Train’d Up is the latest provider to be advertsing 12 week apprenticeships.
The Skills Funding Agency has allocated Train’d Up £585,542 to deliver apprenticeships in 2011/12.
The company website (see below) advertises City & Guilds Railway Engineering NVQ Level 2 Apprenticeship, promising learners “£100 per week for 12 weeks.”
FE Week has spoken and written to Train’d Up, but have been unable to secure a comment at the time of publication.
It won’t be easy. It’s at best confusing and contradictory, and at worst – morally deficient.
As part of the government’s further education reform program, they have made the decision to begin charging over 24s for their first Level 3 qualifications (A level equivalents). They soon realised that some people who don’t have these qualifications might not be able to afford to get them. So, rather benevolently, they decided to offer them loans! Except it doesn’t look like they’ve thought through how it might work in practice, and now they’re having a consultation to if out how it will work.
These loans are for anyone aged 24 or over who is on a Level 3 course and doesn’t already have a Level 3 qualification, including apprenticeships and Access to HE courses. That’s because before the age of 24, if you don’t already have a Level 3 qualification, you can get it for free.
The loans are designed to cover the cost of study for up to £4,000. However, unlike in the Higher Education system, there is no limit on what Colleges can charge adults for their qualifications. I’ll repeat that, there is no cap. So even if you get the maximum possible loan, it still might not cover the whole cost of study. If you can pay for part of the course yourself then you’ll be able to get a smaller loan. But if you want to do an apprenticeship then your employer will be expected to make a 50% contribution, so you’ll only get a loan for half the cost. And there are no maintenance loans available.
You can only have access to the loans for two years to complete your course, so if you don’t get the results you need in that time, you’ll have to pay for it yourself.
The loans will be administered by the Student Loans Company, but the consultation tells us they number available will be finite. Unlike in HE, where if you are accepted on to a course you are automatically eligible for a loan, you’ll have to apply for a loan and apply to your course at the same time; and hope you get both.
In their own consultation document, the government tells us that, “the demand for Further Education is relatively price inelastic”. In English, that means you can’t raise the price of FE very much before people stop paying for it. It also tells us that a report commissioned by the Learning and Skills Research Centre in 2006 found that one third of learners would consider taking out a loan to fund their learning. So they already know that two thirds of learners wouldn’t consider using this loan system.
We have the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills trying to impose a flawed HE model in the FE sector where it is even more inappropriate, and it’s
dangerous”
And yet the government have already decided to implement this plan, they’re just consulting on how to do it.
So here we have the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills trying to impose a flawed Higher Education model in the Further Education sector where it is even more inappropriate, and it’s dangerous. The people who will be accessing these loans are the most debt-averse in society (much more so than those who might be put off by the cost of Higher Education), there isn’t even the financial reward that a degree brings on offer, particularly with current unemployment rates. And those who won’t access them are even more vulnerable.
But my biggest issue with this policy of Further Education loans is that it just shouldn’t be necessary. It is a disgrace that we have gotten to a state in our society where those who have the least, are unqualified and have been let down by our education system the first time around; have no opportunity for a second chance.
What is it that changes when a person turns 24 that means they don’t deserve to get a job, to provide for their family or to realize their potential?
Toni Pearce Vice President (FE), NUS, Tweeting as @Toni_Pearce
By his own admission, Frank McLoughlin wasn’t a particularly academic child. “I can remember this old nun putting her hand on my head and saying to my mum ‘Francie isn’t very clever, not like his brother.’
“And I was thinking ‘My God – I am standing here, you know.’”
But growing up in Harlesden in the 1960s, which was largely populated by big Irish Catholic families like his own, he didn’t dwell on it.
Most people went out to work straight from school and going to university was virtually unheard of.
After failing the 11 plus, he went to a Catholic secondary modern in north London, where he struggled with authority and was “quite a lippy young person really.” When he left school, he got a job in a factory and spent the next seven years doing a variety of unskilled jobs including delivering sausages for Walls and a stint as a travelling salesman. His experience of higher education, he recalls, was limited to chatting to university students doing summer jobs in the factories where he worked.
I got the idea that I might want to be a teacher because all the mature students I met there were the product of FE colleges and it just shaped my view about what it can do for people, how it can guide you in all sorts of ways.“
It was only when he started dating a girl who was studying at Leeds University that he started to think he might be quite clever, after all. With her encouragement, at 22, he started ‘A’ levels at night school and, after achieving top grades, landed himself a place on a politics degree at Leeds University. For McLoughlin, who had become very involved in politics, both general and through the trade unions, one of the biggest highlights was being taught by Ralph Milliband, who was a professor there. “I was a big leftie – so it was very radical, questioning, a real ferment of ideas and I had three fantastic years. “
It was during his time at Leeds that McLoughlin first started to appreciate the power of further education. “I got the idea that I might want to be a teacher because all the mature students I met there were the product of FE colleges and it just shaped my view about what it can do for people, how it can guide you in all sorts of ways.”
After university, he taught part time at various London Colleges, working primarily with “young disaffected, underachieving young people” (what would now be known as NEETS, he says) before landing a full time job at North London College in 1981. The college incorporated in 1993 and became City & Islington College and he worked his way up the ranks, becoming principal in 2002.
McLoughlin says he never set out to be a principal or planned very far ahead at all. “If you have a very explicit career plan in stages, you’ll get disappointed with that, whereas if you’re someone who says ‘I’ll give that a bash’ it usually works out much better.”
Having helped his institution on its way to becoming an outstanding beacon college and the only one to be awarded the Queen’s Anniversary Prize (which rewards excellence in further and higher education) twice, he has, arguably, done far more than ‘have a bash’ at being principal at City & Islington College. In 2009 he was awarded a CBE for his services to further education.
But despite his achievements, he remains humble and at ease with himself and seems as if he would be equally comfortable working on the factory floor as heading up a large college.
His own experiences of education have informed his work, but he acknowledges that life is “much tougher” for young people today.
“Going back 30 or 40 years, you could still get work, even if you had no skills. You could work as an operative in a factory and still get a fairly decent income as a machine operator. But those unskilled jobs you could just walk into have gone. So the message we have got to get across to young people is they must come and they must get educated.”
There is a real opportunity here to build a technician class to support industry and address shortages in all sorts of skill areas.“
The recent London riots, while not excusable, “did force a few issues onto the table” about what life is like for young people, he says, the main one being the issue of worklessness. “It is too simple to say this was just good time rioting and looting. It is too simple to say it is all the fault of the social (benefits system)…but what I do think it has brought to our national attention is that we have huge swathes of young people not in work or training and something like three million workless households. We need long term solutions to employment and the government knows this. We need to get people skilled and qualified and help them become employable.”
But he thinks the current education system has a lot to answer for. He is scathing about academic selection “which puts a stamp on people and says ‘you’re a failure’ and the way the education system has become geared up to producing people to do A levels and go off to university.
“It shouldn’t be a choice between ‘A’ levels , failure or work-based apprenticeships. There is a real opportunity here to build a technician class to support industry and address shortages in all sorts of skill areas.”
The loss of EMA has been a blow, but McLoughlin is keen to point out the college never used it as a “recruitment tool.” While he doesn’t expect to see a dip in enrolments this year, what does concern him is retention. Young people are still enrolling, but when the cost of travel, books and other expenses starts to mount up, will they be able to last the course?
Around 80 per cent of City & Islington students were entitled to the full EMA and, despite the college putting in £250,000 of its own money to subsidise the new EMA replacement fund “there is simply not enough for a weekly entitlement” he says and students’ needs will be assessed on a case by case basis.
After 30 years in FE, McLoughlin, who is also chair of the 157 group of colleges is still full of passion for the sector that “gives people second chances” and has the ability to transform lives. Over the coming year, he wants the college to “be responsive and grow” expanding its range of apprenticeships and higher education opportunities, including securing foundation degree awarding powers.
What never ceases to make him feel proud, he says, is seeing students wandering around Islington wearing their ID lanyards. “The fact they don’t take them off shows how proud they are to be part of the college.”
It has emerged that four 16-19 Free Schools have been proposed.
Last May the Department for Education (DfE) announced it would consider applications from people who want to set up age 16-19 Free Schools.
According to House of Commons Hansard 13 Sept 2011, Labour’s MP for Scunthorpe Nic Dakin, asked Schools Minister, Nick Gibb if the Secretary of Stated for Education will publish a list of applications received by his Department to open free schools for 16 to 19 year olds in September 2012.
Mr Gibb replied: “The Department is still in the process of assessing the applications it has received to establish Free Schools in 2012. An announcement will be made around the end of September about those that are approved to move to the next stage of development.”
Nic Dakin told FE Week: “There is a lot of chaos around post 16 education, what the government needs to do is look at what’s really working well. Sixth Forms are working really well.
“To introduce different institutions with different structures, such as Free Schools is a waste of resources and is poor value from the public purse.”
Colin Hindmarch, principal of Harlow College said: “I have nothing philosophically against Free Schools, it’s all about the way they’re managed, 16- 19 Free Schools could be anything from absolutely outstanding to absolutely disastrous.
“There are two points of view, if a local college is outstanding then the competition of a Free School for competition’s sake is not helpful, especially to the student. If, however the local college is rubbish or is not catering for a specific group, then it’s not necessarily a bad thing.”
The Skills Funding Agency (SFA) has new powers allowing them to take personal assets which belong to the directors and senior management of fraudulent, unproven providers.
A spokesperson from the SFA told FE Week: “Contracts between the Chief Executive of Skills Funding and lead providers, which started on the 1 August 2011, contain a clause that allows the Chief Executive to require contractors to provide a guarantee of their liabilities under the contract.”
This means the Chief Executive can take action to recover funding from a training provider that has been proven to be in breach of its contract.
The spokesperson from the SFA added that they consider an unproven provider to be one ‘without a track record of delivering education and training funded by the Agency’.
The SFA has also extended the Agency’s Approved College and Training Organisation Register (ACTOR), a database of colleges and training organisations that are eligible to be considered for funding from the SFA.
The new SFA powers are in response to a growing number of allegations being investigated by the Agency in relation to fraud.”
ACTOR now applies to all providers that choose to subcontract for Agency funds.
The spokesperson from the SFA said: “All organisations that wish to be considered for funding via the SFA must be registered on ACTOR.
“Lead providers retain ultimate responsibility for all aspects of the provision that it is contracted to deliver, including any elements that it chooses to sub-contract.”
Organisations wishing to be registered with ACTOR and use subcontractors must pass a number of appropriate due diligence checks which look at the quality, financial health and management needed to deliver a publicly funded contract.
The increased measures mean any provider which is funded by the SFA, regardless of whether they are using a direct or subcontract agreement, will be subject to rigorous checks.
The new SFA powers are in response to a growing number of allegations being investigated by the Agency in relation to fraud.
A letter leaked to FE Week shows that the agency had 55 ‘live’ cases relating to fraud or misuse at the end of the last financial year and a record high of 88 new allegations during 2010-2011.
It also shows that the Agency is at risk of losing £11 million during 2010-11.
The communications obtained between John Hayes, Minister of State for FE, Skills and Lifelong Learning and Geoff Russell, Chief Executive of the SFA show that they are concerned with the rising number of sub-contractors involved with fraud or misuse of public money.
Geoff Russell suggests in the letter the risk of misuse or fraud is likely to increase in the future due to the state of the economy and the growing trend towards subcontracting.
He says: “All our existing and planned controls are designed to prevent, deter and detect instances of misuse and fraud.
“I can give you (John) my assurance that we will continue to be as robust as is practically possible.”
Other new controls outlined in the letter include improving the Agency’s intelligence on sub-contractors’ operations, their owners and directors.
Related FE Week articles:
The FE Week team, left to right: Claire Harrison; Tashanna Egbochue; Ruth Sparkes (EMPRA); Shane Mann; Claire Edwards; Nick Reinis; Nick Linford; Nick Summers; Jan Murray (freelance).
FE Week launched with a packed out party at St Stephen’s Tavern in Westminster, on Tuesday night.
College principals, MPs and members of the press filled the first floor of the Westminster pub and were able to enjoy themselves with complimentary wine, beer and nibbles.
It was a chance for Nick Linford, Managing Editor of FE Week to formally introduce the newspaper and some of its editorial team.
In the opening remarks he said: “It’s something that I’ve felt quite passionately about. I feel the FE sector has a lot to shout about and I know that there are huge success stories that the press often don’t talk enough about.”
The launch event followed on from an ESOL funding policy debate held by FE Week at the House of Commons (click here for more).
Although the session created some passionate debate about the Government’s recent U-turn in fee policy, it did nothing to stop the attendees from letting their hair down afterwards.
Guests spoke freely about their drinking habits, the London riots and even the technicalities of creating an iPhone app.
The evening was a reflection of what FE Week is trying to achieve; a newspaper that is deeply involved and connected with the sector’s most pressing issues – whilst at the same time providing a place for creativity, entertainment and fun.
FE Week would like to thank everyone that was able to attend. We look forward to your continual support and feedback.
See more photos, by Laura Braun, here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/feweek
Survey of more than 100 colleges reveals shocking student shortfalls
Colleges are facing a significant 16-18 recruitment shortfall, a survey obtained by FE Week suggests.
An online survey conducted by the funding consultancy Lsect and publisher of FE Week, and completed by more than 100 further education (FE) colleges and sixth forms, reported major shortfalls in actual recruitment of 16-18 year-olds for 2011/12 compared to target figures.
Although many responders said they can recruit more 16-18 year-olds in the coming weeks, the current recruitment shortfall is 20,319.
Among those include Leeds City College – the UK’s third largest FE establishment – who say they are currently 1,000 students behind their learner recruitment target for this academic year.
Debbie Fletcher, vice principal 14-19 at the college, said the government’s decision to axe the education maintenance allowance (EMA) – a payment scheme for 16 to 19-year-olds whose families are on low-level income – may have had an impact.
However, she also said schools had been marketing their courses better.
She said: “Looking at the profile in terms of possible causes, we may be down in more disadvantaged areas so there may be an EMA impact. It’s cheaper for someone to stay at their local school then go to college.
We think it’s (the EMA) a contributing factor, but we also think schools are marketing harder to keep them.”
She also said the college is working hard to get closer to target, including a number of events to attract students, such as workshops during Colleges Week later this month, while also revamping their curriculum.
City College Norwich (CCN) is also slightly down on its target.
Principal Dick Palmer said: “Our targets are just over 5,000 and we are currently running at around 4,850, including planned later starts.
“We are confident we can do more ‘later starts’ and make up the shortfall but it is certainly more of an issue than in other years.”
He added: “One interesting component in this is that a large part of our shortfall is in A level recruitment, around 100.”
Although Mr Palmer said it is “too early to tell”, he said there could be a number of reasons.
These, he said, include financial pressure on schools to retain sixth formers, impact of the EMA cut, worries over the loss of post-16 transport subsidies and growth in local conversions of schools into academies.
He also believes the increasing higher education fees in 2012 could be putting off some A levels students.
However, Maxine Room, principal at Lewisham College, said the college is expecting to meet targets, despite an increase capacity on last year.
She said: “As we are a major vocational provider in south-east London, we felt we could increase our target this year to benefit more learners.
“However, we have had to put more marketing resources in place to reach those targets.”
A spokesperson for the Association of Colleges (AoC) said they are carrying out a study to “understand enrolment patterns” in its membership.
She said: “It would be premature to anticipate the findings before the results are in and before the end of an enrolment period that has been extended by many colleges.”
However, she added: “Anecdotally it’s a very mixed picture – there are colleges who have enrolled to capacity and others reporting issues.
“Where colleges are currently experiencing a shortfall there could be a very wide range of factors in play, including the loss of the EMA, confusion about the new replacement bursaries and fewer students looking to go to university in the wake of higher tuition fees, but again it is too early to tell without more detailed feedback.”
Download the raw survey data by clicking here.
Learndirect has launched Make It Count Week to help improve the nation’s job prospects.
Aiming to inspire and encourage 10,000 people to sign up to learning in the week, learndirect has teamed up with 13 partners including the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the National Apprenticeship Service, totaljobs and Centrepoint.
They will be encouraging people to get the skills, qualifications and self-belief needed to get ahead in a tough job market. The partners want to get more than 200,000 sign-ups in the next 12 months.
John Hayes, minister of state for further education, skills and lifelong learning said: “The social and economic importance of practical learning cannot be overestimated.
“learndirect’s campaign will play a valuable role in inspiring people from all walks of life to learn new skills, as well as offering vital guidance to help translate aspiration into action. Building lives by building life chances.”
Sarah Jones, chief executive, learndirect said: “At learndirect we have witnessed first hand the huge opportunities that training can open up for individuals and employers.
“Make It Count Week is all about encouraging people to learn new skills and get the qualifications they need to improve their job prospects.
“We hope it inspires more people to take the first steps towards making learning count for them.”
To become a part of Make it Count Week today and sign up to learning, visit www.learndirect.co.uk or head down to your nearest learndirect centre.
For up to the minute information follow us on Twitter @ufi_learndirect and use #MakeItCount.
FE Week has been taking a look at the accounts of two similarly sized not-for-profit awarding bodies. These figures form part of their 2010 Financial Statement, which can be downloaded from the Charity Commission website: www.charity-commission.gov.uk
