh recommendation, therefore, is that the Richard Review should be fully implemented. It provides a sound basis on which to reform and grow this system.”

His final recommendation was for all post-16 providers to report on the rate of progress and outcomes for all young people who had previously been eligible for free school meals.

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Editorial: New incentives needed

Sir Michael Wilshaw is dishing out dirt on the FE and skills sector.

But he needs to understand that a share of that dirt must also land on him.

He is right to point at funding incentives as being behind the growth in the number of qualifications and success rates.

But he should also acknowledge that his inspectors have themselves relied heavily on success rates in the process of coming to their conclusions.

Ofsted, under its new common inspection framework, appears to be getting better at using alternative performance measures, and interestingly provider grades appear on average to be improving.

But the FE sector still lacks a national performance regime, or related funding incentives, for positive destinations.

In fact, astonishingly, even the new traineeships scheme lacks a financial reward for progression into work.

The government needs to put a financial bonus on each and every positive learner destination.

Only then will the sector be set free from the qualification sweatshop.

Nick Linford, editor of FE Week

Clerks’ course safe with us, says ETF

Governors’ clerks have been assured that their training will continue after the Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS) closes at the end of next month.

Sir Geoff Hall, interim chief executive of the Education Training Foundation, which will take over from LSIS, said there was “no basis for thinking the clerks’ course won’t continue”.

Clerking In The New Era: Implications For College Governance, which LSIS says is the first research into clerking for 10 years, found worries over the continuity of the clerks’ qualification programme, availability of governor training materials, annual conference and governance support.

Sir Geoff said the course  was discussed at the clerks’ conference “and we are expecting a proposal from the national clerks’ network so they can take responsibility for the continuation of the courses, which is just the type of professionalism we want to encourage”.

A spokesperson for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) added: “There’s a commitment that those who are on the existing clerking programmes will be able to complete them.”

The report, based on consultation with 31 clerks, also highlighted increased demands they faced as a direct result of the new freedoms under the New Challenges, New Chances policy document, concerns over access to college budgets, geographical barriers to training and misconceptions over the work of clerks.

It said: “Barriers some clerks face include difficulties accessing college budgets, and limited budgets for training, not just for themselves but for their board members. For almost a fifth of clerks, the training budget for their own training and board members was under £1,000 per annum.”

Geographical barriers “added time and cost”, for clerks in more remote regions, preventing them travelling to national training events.

It said 93 per cent of clerks surveyed were educated to degree level, with 40 per cent having higher degrees, and many coming into clerking from local government, civil service or higher education backgrounds.

But it said there was a “misconception” of the role.

“It is viewed as administrative — rather than governance advisory. This misconception, many clerks feel, is not helped by the title ‘clerk’. The time may be right to consider a review of the title and the consideration of alternatives including; ‘governance adviser’ or ‘director of governance’,” it said. The priorities for the future, according to the publication, include working with the foundation to ensure continuity of the clerks’ qualification programme, support and training for new clerks, including clerk induction programmes and induction pack, and possibly introducing a formal mentoring scheme.

A spokesperson for LSIS said: “Over the past few months we have had discussions with BIS, the Education and Training Foundation and a range of partners regarding the many LSIS services, and we continue to work with them. In the few weeks that remain LSIS is, to the best of our remaining capacity, keen to support the transfer and continuation of services that have been valued by and of benefit to the sector.”

Pember is back for AoC review

The former head of FE and skills investment at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) is to lead a review of college governance.

Dr Susan Pember, who retired from the civil service just over two months ago, has taken up the post of governance review adviser at the Association of Colleges.

Her first task is to draw up an action plan to support governors and clerks.

She said the review had been commissioned “not because the present system is broken, far from it, governance of FE colleges is working well, but to determine what is now needed for the future”.

The work is expected to take around three months and will involve finding good practice by looking at organisations relevant to college governance, and carrying out an appraisal of existing support.

Martin Doel, association chief executive, said: “With her background as a former principal, as a governor of a college (West Herts) and as a former senior civil servant working on this agenda in BIS, Dr Pember was eminently well qualified to lead this work.” It is due to be completed by September.

The review will also look at helping chairs to assess output from Ofsted, the type of helpline and web support that should be in place, and legal and advice services.

It comes five months after Ofsted boss Sir Michael Wilshaw told members of the education select committee that college governance was not as responsive as school governance when failure was identified.

Sir Michael had already expressed concerns about college governance in his first annual report as Ofsted boss in November last year.

Ofsted learning and skills director Matthew Coffey welcomed Dr Pember’s review.

He said: “Governance is such a fundamental aspect of leadership and management, something that was highlighted in last year’s annual report.

“Weak accountability, leadership and governance are common failings in poor provision.

“One of the most significant underpinning reasons why providers failed to improve was a lack of effective accountability.

“Following discussions with the association’s governors’ council, Ofsted is developing a governors’ dashboard that will support governors in their role.”

Mr Doel said: “With the freedoms extended to colleges under New Challenges New Chances it is clear that more will be asked of governors and governance in colleges.

“These enhanced expectations were reinforced in Rigour and Responsiveness and in the annual report by the chief inspector.

“In response to this, the governors’ council has initiated a review of governance support requirements and arrangements for colleges with funding from BIS.”

Dr Pember, who got an OBE in 2000 for services to FE, joined the then-Department for Education and Skills in 2000 as director of adult basic skills strategy, before taking up her BIS position in 2006.

She began her career as a lecturer and later became a senior education officer, before taking over as principal at Canterbury College.

Strikes loom as college job losses announced

The announcement of up to 700 job losses in eight colleges in England has prompted industrial unrest.

Members of the University and College Union (UCU) at Chesterfield College and Kirklees College, have already taken industrial action, while union members at The Grimsby Institute have voted to strike.

All the colleges have blamed the redundancies on budget cuts.

Chesterfield principal Trevor Clay said the strikes at the college, which initially announced 70 job losses, were “regrettable”.

He added: “Taking into account voluntary redundancies and staff redeployment, our current estimated figure of required reductions in staffing is now 43 . . . so we have made some headway in alleviating the impact of this staffing restructure.”

Staff at Kirklees face six job losses, wages cuts and changes to terms and conditions.

Principal Peter McCann said: “We will be doing all we can to avoid compulsory redundancy”, adding that the college would work to facilitate staff redeployments.

“We will seek to manage this process as supportively as is possible within the enormous financial constraints we are under.”

A statement from The Grimsby Institute, where one in five teaching jobs is to go, said the college was trying to keep job losses to a minimum, and was “disappointed” by the ballot to strike.

It added:  “The institute has been working through its proposals with the union for some time and has been very clear in outlining the reasons for the proposed changes.”

A statement from Lambeth College, where 97 people face job losses, said the college aimed “to review and consolidate” its curriculum and was “looking to actively support” affected staff.

It added: “We will continue to re-align our workforce to meet the changing demands of our learners and employers.”

City of Wolverhampton College announced 95 job losses, more than 10 per cent of staff.

Principal Mark Robertson said the college had sought to minimise the impact on students and hoped large savings could be made through voluntary redundancies.

Angela O’Donoghue, the principal of South Essex College, which is facing up to 76 job cuts, said: “The current position in the sector is unprecedented and it is vital we address these funding issues quickly and efficiently.”

The college statement added the posts would be management roles to “limit the impact on frontline teachers”.

A statement from Central Sussex College, where 200 jobs could be lost, said funding cuts had been exacerbated by “an over-estimation of income under the previous management” leading to a budget shortfall of £6.5m for 2012/13.

New principal Sarah Wright said: “The new senior team is committed to re-shaping the college to maintain all that is good about the college whilst achieving financial stability and viability.”

A statement from Lowestoft College, where 27 jobs are at risk, said: “We are very sad to have had to notify staff of these changes but the cuts appear inevitable in the face of funding restrictions.”

UCU head of FE Barry Lovejoy said “knee-jerk cuts” were not the answer.

He added: “The government’s punitive cuts agenda is causing problems for colleges across the country.

“We want to work through each college’s problem and do not accept that slashing jobs, pay or staff terms and conditions is the correct approach.

“Any jobs cull simply increases the workload of the staff that survive and seriously risks the quality of education a college can offer.”

Picture caption: Staff members picketing against job cuts at Chesterfield College last week

College ‘suspends’ rape case student

A teenage student was suspended from a college in Yorkshire after claiming she was raped and sexually assaulted by fellow learners, jurors at Hull Crown Court have heard.

Three men are accused of abusing the woman, in her late teens, on campus at Bishop Burton College, in East Riding, in September.

She claimed all three befriended her outside the college, before taking her keys and pushing her into her room where they sexually assaulted her.

She said she reported the alleged attack to the college, but was not believed.

“The college said I had brought it into disrepute by having sexual actions with a group of people,” she told the court.

She added: “I was upset about it and my mum persuaded me to go to the police.”

Thomas Price, of Rotherham, 21, is accused of rape and assault by penetration, Stephen Johnson, 21, of Scotts Garth Close, Tickton, is accused of sexual assault and assault by penetration and William Robinson, 20, of Doncaster, is accused of assault by penetration. All three men deny the charges, claiming the alleged victim consented.

A spokesperson for the college declined to comment while the case was ongoing.

[Proceeding]

LSIS prepares to hand over the baton

The Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS) has published a report exploring the legacy it will leave when it closes at the end of next month.

The document, A Legacy of Learning, aimed to find out what should be retained and built on when the organisation hands over to the Education and Training Foundation (ETF — formerly the FE Guild), due to launch August 1, led by interim chief executive Sir Geoff Hall.

Based on consultation with the sector, the research said LSIS reached 97 per cent of FE colleges, 58 per cent of independent learning providers, 76 per cent of independent specialist colleges and 74 per cent of sixth-form colleges.

And 60,000 in the sector went online to access its recent guidance on safeguarding, “reflecting the extent to which LSIS became a trusted source of help and support”, the report said.

But it also revealed that some principals found the service “excessive”, report author Ian Nash told FE Week.

“One principal told me the problem . . . was that it tried to be all things to all people. There were concerns that LSIS grants were difficult to manage, they generated a lot of bureaucracy,” he said.

“One told me ‘I do resent top-slicing my budget to run any organisation like this — including the guild’.”

But there was a “strong feeling” LSIS could have been reformed and remodelled to what the guild might become, Mr Nash added, although that would have taken “a lot of work”.

At the top of everyone’s feedback was the desire to keep teaching and learning coaches, developments in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths); measures to tackle NEETs (young people not in education, employment or training); action research; equality and diversity measures; and take forward LSIS’s  legacy of better leadership of learning.

The report revealed that many saw the service’s role as an “honest broker” and “critical friend”, supporting 1,158 UK providers between August and December 2012, and 1,044 from January to April this year.

Rob Wye, LSIS chief executive, said: “The message you are sending us is that LSIS was effective in bringing the sector together as a community.”

Dame Ruth Silver, LSIS chair, said the findings showed how LSIS had “led the way” over the past five years with initiatives to enhance the performance of FE and skills providers.

“The gains made amount to a legacy that will not be lost,” she said.

“We can all be justifiably proud of what we have achieved . . . We have empowered practitioners to improve teaching and learning and developed leadership, instilling new confidence and professionalism throughout.”

Some of the sector welcomed the findings. However, a spokesperson for the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) said: “LSIS hasn’t always paid enough attention to those outside colleges, although this did improve latterly. More recently it has started to work much more closely with and through sector bodies such as AELP.  We think that this is an approach that has worked well and it should continue under the ETF.”

Lynne Sedgmore, chief executive of the 157 Group, said: “The hard work and commitment of all LSIS staff has been appreciated and we wish them every success in the future. We hope the ETF will welcome this report and use it to build on going forward.”

Skills Minister Matthew Hancock first announced proposals for a guild last October.

In a letter seen by FE Week last November, Susan Pember, former director of FE and skills investment at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, told Dame Ruth: “The new organisation will assume responsibility for many of the broad areas of activity currently undertaken by LSIS.”