A duo of skillful stylists are set to showcase their skills on the national stage.
Claire Heenan and Charlotte Moss, both students at City College Southampton, have made it through to the finals of the National Student Barber Competition 2012.
The pair, aged 18 and 30, will attend the national awards ceremony in London on May 14, where photographs of their work will be judged amongst the best in the country.
They will then find out if they have come out tops in the national competition.
Claire said: “I’m proud of getting through to the finals; it has been such a confidence boost. This opportunity is giving me exposure to competitions which is a great for my career.”
Charlotte added: “I’m amazed that I got through. It will be a great new experience. I entered a competition previously, but didn’t get through. Making the finals has rebuilt my confidence.”
Writtle College are preparing to play host to an innovative event to help children gain knowledge about the journey of their food from field to fork and raise awareness of the countryside around them.
The Essex Schools Food and Farming Day will be staged on May 24, with 3,000 primary schoolchildren and 500 teachers and assistants from all over Essex attending.
The aim is to get children out of the classroom and give them a better understanding of the food chain and the role played by farmers in Essex, as well as raising awareness of countryside and environmental issues.
Guy Smith, Essex farmer and chairman of the event steering group, added: “It is particularly rewarding that we get such a brilliant response from the schools. As farmers we are very proud that non-farmers take such an interest in what we do and want to know more.”
The Government’s announcement to lengthen the duration of apprenticeships will help to ensure better quality workers which is vital for the economy’s growth.
The recent announcement by the Skills Minister John Hayes that apprenticeship schemes are to be lengthened is welcome news for the British economy. It signals the end to what could be seen as a ‘conveyer belt’ approach to vocational training, where ‘any skills’ have taken precedent over the ‘right skills’.
For too long, some industries have been damaging the apprenticeship brand by pumping out apprenticeships, focused primarily on volume and speed rather that the end product. In the midst of quota madness, quality, skill and the type of training that the industry needs to thrive risked being compromised.
The construction industry is an ageing sector, with a significant number due to retire in the next ten years. The retirees will be highly skilled, highly experienced workers, and their replacements will have to be trained accordingly to fill their boots.
Couple this with major changes on the horizon which will warrant a raft of new skills in the areas around nuclear build, green energies and Building Information Modelling. Thanks to Government investment there is also a number of major infrastructure projects in the pipeline such as High Speed 2 and Crossrail. To meet the skills demands that are coming a highly skilled future workforce is simply a must.
In the construction sector, apprenticeships are one of the most important entry points into a career in the sector. For years, the industry has relied heavily on this cohort of new blood coming through ready to pick up the gauntlet. However, despite their importance, we have recently seen an increase in the number of providers who have tried to fast track candidates, badging short-term duration courses as apprenticeships.
Short-term courses in their own right are a great way to up-skill and continue on the professional development path, but the problem arises when some try to shoe horn courses into shorter time frames than can really do them justice.
This is potentially harmful to the apprentices that complete them, employers and the industry as a whole if they are not delivering the right skills for growth. Investment in apprenticeships is an investment in the future of the industry itself and it is self-defeating to support courses that are unfit for purpose, as it damages the industry’s ability to compete on a global scale in the long-term.
As a result, we need to ensure we are safeguarding the skills needs of the industry for when the market picks up. At CITB-ConstructionSkills, we are committed to continuing to raise standards for apprenticeships, and believe the training infrastructure should be largely shaped by employers to help produce high-quality results.
This is why we have rejected claims for qualifications for courses as short as 18 months, and for framework completions for level 2 apprentices achieved between 12 and 17 months. We don’t believe short apprenticeships will support the industry’s needs now or in the future.
What we will continue to support and provide, however, are robust and fit-for-purpose apprenticeships that really do deliver, and our level 2 and level 3 apprenticeships meet those standards. Most level 2 frameworks in construction are achieved between 18 and 30 months – with level 3 frameworks being awarded 12 months after the completion of a level 2 framework.
We will also make sure that flexible finance packages are available to help employers afford them. Last year alone, CITB-ConstructionSkills provided over £49m in apprenticeship grants to 10,000 employers, and helped more than 63,000 people to achieve vocational qualifications.
Apprenticeships are crucial to producing the construction workers of the future. The recent commitment from the Government will go some way toward ensuring the apprenticeship system works well for us all. We must always remember that it is the quality of our future workforce, not the quantity, that will drive growth.
For further information on CITB-ConstructionSkills Apprenticeships, visit
www.cskills.org/apprenticeships.
Mark Farrar, Chief Executive of CITB-ConstructionSkills
The national awards ceremony for Adult Learners’ Week kicks off a week of similar events across the country this week, alongside thousands of opportunities for people to have a go at learning, often for the first time since they left full-time education.
There will be tears and laughter, applause and inspiration at the ceremonies and there will be thousands of people lured and inspired into more learning as a result of the week of events.
We know from our evaluation that people get involved in learning because of the chance to have a go or because they have seen publicity about one of the awards winners and have been inspired. At the same time, though, our annual participation in learning survey sets out how much more we need to do.
Since 1996 we have asked the same questions about participation in learning and can track changes over that period. This year’s figures suggest that fewer people are engaged in learning than two years ago, reflecting the public funding pressures as well as the reductions in employer investment in learning at work.
Participation in learning and the associated benefits are spread very unequally across our society ”
Overall around one in five adults have participated in learning in the last year and around two in five in the last three years.
The headline figures mask the most important issue though. Participation in learning and the associated benefits are spread very unequally across our society.
Whether you cut the numbers by age, socio-economic class, employment status or prior educational attainment you will find some big inequalities. This is why we must retain a strong widening participation agenda in policy, funding and practice to make sure that the inequalities are addressed.
Our Policy Conference this year as part of Adult Learners’ Week is about widening participation; we think it is one of the most important issues we should be discussing and acting on. There has been much progress in the recent past that we do not want to lose and there is so much more to do before we have a true learning society.
Inspiring people through our awards ceremonies and have a go events is not going to be enough; we need learning providers to do the outreach, engagement and delivery which meets the needs and motivations of different groups of people in different settings and we need policy and funding to recognise that reaching out does cost more and needs support.
That is why we are working with The Open University on this issue. They have done more than any other organisation to broaden Higher Education to hundreds of thousands of people who otherwise would not have attended university. The conference will hear from other organisations who are vital in achieving wider participation.
The WEA will be talking about how the opportunities on people’s doorsteps can revitalise communities. We will be hearing from Hammerson’s about the progress made for people learning in the workplace, particularly for those in low-paid jobs and for those that are perceived to be unskilled.
Finally, but perhaps most crucially for the future BT will be giving us a glimpse into what the future possibilities are for technology to open up access to millions of adults – as the internet, for instance, has done.
Adult Learners’ Week has always been about reaching out and engaging, inspiring and motivating; and for people’s careers, for their families, their health and the communities they live in, we need more of that during these tough times.
Recommendations in the latest report from the Commons education select committee offer an opportunity for a parallel, if not unified, approach to raising standards of teaching and learning throughout our schools and colleges. It is an opportunity that must not be wasted.
The select committee’s report, ‘Great teachers: attracting, training and retaining the best’, calls for a new ‘college of teaching’, along the lines of the royal colleges and chartered institutions in other professions. It also recommends a thorough review of teacher training to ensure all staff have high-quality continuing professional development (CPD).
The further education and skills sector already has such a body in the Institute for Learning (IfL), and our experiences very much echo the findings of the committee. Moreover, our surveys on the effectiveness of CPD in colleges and providers over the past three years show how much effective CPD can be delivered through collaborative professional learning activities, created and led by teachers themselves and backed by IfL (or a similar college of teaching).
As well as working, this kind of CPD can be efficient and cost-effective. Teachers do need protected time to share and learn together, and the research evidence shows that this is wise investment.
When the committee searched for training models for schools, it looked – as such committees usually do – beyond the field of education. But there are models of excellence closer to home in the FE and skills sector that should be explored with a view to greater cooperation, collaboration and sharing.
There are political and strategic imperatives too, given the importance of 14 to 16-year-olds and 16 to18-year-olds increasingly learning across schools and colleges, and in academies and studio schools sponsored and housed within FE colleges.
Since April 1 2012, college lecturers with the professional status of Qualified Teacher Learning and Skills (QTLS) are entitled to teach in schools, giving those institutions an additional source of vocational and wider pedagogic skills, and opening up greater scope for schools and colleges to share the teaching of programmes for young people.
This supports a significant political theme for the government since it accepted all the recommendations in the Wolf review. The quality and accessibility of vocational education and training for young people is a massive opportunity, which, surprisingly, this select committee report did not touch on.
IfL has contributed to the development, so that teachers in FE are valued in our sector and in schools, and to the CPD of teachers in FE. Last year, IfL supported over 18,000 teachers’ and trainers’ CPD.
With others in the sector, IfL successfully campaigned for teachers and trainers with QTLS to be recognised as qualified teachers in schools as well as further education, for individuals to have status and career flexibility, and to enable colleges to develop more strategic partnerships with joint teaching in schools.
The further education sector itself is currently subject to a detailed review of professionalism, chaired by Lord Lingfield. IfL questions the recommendation in its interim report that initial teacher training should not be required by government policy but should be optional.
And we believe the thrust of the select committee report is about raising the bar so that having qualified teachers is the minimum, with no suggestion whatsoever that teachers being qualified is above a baseline minimum for schools and young people taught there.
We trust that the Lingfield review will consider closely the content of the select committee’s report before publishing its full report this summer.
The interim report was written in a climate of the coalition government calling for deregulation and, as such, it called for IfL to become an independent, voluntary and professional, rather than statutory, membership body for teachers and trainers.
Whatever shape we take, we have confidence in our future and the thousands of teachers and trainers who have chosen and will continue to choose to engage with IfL as their independent professional body.
But this article is not about banging the FE drum or any special pleading for particular organisations. It is about recognising the common educational landscape where schools, colleges, private training providers and indeed universities need to work together to achieve excellence, which starts with good teacher training and CPD.
Read together, the Lingfield review and select committee report suggest deep-seated contradictions in emerging government policies for schools and post-compulsory education and training.
Nevertheless, more positively, they do show the urgent need for very similar supportive structures, for a membership association for teachers, and for a strong emphasis on CPD throughout schools, FE and probably higher education, which needs careful consideration – and considered actions.
Toni Fazaeli, Chief Executive, Institute for Learning (IfL)
City College Norwich (CCN) is developing a federation model alongside two academies and a potential University Technical College (UTC), which will help share essential services and promote collaboration.
Dick Palmer, principal of CCN, says their proposals include a shared services company which will be in charge of purchasing “basically everything other than teaching and learning.”
“Our shared services will be quite unusual,” Mr Palmer told FE Week.
“It will be providing services to both FE colleges and schools, but we’re also looking at possibly the fullest range of shared services I think that anyone is looking at.
“So we’re looking at advice and guidance, PR, marketing, library services, as well as the normal things like HR, finance, IT and premises.”
The college was given £900,000 last year through a Skills Funding Agency Collaboration and Shared Services grant to help setup the federation. The partnership, which consists of CCN, City Academy Norwich and Wayland Academy in Watton, aims to help all of the providers be more efficient when purchasing services, including impartial information, advice and guidance (IAG).
“Schools are expected to get impartial advice and guidance and we know that’s quite difficult for many schools to do that,” Mr Palmer said.
“We already provide an impartial IAG service from within the college, not just to ourselves but to other people around the region, and we know it can help deliver that in our federation schools as well.” He added: “Creating a better, wider, more supported and more informed learner experience is undoubtedly part of the ambition for the project.”
David Brunton, principal of City Academy Norwich, says the federation could also include up to seven more providers, including a UTC which CCN hopes will be approved later this month.
Mr Brunton said: “We’re hoping that something in the region of ten organisations will form part of the federation so we can maximise our purchasing power. In the current climate of individual academies, there is a danger of isolation and therefore another key element of the federation is to setup formal, collaborative structures focused on the development of high quality teaching and learning.”
The federation will launch in September and be fully operational by January 2013.
Mr Brunton said: “We will own the service company and they will be part of our federation, so we will have direct input and be able to hold them to account for their performance.
“That closeness of the relationship gives all partners within the federation a sense of ownership, and it’s not only about having the service available, it’s about having high quality and value for money.”
He added: “We think, with the spending power that we have, we will be able to make sure that we deliver the highest level of service.”
Growing up in rural Lancashire, the young Gordon Birtwistle wanted to be a joiner and undertaker. But while he liked the idea of making coffins, he wasn’t quite so keen on the idea of working with dead bodies.
“That was the job in those days; make the coffins, bury the people or burn them,” he recalls, grimly.
When he left his secondary modern school at 15 (having failed the 11 plus examination “miserably”), Birtwistle did apply, unsuccessfully, to be an apprentice joiner and coffin-maker.
He ended up with a job at a textile machinery manufacturers in Accrington, and by the time he was 21, was a qualified jig and draughtsman, with two higher national certificates under his belt and no regrets about not making it as an undertaker.
But it was tough going. The Liberal Democrat MP for Burnley recalls: “I worked in the skill workshop, as a mechanic and in the machine shop repairing the machines. I worked with the ‘mill rats,’ men who moved heavy machines around the plant, and I worked in the foundry with molten metal. I did everything.”
And on top of a 46-hour working week, including Saturdays, Birtwistle also went to college three nights-a-week and spent most of his weekends studying
But life was hard for everyone in Lancashire back then, he says.
His parents grew their own vegetables and bred chickens and rabbits to feed the family and Thursday night was “always mashed potatoes because that’s all we had left.” His mother couldn’t afford to buy anything else until his dad – a wood pattern maker – came home on Friday with his wages.
After ten years working in engineering, including a stint as a sales rep, selling machine tools, Birtwistle decided to set up his own engineering company.
He became a local councillor in the early eighties and Burnley Council leader in 2006, but despite having three attempts at winning a parliamentary seat, he never seriously thought he would become an MP.
In fact, he jokes, he only made a third attempt – in the 2010 general election – because he was the only candidate that could afford to buy the leaflets.
Much to his own surprise – and his colleagues in the Liberal Democrat party – he won, by a majority of almost 2,000. But becoming an MP, at the age of 66, came as a big shock to Birtwistle, who had just retired.
“I had a load of mates at the allotment, I was growing veg, I’d won a prize for my tomatoes, I was taking the grandchildren to school…it was great fun. And all of a sudden I was back in it,” he says.
But becoming an MP in a former Labour stronghold (the seat had been held by the party for 77 years) brought challenges. Having run the election campaign from a room over the top of a funeral parlour, Birtwistle realised he needed an office and some staff – and he needed them fast.
It’s all very well getting these results, but when the young people can’t get a job afterwards, that’s defeating the object”
Within the space of a couple of weeks, he had acquired, decorated and furnished an office, recruited a team of staff for both Burnley and Westminster and been appointed parliamentary undersecretary to the chief secretary to the treasury, Danny Alexander – quite a lot to take in for a man who “had only been to London about seven times in my life.”
While he still doesn’t like London, Birtwistle has settled into his new role. And earlier this year, he became chair of a new All Party Parliamentary Group dedicated to apprenticeships.
Launched by the awarding organisations EAL and IMI, the group will focus on the changing needs of employers and apprentices across the engineering, manufacturing, building and automative sectors.
“We have to up our exports, we have to get rid of our balance of payments deficit; once we have done that, growth will fly,” he says. “But growth won’t fly unless we have people to ensure we do it.
“When I started work, manufacturing was at least 40 per cent, maybe 45 per cent, of GDP. We didn’t have balance of payment problems in those days, even though we didn’t have much money.
“But in the last 30 years, manufacturing has been allowed to decline and previous governments have banked everything on the service sector and the city. The city catches a cold and we all catch pneumonia.”
In Burnley, where the majority of jobs come from manufacturing, many companies have permanent vacancies because they can’t recruit enough skilled workers, he says.
Burnley’s biggest company has an average age profile of 45, and there are too few people coming up behind them.
“I think it is completely tragic when we have young people who can’t get jobs, so let’s kill two birds with one stone and train young people to do the jobs of the future, so that the companies that we have, that are prospering, will have the staff in the future.”
But “Mickey Mouse apprenticeships are no good,” he says, by which he means short apprenticeships, particularly in the retail and service sector, some of which can be completed in as little as 12 weeks.
“We have got to have proper apprenticeships where people do proper training for a period of time until they are skilled at their job. My apprenticeship took five years.
I wasn’t qualified and I didn’t get full pay, until I had served my time. I accept now, with modern technology, they [young people] don’t need to do five years, but they certainly need to do three years.”
The reason some young people are not considering apprenticeships, is because their perceptions – particularly of manufacturing – are outdated, he says.
“It’s not the Terry Webster type engineering that you see on Coronation Street with dirty overalls on and an oily rag in his top pocket. That’s not engineering any more – it’s high-tech manufacturing.
But if attitudes are to change, young people must have access to good quality independent advice and guidance – something that has been lacking in schools for the past 25 years, says Birtwistle. “Secondary schools should be more involved with careers than they are at the moment.
“I think they are more concerned with meeting targets, five A*-C including maths and English, and they have taken their eye off the ball on what they do once they have left. It’s all very well getting these results, but when the young people can’t get a job afterwards, that’s defeating the object.”
Birtwistle is amongst those Liberal Democrat MPs who voted for a rise in university tuition fees. And he is keen to point out that he did challenge Vince Cable on the detail of the policy, including how the new tuition fee structure would affect students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
But he is unrepentant about his decision, saying the increase was necessary to help get the country out of economic trouble.
“Danny Alexander’s predecessor left a little note saying, ‘There’s no money left. Good luck.’ Now, I’ve been brought up that if you’ve got no money, you don’t spend it.”
If he could achieve one thing during his time as an MP, it would be to see manufacturing up to a minimum of 20 per cent of the UK’s GDP, he says.
“If we get it to that, then apprenticeships will follow, there won’t be as many young people out of work, the balance of payments will be almost resolved and we will have massive growth in the economy.”
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) has published a research paper detailing how learners feel about the upcoming “24+ Advanced Learning Loans” policy.
The research, carried out by TNS BMRB, found that 74 per cent of learners aged 23 or above said “they at least might take a course” at level 3, while more than half (58 per cent) said they would consider taking out an FE loan to fund it.
The research included 18 focus groups, consisting of four people each, as well as an online survey completed by 405 “likely future learners” aged 23 and above.
“This created worry about costs, debt, impact on poorer groups,” the presentation reads.
“Associated with bank loans and credit with heavy, inflexible, high rates of interest.”
However, the Department says their opinions changed once the scheme was explained to them in-depth.
“Most felt they would not be put off after understanding the full details, although those aged over 40 and seeking a route back into the labour market were still negative.”
A further 18 group discussions, which consisted of eight people, and two mini groups of four people were used to complete the study.
The Department has concluded that FE loans “do not appear a strong deterrent to participation”, and will be successful if the policy is communicated well.
“The core questions people had (income threshold, repayment levels, eligibility) need to be answered upfront as early as possible, alongside the reassurance that repayments cease
when income dips below the threshold,” the research report states.
“No upfront costs are also seen as a key benefit of loans, and should be communicated early on.
“All these elements can be distilled into a couple of introductory sentences, and could replace the current initial messages that refer to an end to the government subsidy.”
It later adds: “The final piece of core information – interest rates – is more problematic.
“This is an important aspect of the loans proposition, and questions about it arise spontaneously; but the arrangements are difficult to communicate succinctly.”
(FE Week held a roundtable debate about the upcoming FE loans scheme last Wednesday. Read our event report here.)
The fast-approaching FE loans policy has been labelled as “very complex to implement”, “difficult to market” and cause for “real worry” from key figures in the sector.
A roundtable debate, held at the FE Week office and attended by a representative from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), the University and College Union (UCU) and the National Union of Students (NUS), as well as the shadow minister for FE, among others, was used to discuss the sector’s growing concerns with the scheme.
Peter Pledger, chief executive of South London Business and chairman of the Confederation of Apprenticeship Training Agencies (COATA), criticised the government’s timetable for introducing the policy, emphasising that learners would need more time to think about applying for a loan.
“With all due respect, you need to get your act together,” he said.
The Department has revealed to FE Week that the new system has been renamed as “24+ Advanced Learning Loans”.
A BIS spokesperson told FE Week: “After carrying out testing with a sample of learners, we have chosen the name ‘24+ Advanced Learning Loans”’.
“This describes the loan offer which covers learners aged 24 and above studying at level 3 and above.”
Gordon Marsden, shadow minister for FE, skills and regional growth, emphasised at the roundtable debate that learners in FE are very different to those in HE, and should be treated accordingly by the Student Loans Company (SLC).
Mr Marsden said: “(The) government can say until its blue in the face that it will be done in the same way as HE loans.
“They may want to use the same instrument, the SLC, but it’s a very different kettle of fish, delivering loans across variable courses for variable lengths and at variable times of the year, to doing a sort of one size fits all with HE loans.”
Andrew King, the lead on FE loans at BIS, responded: “We have had to look at how the systems operate in relation to that, and ensure that there are systems in place so that it can be dealt with.”
Toni Pearce, vice president (FE) at the NUS, said the absence of UCAS in the further education sector would be another issue for the SLC.
She said: “For the SLC to only have to interface with UCAS is one thing, but to have to interface with a variety of different providers in the country?
“We could well be in a situation where students receive a loan and don’t get onto their course, or get onto their course and then don’t receive a loan because those two things have to interface separately.”
The FE loans scheme was first announced as part of the spending review in 2010.
The priority is to shift money towards young people in an age where we have millions of young people unemployed”
A budget was then set to introduce FE loans in 2013/14 (£129 million) and 2014/15 (£398 million), based on the current system used in higher education (HE).
It is understood that learners will make repayments on an income contingent basis, equivalent to nine per cent above the £21,000 threshold.
The Department held a consultation with the sector last summer, and has also published reports detailing the initial impact assessment and equalities screening impact assessment.
The final versions of these reports – alongside new market research which examines the potential impact of FE loans on learners – are expected to be published later this month.
Mr Marsden said he was waiting with “baited breath” to see how the research had been carried out.
“I think the whole picture that we’re building up is of concern, concern that people will be nudged away from FE and real, severe difficulties about the implementation period, and relative breakneck speed at which this is now proceeding,” Mr Marsden said.
“Yes, it was flagged up in 2010, but what has actually happened between 2010 and up to the last six months? The answer is very little.”
Kate Lomas, a lecturer at Greenwich Community College and member of UCU, said she knew teaching staff who were still unaware of the policy, and that it would be very difficult to sell the concept of a loan to learners in their local area.
“Teachers who are involved in enrolment and marketing, who have to promote the college, are going to find it very difficult to market,” she said.
“We’ve spent a lot of time trying to engage adult learners, over 24s, and particularly women in our community, and it’s going to be very difficult to sell that whole notion to them.”
Mr Pledger said he did, however, support the introduction of the FE loans system.
“It’s absolutely the right policy,” Mr Pledger said.
Kate Lomas, lecturer at Greenwich Community College and UCU member and Peter Pledger, chief executive of South London Business and chairman of COATA
“Will it hurt FE colleges? Yes. Will it hurt adult community colleges? Yes. But that’s not the priority. The priority is to shift money towards young people in an age where we have millions of young people unemployed and that’s where you want to shift money, and we support it.”
Mr Pledger added that the introduction of FE loans would also help create a “truer market” for learners aged 25 and above.
“They will choose the courses that truly will help them make more money,” he said.
The shadow minister for FE responded by saying the government should be worried about the effect the policy will have on the record number of new adult apprentices.
“I think the government should be concerned that their much flaunted expansion in post -24 apprenticeships could well fall off a cliff if this goes wrong, because you will get droves and droves of people not prepared to take a post 24 apprenticeship loan up on an individual basis,” he said.
Mr Pledger said that while he agreed the number of adult apprentices would drop following the implementation of the loans system, it would also ensure greater value for money and help eradicate ‘deadweight’.
“What I would like is – if we’ve got a limited amount of resource – is that resource is focused at those under 24 without a level two or level three qualification, and if we want people to up skill at a higher level, the employer either pays for it or the individuals get loans on qualifications that truly meet their needs,” Mr Pledger said.
Mr King said the Department had looked “very seriously” at apprenticeships, and argued that many apprentices would be happy to take out a loan once they understood the value of the qualification associated with their programme.
“Once they understand the offer of the loan that’s available to them, that’s when they’re willing and willing to cost taking that out,” Mr King said.
“(They) see the value of the loan offer that’s available, rather than just the increasing debt that it might otherwise be seen as.”
The Department will be using a paper based system with the SLC to manage the loan applications from April next year.
However, Maxine Room said the FE loans system should be deferred a year unless an online system was available instead.
“I’m driving an e-strategy in my college, and it seems incredible that you’re even thinking about it,” the principal of Lewisham College said.
“What will happen in colleges – and the psyche of college is something I know well – is you start with a paper based system, you then go to an online system, but staff keep their paper based system because they’re worried about the online system.”
Mr King was clear the Department was developing an online system simultaneously, which they hoped to implement at the earliest opportunity.
“It’s not that we’ve made the decision not to have an online system, but obviously (we’re doing) as much as we can to accelerate that process and potentially bring it forward,” he said.
Gordon Marsden, shadow minister for FE, Skills and Regional Growth, Maxine Room, principal, Lewisham College, Toni Perace, VP for FE, NUS and Andrew King, lead on FE loans at BIS
However, Ms Room said providers would also need time to trial the online system.
“We need to have our information this year, now, and the system up and running so we can trial it,” she said.
“We’ve had issues in our own organisation about trialling some of the system changes, and staff have been very negative when we’ve put systems in without actually piloting them.
“Now for you to come in and say the system is a paper based one, but you might have an online one, well for me is a no-no.”
The new name for FE loans, “24+ Advanced Learning Loans”, was also criticised during the roundtable debate.
“Well it could be simpler,” Ms Room said.
“It’s not a name; it’s a descriptor isn’t it?”
Mr Marsden added: “I think the name is potentially going to have the unintended consequence of turning quite a lot of people off.
“I’m sure that’s not what (BIS’) intention is, but I think the psychology hasn’t been thought about.”
Mr King said the new name was a result of a survey conducted with the sector.
“It wasn’t a name we put forward as part of the survey, but it was actually something that was suggested as part of the responses.
“So we gave three responses and people came back with ideas about Advanced Learning Loans, and 24 + Advanced Learning Loans. They felt there should certainly be an age related element to the title and that it should be referenced to the type of learning it was for.”
