MP ‘desperately sad’ over numeracy and literacy failings

Poor adult numeracy and literacy levels in England and Northern Ireland were the subject of a House of Commons debate.

It was prompted by findings from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which warned of some of the highest proportions of adults scoring at or below level one — the lowest possible level — in numeracy, where adults can only perform basic mathematical processes.

It stated: “In fact, 24.1 per cent of adults, around 8.5 million people, scored at that level, compared to the average [among participating countries from across the world] of 19 per cent.”

Tory MP Caroline Dinenage (pictured), who secured the Commons debate on Thursday, said: “I am angry, frustrated and desperately sad that we have failed so many generations over this issue.”

The OECD report further indicated that around 16.4 per cent of adults, or around 5.8 million people, in England and Northern Ireland scored at level one or below in literacy, which is closer to the average of 15.5 per cent of adults among all participating countries.

At level one in literacy, adults can only read brief information on familiar topics.

England was also the only country surveyed where the oldest age group (55 to 65) had higher proficiency in literacy and numeracy than the youngest group (16 to 24).

Skills Minister Matthew Hancock told fellow MPs: “It was a shocking report and it will reverberate down through the education debate in Britain for many years.

“I hope it will persuade many who are sceptical or resistant to the reforms being put in place to come onside and support more rigour, and support stronger maths and English within schools.”

He also announced the launch of a programme to produce more FE maths teachers. It is understood the programme would involve the retraining up to 600 existing FE teachers by the end of the current academic year.

They would cater for thousands of extra pupils now expected to have to study maths at college because they had failed to achieve at least a C grade for GCSE, or equivalent qualification.

“Of course, good teaching of English and maths requires good English and maths teachers, so we are today announcing new Department for Education support for the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Maths to develop a maths enhancement programme to upskill existing teachers of maths in further education,” added Mr Hancock.

Labour MP Barry Sheerman said there would be no easy solutions to improving numeracy and literacy.

He said: “It is something that has evaded all governments from all parties for a considerable length of time.”

Shortlisted college eyes-up K College degrees

One of the eight organisations shortlisted to take over the troubled K College has told FE Week it is only interested in taking on higher education provision.

Canterbury College is one of eight colleges and training providers that has been invited to bid for provision delivered by the Kent college.

But it has revealed it is only looking to take on K College’s higher education programmes.

“Canterbury College has a newly-opened, purpose built higher education centre and is keen to ensure there are suitable opportunities for learners in Kent to progress to higher education,” a spokesperson told FE Week.

“Hence the college is making a bid for the higher education provision currently delivered by K College.”

Nine organisations had been asked to develop their bids to take over provision at K College. They had been whittled down from 30 organisations, including colleges and private firms, who sent the Skills Funding Agency a total of 87 expressions of interest (EIs).

One of the organisations has since pulled out, but, other than Canterbury College, those still in competition are East Kent College, Mid Kent College, Hadlow College, Portsmouth’s Highbury College, Ixion Group Contracts Ltd, SEETEC Business Technology Centre Ltd and NCG (formerly Newcastle College Group).

They all declined to comment on their possible tenders, although an NCG spokesperson insisted the 250-mile distance between its HQ and K College would not be a problem as it was already a national training provider.

K College was formed following a merger between West Kent College and South Kent College in 2010, but ran up at least £15m in debt to the agency, which has issued it with a notice of concern.

Phil Frier, who became interim principal of the college in January following the resignation of former principal Mr Fearon, has conceded the merger failed.

The agency has declined to say whether K College debts would be transferred to the winning bidder.

The Canterbury College spokesperson said: “We are very mindful of the need to safeguard our own finances and other resources, and do not wish to jeopardise our own position and that of our students and staff.

“The college will therefore not be bidding for any of K College’s campuses, or for other FE funding contracts that come with various high levels of bank loans and other debt.”

Seven parts of the college’s provision are on offer, including 16 to 19 provision in Dover, Folkestone or Ashford, Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells grouped together and 19+ provision in these three areas.

Higher Education Funding Council for England directly-funded provision at Ashford and Tonbridge is also up for grabs.

The first, EI, stage of the tendering process was initially supposed to have been completed in August.

But it was delayed by the agency “in order to allow organisations to better prepare their tenders” as many organisations would be closed over the summer, according to an email sent to interested bodies.

That resulted in the second stage of the process, where invitations to tender (ITT) were due to be sent out by the agency between July and September, being pushed back.

However, the delay should not prevent contracts from being awarded on time, an agency spokesperson told FE Week in July. They said: “Contracts will continue to be awarded in line with the indicative timetable we have set out.”

The short-listed organisations who have made through to the ITT stage are due give presentations and attend interviews on their bids this month with contracts being awarded the following two months.

SFA warned about its unpaid traineeship post

The Skills Funding Agency (SFA) has been warned about “exploiting” young people, after it advertised an unpaid traineeship vacancy which could last up to six months.

The agency posted the advert on the National Apprenticeship Vacancy Matching website.

It was for a business admin trainee, as part of the government’s new traineeships scheme, where learners complete work experience alongside English, maths and employability training.

Tom Wilson, director of Unionlearn, the teaching arm of the TUC, acknowledged the potential benefits of traineeships, but warned they could be exploitative.

He said: “Looking at the advertisement for the unpaid traineeship at the SFA, it appears trainees will have to do a wide range of tasks which will be of value to the employer, without receiving any pay.

“Traineeships can be a useful route towards an apprenticeship or job, but they must be high quality.

“Trainees should gain a realistic experience of work, including proper pay for work carried out.

“The TUC is concerned unpaid traineeships risk exploiting trainees, without improving their job prospects, and displacing existing staff.”

The advert stated the trainee would be expected to work at least 21 hours a week for up to six months.

It gave the hours as Monday to Thursday, from 9.30am to 4.30pm, with Wednesdays spent doing off-the-job training with Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce.

The notice also made it clear the role was unpaid, but the trainee may be able to receive a bursary to help with travel expenses.

Applications closed on September 20 with interviews to take place the following week.

A possible start date given as last week.

The advert added the traineeship would last up to six months, the maximum allowed under the traineeship rules.

The trainee would be expected to perform duties such as data entry, sending emails, scanning, filing, shredding and postal duties.

A spokesperson for the agency said: “There is no expectation for employers to pay young people taking part in traineeships.

“Students undertaking a work placement, as part of a traineeship, are exempt from any national minimum wage entitlement.”

The spokesperson added the agency could not guarantee the trainee would be offered an apprenticeship, or a job when the traineeship ended.

But along with the provider, it would “see what progression opportunities could be identified and facilitated”.

The learner would gain “improved skills and an enhanced CV with purposeful learning activities within a real workplace setting, giving the learner a “greater chance of competing successfully” when applying for jobs elsewhere.

The training branch of Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce declined to comment.

An Access Training advert on the National Apprenticeship Vacancy Matching Service website — which advertised an unpaid warehousing traineeship with Newcastle Council — was pulled following complaints from unions.

A Newcastle Council spokesperson said the advert had been put up in error by Access Training and it had not intended to be the employers in the arrangement.

The spokesperson added: “”Clearly we would like to explore every opportunity to provide entry to work experience for as many people as possible.

“But our concern would include fair remuneration for any work undertaken during extended work experience.”

Minister writes to new apprentices on pay

Skills Minister Matthew Hancock has written a letter for every apprentice telling them what they should be earning — despite hundreds of adverts for underpaying apprenticeships remaining on a government-funded website.

The letter, which will be distributed to apprentices starting from October 1 by providers, outlines the minimum wage for 16 to 18-year-olds as £2.68 an-hour.

Mr Hancock’s message says: “Your employer will support your training and pay you at least the hourly National Minimum Wage.”

It comes with the government’s Apprenticeship Pay Survey having recently been released, showing 29 per cent of the 5,635 apprentices were underpaid in 2012, a jump of 9 percentage points on the year before.

Meanwhile, underpaying apprenticeships are still being advertised on the National Apprenticeship Service (NAS) website, even after FE Week highlighted the problem to the Skills Funding Agency, which runs NAS.

More than 600 jobs were being advertised on the website earlier this month paying £2.65 an hour— the minimum rate before October 1 increase. And many were still on the website almost a week later.

However, an agency spokesperson said: “We have put measures in place to ensure all new vacancies being posted adhere to the increased apprenticeship national minimum wage rate, of at least £2.68 per hour.

“We have written to all training organisations and employers reminding them of the new rate.

“We are currently in the process of contacting any training organisations and employers where we have identified adverts, posted before October 1, that are still displaying the old rate.

“To date we have experienced good co-operation on this matter from our training organisations and employers, and they are in the process of changing the rates online.”

The government’s Apprenticeship Pay Survey echoed the findings of the Low Pay Commission’s 2013 report published in April, which found that a similar number — just over 27 per cent — of all apprentices were underpaid.

TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said: “These findings are shocking and show how many apprentices are currently seen as little more than cheap labour.”

Some industries had even higher percentages of apprentices not getting their full entitlement.

In childcare, underpayment was up 65 per cent on the previous year, while 69 per cent of hairdressing apprentices were underpaid.

An agency update to providers sent out on Wednesday said Mr Hancock’s letter was in response to the April report, and told providers to ensure the letter was issued “to all new apprentices starting on or after 1 October 2013” — excluding higher apprentices, who are covered by separate regulations.

The letter explains what wage entitlements are for apprentices in each age category, and gives the number of the pay and work rights helpline.

An agency spokesperson told FE Week it would be monitoring whether providers were giving out the letter through its relationship teams.

She added: “We would expect training organisations and employers to want to do this so they can ensure that the apprentices they have just taken on have the information they need on their pay and benefits.”

And Mr Hancock himself is setting a good example, paying his apprentice well above the minimum wage at £6.31 an-hour.

His current apprentice is coming to the end of his 12-month job and so the minister is looking for a new parliamentary apprentice in Westminster.

The programme combines on-the-job training working for Mr Hancock with a formal level three qualification in business and administration.

Foundation announces first round of tenders

The Education and Training Foundation has released its first invitations to tender under a new competitive bidding process.

A total of four contracts are up for grabs — three concerning professional standards for teachers and trainers in England and the fourth about a workforce survey.

It comes a week after a letter from the foundation’s interim chief executive Peter Davies and interim chair David Hughes was posted on its website saying contract bids made under its old non-competitive process had been binned.

A foundation spokesperson said: “As part of our commitment to open and transparent ways of working, we have released four invitations to tender.

“Three of these will enable us to progress the review of the professional standards for teachers and trainers in England, as outlined in our delivery plan including to lead the consultation to inform the review of professional standards; establish the set of professional standards, following the review; and, develop guidance for teachers and trainers on the use of the professional standards.

“The fourth invitation to tender focuses on the workforce survey.”

She added: “Specifically the [fourth] invitation is for suppliers to design and deliver a consultation regarding the workforce survey, so we can ensure that this meets the data and reporting needs of the sector.”

Sue Dutton, foundation interim lead for professional standards, teaching, learning and assessment, said: “These are significant pieces of work. One of the priorities identified in our delivery plan is the review of the professional standards for teachers, trainers and tutors.

“The standards play a key role in supporting the professionalisation of the FE and skills workforce, underpinning both initial teacher training and continuing professional development.”

Other contracts that could be offered to bidders in the coming months involve traineeship and apprenticeship support programmes.

The changes to the tendering process followed news that £75,000-worth of contracts had been awarded to organisations, such as the Association of Colleges and the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education, through the foundation’s non-competitive process. It is understood these contracts will remain in place.

Bids for the workforce survey are due by October 18 and for professional standards for teachers and trainers by October 23 — the same date bids for specification for the development of professional standards for teachers and trainers in England are due.

Bids for work on guidance for the use of professional standards for teachers and trainers are due by October 28.

Email tenderqueries@etfoundation.co.uk for more details.

Colleges achieving from ‘burning platform’

The Organisation for Economic Development caught everybody’s eye with a report uncovering “poor” levels of adult numeracy while also questioning literacy skills. But, explains Martin Doel, there was another report earlier this month that was equally deserving of attention.

The Organisation for Economic Development (OECD) recently published a review of vocational education and training, covering core areas of colleges’ work. It was called A Skills Beyond School Review of England.

The report was notable for the positive way in which it characterised FE colleges as “entrepreneurial and flexible,” and the near total lack of interest it generated with the media and the government.

Perhaps this is because journalists and the government are more interested in negative stories than in positive endorsement of the achievements of colleges and training providers.

Indeed, the difficult messages in the report are more for the government and awarding organisations.

In the case of the government, the OECD report identified a relative lack of investment in tertiary education and a regulatory model that neither underpins true autonomy, nor provides a more directed and regulated model as seen in Germany and elsewhere on the continent.

In relation to awarding organisations, it identified an overly complex and expensive model of testing and assessment that confuses employers and means they stick with inappropriate academic qualifications when recruiting staff.

Based on these criticisms, a reasonable reader might conclude that the problem, if there is one, is not with colleges and providers, but with the system they are obliged to operate.

They achieve great things despite this system, rather than because of it. This, funnily enough, is the same conclusion that Ofsted chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw reached in his annual report last year — perhaps this is a case for more ‘rigour’ in policy-making and implementation, as well as within colleges and training providers?

But does all this really constitute a ‘burning platform’ from which we are being forced to jump?

I don’t think the OECD report identifies any such inferno, nor is one suggested by an apprenticeships completion rate of more than 70 per cent, which is a world-beating figure.

There is, of course, room and a need for continuous improvement, refinement and adjustment, but not for abrupt, disruptive, systemic change.

The much-lauded German dual system has changed significantly only twice in the last 50 years.

At my last count, our skills system has seen radical change at least 40 times within the same period.

It is hardly surprising students, parents and businesses say they are confused about how the system operates.

The only justification for a revolutionary rather than an evolutionary change is a clear and pressing imperative.

In my view there is no such urgent need in relation to the skills system.

This OECD report, the recent Confederation of British Industry report on rising satisfaction levels among employers and college performance against a range of benchmarks seem to confirm this view.

We need a considered and progressive programme of incremental, yet challenging, change, building upon past and current success, together with a need to adapt to meet new and emerging requirements.

Martin Doel, chief executive of the Association of Colleges

Byrne replaces Marsden as Shadow Skills Minister

Liam Byrne has succeeded Gordon Marsden in the Labour Shadow Education team, taking on the role as Shadow Universities and Skills Minister in this week’s reshuffle.

Mr Byrne, MP for Birmingham Hodge Hill, had been Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions since January 2011.

Before that, he was Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, shadowing the role he had played in government prior to the 2010 general election.

Mr Bryne was born in Warrington, near Manchester, and completed his A levels at the at The Hertfordshire and Essex High School, in Bishop’s Stortford, before studying politics and modern history at the University of Manchester.

He also studied for an MBA at the Harvard Business School.

Before his election as an MP in 2004, he worked for Accenture, a multi-national consulting firm and merchant bankers NM Rothschild & Sons. He also co-founded a technology company called e-Government Solutions Group.

Under the last Labour Government, he served as Minister for the Cabinet office and Minister of State for Borders and Immigration.

He hit the headlines following the 2010 election, when it emerged he had left a note to his successor on his desk reading “Dear Chief Secretary, I’m afraid there is no money. Kind regards – and good luck! Liam.”

From college classroom to Shadow FE Minister

Bethnal Green and Bow MP Rushanara Ali has replaced Tristram Hunt as the FE and skills Labour Shadow Education Minister.

Ms Ali had previously been on the Labour team for international development since 2011.

Following the announcement of her promotion, Ms Ali took to Twitter to say working on the international development brief had been a “pleasure and a privilege”, but she was “delighted to be joining the shadow education team”.

Ms Ali’s family emigrated from Bangladesh when she was seven years old and she grew up in Tower Hamlets, in London’s East End, and attended Tower Hamlets College.

She credited much of her success to her time at college, saying her achievements were “the achievements of teachers and youth workers at Mulberry School and Tower Hamlets College.

“It was their support and belief that led me to a place at Oxford University and jobs in Parliament.”

The 38-year-old was the first person of Bangladeshi origin to have been elected to the House of Commons when she won the Bethnal Green and Bow seat from Respect MP George Galloway in the 2010 general election.

Along with Shabana Mahmood and Yasmin Qureshi, she was also one of the UK’s first female Muslim MPs.

She has previously worked as a research fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research and on human rights issues at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office during Tony Blair’s government.

Mr Hunt has taken over the role as Shadow Secretary of State from Stephen Twigg MP, who has returned to the Labour back benches.

 

Skills report warns of numeracy and literacy failings in England and Northern Ireland

Numeracy and literacy levels among young people in England and Northern Ireland are falling way behind the rest of the world, a new report on adult skills has warned.

The figures appeared this morning in a report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

It warned England and Northern Ireland had some of the highest proportions of adults scoring at or below level one — the lowest possible level — in numeracy, where adults can only perform basic mathematical processes.

It stated: “In fact, 24.1 per cent of adults, around 8.5 million people, scored at that level, compared to the average [among participating countries from across the world] of 19 per cent.”

Around 16.4 per cent of adults, or around 5.8 million people, in England and Northern Ireland scored at level one or below in literacy, which is closer to the average of 15.5 per cent of adults among all participating countries.

At level one in literacy, adults can only read brief information on familiar topics.

The report warned: “Individuals with lower proficiency in literacy are more likely than those with better literacy skills to report poor health, to believe that they have little impact on political processes, and not to participate in associative or volunteer activities.”

It is a damning indictment on level of basic education levels in England and Northern Ireland.

However, it could bolster support for government vocational traineeship schemes, launched in August, which aim to boost trainees’ maths and English as well as on-the-job skills.

In terms of ability to solve technology-orientated problems — for example using computers — just 42.4 per cent of 16 to 24-year-olds in England and Northern Ireland were proficient at level two or three, compared to the average among 23 participating countries of 50.7 per cent.

England is also the only country surveyed where the oldest age group (55 to 65) has higher proficiency in literacy and numeracy than the youngest group (16 to 24).

This was 21 per cent lower than in Korea, the best performing country in this area.

The OECD report stated: “The implication for England and Northern Ireland is that the stock of skills available to them is bound to decline over the next decades unless significant action is taken to improve skills proficiency among young people.”

It warned about high levels of social and pay inequality among skilled and unskilled workers.

“The median of hourly wage of workers who score at level four or five in literacy is 94 per cent higher than that of workers who score at below level one,” stated the report.

“In England and Northern Ireland 83.4 per cent of highly skilled adults are employed, compared to an average of 79.1 per cent of adults in all participating countries.

“Only 13.4 per cent of adults scoring at level four or five [compared to 17.1 per cent on average across participating countries] are out of the labour force.”