The ‘greatest skills competition in the world’ is coming to London this October. The competitions in 45 skills areas over four days will host hopeful medallists from over 50 countries/regions and attract 150,000 visitors.
The organisers are looking for 2,500 volunteers, to take on roles from Tour Guide to Press Office.
For more details on how to take part email volunteer@worldskillslondon2011.com or www.visitworldskillslondon2011.com/volunteer
He has been pelted with eggs at a rally, escorted away from violent crowds by the police, but as he comes to the end of his stint as vice president (FE) of the NUS, the incident Shane Chowen seems most indignant about involves Vanessa Feltz.
In a live radio interview on the education maintenance allowance, the BBC radio London presenter said he was talking “a load of guff and hot air.”
“I text my mum and said ‘I’ve just been assaulted by Vanessa Feltz,’ he says, still sounding bruised by the episode. ‘She (Feltz) has got some nerve.”
The fact he can’t quite let this episode go says a lot about him. His persistence on the EMA campaign led to a partial u-turn from the government, which managed to find an additional £180m to help those already receiving EMA. And during his time as president of City College Plymouth’s student union, he campaigned tirelessly – and successfully – for the role to become a paid sabbatical post.
I text my mum and said ‘I’ve just been assaulted by Vanessa Feltz,’
But despite his tenaciousness, there have been disappointments – most notably his unsuccessful attempt to succeed Aaron Porter as NUS president. Despite being widely considered as the front-runner during the campaign, he lost out to Liam Burns, by a close margin. While similar in many respects, they clashed on tuition fees. “Liam had this line that we shouldn’t use the term value-for-money because it’s bringing consumerism into education,” he says, sounding outraged. “But in my view many students are already using it and if they are going to be paying £9k why shouldn’t they?”
And there is plenty more that gets his goat, including “members of the hard left of the NUS” who knock the kind of higher education typically offered by colleges (such as two-year degrees) for one. And those who say the private sector has no role in education.”The idea that you need to find yourself, and all that crap matters for a lot of people and that’s fine. But not everyone wants that sort of experience. And this idea that the private sector should have no role in education…around two third of apprenticeships are delivered by the private sector. At a time when so many people are out of education, employment and training, you can’t tell me that these are not valuable opportunities for young people and you would rather see them on the dole.”
But no one is more surprised than him to be where he is today, Politics wasn’t generally discussed around the dinner table when he was growing up in Plymouth with his dad, who is in the marines, and mum, a teaching assistant who both left school “as soon as they could.” Chowen volunteered for the first aid charity St. John Ambulance in his teens and aspired to be a doctor or a paramedic. He fell into student politics by accident, after going along to an NUS event out of curiosity during his first year of ‘A’ levels at City College Plymouth.
It was the “pantomime” of the commons and watching BBC’s Question Time that drew him into politics, he says. And his enthusiasm for social networking (he is an avid Twitter fan and regularly tweets from sector events with the hashtag #FEparty) the 22-year-old has brought a much-needed sense of fun to the world of FE, which has traditionally been characterised by jargon and complexity.
His background has definitely influenced his politics, he says.”I find it difficult to see a load of middle class university students lecturing me on what a good and successful education is when I am looking at it from the perspective of people who have yet to go to university at all, those who may not even have basic skill level qualifications or those learning through work.”
He admits he loves a good rant and in the four years he has been involved in student politics (two as president of his student union at Plymouth City College and two as VP (FE) at the NUS) he has become an accomplished public speaker on the conference circuit. He has also chalked up an impressive number of appearances on TV and radio.
And through his EMA campaign, he helped put issues that affect the FE sector – so often ignored by the media – on the public agenda. “These were students who were already applying to go to university and they got a double kick in the face when the EMA got abolished. Seeing students in their chefs whites and overalls and seeing it on every local news channel, national news channels was really powerful. Colleges don’t generally see themselves as lobbyists, but I think principals should stand up for their students – and with the EMA, by and large, they did.”
But, he says, there is still work to be done. The biggest challenge for his successor, Toni Pearce, who takes over the role later this month, will be keeping up the momentum of the last few years. As well as ensuring the EMA replacement is implemented fairly, campaigning on cuts – including enrichment funding and local authority transport subsidies – will remain a key priority.
She can expect strong support from John Hayes, says Chowen who, much to his own surprise, has a lot of respect for the further education minister “even if he is a Tory.”
After a “shocking” run of ministers including Sion Simon, whom he says was “diabolical,” and Kevin Brennan who “got FE but seemed like his heart wasn’t in it,” Hayes is a breath of fresh air, says Chowen. “He has been a Godsend to the sector, particularly how he has worked with Vince Cable on safeguarding adult learning. They have done wonders.”
But he has little time for education secretary Michael Gove, whom he calls “dangerous.” He is still angry about the “duff piece of research” that was the government consultation on the EMA. “About 91% of the survey sample of 2,500 young people were white and from nice leafy suburbs. You just have to look at the statistics of who gets EMA to know that is totally unreflective,” he complains.
The introduction of the English Baccalaureate (which measures pupils achievement according to how many A*-C grades they have in maths, English, science, a foreign language and history or geography) makes him particularly angry, not least because he feels it was a missed opportunity to raise the profile of vocational education. “He (Gove) is doing things far too quickly and taking us back to the kind of Stone-age education system that he benefited from, which is going to fail so many children and young people in this country. He wants people to learn Ancient Greek and things like that, but there isn’t the demand. It’s a nice thing to learn, and by all means feel free to learn it in your own time, but don’t tell me that is more important than a subject like IT.”
As NUS vice president (FE) Chowen has, amongst other things, been required to give evidence at select committee meetings and – along with other key figures from the sector and high-ranking civil servants – advise the government on policy. But one thing moving in political circles has taught him, he says, is that you can be more influential in a behind-the-scenes role. So it is unlikely he will stand for parliament at some point in the future. Nor is he planning to go to university – if he does do a degree, he will study part-time. With Chowen set to be out of a job at the end of the month, he is “talking to people in the sector” about possible openings and hints that an announcement about his future plans is imminent.
He needs no convincing Pearce is the right person to succeed him. “She totally gets the purpose of FE and who it is for. I don’t really need to brief her or introduce her to anyone – she already knows all the big players in the sector. I wish I’d known as much as she does know when I was starting the job.”
The head of qualifications regulator, Ofqual, has written to all awarding organisations following a series of errors in AS-level exam papers.
A maths question from OCR, biology question from Edexcel and a business studies question from AQA all contained mistakes worth up to 11% of the marks.
Ofqual has discribed this as “disappointing and unacceptable” and has told awarding organisations to carry out extra checks.
The Young People’s Learning Agency has confirmed they will, in exceptional circumstances, continue to fund non-accredited provision for 16-18 year-olds. Their e-bulletin states:
“In light of the publication of the Government’s response to the Wolf Review of Vocational Education the DfE has agreed that the YPLA should continue to fund – for a further year only – provider provision and learning aims recorded through generic class codes (e.g. Z9OP, ZILSK, Z9V, etc).”
City of Westminster College Paddington Green Campus has won a prestigious 2011 RIBA Award.
One of the most rigorously judged architectural awards schemes in the world, RIBA Awards are presented to buildings that display architectural excellence. Winners of Regional Awards are considered for entry to the RIBA Stirling Prize – the most prestigious architectural prize in the UK.
City of Westminster College’s ambitious new £102m Campus was designed by leading Danish architects schmidt hammer lassen and opened in January 2011, following a three-year build programme and eight years of planning. The seven-storey stepped building has a light-filled central Atrium, outdoor terraces, a public café and a range of sustainable design features.
You know your responsibilities to your funding body. But do your subcontractors know their responsibilities to you?
FE institutions are funded by the Young Persons’ Learning Agency and the Skills Funding Agency (together “the Agencies”). The Agencies distribute their funds in accordance with the Funding Memorandum and/or the Conditions of Funding which are signed by both the institution and the Agency.
So far, so straightforward. However, the Funding Memorandum and the Conditions of Funding are both also subject to the Funding Guidance issued by the Agencies from time to time. In addition, as the LSC Financial Memorandum for 2006 was never withdrawn when that funding council dissolved, it also remains in force. As a result, the funding of FE institutions is subject to hundreds of pages of rules and regulations, all of which are themselves subject to further change.
Finally, to complicate matters even further, most FE colleges and sixth-form colleges are charities which are subject to general charities legislation (although they are not subject to regulation by the Charity Commission in the same way as registered charities). This imposes further duties on the governors as trustees of the charitable organisation. Those duties include a duty to comply with the requirements of any regulators which govern the activities of the charity, such as the Agencies, regardless of whether the Agencies actually investigate whether the institution is complying with its obligations.
What does this have to do with sub-contractors? Most institutions have a good grip on their general obligations to the Agencies, such as the requirement that provision cannot be sub-contracted more than once. However, the terms of the funding provided by the Agencies, as set out in the myriad documentation referred to above, must be reflected in the contracts entered into with sub-contractors, otherwise the institution risks breaching the conditions of its funding.
Whilst the guidance and the funding memoranda are frequently referenced in the contracts with sub-contractors, institutions should ensure that the sub-contract mirrors the requirements imposed on the institution by the Agencies before the sub-contracts are finalised. It may be difficult for an institution to argue that the sub-contractor was bound by the terms of the relevant agreement between the institution and the relevant Agency if the relevant documents have not been made available to the sub-contractor prior to execution of the relevant sub-contract.
Similarly, where there is a discrepancy between the institution’s contract with the sub-contractor and with the Agencies, it is likely that the express terms of the contract between the institution and the sub-contractor will be binding on those parties, notwithstanding that this may place the institution in breach of its obligations to the Agencies.
By way of a simple example, the Agencies generally impose an obligation on the institution to receive feedback and investigate complaints promptly and thoroughly, whether those complaints arise from learners, their employers or the wider community. This obligation should be expressly referred to in the contract with a sub-contractor, for example by requiring the sub-contractor to notify the institution of any complaint within 24 hours, and to provide any and all documentation necessary to the institution to enable it to fully investigate the complaint.
Failure to include such a clause may lead to an inadvertent breach of the Funding Memoranda, with all of the consequences that a breach entails. If the institution receives a complaint directly, it is not sufficient for the institution to direct the complainant to the sub-contractor for redress, and to only become involved if the sub-contractor is unable or unwilling to adequately deal with the complaint, regardless of what the sub-contract between the parties says.
As the funding memoranda and guidance can be subject to change over time, it is important that the sub-contracts are similarly reconsidered and updated as necessary. Eversheds can assist institutions with this process, and also provide guidance to any institutions where the current agreements do not reflect the requirements of the Agencies.
Dave Hughes, Solicitor, Eversheds LLP davehughes@eversheds.com
Skills conditionality is, if anything, a greater threat to classroom-based adult learning than the removal of fee remission for those poor benighted souls on “inactive” benefits.
As the outline of the programme stands at the moment, Department for Work and Pension (DWP) staff appear to be able to tell us what classes to run and when and for how long, despite the fact that we won’t see an additional penny for these learners.
Learners who, inevitably, are the most disaffected and unwilling, and who will cause a massive dent in college success rates because they are forced to attend on pain of losing their meagre benefits.
And yet the AoC as well as the Skills Funding Agency suggest that we should go along with DWP’s plans and, more significantly, grass up people with incredibly difficult home lives who might miss a class or two of something that they don’t want to be at in the first place.
The inevitable shower of paperwork (still under discussion, of course, god forbid that they could come up with a reasonable structure for implementing a policy before it happens) that will ensue from dealing with these learners would be acceptable if there was a contract (or indeed some money) that stipulated what service was to be provided and with what targets.
god forbid that they could come up with a reasonable structure for implementing a policy before it happens”
To have it agreed on nods and winks between Job Centre Plus staff in fear of losing their own jobs and providers desperate not to upset a powerful governmental body (and worried about hitting targets now their learners on Income Support can’t afford to attend) seems bizarre at best.
And that’s before we get to the problem of the people who really do want to get a qualification to increase their job prospects. If it’s something the under resourced, target driven JCP staff member doesn’t see as getting this punter off their books as quickly as possible, chances are they’ll get sent on a meaningless but mandatory two week Job Skills programme, led by some behemothic private training provider right in the middle of their high quality, Ofsted approved real actual qualification that might lead them to actually improve their life.
But now that’s all under threat because of skills conditionality. Retraining is effectively verboten because if you go to the job centre and say you’ve worked in a call centre but really want to be a plumber or a florist or an underwater basket weaver, you will not get the chance to complete your qualification, you’ll be sent off to do a bit of extra call centre training and then to the first call centre job that comes up, and damn what your dreams and hopes are for a better life, because these people have targets that they must hit. See an investigation by the Guardian Newspaper here: http://t.co/Wsct40B).
There really is no reason for providers to help DWP on this divisive, unhelpful, unproductive programme. Even from an entirely selfish point of view, it will cost colleges more money to deliver, increase bureaucracy and hit our success rates, and that’s before we get to the life chances of our learners which will be fundamentally stunted by this ill-conceived policy.
The Young People’s Learning Agency (YPLA) has recently released a document called ‘ Changes to SLN values for specific ain in 2011/12 funding’. What does this mean you ask?
Every year both the YPLA (for 16-18 year-olds) and the Skills Funding Agency (for adults) review the funding rates for all the qualifications that they fund. In a number of cases the funding rate for a qualification is then increased or decreased, usually based on analysis on delivery in the prior year. Why is this significant?
Colleges and training providers clearly rely on receiving funding to run their businesses, so funding rates will inevitably have an impact on how courses are delivered. So for example, reductions to rates are likely to mean fewer teaching hours. How much has changed?
The YPLA document contains a list of 87 qualifications that have rate changes, 17 that were ‘unlisted’ (rate based on actual delivery time) are are to be given a ‘listed’ rate (rate set nationally) and 18 qualifications that were listed and are to become unlisted. All the changes are in a table. What has changed?
The Level 3 Construction Skills qualifications stand out in terms of reductions. The rate for the Diploma in Painting and Decorating falls by 25%, Bench Joinery by 33%, Site Carpentry by 32% and Plastering by 25%. Clearly, colleges with significant 16-18 year-old Level 3 constuction provision will need to take a close look at what impact this will have on funding level. Top tip?
The rate for the Diploma in Painting and Decorating falls by 25%, Bench Joinery by 33%, Site Carpentry by 32% and Plastering by 25%”
Understand the impact of rate changes early.
Nick Linford, Author of ‘The hands-on guide to post-16 funding’ and MD of Lsect. Tweeting as @nicklinford
The Education Secratary, Michael Gove, has announced that Peter Lauener will become the first Chief Executive of the Education Funding Agency (EFA), from April 2012.
Peter Lauener is the current Chief Executive of the Young People’s Learning Agency (YPLA), which was establish in April 2010 and is to be replaced by the EFA.
The announcement was made as part of a written ministerial statement to the House of Commons.
