Matching students with a course that will lead to employment is “not a high enough priority” for FE providers, according to a report published by Ofsted today.

Their Skills for Employment report found that too many courses focused on the achievement of qualifications and did not extend to training that led to job specific skills. Ofsted also found that many providers were not offering jobseekers challenging enough courses that were likely to increase their chances of sustained employment.

Only 19 per cent of students were successful in getting a job according to the report, after interviews with 10,270 jobseekers spanning 31 different further education providers.

Job outcome data was collected between January and May 2012 and “included people who had only just left the programme shortly before the data were collected and were still looking for work”. However, the report does conceed that “The providers generally reported that the data represented a smaller proportion than the actual jobs achieved because it was difficult to gain accurate information on progression to employment.”

Ofsted was also critical of the first round of Skills Funding Agency allocations made to all prime providers to support learners into work. The report stated: “The funding allocation system of 2.5% of a provider’s adult skills budget for capacity building resulted in considerable discrepancies in the amount of money available, ranging from less than £17,000 to £450,000 in some cases. The amount of funding allocated was not a reliable indicator of the level of commitment to the initiative in the providers visited.”

Matthew Coffey, Ofsted’s national director of learning and skills, said: “We found too many courses simply lead on to more courses and do not address the urgency of getting unemployed adults into work.

“These issues along with others are being discussed at the first annual Learning and Skills Lecture. Further Education is becoming more and more important in promoting economic prosperity and enabling social mobility by supporting young people and unemployed adults to make the transition into work, improving literacy and numeracy and by providing top quality apprenticeships.”

In response to the report Martin Doel, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, said: “Colleges in England provide work-related education and training for more than 220,000 unemployed people a year, working closely with local employers and Jobcentre Plus to ensure they are providing them with the skills essential to find work. In one of the deepest and most sustained recessions in decades, the work our members do in this area is crucial to getting both individuals and the UK economy back on track.

“Ofsted’s Skills for Employment report addresses a number of issues that our member colleges have been concerned about for some time, namely the difficulties they face in being able to arrange work experience for students, the barriers jobseekers sometimes face in getting the training they need and colleges being funded to deliver national programmes of study that do not always meet local employment needs.”

The AoC also said that it was worth noting that colleges only account for 17 of the providers inspected by Ofsted for the report.

The think tank the Social Market Foundation (SMF) argues that government funding for FE providers should be linked to the subsequent earnings of their students if policy is to result in skills that that lead to employment.

Their Brtain’s Got Talent paper states that government policies have been largely ineffective in giving people the skills they need to secure lasting jobs and raise the productivity of the workforce. The organisation believes that a new model that rewards training providers for offering courses in skills that lead to better paid and higher quality jobs is needed.

Ian Mulheirn, director of the SMF and co-author of the report, said: “The UK is suffering from a chronic skills deficit, with one third of adults lacking good school-leaving qualifications. But attempts to create a demand-led skills system have suffered because policymakers have consistently misinterpreted what ‘demand-led’ actually means. Ignoring wage and employment signals from the jobs market, government has too often focused on giving cash to employers for training they would have conducted anyway, or handing funds to trainees who end up taking courses that don’t lead to jobs.

“This is costly for the taxpayer, unhelpful for employers, and above all, bad for learners whose efforts to achieve sustainable and good quality employment are too often in vain.”

The 157 group said that there needs flexibility around funding to ensure more people land viable, sustainable employment. In their Tackling Unemployment: The College Contribution report the organisation said that colleges should not be restricted to delivering courses only on the Qualification and Credit Framework.

Graham Hoyle, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, added, “we welcome this report’s recommendations because many of them chime precisely with what AELP has been saying to the government for months; namely that we need to see more integration between the three main government departments’ programmes that lead to sustainable employment being regarded as the key outcome of the support being given by providers.  Qualifications are important for progression but too much emphasis on achieving one before securing a job can be counter-productive, especially in the current economic climate.

“There is an appetite among our members to make a success of this provision as illustrated by the demand for copies of the new joint AELP/LSIS toolkit and by Ofsted’s own observation that independent providers have been cross-subsidising their provision from other funding streams.  Independent providers are likely to remain committed to the provision, but they require a clear signal from the Skills Funding Agency that it still sees funding of skills for the unemployed as a major priority as well as the funding of growth in apprenticeships.”

The Ofsted report follows the government’s launch in August last year of a set of new initiatives to encourage further education providers to prioritise labour market focused training.

FE Week will be attending the Ofsted lecture today, so stay tuned for more comment and reaction from across the FE sector, and you can leave a comment below 

The inadequate focus of FE providers on the job outcomes of students was a critical talking point at Ofsted’s annual learning and skills lecture today.

Matthew Coffey, the national director of learning and skills at Ofsted, discussed in detail the Skills for Employment report published by Ofsted this morning.

The report found that too many courses focused on the achievement of qualifications and did not extend to training that led to job specific skills. It also revealed that many providers were not offering jobseekers challenging enough courses that were likely to increase their chances of sustained employment.

In an interview with FE Week, Mr Coffey said that it should be a “requirement” for providers to record whether students go into employment after leaving their course.

“There’s a real opportunity here and we should be taking that opportunity,” he said.

At the lecture Professor Ken Spours, from the Institute of Education, spoke about the need for a cultural change towards FE provision and called for Ofsted to be at the “forefront” of this change.

Mr Coffey agreed with Professor Spours and said that what concerns him is when people criticise Ofsted for its attention to data.

“People say our focus on data is a distraction and its stifling innovation and that really worries me. The point I really want to get across is that we look at whole range of information that informs our judgement on outcomes. We do look at where students go…We give a real richness behind that story.”

The Education Funding Agency (EFA) have confirmed that the Department for Education (DfE) published an ‘error’ in the new 16-19 formula.

The EFA said: “The diagram of the formula is not completely accurate and should include brackets – but the diagram is only intended to be for illustrative purposes, rather than the final specification for the funding methodology. The error has already been noted, and will be amended in future releases of the document and other information.”

The formula, without the required brackets, was published in the DfE’s Funding full participation and study programmes for young people report, and can be seen below:

John Hayes, Minister of State for FE, Skills & Lifelong Learning,  has today announced that the government will introduce a series of support measures for those taking out 24+ Advanced Learning Loans (24+ ALL).

In a written ministerial statement Hayes said, “This is the first time that loans have been available in Further Education, and we want to ensure that appropriate safeguards for learners are in place. I can therefore confirm that we will put in place an extensive and substantial range of support measures alongside the introduction of loans.”

The support measures announced today included:

• An offer to individuals taking Access to Higher Education courses that on completion of their Higher Education programme, the Student Loans Company will write off the amount outstanding on the loan for their Access course.

• A £50 million bursary fund over two years, disbursed by colleges and training organisations. This bursary is intended to help vulnerable learners such as those with learning difficulties or disabilities, parents who need help with childcare, and ex-military personnel. The level of the bursary fund will be kept under review.

• Additional information, advice and guidance for adults who are uncertain about loans, provided by the National Careers Service, including a targeted face to face session – a “learning health check” – with a careers adviser for older adults who research published by BIS in May suggest are less likely to respond positively to the idea of taking out a loan.

Commenting on the government’s announcement, Shadow Minister for Further Education, Gordon Marsden MP said:

 “Alongside the further education sector, Labour has been raising concerns on the government’s plan for FE loans for months. That campaign has now produced significant concessions from Ministers over their plans to scrap direct support and enforce a loans system on some 375,000 adult learners. The concessions announced by Vince Cable today – over Access Courses to Higher Education, increasing support for STEM subjects and creating bursaries for the hardest hit and a focus on older learners – reflect the concerns which we have raised with ministers.

“While I welcome these concessions,  real fears remain over the impact FE loans could have on the sector. Ministers’ own research found that just 1 in 10 learners would still definitely continue their courses if loans were introduced and BIS’s impact assessment predicting up to 150,000 could drop out of adult learning altogether – and the way these changes are being brought in without any real parliamentary scrutiny.

“I and my Labour colleagues will continue to fight fiercely for the principle that Adult and Further Education remains accessible to all as a vital lever for social mobility and widening participation. We must give those who miss out first time a proper second chance to gain skills and qualifications.”

Today’s announcements have been welcomed by some who have campaigned and lobbied for changes to 24+ ALL.

David Hughes, Chief Executive of NIACE, said, “”NIACE is relieved that Ministers and officials now recognise, publicly, that the loans policy involves real risks. The Minister listened carefully to our concerns and discussed possible solutions with us. From that the Government has come up with a welcome range of mitigating actions and NIACE will work closely with Government to ensure that any unexpected and unfair outcomes are minimised.

“We will continue to monitor how this works with the hope that our remaining concerns do not materialise. Where they do I am confident that the Minister will want to discuss further actions to ensure that this policy is a fair one in practice.  We need to do everything we can to make sure that learners do not miss out on the opportunity to participate in learning and benefit from it.”

UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: “This is a welcome step by the government and I am pleased that ministers have listened to UCU and other voices in the sector. However, we remained concerned that despite these new measures thousands of learners will still miss out on a second chance at education.”

Graham Hoyle, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers,  added that he hoped there would further announcements to come regarding VAT on 24+ ALL for independent providers.

“There is a concern that the big growth over the last two years in Advanced and Higher Apprenticeships for adults over 24 might cease and actually go into reverse.  Adding to this concern would be any levying of VAT on loans in relation to independent provider provision as its independent providers who deliver the great majority of these apprenticeships.  As the government is championing a growth in Higher Apprenticeships, I hope that early confirmation that VAT will not be levied will be forthcoming from ministers.”

However Jon Richards, UNISON national secretary for education & children’s services, argued that whilst changes are welcomed, the changes are being made to something that should not have been introduced. Richards said, “of course any measure that mitigates the impact of these unwelcome loans on the most vulnerable in our society should be commended, but these loans should not be introduced in the first place.

“These loans will force adult learners out of the system, and deny them the opportunity to develop much needed skills for the workplace, skills that, as unemployment continues to rise, are more important than ever before.

“These are grim times, particularly for young people, and if the government does not do more to prevent a lost generation, then the outlook for young people, destined to end up as just another number in unemployment figures, is bleak indeed.”