Colleges in December… It’s a Wonderful Life

Christmas – what does that mean for colleges? Well Christmas starts early in FE.

Feels like it starts in the middle of December and goes on well into the New Year.

Students drift off, lecturers wind down and the principal does the usual “Principal’s round-up; thanking everyone for their hard work, telling everyone that they need to work harder, that 2012 will be grimmer than 2011, as s/he wishes everyone a “Merry Christmas” and makes a dash for main reception whilst they’re grabbing their passport, sun hat and tickets to a Canary island retreat…

Meanwhile, a large proportion of students are slogging their guts out at one of the busiest times of the year.

Work-based learners and apprentices working in hospitality, catering, hairdressing, leisure and of course retail.

These are not low numbers, these are learners in the hundreds of thousands.
Learners who will have no support from their college assessors who, like the principal are either sunning themselves, Christmas shopping or vegging out in front of Sky Movie reruns, quoting lines from “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

How many of you have the short phrase “employer led” in your prospectus? It’s not true is it? Perhaps it should say; “Employer led, but only during the Academic Year.”

The academic year was originally created for the pre-industrial era, when all ‘able-bodied’ young people were needed to help with harvesting over the summer.

That’s why it was designed around a long holiday in July and August, chopping up the rest of the year into three terms arranged around Christmas and Easter. Well, we are not in the pre-industrial era and colleges rely heavily on employers to keep their businesses going, but only, it seems on their terms.

What I don’t think colleges have got their heads around is the reality of competition. If colleges don’t do what they say they’re going to do, or offer the level of service that business demand, then others will step in.

We’re already seeing it – The rise of the private training provider and in-house accredited training. Training that meets the needs of the employer, whenever and however it is required.

If colleges continue to play by the academic rule, then they’re going to lose. They’re not going to find anyone to play with them.

Some colleges do go the extra mile I will admit, but not at Christmas, and not at Easter and not for a couple of weeks in the summer… Even though colleges are facing a very difficult financial future, their hunger for growing their business is not apparent.

Are colleges stymied by unions or is it tradition, or is it plain laziness, or… is it Christmas time a cocktail of all three?

Merry Christmas
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The latest plans for FE

With the Chancellor’s Autumn Financial Statement now out of the way, budgets are being set for different parts of the education system.

First out of the blocks has been the FE and adult skills sector where BIS has announced an overall budget of £3.8bn for 2012/13, dropping as per previous announcements to £3.4bn for 2013/14 and £3.3bn for 2014/15.

Nor might it stop there for the Chancellor also confirmed in his Autumn Statement that spending limits will remain for at least a further two years beyond the current cycle, up in other words potentially to 2015/16.

We’re therefore in for a long haul and as the Institute for Fiscal Studies put it, “one begins to run out of superlatives for describing quite how unprecedented (the situation) is.”

Yet the sector may be able to draw some comfort from three other factors. First that some additional money will be available for at least the next two years from the European Social Fund and, from 2013, from the new FE loans system.

Second, that while the overall envelope may be getting smaller, some elements, notably currently apprenticeships and Learner Support, continue to receive some strong funding.

And third, as the Chancellor also indicated, the Government is launching a number of initiatives under its growth strategy such as the Youth Contract and the Regional Growth Fund in which the FE sector will play a key role and may attract additional resources.

some additional money will be available for at least the next two years”

But these days, funding comes as part of a wider package and the other part of the package is further system reform.

Much of what’s in the reform document released alongside the Investment Statement is fairly familiar having been under consultation and discussion for much of the last few months but there are perhaps a few less familiar if not less expected aspects. They include the following.

First, in the area of opening up higher level vocational education, where in an effort to strengthen the ladder between F and HE, the Dept appears to be re-opening the CATs bag. “We therefore intend to invite collaborative proposals to increase credit accumulation and transfer (CAT) opportunities across further and higher education.” This it seems will form part of what is being called a new ‘Higher Vocational Education’ portfolio which may in turn lead to re-adoption of the nomenclature of College of F and HE.

Second, and in a similar vein, the Dept is mirroring for the FE world the model being adopted in higher education to help prospective students get better advance intelligence about courses, by advocating the use of ‘common information sets’ and quality comparison information.

Third, adult literacy and numeracy, or English and maths as it’s now to be known where following further research evidence, concerns remain that progress continues to be slow and where as a result the Dept appears keen to inject some new thinking and energy.

This means piloting a different funding model, one that reflects progress made, as well as considering the use of more flexible, unit-based stepping stones towards GCSE.

Fourth, the announcement that an independent Commission on Adult Education and Vocational Pedagogy will be established from next April.

This is something that Alison Wolf had proposed for 14-19 learning and will bring together a wide range of key stakeholders, professional bodies and practitioners to ‘set out the standard expected of a good learning opportunity’ and ‘define a range of effective pedagogical approaches.’

The latter may be more easy to determine than the former and the question will remain as to how far you can bottle this sort of expertise up and release it when necessary but clearly the Government is keen to respond to reports such as the latest Annual Ofsted report which suggest that the quality of teaching in post-16 education can be patchy. The Commission and practitioner groups could play a big part in raising the game here.

Fifth, the intention to pilot community learning trusts next year with a view to possible roll-out the year after. Adult and community learning remains the poor relation of the adult learning world but this Government, like previous ones, recognises how important this local heartbeat of activity is.

The trust model sits within the Big Society concept and we shan’t know exactly what form the trusts will take until the prospectus is released next year but it remains an interesting model.

Steve Besley is Head of Policy at Pearson. He tweets @SteveBesley

Stop bashing schools

This conference season has felt particularly ‘anti-school’. Don’t get me wrong, there’s always been an element of schools bashing, but this year it feels more desperate, and I think that’s because it’s not just from the usual suspects.

Working in education and across sectors (primary, secondary and further education) you see the ‘bashings’ come in cycles. First in the cycle comes GCSEs.

What regularly happens here, is a ‘Falling Standards Shocker’ story, where some interested party digs out an old O’ Level paper and compares it unfavourably to a recent GCSE paper.

Then it’s the turn of A-Levels. The record-breaking pass rates will be blamed on ‘dumbing down’ (it’s obviously not going to be attributed to the effects of harder working students or better skilled teachers and lecturers).

Universities aren’t immune; they’ll be tackled over “Mickey Mouse” degrees and of churning out graduates who aren’t ‘work ready’.

So, on one hand, FE colleges share the loud complaints about the standards of literacy and numeracy and the ‘dumbing down’ of exams with schools, but on the other they are spared the howling cries for schools to stuff more and more into the curriculum.

Colleges and training providers say they can’t get into the schools to talk to students, to tell them about the wonderful opportunities at their institution, to save them from their small school sixth forms.

Careers advice is also causing a rift. Connexions, the careers advice service has all but disappeared, and once again schools are tasked with picking up that mantle, but without any additional funding to enable them to do so effectively.

FE colleges aren’t keen; they are suspicious of schools’ intentions and their ability to deliver advice and guidance, impartially.
Funding means that schools are clinging on tighter to their post 16 students and colleges are working harder than ever to loosen the schools’ grip. It’s a flawed numbers game and the stakes are higher than they’ve ever been.

Schools are bemoaning that, in an attempt to lure these students away from them, colleges are becoming quite predatory, putting on free transport and tempting students with free food, laptops and other goodies.

But, as I have explained to schools countless times, they have five years to work on their students, to encourage them into their sixth forms, whereas colleges have a much smaller window to engage with them – often despite school barriers.

I understand colleges’ desperation; some have suffered significant drops in enrolments, the cuts surrounding education maintenance allowance (EMA) and falling demographics have been cited as probable causes. Some colleges’ futures may be in the balance.

FE colleges aren’t keen; they are suspicious of schools’ intentions and their ability to deliver advice and guidance, impartially”

However, academies have also had an effect on college enrolments. The academies have now been established long enough for the interested to see improvements.

Because of their extra funding, and their renewed focus, they are winning influential friends and building enviable reputations; communication with parents has improved, uniforms have gotten smarter, discipline has been tackled, school days have been restructured, and results in the main, have improved. These academies are keeping their post-16 students in numbers before unseen.

But even they are not safe from the ‘new kids on the block’. Free schools with sixth forms, supported by high profile academic sponsors, and UTCs (university technical colleges) sponsored by big business are causing secondaries and colleges to quiver.

Funding dictates that post-16 is a numbers game; institutions’ survival and jobs depend on getting students through the door.

Of course students would do better if education weren’t chopped up into sectors, and not require each sector to eat the next sector in order to survive, but we are where we are, and schools are an easy target.

Schools get it in the neck for all that is wrong with society, and like it or not, they’re more visible than colleges, schools get the ‘column inches’ and those with agendas use that for their own ends.

Our education arena is already cluttered and confusing, and bashing the very schools that feed our colleges is not going to help. At this time of year, why not be the bigger sector, find some goodwill and play nice?

Ruth Sparkes is Director of EMPRA. She tweets @EMPRA

BIS clarifies national funding rates, bursary schemes, and more…

FE Week receives many questions about government announcements. This week we sought a number of clarifications from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) on your behalf.


No change in rates

The national funding rates will not change in 2012/13, according to BIS.

The investment strategy ‘New Challenges, New Chances’ makes no reference to funding rates, but a BIS spokesperson has confirmed “they have stayed the same”.

The BIS spokesperson also confi rmed that the large employer discount will remain at 25 per cent.

The apprenticeship rate for learners aged 25 and above will also remain at 20 per cent less than the rate for 19 to 24 year-olds.


Colleges dissolving

Colleges can now dissolve themselves as part of new freedoms given to the FE sector by government.

BIS has told FE Week that this is “a new power for colleges” and that “colleges may decide that they wish to adopt an alternative organisational form and/or form new partnerships with other providers to meet the needs of learners, employers and their broader communities. Such proposals could lead to dissolution of the current corporation.”

Permission from the Secretary of State will no longer be required.


Bursary details soon

New details about the bursary scheme for FE teachers and trainers undertaking ITT will be announced next Spring, the government has announced.

John Hayes MP unveiled the new bursaries at the Association of Colleges (AoC) Annual Conference, and said it would ensure FE teachers are “the best in the world”.

A BIS spokesperson told FE Week: “Arrangements for future bursaries are being discussed with the sector first.

“We anticipate further details in spring 2012.”


What’s in a name?

The government is conducting a review into how they can protect the “terminology and titles” of FE colleges.

A BIS spokesperson told FE Week that “colleges need to apply to the Department for approval for the name of a college corporation against published criteria”, and that the government
is not against a college rebranding themselves without the word ‘college’ in its name.

Government policy on careers advice and guidance in spotlight at conference‏

The future of careers advice in both colleges and schools was scrutinised at the AoC Careers Education, Information, Advice and Guidance Conference last week.

The event, held at ‘Etc. Venues’ in London, was a chance for professionals in the further education sector to express their concerns to politicians, civil servants and union representatives.

Joy Mercer, Director of Policy (Education) at AoC, started the morning by introducing the speakers and commenting on the rapidly changing landscape both in education and employment.

“We are in a very interesting situation in terms of careers guidance,” she said.

“We’ve got one million young people unemployed, and we’ve got a lot more choice at 14 and at 16 – so it’s quite complicated out there.

The senior policy manager added: “People don’t go into a job which they continue until they retire anymore.

“And for young people, with an economy which is ‘interesting’, and in fact very challenging at the moment, it’s ever more important that at the time in their life when they’re thinking about committing themselves to a choice of a course or a qualification, that they get the right, personal, expert, face to face guidance from an independent adviser.”

Joy Mercer then handed over to Simon Hughes MP, Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats and government advocate on access to education.

Mr Hughes delivered a number of well-crafted anecdotes about both his constituents and a number of young people he had recently visited, including Ashley J Baptiste, a recent entrant to the X Factor competition, and Grace Jones, who recently celebrated her 112th birthday.

The Minister explained that his experiences with these people had helped to emphasise his thoughts on the importance of basic education and quality careers advice.

“Even in the age of emails, and Twitter, and online, and everybody texting all the time, actually the thing that really makes the difference is being able to talk to someone who is not your parent, and not your teacher, they’re great, but to talk to other people about careers,” Mr Hughes said.

“That’s why I’ve been pushing so hard for the government to move to make a commitment to face to face careers guidance.”

Mr Hughes emphasised that when he had surveyed young people about their preferred way of receiving careers advice at school, 100 per cent say they preferred it to be in person.

“I’m clear that we need to really value the face to face carers advice,” Mr Hughes said.

In a speech titled ‘Careers guidance for young people and adults – now more vital than ever’, Mr Hughes outlined four key points, including his vision of an annual prompt service regarding careers advice.

“I’m really keen that we move to a system where by the time everyone leaves school, they’re basically linked into a perpetual careers advice prompt service,” Mr Hughes said.

“So that literally every year, you will be reminded about what the options are.”

Mr Hughes continued: “So if you leave school and you’re working in your dad’s garage, you are reminded that you can still get an apprenticeship, still go to college, get a technical qualification, get a BTEC, or think about University.”

As previously reported in FE Week, Mr Hughes concluded by suggesting that both learners and parents needed a better understanding of the costs involved with each qualification.

“We absolutely need to get the message across as to what the cost benefits are of all of the options,” Mr Hughes said.

The Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats then handed over to Brian Lightman, General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL).

“I think it’s tremendously important to have high quality, impartial careers advice and guidance,” Mr Lightman said.

“The social mobility agenda is not just about going to university, it is about people being able to get a step on the ladder, and we know there are very different steps on that ladder, and at very different stages.”

Mr Lightman, on request by the event organisers, focused on the impact the changing services for information, advice and guidance was having on schools.

“We absolutely need to get the message across as to what the cost benefits are of all of the options”

“The whole government policy agenda of structural changes, the choice agenda, the introduction of free schools, UTCs, new types of academies and so on, all of the curriculum change, much of which is at the moment only highlighted in very broad terms – all the detail is still to follow, which means very confusing and conflicting messages for young people,” Mr Lightman said.

“All of these things make the need for advice and guidance desperately important.”

The ASCL General Secretary then commented on the riots which took place in August, and how careers advice could help to address some of the deep rooted problems young people had.

“It’s about raising aspirations, it’s about injecting hope, and when we saw all those terrible pictures of what was going on in August, I just felt what we could do to inject hope in young people,” Mr Lightman said.

“Aspirations yes, but actually to make them believe in themselves, and believe in the opportunities that are there for them and to know how to actually access those things.”

Although it looks likely that school teachers will take on at least some of the responsibility for delivery of careers guidance, Mr Lightman was keen to emphasise that learners needed objective, factual information given by appropriate professionals.

“You have to have qualified people who are up to date, who have the right information, the objective information, and know where to access that information online, and on the telephone services and all the other things that are going to back that up,” Mr Lightman said.

The rise in apprenticeships has been debated back and forth over the last few months, but it was rare to have an opportunity to discuss how they are communicated to learners at school.

Mr Lightman said: “I’m very aware that despite all of the efforts about apprenticeships, there is still too much confusion about it.

“We’re still not getting the message across about all of the opportunities that are out there.

“To make sure young people know what apprenticeships are, that they don’t all start at 16, that you can start them at various stages and you can do them in all kinds of different places as well.”

The keynote speeches were rounded off by Dr Susan Pember OBE, Director of Further Education, Skills Investment and Performance at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).

Dr Pember used the conference to expand upon, among others, the new National Careers Service due to be launched next year.

“It’s about the growth agenda. We cannot grow the country if young people keep on making the wrong choices,” she said.

Dr Pember explained that the government initiatives announced both in the Autumn Statement, delivered by George Osborne, and ‘New Challenges New Chances: Further Education and Skills System Reform Plan’, published by BIS, were about “growing individuals” in order to boost the economy.

“If you get an empowered learner, and a good careers service, which is ensuring that the learner is empowered by good information and good advice, many of the other things that we need will follow,” she said.

Dr Pember went on to justify both the capacity and approach of the National Careers Service, arguing that professional guidance would be “stepping back into the light” as part of the “start of a renaissance”.

All of the speakers convened before the first refreshment break to answer questions about the centralisation of the government’s new careers service, and whether advice from schools and colleges would ever truly be impartial.

In the afternoon delegates could register to attend a number of breakout sessions presented by, among others, Louise Proctor, Head of Service Development in the National Careers Service Team, part of the Skills Funding Agency (SFA), and Paul Chubb, Director and Professional Adviser at Careers England.

UCU in financial turmoil

Urgent action is needed to prevent the University and College Union (UCU) being plunged into debt, a letter from a UCU Trustee to all the National Executive Committee members reveals.

The letter, seen by FE Week, describes “a staggering loss to the union, something in the region of £3m – £4m” after the UCU Congress was “misled” into believing the sale of one of its buildings would raise enough to pay off debts.

However, the UCU insists it is “unwise” to gauge what the financial situation is with the union, until the sale, which is ongoing, has been completed.

Britannia House, in North London, was proposed for sale at an estimated price of £12 million after the merger of the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE) and the Association of University Teachers (AUT) to form the UCU in June 2006.

However, in the letter, Fawzi Ibrahim, the former NATFHE national treasurer and now UCU Trustee, says: “I’m taking this unusual step of writing to you regarding an important aspect of the union’s finances.

“Congress 2011 was told that ‘the money received from the sale of Britannia Street property will be sufficient to pay off the existing debts. There will be some left over to add to the capital replenishment fund’.

“This is incorrect. Congress was misled.”

Mr Ibrahim says that following Congress, he wrote to the General Secretary, Sally Hunt, asking for clarification, leading to an exchange of ten emails.

In none, Mr Ibrahim’s letter added, did she approach the subject “let alone answer my questions” so he went to the union’s auditors.

The letter continues: “According to the auditors, at the time when the audit was carried out, the union owes a total of £12.45m in loans.

“The estimated cost of the sale of Britannia St. property (including agent’s commission, consultants and legal fees) is £2.03m.

“It follows that, if Britannia St. was sold at the agreed price of £12m, far from that being ‘sufficient money to pay off the existing debts’, there will be a huge shortfall.”

When approached, Mr Ibrahim refused to comment on the leak but he did say: “UCU’s finances are fundamentally sound.

“All we need is a long-term plan to pay back the existing debts over say the next ten or so years regardless of Britannia St.”

When pressed on the fact he had been openly critical of the union’s dealings in the past, he said: “It is no secret that I have, over the past few years, expressed my concern at the attitude towards the union’s finances which borders on complacency.”

One UCU source went further, saying the attitude had been that once the Britannia Street building is sold, “all our problems will be over”.

The result was a fragile financial situation, leaving the UCU at the mercy of the banks. His further concern was that any change in bank rates could see interest payments rocket and services would inevitably be affected.

These concerns are echoed in the rest of Mr Ibrahim’s letter, despite his assurances.

In November 2009, contracts were exchanged on the sale of the former NATFHE HQ in Britannia Street after the UCU bought a central London building in Carlow Street and a bridging loan to cover costs while the sale was completed.

The following year the UCU paid £145,862 in interest on the loan, which carried liabilities of £12.3 million.

The letter continues: “If you add the £2.27m advanced in cash when Carlow St. was purchased and a bridging loan was obtained, the outcome of the decision to buy Carlow Street, a decision that was taken in haste without a meeting of the Strategy and Finance Committee, is a staggering loss to the union, something in the region of £3m – £4m.

“Such an outcome was not hard to foresee at the time when property prices were beginning to decline. This is why, when it came to the Trustees, the decision to go ahead with the purchase was not unanimous.

“As a National Executive member you are charged with looking after the union finances and take decision on how the union’s money is spent.

“You cannot do that without the full knowledge of the true state of these finances. I hope this letter has helped to do that.”

A UCU spokesperson said: “The impact of recession on the property market is well-documented.

“It would be unwise to try to gauge what the financial situation with Britannia Street is until a sale has been completed.”

As disputes rise so do the costs

As icy draughts and the impact of budget cuts blow through further education, tensions among staff are rising. Small wonder, perhaps that college managers are increasingly looking for outside help.

There’s now a growing demand for the services of outside human resources (HR) consultants – some costing £800 a day – to help sort out a variety of conflicts.

There are grumbles aplenty. According to a recent members’ survey by the lecturers’ union UCU, 84 per cent of respondents admitted to finding their job stressful last year.

Two thirds reported ‘unreasonable expectations’ from colleagues, students and managers’ as a principal cause. Even allowing for those who enjoy a good moan, this sounds like an unhealthy situation.

So outsiders are being hired to help sort out disputes: redundancy; breakdown of staff relationships; rows over unannounced lesson observations; and wrangles over contracts. But are they value for money – and why employ them when colleges have their own personnel teams?

Sue Clyne, executive director of HR Guildford College has seen things from both sides of the fence – she worked as a freelance herself until earlier this year. “Conflict mediation is a growing area,” she says. “Sometimes an internal HR person can be heavily involved; and disputes get to a very emotive level.”

One college where an outsider may have helped broker a peace deal is Westminster Kingsway. Lecturers there have boycotted unannounced lesson observations by managers for almost four years. Keen to break the deadlock, principal Andy Wilson hired Martin Rosner head of HR at FE Associates, to help find a compromise.

The practice of managers dropping in on lessons and monitoring lecturers without notice has severely strained relationships at several colleges in London and beyond. One lecturer, who asked not to be named, said: “It’s like ‘we’re going to catch you out – we know you’re lazy and cut corners, and we’re going to prove it’. I’d say this is probably the most stressful thing for any teacher, and the most common reason people are getting out.”

Neither Wilson nor Rosner wished to discuss the current situation at Westminster Kingsway now that dialogue between lecturers’ representatives and management is underway. “It wouldn’t be proper to talk to the press or undermine things,” said Rosner. “It’s a sensitive issue.”

Rosner says FE Associates get called upon ‘as honest brokers’ to resolve all sorts of issues. “It can be over anything, such as a complaint of harassment,” he says. “There’s more of this work now – we’re building it up. Things are very difficult for colleges at the moment – the last thing they want is to be involved in a protracted dispute.”

He declined to say how much he charges but, according to Clyne, outside HR consultants’ fees range from £300 to £800 a day. But, amid recession and in a competitive field, charges ‘have come down over the last 12 months from a minimum of £450’, she adds.

Clyne’s work ranges from resolving conflicts between individuals to delivering training advice.

She sees a steady growing demand for HR consultancy, especially to deal with the workload created by re-structuring and redundancy.

But if college management is paying the bill, can outside HR help be even-handed? “When you’re being paid by the college they want you to deliver results,” Clyne says. “Although they’re likely to accept independent advice, if you say ‘I think management have got everything wrong’ you won’t be popular.” Rosner says the aim is for a ‘mutually agreed outcome’, to sort out disputes but admits that’s not always possible.

From the union perspective, outside HR consultants are a mixed blessing – ‘a curate’s egg’- according to Chris Powell, London regional official for UCU. “Increasingly in the last year or two in London, I’ve found myself dealing with them,” he says. “Some I have a great deal of time and respect for.

“They know their job; they’re focused and professional.

“But others I have a less positive view of – I’ve a number of experiences where, in my view, their intervention was unhelpful and exacerbated the situation. Some end up telling the senior management what to do rather than providing advice and options.

“In some places they seem to become the HR department – they hover around far too long. That baffles me – they don’t come cheap. Proper permanent staff should be appointed instead.”

Ministers call for a Royal Society of Apprentices

A Royal Society of Apprentices should be established to help promote vocational training, according to the All Party Paliamentary Group for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning.

The call is one of five reccomendations published in the ‘Apprenticeship Inquiry: Autumn 2011’ report, and would be used to improve the branding of apprenticeships, as well as addressing issues around apprentices aged 25 and above.

Conservative Co-Chair Robert Halfon MP said: “Ever since I was elected MP for Harlow, I have campaigned for a Royal Society of Apprentices.

“This report is the foundation of such a society.

“As a first step, I have also worked with the NUS to launch an Apprentice Card, giving apprentices the same discounts and benefits as university students.

“Apprenticeships are not just about economic efficiency; they are about social justice as well.”

The Group took evidence earlier this year and concluded that there was a danger the term ‘apprenticeship’ would become too generic as the number of apprentices increases.

The report adds: “A Royal Society may help to guard against a devaluing of the term.”

Other recommendations in the report include a government led-review into the impact of reduced bureaucracy on employers, as well as the creation of ‘apprenticeship champions’ to take part in a national awareness campaign for schools.

The call for evidence also highlighted a lack of understanding and awareness about apprenticeships among both young people and the general public.

Simon Nathan, Senior Policy Advisor, Education and Skills, at CBI, said: “From a young person’s point of view there is probably quite poor careers advice around apprenticeships and around vocational learning.

“There is perhaps an over-stereotype of a young person at 16: a person who has done well in his GCSEs gets nudged towards university; a person who has done poorly gets nudged towards vocational learning or an apprenticeship.

“I think we’ve got to break that cycle and young people have to see the apprenticeship route as the equivalent of HE in terms of getting a successful career.”

(The APPG Report can be downloaded here.)

David Travis, head of learner support, Lewisham College

At 25, David Travis is certainly one of the youngest college senior managers in the country – not bad for a guy who fell into working with young people almost by chance. As Head of Learner Support at Lewisham College, he is responsible for getting learners into the college and making sure they stick around.

Ironically it was his own difficulties in education that led him down his current career path. A conscientious student, Travis flew through his GCSEs and started A levels in English, psychology, law and history, but found the pace of work much faster and the content “much drier” than GCSE. By the end of his first term in sixth form, he had dropped English and history, leaving a gaping hole in his timetable.

As it was too late to pick up any new subjects, his head of sixth form suggested he get involved in a project helping younger students with literacy and numeracy issues. From the first session, he was hooked.

“I started working with them [the students] at Christmas and one of them sat GCSEs in July,” he recalls. “Being there at the end, and knowing that I had helped to build their confidence and self-esteem and helped to contribute towards them getting a decent grade, was fantastic.”

The experience led him to volunteer with his local Connexions, as part of a youth advisory board. When a paid position came up, as a peer mentor for young people using the service, he was encouraged to apply.

Leaving school at 17 was a tough decision, but having “never really wanted to do A-levels in the first place” (Travis had wanted to study performing arts at college but a careers advisor steered him into A-levels instead) he felt it was the right move.

After spending most of his formative years in the sleepy county of Staffordshire, working in Stoke city centre – where unemployment was high and drugs problems were common – made him realise how sheltered his own life had been.

But what surprised him more, was moving back to work in Staffordshire as a schools-based careers advisor a few years later and finding that these problems – and drugs in particular – could be just as much of a problem in the “sleepy suburbs.”

He recalls working with one thirteen-year-old who was addicted to crack and heroin and ended up being placed in local authority care. Mental health issues were also common, particularly amongst those with complex home lives.

“You can keep them [learners] safe while they are in school or college, but you don’t know what’s going on outside of the gates or at home,” he says.

What Connexions tried to do was bring together the standard universal careers advice and the intensive work on barriers to education and employment – something Travis always believed “made sense.”
And while he recognises that “careers advice does always seem to get a bad reputation,” having had a bad experience himself, he was determined to make sure “no one ever left unhappy with what they had heard” from him.

At 23, having qualified as a Connexions personal advisor at just 21, Travis was looking for a new challenge. He was keen to move back to London, having spent some of his childhood there, so when a Connexions job came up in Kensington, supporting people with learning disabilities, he decided to go for it.

Having discovered that there was no college course in the area for people with severe learning disabilities, he set about creating one, working alongside the local authority, college and social workers and the education funding body the Young People’s Learning Agency (YPLA). It was an experience that stood him in good stead when he decided to apply for his current role at Lewisham College.

He admits that when he applied, at the age of 24, he thought he wouldn’t stand a chance of getting it. “I was really nervous being at the interview because people there already knew each other and were talking about people that they knew together and that they all had a history of line managing,” he recalls. “I have to say, being a twentysomething, it looked like a toughie.”

Fresh in his mind was a speech given by a senior person at Connexions, who had said that young people in their early twenties were not “emotionally mature enough” to cope with full-time work – never mind senior roles. “I know 40-year-olds who I don’t think are ready for full-time work,” he says, laughing. “Everyone is so different, I don’t think you can ever make a blanket statement.”

In the year he has been in post-Lewisham College, there have been many changes to contend with, not least the scrapping of the EMA and the introduction of a replacement bursary fund. One of the biggest challenges has been letting the most vulnerable learners who are guaranteed a payment from the new bursary (children in care, those with disabilities, care leavers and teenage parents, amongst others), know that they are guaranteed funding.

Identifying who those students are can be difficult as local authorities can be reticent to share sensitive information about young people, says Travis.

Making decisions on how to allocate the discretionary fund has also been tough. As Travis points out: “There are other members of our cohort that are just as vulnerable as care leavers and looked-after children…so deciding how much you are going to offer them as a reasonable incentive to pay for the things that they need to do their course is really tricky.”

“You can keep them [learners] safe while they are in school or college, but you don’t know what’s going on outside of the gates or at home”

The college has put in an application for funds from the government’s ‘contingency budget’ (available this year only to help with the transition from the EMA to the bursary fund), but not knowing whether they will receive funding next term means many students are in limbo, unsure whether they will be able to go back in college after Christmas, something that can have an impact on their achievement. “If you are worried about everything else that’s going on outside your college life, it’s going to be hard to buckle down and focus,” says Travis.

Changes in the visa requirements for students wishing to study in the UK have also impacted on the workload of Travis and his team, including “complex negotiations with the Home Office, things like that,” to make sure learners don’t miss out on their chance to study at the college.

Housing is another key issue for students and something Travis says he is “not expecting to get any better over the Christmas period.” The college works closely with local homelessness projects and charities; staff go into local hostels to talk to residents about college courses and can help them through the enrolment possible if necessary.

One issue that might rear its head in the New Year is the matter of how to support young parents. A consultation on the government’s Care To Learn programe, which provides support for childcare and related transport costs to help young parents further their education, has recently ended and the outcome could well be less money to go around for young parents who want to combine parenthood and study.

For the first time in his career Travis says he hasn’t got his eye on the next rung of the ladder – he is too busy with his current role. But he is ambitious and wouldn’t rule out a more senior role in education – perhaps as a principal – in the future.

What continues to motivate him is doing his best for the learners. “There is a real history at the college of being as inclusive as we can and tapping into peoples’ raw potential, getting them through the courses and getting them to progress.

“Unlocking someone’s potential and giving them opportunities is what makes it all worthwhile.”