The government go-ahead for FE colleges to recruit 14-year-olds from school is to be applauded, says Mike Hopkins

The government’s decision to let FE colleges recruit 14-year-olds from schools is great news for students and FE.

A good number of students will benefit from high-quality vocational learning while continuing a broad education within the national curriculum. They will be able to pursue vocational options in colleges that have capital expenditure available, equipment and staff with great industry skills. This decision has really opened  up the system for those that realise that this is the best option for them.

I got involved with the proposal  after reading Alison Wolf’s review that recommended colleges recruit directly at 14 to improve the quality and status of vocational education in England.

The Department for Education asked the Association of Colleges to look at any barriers to such a change to see if they could be removed without primary legislation being altered – and I  ended up as co-chair of its college implementation group.

I think Alison Wolf is courageous and I respect her work. In my experience she’s prepared to say what she thinks, based on the evidence in front of her.

I feel really moved to have been involved with this and think it’s the single most important announcement and structural change FE has experienced. I can’t think of anything bigger.

This government sees competition as a driver for improvement”

After the Second World War the odd FE college started to recruit students for A levels. There were  few youngsters coming through to take an academic route;  now 43 per cent of full-time students aged 16 to 18 are college-based  with just 26 per cent schools-based.

I suspect that over the next decade or two there’ll be a similar shift, particularly if colleges deliver this change well, with quality and integrity.

This is a courageous decision and a real game changer.  I suspect ministerial frustration at how much money goes into the sector and the variability in performance that comes out helped it to be made.  This government sees competition as a driver for improvement. And while you can criticise competition, when FE was taken away from local authority control and pushed out into the big bad world to create partnerships and to compete where appropriate, the quality of services available to students and employers was driven up significantly.

Ministers have a right to put safeguards in place so I support the conditions imposed on colleges to be able to recruit. Only those  rated  by Ofsted as outstanding, good or satisfactory with improving results can do so. There also must be separate 14 to 16 leadership.

Ultimately it’s good for the sector to have individuals from school backgrounds with the temperament and approach to meld and blend with the FE environment.  These assets will add to the breadth of a college.

However, Shadow Education Minister Karen Buck’s comments that colleges are adult environments and children might not get enough pastoral care were disappointing.

In the past you could probably accuse colleges of this, but that disappeared 20 years ago and we now have a massive experience of pastoral care.

I’ll do everything I can to encourage the Labour party to come to this position.  This is a great opportunity for students but it’s absolutely vital the sector delivers it well.

Mike Hopkins is
principal of Middlesbrough College 

Colleges and partnerships need each other to make sure that local accountability improves rather than undermines the emphasis on employment skills, says Lynne Sedgmore

The Autumn Statement promises that the government will “seek to increase the proportion of spending that is awarded through the single funding pot for transport, housing, skills and getting people back to work…” The intention of this, of course, is a more localised planning agenda; the danger is that not everyone may prioritise skills.

Colleges are the natural place to start if you want a localised skills strategy. They have extensive experience of working with local employers, and the facilities and expertise to translate employer needs into a responsive curriculum. Employment outcomes for learners have long occupied the thinking and actions of good FE professionals, and an enhanced education and employment partnership to define and respond to such need has to be the most effective way forward.

So the recommendation that colleges be represented on LEP boards and LEPs on college boards is welcome. Our own research in 2011 suggests that this representation was at best patchy, and recent evidence suggests that things have not really improved. It is a missed opportunity, perhaps, that the recommendation was not stronger.

The real issue, though, is less about representation and more about the profile, influence and impact that the skills agenda has in LEP discussions and strategies. Key to that must be that the partnerships understand how effective colleges are and that colleges are seen as genuine strategic partners, not just delivery arms.

Where colleges have a strong voice, some LEPs are already making an impact with an effective skills group communicating with and influencing the board. The government is right, though, to identify that LEPs themselves need development if they are to contribute effectively to the skills agenda.

Colleges have gone out of their way to establish and make these relationships work. New College Nottingham engaged its LEP as one of the first partners in its “big conversation” to tackle the city’s skills development needs; and it was the college’s model of strategic engagement that was followed when the city growth plan was developed. Bristol and Leeds City Colleges chair their respective LEP skills boards and have a strong influence in skills policy.

And Leeds City College, whose chair of governors chairs the Leeds LEP, recently won an “outstanding partner” award from the city council, partly in recognition of its engagement with the LEP and local employers.

As we are encouraged to have a greater involvement in the work of LEPs, it is worth remembering that not everyone sees them as the solution to the skills “problem”. Recent reports suggest that some business leaders are dissatisfied with the work of their LEP, and some SMEs, in particular, have reported that there is not enough focus on their needs. But the college sector can work with all stakeholders to form effective alliances, we are good at partnership.

Finally, LEPs need to develop their influencing skills so that they can help to shape the contributions of all the parties that contribute to the overall supply of skills, including higher education, schools and private employers. Talk of getting control of the adult skills budget misses the point, as funding from the SFA  is dwarfed by both private funds and the rest of the education system.

Actively involving and drawing on the significant expertise and resource of colleges will help LEPs to prepare for the greater challenge of influencing schools, universities and employers to ensure truly effective skills in their localities.

Lynne Sedgmore is
executive director of the 157 Group

An award-winning programme to support race equality and career development should become part of the mainstream, not just an add-on, says Rajinder Mann

Whether you are a high-achieving lecturer with your sights set on being a college principal or a young offender with a determination to quit crime, you share a number of basic needs – as inquiry after inquiry into the shape and future of FE keeps reminding us.

The 2005 Foster review of FE said it, as did this year’s Lingfield review of professionalism in the sector. You need the self-esteem and self-confidence that raises aspiration and turns that desire into something concrete. Moreover, you need the support and mechanisms to sustain it – particularly if you are black, Asian or from a minority ethnic (BME) group.

This week, the Network for Black Professionals was thrilled to hear that our  Black Leadership Initiative® (BLI) – our training and development arm – has won The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Volunteering Award 2012. We won it for our national mentoring programme to support race equality and career development which, in ten years, has trained 600 mentors and 500 mentees and contributed to increasing the number of black college principals from four to 16.

The programme emerged from the Commission for Black Staff in Further Education to address the under-representation of BME staff in senior positions within colleges. Building on the success in FE, we developed the work shadowing programme in schools with Ofsted and the National College for School Leadership.

“Our toolkit for mentoring gives pointers to understanding different groups and cultural values”

Forty participants became heads and deputies, an increase of 13 per cent in those promoted. The National College sees it as a flagship programme.

We have extended our work in partnership with National Offender Management Service (NOMS) and raised awareness of the importance of mentoring to help young offenders turn their lives around and reduce recidivism. To spread the work wider we have produced a toolkit for mentoring, which gives pointers to understanding different groups and cultural values.

As our experience shows, such developments take time, whether for aspiring principals or young offenders. In his 2005 review, Sir Andrew Foster acknowledged this and said: “Workforce training, such as that developed through the Black Leadership Initiative needs to become more widespread.” Likewise, this year, Lord Lingfield stressed the importance of mentoring – which is at the heart of our operations – for newly qualified teachers and those coming in to teach from outside of FE.

We need more programmes for the future structured in this way and seen as a resource, not just as an add-on and not just for BME staff. It is about more than staff development, it is about engaging hearts and minds, with successful people willing to give something back – people such as the late Reg Chapman, former principal of Blackpool and The Fylde College.

Thanks to the efforts   of the likes of Reg – who volunteered and trained as a mentor in 2004  – more than 100 principals in England have joined the leadership mentoring programme.

Reg said: “The mentoring training was among the best training I have ever encountered in my career. It was fun, professionally organised, challenging and insightful. It gave me a range of mentoring skills and insights I have used over the years in working with many BME mentees.”

Mark Flynn, former principal of South Derbyshire College, said: “I have been on other race equality programmes and I have been made to feel part of the problem. On this programme, I feel empowered to be part of the solution.”

So join us in celebrating the Queen’s Award. It is an honour to receive it. It is a tribute to the dedicated and committed mentors who give their time so generously, the staff team who work tirelessly to deliver the programmes and our very supportive board members. But the greatest honour would be if this programme became mainstream across sectors.

Rajinder Kaur Mann, OBE is executive director of the Black Leadership Initiative