City & Guilds’ Content Exchange will share digital learning materials, saving time for tutors and students who spend hours looking for quality resources, says Kirstie Donnelly

Technology has connected the world. Young people who have grown up with mobile phones and laptops can’t imagine a world without it.

About 75 per cent of 16 to 24-year-old who responded to YouthNet research said they couldn’t live without the internet, and 45 per cent said they were happiest when online.

This paints a clear picture: the internet, and technology more broadly, is central to engaging with young people. In a time of rising youth unemployment,  investing  in engaging and inspiring young people, however we can, is a priority.

However, even though technology is becoming embedded into virtually everything we do, FE has faced barriers and issues.

This has been recognised by the Ufi Charitable Trust, an organisation that funds technological projects to improve vocational education. And the first recipient of the trust’s funding? I’m pleased to say it’s City & Guilds’ Content Exchange.

The exchange is a hub where all types of digital learning materials can be shared throughout the FE sector. Our research suggests that some 75 per cent of teaching and learning content is user-generated, and yet it isn’t being shared. As a result, tutors and learners spend evenings and weekends looking for learning content. Our vision is to create a resource that puts high-quality resources at their fingertips, saving everyone time while improving the quality of content.

‘Marketplace’ concepts are popping up everywhere, so the model and theory behind are not new. For example, LinkedIn could be seen as a type of content exchange, where people can connect with like-minded individuals within their industry and share articles, videos, job vacancies and so on.

75 per cent of teaching and learning content is user-generated, and yet it isn’t being shared”

We know through our work with employers, as well as FE colleges and training providers, that there are some great pieces of learning content that need to be shared. If we can start to pool these resources, we believe that we will see six benefits: less time spent by learners and tutors sourcing information and resources more motivated learners opportunities for contributors to make money through selling their content reduced costs for colleges – they won’t have to buy or search for content a community where people can recommend and review resources improved quality of resources, thanks to awarding body approval, and user testimonials.

It’s early days yet, with the project focusing on hairdressing, beauty therapy, cookery and carpentry. This will allow us to test demand and see where there are areas for improvement. If the pilot is successful, we hope to create a community working together to enhance the quality and accessibility of learning resources.

The Content Exchange is just one way that technology can help to enhance learning, but there are so many other opportunities. For instance, City & Guilds has recently acquired Kineo, a global e-learning services company. Kineo has always operated an open-source model and is inspiring us to do the same.

As a result, we’re exploring how we can connect the learning that happens within employers, to learning within FE colleges and training providers.

This has the potential to make the Content Exchange richer and more relevant, so people can develop the skills they need for happy, successful careers.

City & Guilds is determined to keep pushing the boundaries in this space. Tell us if you have any ideas or would like to get involved. And keep your eyes open for more updates on the Content Exchange.

Kirstie Donnelly, director of product, learning and technology, City & Guilds

A new partnership of sixth-form colleges is determined to pursue high performance, innovation and creativity, says Simon Jarvis

Ten of the country’s leading sixth-form colleges have formed a partnership The Maple Group, to maintain and promote outstanding teaching and learning.

Group colleges make a significant contribution to the nation’s economy: together, more than 20,000 youngsters are enrolled at a member college. More than 80 per cent will go on to higher education; about one-third of those will accept places in  Russell Group universities.

About 8,000 youngsters currently studying in Maple Group colleges are taking A-level mathematics; more than 15,000 16 to 19–year–olds — three quarters of the student cohort enrolled at group colleges — follow at least one science, technology or maths (STEM) course. Currently, six group colleges are in the top 10 in the table of colleges and schools with the largest number of students achieving high grade A-levels in ‘facilitating’ subjects.

The rationale for The Maple Group is simple: our colleges represent all that is excellent about post-16 education. Working together in partnership enables us to share expertise and ideas; to disseminate superb practice; to provide a commentary on educational developments.

We often see students with AS grades that are far higher than would have been predicted by GCSE performance”

This initiative reinforces our shared commitment to providing the highest quality educational opportunities to thousands of youngsters.  In the coming years, members of the group will continue to be respected advisers to the country on all matters relating to post-16 education.

The debate on A-level reform is a good example: Maple Group colleges oppose the removal of the AS in its present form as we feel it will lead to students studying only three subjects at A-level, a lack of breadth in the post-16 curriculum and a return to the imprecision of predicted grades.

Such a narrowing of choice at 16 will force our students to specialise much earlier than their counterparts in Europe, and prevent them selecting which of their courses to take forward to A-level to maximise their achievement.

Moreover, as a group of sixth-form colleges with a comprehensive mix of students, we often see students with AS grades that are far higher than would have been predicted by GCSE performance. The removal of AS-levels will destroy this possibility for thousands of students, thereby reducing social mobility.  In addition, students who leave education at 17 will do so without formal qualifications — with nothing to show for a whole year of A-level study.

Maple Group colleges expect to play a leading role in supporting the future success of government initiatives such as the academies programme, specialist maths schools and reforms of the examined curriculum.

The member colleges are a trusted group, widely acknowledged by students, parents, teachers, universities and ministers as being amongst the very best. Maple Group colleges have an unrivalled lengthy track record of high performance, respected for innovation, creativity and leading the development of post-16 pedagogy.

We are beacons of excellence in the country, sharing a passion for learning and an undiluted vision of what constitutes an outstanding education.

Simon Jarvis, principal of The Sixth Form College, Farnborough, is chair of the Maple Group 

Members of the group are Cardinal Newman College, Preston; Greenhead College, Huddersfield; Hills Road Sixth Form College, Cambridge; Holy Cross College, Bury; King Edward VI College, Stourbridge; Peter Symonds College, Wincheste, Sir John Deane’s College, Northwich; St Dominic’s Sixth Form College Harrow; The Sixth Form College, Farnborough and Winstanley College, Wigan

As the government seeks to define vocational qualifications and strip out those that are not ‘rigorous’, Lynne Sedgmore reflects on the purpose of vocational education and training

We sometimes get so caught up in the detail of the latest initiative that obvious contradictions fail to leap out at us.

The publication of It’s About Work…, the promised Tech Bacc and the proposal of a VET centre have put vocational education, pedagogy and training at the centre in debates about education policy. About time. But we have a mountain to climb if we are to overcome the innate preference of many families for their children to pursue academic routes to success.

The current consultation on vocational qualifications for 16 to 19-year-olds aims to establish standards for level three qualifications as an assurance of their quality and that they be something to aspire to. This is a worthy aim indeed.

A key plank of the consultation is the proposal to define qualifications more strictly as either ‘occupational’ or ‘applied general’, depending upon whether they are designed to prepare young people for a specific career or to teach broader skills that may be applied in a number of careers..

As part of the drive towards increased public information for potential learners, these categories would then be used to report on the performance of particular programmes in particular institutions. So far, so good, you might think – vocational qualifications will be presented on a level playing field with their academic counterparts. And both categories undoubtedly have a good proportion of The Commission on Adult Vocational Teaching and Learning’s ‘line of sight to work’.

But why is there a need to categorise? The term ‘applied general’ doesn’t seem very sexy. Why would a young person want to do something which, from its label alone, would not seem to be specific at all? It feels like something of a value-laden term, which could make well-respected qualifications like the BTec in business instantly less appealing.

Should we be advocating that those on a vocational pathway study something that is ‘narrow’?”

Coupled with the Skills Minister’s view that “far too little genuinely occupational education takes place among 16 to18-year-olds”, we might reasonably wonder whether ‘applied general’ qualifications are intended to be less valuable. Perhaps it is right for young people entering vocational education and training to specialise in preparing for a specific occupation.

But, for adults, we read in the skills strategy published last month that many ‘occupational’ qualifications are “too narrow”. Surely this is the same suite of qualifications being studied by younger learners? Should we be advocating that those on a vocational pathway study something that is “narrow”?

And what constitutes success for someone on an ‘occupational’ course? A job in what they have trained for, many would say. But what of the young person who studies hairdressing and decides instead to apply their learned business skills to set up their own customer care consultancy? Or the engineer who is taken with the mathematical elements of the work and decides to become an accountant after pursuing a degree in maths?

Are these students ‘failures’, or simply a testament to the amazing things that can happen when a course contains the broadest mix of practical and employability skills?

Attention to developing a broad range of skills for work and employment is what those in the FE sector are renowned for. We know that success is as much about attitude and skills as it is about occupationally specific knowledge. I cannot help but wonder how being any more specific than that will be of help to anyone.

Lynn Sedgmore, executive director of the 157 Group

The government wants an FE commissioner to step in when a college is deemed to be failing. Most colleges improve by themselves . . . so what role would he or she have, asks Joy Mercer

In its  ‘Rigour and Responsiveness’ paper, the government suggests a new tough line on college failure, proposing the appointment of an FE commissioner.

Within a fortnight of one of three triggers for intervention being ‘tripped’, he or she would advise ministers on the following options: to take over a college and decide whether a restructuring is required; to replace some or all of the governing body; to dissolve the college.

It is useful to provide some perspective here: 64 per cent of colleges are good or better by Ofsted’s own judgments. Only four colleges out of 54 have been graded as inadequate this year. There is only one case in the past five years or more where a general FE college has been judged on two separate occasions as inadequate.

Since 2009 there have been two colleges who have not only ‘jumped’ out of inadequacy, but within a year achieved a ‘good’ grade from Ofsted.

Ofsted chief Sir Michael Wilshaw complained to the Education Select Committee in February that there were no consequences for colleges of a poor inspection. We wrote to Graham Stuart, the committee chair, with an  analysis of what had happened to colleges deemed inadequate with evidence to the contrary – it is clear that there are often serious consequences for the senior management team.

Most colleges improve by themselves – a tribute to analytical governance and competent management.”

What of existing powers? Under the Further and Higher Education Act 1992 and later amendments, the government already has powers to appoint new members of the governing body, direct the governing body to take actions which the Education Secretary thinks ‘expedient as to the exercise of their powers and performance of their duties’, direct the governors to collaborate with another college or a maintained school, or to dissolve the college (at which point the normal rules about dissolution apply).

But before any of this can take place, the Skills Funding Agency implements its intervention process — which gives 15 months to support improvement or decide on a different structure.

Rigour and Responsiveness is a consultation paper and an FE commissioner may be an inevitability. If that is the case, what should the role look like, given the evidence above?

First, it might be most proportionate, efficient and realistic to appoint a competent civil servant on a case-by-case basis to make an evaluation of the problem and galvanise the resources to solve it. A commissioner could be a function rather than an individual.

Second, the one size fits all nature of the proposals – in which different triggers provoke the same response (‘the commissioner in action’), could be re-examined. The college that has lost a major contract that destabilises its finances needs a different expertise and set of timescales to recover than the college judged to be failing on teaching, learning and assessment.

In a wider sense, there is a general danger in applying a broad brush approach to colleges in terms of improvement interventions. In the same way that a hospital might house pockets of clinical excellence and struggling departments, a college might have outstanding departments and those requiring improvement. This is not hiding behind complexity; it is simply describing the complexity.

Fourth, the proposed timescales appear rushed. Two weeks to make a final decision with such important implications may, in most circumstances, be too short.

Finally, let’s bear in mind that the most colleges improve by themselves – a tribute to analytical governance and competent management. So the oft and effective weapon in a commissioner’s armoury should be to support the college’s own improvement plan through resources and a watchful eye, and not just in exceptional circumstances.

Joy Mercer, director of education policy at the Association of Colleges