Vision for adult learning across the EU

After a cautious start, David Hughes now has bags of enthusiasm for the European Agenda for Adult Learning. He explains why

We were cautious when the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) was invited to act as the UK co-ordinator for the European Agenda for Adult Learning. Many years involved in administering and applying for EU funding had probably clouded my vision, but my spirits rose as I found out more and now, after a few months, I can see enormous benefits from taking on the role. A two-day conference in Cardiff last week kick-started our work.

So why are we so enthusiastic about this work and what relevance does it have to FE Week readers? There are many answers, but the main theme is what we can learn from each other and the sense of perspective that working with European partners brings.

That perspective can help to overcome the negative feelings that thrive during austere times, replacing them with a better understanding of what we should be proud of in the UK in adult learning. It also provides examples of what we need to aspire to.

But the beauty of engaging with EU partners is that it forces each of us to describe, explain and justify the policy, practice, statistics and outcomes of adult learning in our own country. That very act is instructive because it requires intelligent research, reflection and judgment — things that we often avoid because our working lives require us to deal with the urgent and the operational. Stepping outside the day-to-day fray and reaching a considered judgment is a useful leadership trick that often provides new insights.

Over the next couple of years NIACE, as the UK co-ordinator, will run a number of innovation projects and peer-learning activities that build on last week’s conference. The role of adult learning and skills to enhance Europe’s economy and society is central to the work of the EU, its member states and other participants in the lifelong learning programme.

Our robust systems of inspection and national qualifications are looked on with cautious interest”

The EU Agenda, adopted in November 2011, stresses the need for adult educators to make a case for investment, better analyse learner participation and motivation, and develop robust strategies to engage adults who have benefited least from initial education.

All these issues are common challenges across the 27 member states, even if the contexts and scale of the challenges differ.

Our work for the conference forced us to reflect on the position in the UK and the inherent complexity of the differences between the four home nations.

The many challenges expressed by EU partners, with examples of good policy and practice, always make me feel that things are not all bad here.

When we describe the UK position our European partners’ responses veer from the bewildered to the envious. Our reputation for Adult Learners’ Week precedes us, as does the respect for the level of debate, publications and teaching materials that NIACE and others contribute to.

Our robust systems of inspection and national qualifications are looked on with cautious interest and we appear high up in statistics about investment and participation in adult learning.

Conversely, we have long known that we need to learn more about vocational learning and training, about employer engagement in education, about learning for citizenship and approaches to inclusion.

I am convinced that we can continue to learn from others and benefit from the reflection on our own policies and practices. Ultimately adults across Europe will also benefit if the best ideas and practices from the 27 states drive the vision for adult learning across the EU.

David Hughes, chief executive, NIACE

Making it personal

The increased freedoms and flexibilities that study programmes will allow are to be welcomed, says Dean O’Donoghue. But how they will be judged by Ofsted?

From September all post-16 providers will introduce 16 to 19 study programmes, coinciding with the raising of the participation age (RPA) and a revised funding methodology.

The overall move to fixed level funding will require post-16 providers to be creative with their curriculum. The expectation from the Education Funding Agency is that funding will service an average of 600 guided learning hours (glh).

The programmes will allow for more innovative teaching and support the drive for greater breadth, ensuring that learners gain  personal social and employability skills. In her review of adult learning, Alison Wolf said that study programmes provided an opportunity “to create a personalised curriculum for learners”. What she didn’t expand on was how one student’s personalised curriculum might be judged against that of another, or what a “good” personalised curriculum would look like.

One key freedom is the capacity to increase the amount of non-qualification provision, which will be accounted for through auditing (with accountability shifting more towards glh).   Non-qualification outcomes and activities can boost teaching and learning at any level. For example, recent research by the Education Employer Task Force shows that the most successful academic students benefit hugely from work experience to support their UCAS applications.

Traineeships will encourage more non-qualification provision such as personal development, work-readiness and work experience.  Colleagues working with learners  with special educational needs and disability (SEND) have considerable freedom and flexibility to use non-qualification outcomes to demonstrate the development of communication and number skills through life skills and employability contexts; we await the outcome of the Wirral Lifelong Learning Service pilot with interest.

Inspectors will evaluate the extent to which learners develop personal, social and employability skills”

But how will Ofsted judge flexibility, freedom and personalisation? Chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw has made clear that Ofsted will focus on the “attainment and progress of learners with progress being at the heart of judgment”. Inspectors will evaluate the extent to which learners develop personal, social and employability skills, and progress to courses leading to higher-level qualifications and into jobs that meet local and national needs.

The criteria will apply equally to learners at entry level and those with SEND.  Ofsted isn’t known for its enthusiasm for innovation or individualism.  Inspectors have their set of criteria and it is up to the lecturer or institution to make sure that they point them in the right direction; labelling  appropriate content in block capitals and flashing neon is optional, but recommended.

The big question, surely, is how you evaluate and document the extent to which skills — be they personal, social, employability, communication or number — are developed if the provision is non-qualification?  I can only answer this with more questions: “How can distance travelled be demonstrated without some form of assessment?”  “What kind of test is fit for purpose methodology for personal, social and employability skills?” And “doesn’t this rather undermine the point of non-qualification provision?”

Either the inspectorate has to allow more leeway for professional interpretation than it has in the past or we will find ourselves clinging to qualification outcomes that are costly and don’t respond to the Department for Education’s drive for the more enriching parts of the curriculum to become less formal.  It’s almost as if we’ve been caught in a paradox….

Dean O’Donoghue, national development co-ordinator for ASDAN Education 

A source of challenge to sound leadership

Good governance is about far more than a checklist: it is about supporting and developing an institution to enhance opportunity and success, says Dr Paul Phillips

I have to hand it to chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw. He is a man on a mission, turning his attention to governance.

At face value, he seems to want to hold governors to account and to ensure that they robustly challenge the performance of an institution.

He suggests the creation of a ‘score card’, that some governors should be paid and that key businesses should encourage their staff to become governors.

From my perspective, he does not go far enough; good governance is invaluable and, in my own career, in both the school and college sector, governing bodies have ranged from the abysmal to the brilliant.

I always see a fine line between governance and management, and some governors do try to cross that line at times. I don’t know if it is a ‘power thing’ or an unfulfilled aspiration, but too many times I have seen unjustified interference break down good relations between governors and heads of institutes.

When a school or college gets a bad inspection report, governing bodies usually say it’s about what managers failed to deliver.  But isn’t it also about how governors failed in their judgments of a situation?

Then we have the issue of strategy versus management. How often do I hear that governors set the strategy but managers deliver, to it? Governance is about supporting and developing an institution, and challenging and then endorsing a strategy for an organisation.

It still returns us, however, to the question of what is good governance and how this impacts upon an organisation. I’ll bet many can remember when governance was a checklist rather than a source of challenge to sound leadership.

But let’s support this initiative, while making sure that it is comprehensive and can be interrogated. From the perspective of the FE college sector, a three-pronged approach is needed to look at accountability and responsibility, meeting the needs of the community and checking that the learner gets the best opportunity to succeed and progress. Isn’t that common sense? Yes, you say, but I believe that it is rarely put into action.

Unjustified interference breaks down good relations between governors and heads of institutes”

Let’s take a traditional 11 to 18 school or academy, and look at the young people at age 15. Can the governing body and the head of the institution justifiably confirm that each of them is shown the merits of both academic education and vocational learning, including apprenticeships? I do not believe it to be the case. Similarly in an FE college, do the governing body and senior management deliver everything the community needs or consider how, in doing so, success rates may be damaged?

Am I maligning Sir Michael’s moves? Far from it. Governors need to be able to assess the initial advice and guidance concepts within their institution and the ‘score card’ is the first step. It is crucial to advance governance in the sector.

Do you remember the famous Morecambe and Wise sketch with Andre Previn where Eric says: “I am playing the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order.”

A witty line that resonates within education today. The main ingredients for much needed success are there, but how they are ordered and prioritised is often not clear. Governance also varies according to an institution’s environment. Brilliant governance is about completing that jigsaw to enhance opportunity and success.

Paid governance? There are times when a governor or a group of governors should be paid but it should relate to need and how such work will guarantee positive and measured transformation.

I may regret these words, but I am generally a fan of Ofsted because it does make us focus on learner success, the learner journey and inspirational teaching. So what is inspirational governance? Now that’s another story.

Dr Paul Phillips, principal and chief executive, Weston College, North Somerset

Deirdre Hughes, chair, National Careers Council

It’s the mid-1970s. You’re a pupil in Northern Ireland, at the height of the Troubles, nervous about the careers advice you’re about to receive. You’re told there simply are no jobs . . . anywhere.

“There was high unemployment and, I don’t think I’m exaggerating, Northern Ireland was like a war zone,” says Deirdre Hughes, a former careers adviser who now chairs the National Careers Council.

“I think that’s at the core of my interest in how people get jobs when sometimes there apparently are none.”

Hughes’s interest in careers has resulted in a working life that has included setting up the University of Derby’s International Centre for Guidance Studies (iCeGS), being a lead consultant with the European Lifelong Guidance Policy Network, and membership of the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES).

The impressive list, which is far from exhaustive, betrays a steely focus that could have been born of experiences growing up as a Catholic in the coastal town of Coleraine.

“I got searched on the way to and sometimes on the way home from school, and if I went into shops there was always a bag or a body search,” says the mum-of-two.

“I grew up in a town where there wasn’t a lot of violence compared with the bigger town and cities, but I was in a minority living in an area where there was a lot of awareness of people’s religion.”

She adds: “Once, I missed the bus with my sister going to school. There were two buses — the Catholic one and the Protestant one.

“We missed ours, so we got on the other one because it was raining. We were just children, being pragmatic.

“We got on the one we weren’t supposed to and the driver said: ‘Stay close — don’t go down the bus.’

“There were adults and children on it and this woman came up to us — we were only around 12 — and demanded the driver kick us out into the cold and rain.

“He protected us and said: ‘Leave the children alone’.

“Sadly, the woman who was the perpetrator lost her son. He was blown up planting explosives in people’s gardens. I felt sorry for her and her family to think that they lived their lives ruled by dogma.

“I never came to any harm, but I saw what injustice is like. Maybe that’s where I get my steely sense of right and wrong from.”

At 20, she left her three sisters and younger brother behind as she moved to Bristol having met and married husband Robert, who worked for Rolls-Royce.

She got a job with social services, “and then by sheer chance saw a job called an unemployment employment adviser”.

“It seemed a contradiction in terms, and so, out of curiosity I applied without knowing what the job involved and got it on the basis I asked: ‘Isn’t the job title a contradiction in terms?’,” says Hughes.

The post involved approaching employers in the hope of persuading them to take on some of Bristol’s “hardest to help young people”.

“That whetted my appetite and I began to wonder if they had careers systems in other places, so, at 25,  I decided I needed to get myself educated,” explains Hughes, 52.

I got searched on the way to and sometimes on the way home from school, and if I went into shops there was always a bag or a body search”

She adds: “You’ve got to be curious about different frameworks and systems. There’s no single person that’s got the right single answer by looking just in their own back garden.

“It’s always helpful to look in other countries to see how they’re doing — not least for reassurance that the things you’re struggling with really are difficult because other places struggle with them, too.

“But there are also dangers in thinking that we can look at another country and adopt their methodology.

“Every country should have sense that it’s got to develop its own framework.”

So, appetite whetted, Hughes took on a postgraduate diploma in career guidance at the University of the West of England.

“I had to do an exam first. It was intimidating as lots of people had degrees whereas I just had work experience,” she says.

“A voice in my head was saying: ‘All these people are cleverer than I am’ but then someone said: ‘How do you spell professional?’

“I knew I could spell it — that was a critical moment for me that made me think I could be there, and deserved to be there.”

Around a year after she completed the diploma, in 1987, and with children Gemma (now 27), and Patrick (now 24), to care for, Robert’s career took the family to Derbyshire, where they still live.

There, she taught at the Nottingham Trent University — training careers advisers and working with teachers on careers education — while completing an Open University masters in education and employment.

“I thought I’d found my ideal career at Nottingham Trent and then a job came up at the University of Derby.  Thinking pragmatically, it was easier than travelling to Nottingham,” says Hughes, whose job at Derby entailed setting up the iCeGS.

She adds: “I started there with a budget of £25,000 — £5,000 each from five careers companies and the university gave us premises.

“It was my job to make the centre viable. I did that for ten years and ticked all the boxes — developed a masters programme, distance learning and got the centre established with international experts, was able to demonstrate that we were the largest income-generating research unit at the university.

“But at the ten-year point I asked myself if that was everything I wanted to be remembered for.”

She left in 2008 having got a PhD through publications on careers work and set up DMH Associates as a sole trading researcher.

Hughes has also applied for, and got, a commissioner’s post at the UKCES and the chair’s post at the careers council.

Appointments have since come her way, too. She is an associate fellow at the University of Warwick’s Institute for Employment Research and an associate consultant at the University of Edinburgh, where she looks at the use of new technologies for career learning among young people.

“Careers guidance is very easy for people to dismiss — it doesn’t sit in education or employment,” says Hughes.

“It’s in the middle ground, but it does help people find their way and some people need it and some people don’t.

“It’s important for the ones who haven’t got the networks or the contacts — Daddy can’t organise work experience for them. That’s what drives me.”

Royal recognition came for that drive in January last year when she was awarded an OBE for services to careers.

“On the day at the palace the Queen was giving the awards,” explains Hughes.

“I spoke to her about careers work — ‘Isn’t that about helping people find jobs?’ she said. ‘Yes, Ma’am’.”

It’s a personal thing

What’s your favourite book? 

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

What did you want to be when you were younger?

A detective

What do you do to switch off from work?

Gardening and learning to play the piano — but not both at the same time

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

Morecambe and Wise, Sir David Attenborough and Lord Robert Winston

What would your super power be? 

I’d like to be able to fly. If you got bored, just being able to fly away and come back feeling refreshed and energised, possibly even take people with you, would be great

Response to careers guidance ‘disappoints’

The Association of Colleges is “disappointed” by the government’s response to the education select committee’s report on careers advice in schools.

The report, published last Monday, concluded that the quality of advice had deteriorated since schools took over provision from local authorities and Connexions last September, a move it called “regrettable”.

In its response, the government argued that the changes needed more time to “bed in and evolve” as the committee’s inquiry was conducted after the new system had only been in place for one term.

The association’s director of education policy, Joy Mercer, said: “We can understand why the government’s response . . .  is one of ‘wait and see’ at this early stage . . . but are disappointed that it did not take some of its practical advice to make careers guidance truly available to all young people.”

She pointed to the committee’s suggestion that all schools should publish and review their careers plan each year, a move the government rejected as it “would re-introduce bureaucracy of the kind we have tried so hard to remove”.

Since taking over the responsibility for careers advice, many schools have been accused of restricting advice on other FE providers and filling their own sixth forms.

Ms Mercer said: “The government needs to find new ways of encouraging co-operation between all the providers, schools and colleges, and the labour market, to ensure that the best interests of young people and adults are the primary aim.”

The government response said it was concerned to ensure schools acted impartially and had highlighted the need for schools to work with other providers in the careers statutory guidance.

“This is so important to our economy that there need to be clear incentives,” said Ms Mercer. The UK has a major youth unemployment problem and our concern is that Government is not acknowledging that careers advice is unsatisfactory, and isn’t recognising the mismatch in what parents and school teachers believe employers want from young recruits.”

An Ofsted review of careers guidance is due to be reported in the summer. The government said it would consider the committee report alongside Ofsted’s findings and those of the National Careers Council, “rather than rushing into any immediate changes at a time when schools are still evolving their careers programmes to best meet their new responsibilities”.

Ms Mercer said the association also awaited the Ofsted review, but renewed its January call for the inspectorate to examine careers advice during its routine inspections of schools.

Having consulted Ofsted, the committee found the current inspection framework was “not a credible accountability check on the provision of careers guidance by individual schools”.

The government response said careers guidance was an important area for Ofsted, and added: “Ofsted will draw on the findings of the thematic survey and will consider if any changes are required to its inspection frameworks.”

Fears eased on funding

The Association for Employment and Learning Providers has secured access to extra funding for independent providers whose allocations have been drastically cut.

The association said it had “intense discussions” with the Education Funding Agency (EFA) after dozens of worried members made contact when their allocations were reduced between 20 and 30 per cent. The cuts followed a change in the funding mechanism.

The Department for Education (DfE) has now agreed to provide extra money for providers who had more learners than predicted this year.

Paul Warner, the association’s director of employment and skills (pictured right), said: “The latest commitments from the EFA to reward providers for strong performance are a real step forward from where we were a month ago.”

Previously, funding calculations were made on a per qualification basis, using providers’ predictions of how many students they would recruit. Under the new mechanism, they will be worked out on a per student basis, using the previous year’s intake.

The association estimated that of the independent providers who got in touch, around two-thirds experienced average cuts of 20 to 30 per cent. About a third were not adversely affected or got a modest rise.

In a letter to Graham Hoyle, the association’s chief executive, the funding agency’s national director for children and young people, Peter Mucklow, said it was predicted that this measure would reduce under-delivery “significantly”.

A DfE spokesperson said: “Our reforms will mean that the amount of funding a provider receives will be based on the number of students they’ve actually recruited in previous years, rather than over-optimistic projections.

“We are also giving more funding to private sector providers and charities who recruit more students than planned so that they can meet the needs of all young people.”

The association’s Countdown newsletter reported that the amount put aside to fund potential growth was more than was needed for the whole of last year, meaning that “whilst this is, as ever, subject to affordability . . . high-performing providers can have a degree of confidence that over-performance will be funded”.

It added that it was hoped the new funding formula would also help to prevent clawbacks at the end of the year, instead freeing up the funding of over-delivery as the year progressed.

The DfE also said that the former funding system had “acted as a perverse incentive for schools to enter students for easier qualifications” and that funding providers per student “will free them up to deliver demanding and innovative courses”.

Questions remain on Tech Bacc

Government plans for a Technical Baccalaureate (Tech Bacc) have received a lukewarm welcome from the FE sector, amid questions about its substance and timing.

The Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) and the Association of Colleges (AoC) described the new qualification, which will count towards college and sixth form league tables, as “a step in the right direction” towards raising the profile of vocational education.

To complete a Tech Bacc, learners would need a “high quality” level three vocational qualification, a core maths level three qualification, which would include AS -level maths, and an extended written project.

A government statement said that a list of approved vocational qualifications would be released near the end of the year, with further details on the maths element “in due course”.

The Tech Bacc will be introduced for courses beginning in September next year, but will not count towards performance tables until January 2017.

Brian Lightman, ASCL general secretary, said it could redress the imbalance between academic and vocational courses, but warned that introducing it as a performance indicator, rather than as a specific qualification, risked undermining its credibility.

“What we need is not a vocational alternative to university, but a genuine baccalaureate that encompasses a legitimate set of qualifications in their own right that can provide parallel routes to excellence leading to careers, further qualifications or higher education for students of all abilities,” he said.

“This is the way we will start to break down the false divide between academic and vocational qualifications that is so damaging to our economy.”

Deborah Ribchester, AoC senior policy manager, said: “We fear the September 2014 timetable for the introduction of this new performance measure may be too tight and are concerned that not all of the three key elements proposed have yet been finalised.”

Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, agreed, adding that it was “worrying” that vocational and academic qualifications would continue to be separate.

She also called for the Tech Bacc to be allocated UCAS points, to create parity with A-levels for learners wanting to go to university.

Lynne Sedgmore, executive director of the 157 Group, said the new qualification represented a step towards ensuring vocational qualifications and A-levels were valued equally.

Chris Jones, chief executive at City & Guilds, which is updating its own trademarked TechBac qualification that it offered in the early 1990s, said: “It is essential that we provide young people with another option to a purely academic education. We need to equip them with both the vocational and rounded skills that employers need.”

Featured image caption: An FE Week cartoon from December when Labour accused the government of stealing its plans for a Tech Bacc

‘I had my medal when I heard the noise’

As Elaine Battson collected her bag after a successful Boston Marathon, she thought the explosions she heard were fireworks to celebrate the end of the event.

But within minutes, the Institute for Learning’s director of finance discovered that the April 8 event had been bombed.

“I’d gone through the finishing line, got my medal and was waiting at a baggage place when I heard the noises. I turned around to see smoke coming from down the same road as me,” she told FE Week.

“I got chatting to a man who told me what had happened, that it was definitely a bomb. I felt freaked — it was just unbelievable.”

As the story of the co-ordinated blasts that claimed the lives of three and seriously injured more than 100 was relayed across the globe, the 47-year-old  avid runner who has completed 74 marathons in a decade, made her way back to her hotel.

Initially she hadn’t noticed that anything was different.

However, it soon became obvious that people were looking “more worried than they should be”.

“There were suddenly lots of police and army around. They were shutting shops and everything was closing — it was all anyone was talking about,” she said.

“The hotel staff just tied to look after us and keep us going.”

She didn’t feel scared — even though she was in the city on her own — but she did sleep fully clothed and with a packed suitcase next to her bed in case she was forced to evacuate in the middle of the night.

I turned around to see smoke coming from down the same road as me”

“People back home were more worried than I was — around 20 got in touch to check I was OK,” said Ms Battson, a member of Hackney’s Victoria Park Harriers running club who has completed 24 marathons in the past year.

She flew home the next day having spent the rest of her time in Boston in her hotel room watching the news. But she will return.

“It’s such a great place to visit. I’m determined to return to show some support for the city,” she said.

And the incident hasn’t deterred her from her aim of completing 100 marathons, with this month’s London marathon the most recent under her belt.

She said: “London was very special — lots of people were showing their support for those in Boston. They were wearing black ribbons and t-shirts saying: ‘For Boston’.”

Restaurant worker Krystle Campbell, 29, Chinese graduate student Lu Lingzi, 23, and eight-year-old Martin Richard died in the bombings.

Brothers Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, who originate from Chechnya, are believed to be responsible. The 19-year-old was captured after a huge manhunt in which his elder brother died.

He faces one count of using a weapon of mass destruction and one count of malicious destruction of property resulting in death.

Featured image caption: Elaine Battson, director of finance at IfL, at the Boston marathon finishing line just moments before the bombs went off

Minister ‘cancels’ on traineeships

Providers have been kept waiting at least another week for the government to outline its plan for traineeships.

Skills Minister Matthew Hancock had been advertised as attending an event in Manchester on Wednesday, April 24, at which he would unveil the scheme. But the launch was cancelled at the 11th hour.

Traineeships, due to start next academic year, were proposed by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg in June to help young people gain work-related skills and attitudes.

Mr Hancock was unable to attend the Manchester launch, which was pencilled in just as youth unemployment figures nudged the one million mark.

A spokesperson for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said the minister’s attendance at the event had never been confirmed.

She said he had pulled out after he had been called to an “unrelated meeting at No 10”.

The event, organised by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, went ahead without the minister, but pressure is mounting within the FE sector for an announcement on traineeships.

Figures released this month by the Office for National Statistics showed that 979,000 16 to 24-year-olds were out of work in the three months from December to February, a 20,000 increase on the three months from September to November.

Shadow Skills Minister Gordon Marsden said: “It is deeply concerning that the government still hasn’t launched the final proposals for its traineeships programme, not least given it is now 11 months since Nick Clegg first announced the policy.

“This month’s rise in youth unemployment further underlines the importance of the government getting this policy right.

“FE colleges and training providers need urgent clarity if they are expected to deliver this new provision come September.”

A spokesperson at the Department for Education said the launch would take place “shortly”.

“We received an excellent response to the discussion paper we published in January, with more than 450 responses from employers, providers and other organisations,” he said.

“We are continuing to work through the final details of the traineeships programme, drawing on all of these helpful responses. We will publish further information about the programme shortly.”