SFA takes tougher line on charges

The Skills Funding Agency has “hardened it’s position” on fees charged to fully-fund- ed learners over 19.

Kirsty Evans, director of funding policy at the agency, told delegates at Lsect’s autumn finance conference held at Morley College on November 6, that it now tried to avoid “might” in its documents, using “must” and “have to” instead.

“We’ve done that for clarification, so colleges know exactly what is and isn’t within their remit to charge,” said Ms Evans.

She said that providers must not make com- pulsory charges to fully-funded learners for the delivery of any learning activ- ity funded by the agency, including administra- tion fees, CRB checks and equipment charges.

However, there were charges that the agency believed were legitimate for providers to pass on.

“These include charges outside core learning, such as library fines, and security deposits for equipment and tools. We’ve been as explicit as we can be about those things that we believe are in scope for providers to charge, and those things that are out of scope,” she said.

Delegates raised their concerns about the money that colleges would have to find to cover costs that they previously collected from learners. One delegate estimated efficiency savings could reach six figures.

Another delegate said that current funding levels did not reflect that some courses, such as beauty therapy, needed expen- sive materials.

I think the government had always assumed that these fees were not being charged”

Ms Evans said that she understood their concerns about where they could make sav- ings. “I’m happy that look at whether this could feed into our considerations of pro- gramme weighting factors. But what I can’t do today is guarantee there will be any changes as a result of that,” she said.

Val Wilkinson, Plumpton College                                                           Kirsty Evans, Skills Funding Agency 

When another delegate highlighted the discrepancy between Skills Funding Agency and Education Funding Agency rules on charging fees to fully-funded learners, Ms Evans responded: “I think the government had always assumed that these fees were not being charged…itcameasabitofasurprisetodis- cover that they actually were. That’s why there has been this desire to clarify our position.”

A final point raised from the floor was about “success bonds” – deposits that some providers demanded from students, to be recouped only on successful completion of their qualifica- tion. Delegates asked whether these charges were seen as legitimate by the agency.

“We’ve looked at deposits for things that can be returned, such as equipment, but I have to say that I’m sure that the department would be very uncomfortable with what is effectively a success bond,” said Ms Evans.

Initial indications are that it is not acceptable to charge a success bond to learners”

“I think we too have heard about such inci- dents, and are trying understand the extent to which they are taking place – are they very prevalent or are they exceptional? Initial indications are that it is not acceptable to charge a success bond to learners.”

Nick Linford, managing director of Lsect, updated the delegates on EFA and agency funding reforms. Ms Evans then confirmed that the agency would publish another update by the end of November which, she said “would lay out an approach to the new ap- prenticeship element. “In addition, we are also absolutely committed to publishing in full, in January, what the system will look like and how it will work in 2013/14.”

Paul Smith, head of business development at the Student Loans Company, outlined some of the considerations providers should be making ahead of the implementation of FE loans to learners over 24.

Robert Russell, Institute of Chartered Accountants    Paul Smith, Student Loans Company 

“Providers with a loan facility will need to start making preparations ahead of the launch in April 2013, he said.

“These include appointing someone to man- age the administration of loans, ensuring your IT systems are ready to manage the loan data, and publishing your methodology for award- ing the discretionary learner support element of the fund. This must be done by April 1, and the criteria must clearly reflect the principles of equality and diversity.”

Others to address the conference included Val Wilkinson, director of finance and administration at Plumpton College and Robert Rus- sell, from the Institute of Chartered Account- ants, who together analysed the effectiveness of shared services to avoid VAT; and Chris Mantel, director for college audit and advisory services at RSM Tenon, who discussed accounting concern around partnerships and subcontracting.

Celeb inventor unveils new engineering base

Celebrity engineer and inventor Dick Strawbridge was on hand to open a Yorkshire college’s new £7.5m engineering base.

Kirklees College marked the opening of its state-of-the-art learning centre with fireworks, tours and demonstrations, and a guest list of careers advisers, local business men and women, students and education partners.

Dick said: “Being an engineer is fundamental — it’s all about life and what you do with your life. You’ve got your lives ahead of you and you can make a difference because engineers make a difference.

“The world is there to be changed. What’s going to happen in your lifetime is going to be phenomenal, and you can make it happen.” Around 1,000 engineering and motor vehicle students will pass through the new building’s doors every week, including 350 apprentices with employment in industry.

The new centre’s facilities include maintenance and fabrication workshops, and mechanical workshops, demonstration areas, classrooms, a student refectory and offices for staff.

The college’s governing body chair Jeff Dakers said: “This building is for the future. All buildings make statements, and what is being built here is a statement about the future of engineering in our area.”

Olympian efforts raise funds for students

Olympic and Paralympic gold medal winners have helped to raise £32,000 to support hard-up students in East London.

Record-breaking track athlete David Weir and 400m champion Christine Ohuruogu were among guests at the launch of the Learning Revolution Trust at Newham College.

The charity has been set up to help learners of all ages to pay for fees, books, travel, meals and other course expenses.

More than 200 people bought tickets for the event, which was hosted by six-times Olympian Tessa Sanderson.

“The Learning Revolution Trust is about helping people in the East End, the young, the old, the short and the tall. It’s about putting them on the right track,” she said.

The charity was set up by Newham College with support from the Tessa Sanderson Foundation and Academy.

Trust chair Martin Cumella said: “We believe in the transformational power of learning to change people’s lives and opportunities. We believe no one in Newham or East London should be deprived of the opportunity to go to college because of hardship.”

Celebrity scientist opens £7m building

Atop scientist gave North Yorkshire students a masterclass on genetics to celebrate the opening of their college’s new £7m building.

Lord Robert Winston also took a tour of Middlesbrough College’s new sixth-form centre and sports academy.
The building of MC6 has been part of the biggest regeneration scheme outside London.

Lord Winston, who has presented a number of factual television series, including Superhuman, said: “It is immensely important to engage with young people as they consider their career options, which is why I’m delighted to be opening MC6 which will offer exceptional facilities for students.

“It’s great to see continued investment in education and the future of the country’s young people at this time.”

College principal Mike Hopkins said: “This is a historic day for the college, our students and for the town of Middlesbrough.

“By creating MC6 and its extraordinary facilities we have raised the bar for the young people of the Tees Valley by providing one of the best further education centres in the country.”

IfL members celebrate tenth anniversary

To mark its tenth anniversary this year, the Institute for Learning (IfL) invited founder members to an afternoon tea at the House of Commons hosted by Barry Sheerman MP,an IfL patron and former chair of the education select committee.

Tim Boswell, also an IfL patron and a former Conservative education minister, welcomed guests to the event and paid tribute to the further education sector and its staff.

“People have an idea of schools and higher education and, sort of in between, is the bit that they do not focus on,” he said. “Further education has the Heineken effect: catching the bits that others cannot reach. But to do this, you need professionalism.”

Referring to recent events impacting on IfL, Lord Boswell said, “IfL does matter and each of you should stick with it.

“Learners and the country will benefit greatly from the professionalism of the services that you offer.”

Toni Fazaeli, IfL’s chief executive, thanked the founder members for their contribution to the profession, their commitment to learners, and their leadership of excellent teaching and learning.

Solicitors team up with college to give one-to-one advice

Midland law students will be keeping bang up-to-date on all things legal, thanks to a new partnership with local solicitors.

Mentors from Howells Solicitors will offer one-to-one advice to 25 Sheffield College students over the coming year.

The firm has agreed to provide work shadowing, and is donating its copies of The Law Society Gazette to students. It has also paid for an academic diary for each of Hillsborough College’s 400 A level students (the colleges share a campus).

Student Grant Robinson, 17, said: “I will gain first-hand experience and I can ask for advice on any topics to do with law, whether it’s applying for a law degree or getting a training contract afterwards.

“All the advice, knowledge and work experience I am gaining from the law interest group is developing my skills and giving me a greater understanding of the roles that underline being a solicitor.”

The Howells mentors include solicitor Tom Bernard. He said: “I know how difficult it can be when you are embarking on a career in law and I can pass on my experience.”

Young entrepreneurs get spooky for charity

Entrepreneurs at a West London college raised £150 for local charities with a Halloween event.

Scary treats, ghoulish make-up and spooky dances were all organised by Uxbridge College’s entrepreneurs’ society, the Young Dragons.

The Mayor and Mayoress of Hillingdon joined students for the event, with Mayor Michael Markham even getting stuck in and face painting student Danny Hulusi, 19.

Sharon McCann from student support said: “Everyone involved has worked incredibly hard to make this event a success.

“It was a great opportunity to bring everyone together – and to get some delicious homemade cakes at a bargain price.”

Money raised from the day was split between the Mayor’s nominated charities, including The Shooting Star Children’s Hospice, Hillingdon Young Carers and AgeUK Hillingdon.

Retail student, and one of the Young Dragons, Harsharan Rihal, 19, said: “The Halloween event was extremely exciting. I felt like a real businesswoman taking part in a large-scale event. I really enjoyed working as part of a team.”

Student shows dark side for exhibition

Arts students delved into their dark sides to stage a major exhibition with a haunting theme.

Cleveland College of Art & Design, in Middlesbrough, was approached by Preston Hall Museum, Stockton, to create a gothic horror exhibition of work in its new gallery.

The collection by Year 1 and 2 BTec extended diploma in interactive media students will be on display until the end of the year.

Winning student Mark Nichols, 17, said: “I looked at some gothic art and tried to make it more striking with a shadow watching over the

hall that manifested itself as long tendrils.” Preston Hall exhibition officer Mark Tindle

said: “Students had free rein to wander around the hall and its grounds to soak up the atmosphere and be inspired by its heritage.

“We wanted to get them used to working to a professional client brief and the standard was outstanding.”

College tutor John Stead said: “It has been a great opportunity for all our students to show off their skills. People think interactive media is just games design when it is much broader than that, which this exhibition demonstrates.”

Apprenticeships: hats off to the stubborn geeks

If you relied on mainstream press and broadcasting media, you’d be forgiven for thinking that apprenticeships were something from the past, says Professor John Field

What a mess we’ve made of apprentice- ships. The Select Committee on Business, Industry and Skills found that a sizeable minority of apprentices receive no training whatsoever; the system is riddled with conflicts of interest, often unreported and largely unresolved; profit levels appear to be inflated by government grants; some employers simply badge existing training as an apprenticeship to claim funding; the system involves de facto age discrimination, with no apparent rationale, as well as gender discrimination in some trades. Worse, the uneven quality of training has damaged public perceptions of apprenticeship schemes in general.

None of this will come as a surprise to anyone who has followed online debate. But if you relied on mainstream press and broadcast- ing media, you’d be forgiven for thinking that apprenticeships were something from the past, inherited from the medieval craft guilds, and unsuited to a modern economy.

And it is true that the apprenticeship system that operated until the 1980s was flawed. Lads followed dads, excluding many women and immigrants; whether a particular craft was included or not was often a matter of historical accident (and workforce gendering); and craft status often became a pawn in collective bargaining, bedding rigidities into a system that should indeed have been modernised as industry and skills requirements changed.

But instead of modernising apprenticeships, the Thatcher government chose to smash them. In place of backward-looking, time-served, tripartite apprenticeships it promoted the go- ahead standards-based competency model of the National Vocational Qualifications system. Apprenticeship systems survived in small pockets, but for the most part they vanished as employers replaced them with short, cheap training schemes.

By contrast, a number of other European countries opted to modernise their apprentice- ship systems. They retained the principle of social partnership, seeking to work out the problems of modernisation through consulta- tion and negotiation. And they tried to match the new, flexible forms of work practices needed for European industry to survive.

The result was by no means perfect. Gender segregation often survived, with young women dominating apprenticeships in traditional female areas and males in engineering and IT.

Flexibility was sometimes insufficiently developed, as shown most notably in Germany’s attempt to impose a (western) model of apprenticeship on the very different labour market of the former East Germany. It is still far too difficult for adults to upskill or reskill.

But these were and are seen as reasons for reforming a high quality pathway to highly skilled labour. Hilary Steedman’s report for the International Labour Organisation identifies a number of features of successful apprentice- ship schemes that, she shows, have helped to reduce youth unemployment and maintain labour quality.

But what interests me particularly is that none of this is new. Campaigners and research- ers have blogged repeatedly on the topic, and there has been sustained coverage in the redoubtable FE Week. Academics such as Lorna Unwin and Alison Fuller have written and spoken about the policy flaws. Think tanks and the National Audit Office got involved. And while trade unions have generally been quiet, individuals such as Tom Wilson of UnionLearn have raised tough questions about the treat- ment of this vulnerable group of workers.

Yet the mainstream press has had little to say about another sorry chapter in the long story of Britain’s problem with vocational skills. Hats off, then, to the handful of stubborn geeky buggers who have worked hard to raise concern over what is an important issue, but not sexy, fashionable or high status enough.

Now we move on to the much tougher task of building an apprenticeship system that is fit for purpose. The Select Committee’s recom- mendations cover eight pages. So far the Skills Minister, Matthew Hancock, has issued a bland statement affirming the value of apprentice- ships and promising to look at improvements. FE Week will no doubt be watching.

Professor John Field, director of research in the school of education at the University of Sterling in lifelong learning.