Latest news from FE Week

More ‘scrutiny’ of coursework plans to protect exams from AI

Plans for written coursework will face “far, far more scrutiny” under reformed qualifications to prevent the “AI-fuelled subversion of assessment”, the boss of England’s assessment regulator will say.

Ofqual boss Ian Bauckham is set to issue the warning at the Festival of Education today ahead of the planned launch of the first three V Level subjects next year.

“For the qualifications to be worth more than the paper they are written on, we cannot normalise the idea that AI-generated output is a substitute for genuine human endeavour,” he will say.

‘Subversion’

Bauckham will point to examples from higher education of universities struggling to grapple with the issue, including the UCL Law School decision to overhaul assessments to make them “AI-proof by making greater use of in-person formats”.

He will argue that unis “are fast waking up to the harsh reality that if they want their qualifications to continue to be taken seriously”, then they must get a handle on “AI-fuelled subversion of assessment”.

“So as we design new qualifications for 16- to 18-year-olds, and reform existing ones, expect to see far, far more scrutiny of any proposals for written coursework.

“For the qualifications to be worth more than the paper they are written on, we cannot normalise the idea that AI-generated output is a substitute for genuine human endeavour.”

Bauckham will also caution against the wider use of the tech in the classroom, arguing it prompts “less learning, less satisfaction, less usefulness in the workplace, and ultimately is a covert assault on the realisation of human potential”.

AI marking

But on the use of AI in the qualification system, he acknowledged it “has enormous potential to improve efficiency and can both cut costs and increase accuracy. It is doing so already.”

However, it is “not actually as good as you might think” at marking, “despite what the tech-enthusiasts would have you believe”. This is because it “makes mistakes, it hallucinates, and it reflects biases”.

It can also “extend beyond the rules initially set by humans, particularly when dealing with cases not anticipated in advance”.

“AI will have an important place, but we must remain in charge,” he will add.

“We must legislate and regulate to create clarity about what AI can be allowed to do to bring about benefits for humans, and what it absolutely cannot.”

‘Gold-standard’ T Levels still rarely lead to top universities

T Level students are only marginally more likely to gain a university place than the first cohort four years ago, and still struggle to enter the top Russell Group institutions.

FE Week analysis of data from 85 universities shows 70 per cent of T Level applications resulted in an offer for last September, up from 67 per cent for the first cohort who applied to enter university in the 2022-23 academic year.

Closer analysis reveals only 32 per cent of applications to Russell Group universities resulted in an offer, up from 23 per cent in 2022.

The data suggests universities treat T Level applicants much like they treat BTEC students, despite ministers’ ambition for the technical qualification to become the “gold standard” vocational route into higher education.

T Levels were launched by the previous government in 2020. They were designed to equip students to progress to skilled employment, apprenticeships and higher education, and carry the same UCAS tariff points as three A Levels.

Requests for data

FE Week submitted freedom of information requests to all 142 UK universities, with 85 providing usable data on T Level applications and offers for entry between 2022-23 and 2025-26.

Applications from T Level students rose from 951 for university entry in 2022 to 13,347 for last year, as more subjects were rolled out and more colleges and schools offered them.

Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said the small margin of improvement for applications was consistent with wider uncertainty about the qualification.

“T Levels are not as mainstream a qualification as the previous government hoped they would be,” he said. “They have always been a very confused qualification with confused goals and objectives, and policymakers have mucked around with them a lot. They obviously haven’t lived up to their original ambitions.”

Russell Group says no

The sharpest split was between Russell Group universities and the rest of the HE sector. The 16 Russell Group institutions that supplied data made offers to 23 per cent of applications from T Level students in 2022-23, rising to 32 per cent last year. Across the rest of the sector, the equivalent figures were 76 and 78 per cent.

Within the Russell Group there was wide variation. Cardiff, Newcastle and Exeter universities each made offers on more than half of their applications last year, from 202, 74 and 78 applications respectively.

Manchester received the most applications of any Russell Group university at 465, but made just 98 offers, a rate of 21 per cent. Warwick made two offers from 65 applications, University College London seven from 63, and Sheffield 27 from 178. Glasgow received 11 applications and turned them all down.

A University of Manchester spokesperson said T Levels were not accepted for all courses, particularly where degrees required subject content “not sufficiently covered” by the qualification.

They added: “It is essential that our students are appropriately prepared to cope with the demands of our programmes. Where any UK qualifications or subjects are less favoured, this is made clear within the published selection criteria for individual programmes.”

A Russell Group spokesperson said its universities would keep reviewing entry requirements as new subjects were rolled out and more students took T Levels, “to assess which qualifications best prepare candidates for degree-level education”.

They retained oversight of their own admissions, the spokesperson added, and were committed to “creating pathways for students from a wide range of backgrounds and educational experiences”.

Treated like a BTEC

Ministers describe T Levels as the “gold standard” technical route, with a design meant to appeal to universities more than the long-established BTEC, including a 45-day industry placement.

Universities made offers to 69.9 per cent of T Level applications last year, against 72.4 per cent of applications from students holding only BTECs. Applications from A Level students fared better, at 77.6 per cent.

Among Russell Group universities, T Levels and BTECs drew an identical 32 per cent. For non Russell Group institutions, T Levels were at 77.7 per cent and BTECs 78.2 per cent.

Hillman said universities appeared to treat BTECs as a proxy when weighing T Level applications.

“T Levels look and feel a bit like a BTEC and they’re meant to be a replacement,” he said. “In general, universities don’t want to admit people unless they’ve got a very good understanding of the likelihood of that person surviving at their institution and not dropping out.”

However, the University of Salford, which made offers to 91 per cent of its 666 T Level applicants last year, said T Level entrants performed in line with other students once enrolled, adding there was “no obvious differences in critical success factors such as retention levels or first-time pass module rates”.

The Department for Education said T Levels were “rigorous and high-quality qualifications” with a proven record of supporting students into work, and were already outperforming comparable level 3 qualifications.

It stressed university offers were increasing each year, adding the department would “continue to address the barriers, including through our T Level ambassadors network”.

Winners and losers

Offer rates varied sharply between institutions. Birmingham Newman University, London Metropolitan University and the University for the Creative Arts each made offers on at least 90 per cent of applications across all four cycles.

Among those handling large volumes last year, Liverpool John Moores made 649 offers from 733 applications, Nottingham Trent 451 from 525, and Portsmouth 360 from 431.

Conversely, Bath received 241 applications and made 12 offers. A Bath spokesperson said the figures reflected rising applications to courses requiring specific A Levels, where the equivalent T Level content “did not provide suitable preparation” for degree study.

Admission is a mission

Universities set their own entry requirements but ministers had pressed them to provide clarity.

In January 2023, then skills and universities minister Robert Halfon wrote to vice chancellors telling them to publish statements setting out whether they accepted T Levels, after warning of “too many instances” where students could not tell whether they were eligible to apply.

Since 2022, the DfE has published a list of institutions that confirm they take T Levels for at least one course, but it fails to reveal what those courses are.

Tobi Salawu, T Level digital students and founder of TLevelled website

Tobi Salawu, an 18-year-old digital T Level student at South and City College Birmingham, spent several weeks checking more than 40 universities before building his own website, TLevelled.co.uk, to list which institutions accepted digital, engineering and health T Levels – and on what terms.

He said: “During my first few weeks of second year in September 2025, I realised I couldn’t find any universities that actually accepted T Levels.

“The universities didn’t really list the exact pathway. I felt like I was just applying blindly and wasting my time. I went to the gov.uk site and realised it was just a list of universities. No grades, no courses, no pathway, nothing useful.”

Salawu, who held conditional offers from Cardiff and Newcastle but is now considering an apprenticeship, is extending his site to cover accounting, finance and construction pathways. “The goal is to eventually cover every T Level pathway,” he said. “Longer term I want TLevelled to be a genuine support hub for T Level students, not just a university directory.”

Top-level resistance

Most UK universities accept T Levels for at least one course, including 18 of the 24-member Russell Group, according to the DfE’s list. Six Russell Group members do not appear on it: Imperial College London, Edinburgh, Cambridge, Glasgow, Oxford and the London School of Economics (LSE).

LSE’s website, however, says it accepts T Levels in 11 subjects. It confirmed it received a very small number of T Level applications in recent admissions cycles and had made offers to fewer than five applicants.

A spokesperson said the university had chosen not to appear on the government’s acceptance register as the number of successful entrants was very small, and it did not “wish to imply there is widespread entry to LSE via this route”.

The University of Oxford said it “does not accept T Levels as a qualification for undergraduate study”. Cambridge said the same, adding that T Levels “do not adequately prepare students for a Cambridge degree, particularly in terms of the theoretical grounding that our courses require”.

However, Cambridge noted T Levels in arts, humanities and social sciences subjects were accepted for its foundation year where applicants meet the eligibility criteria. Two T Level students applied for this course but did not receive an offer.

Both Cambridge and Oxford each received five applications in total across all four years but offered no places.

Imperial College London, which received no T Level applications across the four-year period, also does not accept T Levels as its courses predominantly require subject-specific prerequisites including A Level mathematics and further science qualifications.

A Knight in shining armour for back-to-work mums

Nowadays, Jane Knight is the embodiment of the organisation she founded. Impeccably dressed and rarely seen without one of her trademark wide-brimmed hats – many of which she makes herself – she is an assured networker.

But 12 years ago, after leaving her role as a college careers adviser and apprenticeships manager to raise her son Daniel, Knight barely recognised herself.

“You’re just known as being someone’s mum instead of being known for you,” she reflects.

The mothers she met at playgroups told similar stories, their confidence gone and feeling unsure whether employers would still value them after years away from work.

With nearly two decades of careers advice, apprenticeships and FE behind her, Knight set herself a challenge: help 100 mums back into work. She posted a simple message on Facebook offering free careers advice to mothers in her home borough of Bromley.

Today, Successful Mums Careers Academy has supported more than 12,000 women into employment through careers guidance, qualifications and employer partnerships. Knight describes it as “like a college for mums”, although dads and non-parents are welcome too.

Its courses span digital skills and autism awareness, to business start-up, wellbeing and menopause support.

The organisation has grown as getting people back into work has become an increasingly urgent government priority.

While much of the political debate has focused on the sharp rise in young people not in education, employment or training, another trend receiving less attention is the growing number of women who have left the labour market.

Women accounted for more than two-thirds of the increase in economically inactive people with long-term sickness between 2014 and 2022, with numbers rising from around one million to 1.3 million.

Knight believes the barriers mums face can usually be distilled into the “three Cs”: confidence, careers advice and childcare.

Jane Knight (in her hat) with Successful Mums’ learners

It takes a village

Walk into one of Successful Mums’ programmes and the atmosphere feels noticeably different from a traditional employability course.

The organisation’s 18 staff are all mums themselves and work flexibly from home, meeting twice a month in Bromley. Their philosophy is simple: mums supporting mums.

Learners congratulate one another in online group chats whenever someone lands a job, symbolically “ringing the bell”.

“They lift each other up,” says director of education Lisa Harriss. “Women tell us, ‘You made me brave. You made me remember who I am. I’m not just a mum – I’ve got potential.’

“We reignite that fire and get them ready to work again.”

Many women arrive carrying far more than a gap in their CV – some with qualifications not recognised in England, some lone parents or caring for children with additional needs, and others simply isolated after years outside the workplace.

Knight believes loneliness among mothers remains one of society’s hidden problems.

“You imagine loneliness is somebody who’s 100 and sitting in a rocking chair,” she says. “But lots of mums feel lonely too.

“Some of the women we help haven’t been out of the house for months. Employment is the goal, but it’s also about wellbeing, confidence and community.”

Harriss believes the phrase “it takes a village to raise a child” also applies to women needing support when they are trying to return to work after having children. “When you feel most vulnerable and on your own, that’s when you need your tribe.”

Successful Mums learners sharing food from their cultures at a celebration event

Back-to-work superpowers

Every programme is designed backwards from a single outcome: sustainable employment.

Each learner begins with a values exercise, reflecting on the kind of organisation they would enjoy working for and how a job must fit around family life.

“If somebody’s values are around community and charity, perhaps they don’t want to work for a bank in the City,” Knight explains. “It’s about finding somewhere they’ll actually thrive.”

Most adults only receive careers advice at school, though priorities change dramatically later in life.

Knight believes there is a “hidden jobs market” of occupations rarely on people’s radars but which offer rewarding, flexible careers – from qualifications assessors to non-clinical NHS roles and jobs in schools beyond classroom teaching.

“We hear women say, ‘I’m just a mum, I’ve got nothing to offer’,” Knight says.

“But think about everything they’ve been doing. Conflict management. Negotiation. Event management from organising children’s parties. Budgeting. Problem-solving. Resilience. Empathy.

“Being a mum is a superpower.

“When we help women recognise that, you see them walk differently. Those subtle changes make an enormous difference.”

Jane Knight (left) with some of her team at Successful Mums, including Lisa Harriss (third from left)

Built to order

Successful Mums has also turned curriculum planning on its head.

Rather than build programmes and hope employers recruit from them, the team ask employers what they need and then design training around those vacancies.

That approach has led to long-standing partnerships with multi-academy trusts including the Harris Federation and Nexus Education Schools Trust, and organisations such as London South East Colleges.

As schools prepare for wider SEND reforms and rising demand for specialist support in mainstream classrooms, Successful Mums is retraining mums for SEND roles.

“Schools are telling us they need people,” Knight says. “The SEND areas are certainly not cutting back.”

Harriss believes mums often bring something qualifications cannot teach.

“We’ve got mums raising neurodivergent children who are incredibly passionate about SEND,” she says. “You can’t teach that fire.”

While delivering a level 3 autism qualification, staff found the standard materials were not working.

“The resources were full of question-and-answer exercises,” Harriss recalls. “For somebody who hasn’t studied for years, that’s an immediate barrier.”

The team rebuilt the course around discussion, digital skills and real job roles, with autistic learners from a local specialist college acting as co-trainers.

“They’re the experts by experience,” Harriss says. “Their voices should be at the centre.”

The changing jobs market

Many women returning to work feel the workplace moved on without them while they were raising children.

“They’ll say, ‘Everything’s digital now’,” says head of contracts and performance Charlotte Edwardes. “They’ve lost confidence because they think everybody else has kept up.”

Artificial intelligence has added to the uncertainty.

Knight believes it may leave some adults needing to retrain and she is already supporting women whose marketing or copywriting careers have narrowed because of it, while steering them towards work where human skills stay at a premium.

“The jobs we’re preparing people for still rely on empathy, relationships and communication,” Knight says. “Those are things AI can’t replace.”

Knight school

Knight learnt early how precarious the jobs market can be.

At 16, she began a business administration apprenticeship with Personal Consultancy Services in Bromley, inducting young people onto the government’s Youth Training Scheme.

When funding changed and the provider lost its contract, she was made redundant.

“I learnt very early on that you can’t rely on one funding stream,” she says.

Today, Successful Mums deliberately maintains at least three funding routes at once.

“If you’ve only got one big contract, you’re vulnerable. The carpet can just be pulled from underneath you.”

Nine years in a “dull” data role at SOLOTEC, South London’s training and enterprise council, taught Knight about funding compliance and audit.

When the training and enterprise councils gave way to the Learning and Skills Council, she joined Bromley College, now part of London South East Colleges, working across apprenticeships, careers guidance and teaching.

“I’ve seen this sector from almost every angle,” Knight says. “That’s been like gold dust.”

Leaving the college after having Daniel, she found rebuilding a career after motherhood far harder than she had imagined.

She began by Googling flexible vacancies and offering free CV and interview support.

One of the first women she helped, Regan, wanted to turn a passion for cookery into a business. A Bromley Council-funded start-up programme followed, and Regan went on to establish The Cookery Shed.

Knight worked free of charge for more than a year, until her husband pointed out that while she was changing lives, she also needed to help pay the bills.

“He had a fair point,” she says.

The venture has since become a family enterprise. Daniel, now 17, grew up alongside it, occasionally sitting in on staff interviews for work experience.

Jane Knight with her son Daniel at the National Women’s Awards last month where Knight was given the award for lifetime achievement

Reinvent with the times

Successful Mums has reinvented itself repeatedly as funding priorities have shifted.

Early programmes were supported through the European Social Fund. As that ended and adult education funding was cut back, Knight believes the landscape has become more explicit about job outcomes.

“We’re very clear with women now that this isn’t simply about attending a course,” she says. “It’s about where that course will lead.”

That focus has grown as employment support has been devolved to mayoral combined authorities and councils through programmes such as Connect to Work.

Successful Mums delivers directly and as a subcontractor for larger organisations including Maximus, Seetec and Step Ahead, with skills bootcamp funding, particularly for SEND support roles, now an important strand.

In 2024, it became an employee-owned trust, giving its all-mum team a direct stake in its future.

Family fortunes

Knight believes childcare remains one of the biggest reasons women struggle to return to work, a barrier made harder as crèches have disappeared from college campuses over the past 15 years amid rising costs and adult education cutbacks.

She recalls Bromley College’s crèche closing when she started there.

“Closing creches might have saved money,” she says, “but it cost colleges as well.”

Many adults, she believes, no longer see colleges as places for them.

“They think colleges are for young people,” she says. “They don’t realise what’s available.”

Successful Mums instead invests in community events that seem on the surface to have little to do with employability.

A hair and beauty workshop held last week was “about helping somebody feel confident enough to walk into an interview”. Coffee mornings in schools also reach mums who other organisations miss.

“If anything, we’ve got too many mums coming to us,” Knight says.

Many employers are willing to be flexible but simply fail to advertise it, she adds.

“Sometimes it’s simply about knowing to ask.”

One company had spent six months failing to fill a full-time vacancy. Knight suggested splitting it between two mothers returning to work.

“They filled the vacancy almost immediately,” she says.

Harriss recalls one woman who had been a doctor in her home country but felt stuck working in her family’s shop.

Rather than push her towards the quickest route into employment, Successful Mums helped her map a pathway back into medicine. She is now training to become a surgeon.

“It’s not about getting somebody into any job,” Harriss says. “It’s about asking, ‘What job do you actually want to do?’ Then we build a plan to get you there.”

More dads are using the service too.

One male learner, Alkarim Haji, joined a business start-up programme while homeless and went on to establish a self-defence business supporting women affected by domestic abuse.

Following his death, he was posthumously named inspirational adult learner of the year in the 2024 Mayor of London’s Awards.

Despite its name, Successful Mums was never really about mums alone.

“It’s about community, wellbeing, social mobility and paving the way for the kids,” says Knight.

She says the impact can extend to the next generation. Schools report improved attendance and punctuality when parents return to work and family routines become more structured, while children grow up seeing employment as something positive and achievable.

Twelve years after offering free careers advice to local mothers on Facebook, Knight is still motivated most by seeing their confidence return.

Women who arrive introducing themselves as “just a mum” leave believing in themselves again.

“They walk differently,” she says.

Colleges favoured as ITPs get less for adult skills in Greater Manchester

Greater Manchester’s independent training providers will be excluded from an adult skills funding rate uplift offered to colleges and councils next year.

The region’s combined authority will boost qualification funding rates by 3.2 per cent in 2026-27 for grant-funded colleges and local authorities.

But independent training providers delivering adult skills fund (ASF) provision under procured contracts will only receive one-year extensions, and receive no extra money.

FE Week understands it is the first known case of a public body paying different rates for the same publicly funded adult skills qualifications depending on provider type.

The decision affects 13 contracted providers delivering about £17 million in ASF provision to around 13,100 residents.

According to a Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) decision report, colleges and local authorities will get the uplift because they are “key strategic partners” whose training forms part of the “state-maintained system of public education and its associated asset base/infrastructure within Greater Manchester that is funded wholly or mainly from the public purse”.

The report added colleges have a “statutory obligation” to respond to local priorities and policy changes, unlike commercial training organisations, which can suddenly shift their business focus or cease trading.

By increasing qualification funding rates, GMCA will raise grant allocations by £1.8 million to £78.5 million, shared between 16 colleges and councils to support around 49,700 residents in 2026-27.

The move has been welcomed by colleges in the region, which said they were “pleased that GMCA has listened to concerns” about funding rates and grant allocations being too low.

The decision was approved by GMCA group chief executive Caroline Simpson under powers delegated by former mayor Andy Burnham.

One ITP manager with a GMCA contract, who asked not to be named, told FE Week they had been unaware they were excluded from the uplift until contacted by this publication.

They said the decision appeared “difficult to justify” given private training providers face the same delivery costs as colleges.

“It’s quite clear that you’ve got some local colleges with political clout making some noise,” they added.

Charlotte Jones, head of operations for the Greater Manchester Learning Provider Network, told FE Week the representative body was “working closely with GMCA to fully understand the rationale” behind the rate disparity.

Meanwhile, Simon Ashworth, deputy CEO of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said: “We simply don’t accept the narrative here that independent providers are somehow less committed or less important to meeting local priorities.

“Independent training providers play a vital role in delivering adult skills across Greater Manchester, often reaching the types of learners other institutions can’t.”

He added it was “difficult to see” why inflationary pressures and rising delivery costs would apply to one type of provider but not another.

New commissioning and funding model on its way

The targeted uplift for grant-funded providers will apply for at least the 2026-27 academic year while GMCA develops a new commissioning strategy and funding model, expected to be confirmed this autumn.

According to the combined authority’s analysis, annual learner numbers across all adult skills funding streams have increased by 14 per cent to 58,190 since 2019-20.

Over the same period, the value of Greater Manchester’s adult skills funding from central government has eroded by 17 per cent in real terms because of inflation.

GMCA said that against this backdrop “a shift is now needed to enable GM’s skills system to play its part in delivering the Greater Manchester Strategy ambitions”.

Following the funding model review, the authority said it would be able to “commission and fund skills and employment support more flexibly and innovatively” through Greater Manchester’s integrated settlement.

GMCA last increased qualification funding rates in 2024-25, when Andy Burnham rejected national reforms adopted by other devolved authorities and instead retained 2023-24 rates with a 6.5 per cent uplift.

At the time, Burnham described the increase as an “interim” approach ahead of greater budget flexibility. However, qualification rates remained frozen in 2025-26 despite the authority securing its integrated settlement, which comes with more budget flexibilities compared to most other mayoral authorities.

Last month’s report proposed a “collaborative task and finish programme” this summer to seek agreement with providers and stakeholders on how to deliver growth “whilst maintaining a stable, sustainable adult skills system”.

Local colleges ‘pleased’

Since 2020, GMCA has reduced the amount of adult education budget funding, now known as the ASF, delivered through contracted providers from £23 million to £17 million, while grant funding for colleges and local authorities has increased from £66 million to £78.5 million.

A spokesperson for GMColleges, which represents nine of Greater Manchester’s 11 colleges, said: “We are pleased that GMCA has listened to concerns about funding rates and allocations and that they have responded positively at a time when nationally we are witnessing the continued underfunding of adult education.

“We are now working with the combined authority and partners on the longer-term future of adult skills funding within the integrated settlement.”

Sector experts told FE Week they were unaware of any previous case in which either a mayoral combined authority or central government had paid different funding rates for adult skills delivery based solely on whether provision was delivered by a grant-funded college or local authority, or by an independent provider under a procured contract.

Jones said: “FE and skills providers of all types play a vital role in meeting local priorities, employer needs, and the growing demand for skills and support among unemployed adults across Greater Manchester.

“A fair and consistent funding approach is essential to sustaining a diverse, high‑quality provider base that can respond effectively to the needs of learners, employers and communities.”

GMCA confirmed the uplift for grant-funded colleges and councils but did not comment further on the exclusion of ITPs.

Let adult maths tuition work from home, says Sunak

Adults are being turned away from online maths courses because of the way devolved adult skills budgets are administered, former prime minister Rishi Sunak has claimed.

Giving evidence to the House of Lords numeracy for life committee today, Sunak said funding rules were creating “policy anomalies” that prevented online provision reaching learners who wanted the flexibility to study remotely.

His charity, The Richmond Project, said online providers had told it they were “turning away applicants in their thousands” because they could not access funding for learners in areas where adult skills funding is devolved.

Sunak said the charity had identified online training as the most cost-effective way of helping adults improve their maths skills later in life because it allows teaching to be standardised while giving learners the flexibility to study around work and family commitments.

But, he argued, funding arrangements in areas with devolved adult skills funds often require learners to study with providers based within their locality and in person.

He told the committee: “The local authority likely is going to say you have to do it [a maths course] at a provider that is in our area, it has to be delivered in person.

“So then you have this brilliant online provider that could do these nationally, very high-quality standardised curriculum, adults prefer to do this online because it’s flexible, but there are these funding and policy things that stop this from happening.”

Lizzie Gaisman, chief executive of The Richmond Project, said the organisation considered this “a crucial missed opportunity”.

The adult skills fund is worth £1.4 billion annually and pays for skills, employability and wellbeing courses for more than one million adults. About 68 per cent of the fund is devolved to 13 authorities, which implement their own funding rules.

(Left to right) Lizzie Gaisman, Rishi Sunak MP and Bodil Isaksan from the Richmond Project

‘Multiply programme was additive’

Sunak was also asked about Multiply, the £270 million adult numeracy programme introduced in 2022 while he was chancellor.

The programme offered free, flexible courses to adults aged 19 and older who did not already hold GCSE maths at grade 4/C or above before it was scrapped by the government in March last year.

An evaluation of the programme, published by the Department for Education in May, found it had engaged 210,000 learners – many new to adult education – and helped most to overcome “anxiety about numeracy”.

Researchers estimated 85 per cent of participation would not have happened without Multiply.

However, Multiply’s focus on unaccredited learning – considered important for offering a “low-pressure and unintimidating route into learning” – meant the evaluation was unable to assess the extent to which the programme improved numeracy skills.

Evaluators also found many employers were reluctant to release staff for Multiply training, “especially for non-accredited courses”, and struggled to see the direct business benefit.

Sunak told the committee he had not been “involved in the intimate detail” of delivering Multiply but was “encouraged” by the evaluation’s findings.

“It did seem to do a very good job of widening and broadening participation in adult numeracy programmes,” he said.

“In that sense it was hugely additive, and that’s something you want to make sure, that policy is additive rather than duplicative.”

But he admitted the programme needed a more coordinated national effort to raise awareness of the importance of adult numeracy.

“There should have been greater national visibility and awareness of the programme,” he said.

Sunak added that he would be open to a future iteration of Multiply in which learners gain an accredited qualification.

“There is this open question as to whether there should be some type of accreditation, and giving people something that they can walk away with, which also would mean the programme itself could be measured. There is a strong case for that.”

Pearson rebuked over ‘repurposed’ A Level maths paper

Ofqual has rebuked awarding organisation Pearson for preventable failures in an Edexcel A Level maths exam last summer.

Ian Bauckham, chief regulator, said the problems caused “anxiety, stress and uncertainty” to tens of thousands of students in his second “rebuke” to an exam board.

He introduced the sanction last year for cases serious enough to warrant a public outcome, but below the threshold for a fine.

The regulator said Pearson Edexcel repurposed contingency exam papers from 2022 as assessment papers in 2025 – sat by more than 75,000 students.

This produced some content that was “unreasonably similar” to its 2022 A Level maths paper.

Pearson acknowledged that students who noticed similarities in their first paper might have tried to predict the questions on the planned second paper.

But the board replaced this planned second paper with a contingency paper.

This paper was not designed in conjunction with the first paper so did not ensure the same degree of content coverage. This meant some topics were over-assessed and others under-assessed.

Ofqual said the board accepted the substitution “did not ensure the same degree of content coverage as the original pairings” but “nonetheless provided coverage that was in line with the specification”.

Results trusted for progression

The regulator concluded the results could be trusted for progression to university and other destinations.

It also accepted analysis from Pearson which indicated that any effect on students’ results was “so small as to be statistically insignificant” but added that “a sound outcome” did not “diminish the seriousness of the failures identified”.

While Ofqual said the failures were “serious” and “entirely avoidable”, it decided to issue a rebuke rather than a fine, taking into account Pearson’s “assurances on the validity and reliability of results, its admission of the breaches and co-operation”.

Bauckham said: “Tens of thousands of students sat these exams trusting that they had been properly designed and delivered. The failures by Pearson caused anxiety, stress and uncertainty at a time when students needed it least.

“The problems that arose were foreseeable and preventable. We will always act to protect students and maintain confidence in qualifications.”

Detailed review

A Pearson spokesperson said they “take responsibility for not fully identifying and managing the risks linked to the use of contingency papers”.

“We are sorry for the concern this has caused. We want to reassure learners and centres that all papers used in the 2025 summer series were valid and aligned to the specification. Students can be confident in the results they received.

“We addressed the matter at the time and carried out a detailed review of our processes. As a result, we have strengthened our risk management, commissioning arrangements, and contingency planning.”

Ofqual’s first rebuke was to WJEC, which failed to collect and monitor centre declaration forms over a six-year period.

Phillipson demands action to trace ‘phantom NEETs’

More than two dozen councils with the worst records of tracking teenager outcomes have been given six months to improve.

The Department for Education said 32,100 so-called “phantom NEETs” aged 16 and 17 were recorded by local authorities on the basis their activity was not known.

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson told 26 councils facing the “greatest challenges” they must agree improvement plans by the end of the year. Every other council will receive a letter setting out expectations for improving how young people at risk of becoming NEET are tracked and supported.

It follows an FE Week investigation in March which found local authorities held no record of whether 44,000 school leavers had received an appropriate post-16 offer through the ‘September guarantee’ policy. Councils blamed poor data sharing, staff pressures and delays receiving information from schools and colleges for the poor quality of information they held on young people.

Phillipson said accurate and timely tracking was “not a box-ticking exercise” but “the difference between a young person getting support early or falling through the cracks entirely”.

“While local authorities do incredibly difficult work, often against real constraints, it’s not consistent enough,” she added.

Tracking gaps

The DfE data reveals North Lincolnshire reported the highest “not known” rate for the whereabouts of its 16 and 17-year-olds at 48.3 per cent. It was followed by Somerset at 19.6 per cent, Herefordshire at 17.6 per cent and Northumberland at 15.7 per cent.

Peterborough’s figures were suppressed because complete returns were unavailable. The DfE has been asked to name the 26 authorities singled out by Phillipson.

The number of young people aged 16 to 24 out of work, education or training topped one million last month, and a landmark report from Alan Milburn said the current one-in-eight NEET rate could rise to one in six without action.

While the DfE’s announcement covers 16 and 17-year-olds, Milburn warned there was a “stark post-18 cliff edge in tracking and support”. Latest estimates suggest there are 57,000 teenagers aged 16 to 17 classified as NEET.

The DfE’s data, built on estimates and not official statistics, suggests only four English local authorities, Redcar and Cleveland, City of London, Thurrock and Cheshire East, were fully aware of the education, employment and training status of their 16 and 17-year-olds.

RONI on the table

Councils will be supported by a new risk-of-NEET indicator (RONI) tool which is designed to collate information on attendance, special educational needs, mental health needs and care experience. The DfE said the tool would help councils identify at-risk youngsters sooner.

It could, for example, trigger interventions such as a place at a college, mental health support or taster sessions to entice young people back into education or training.

The tool was first mentioned in the government’s ‘Get Britain Working’ white paper in 2024. It was then restated in the post-16 education and skills white paper, published in October, alongside new guidance for schools and colleges on identifying at-risk young people.

Other measures floated in the white paper included automatic enrolment at a local “default” college or training provider for young people with no job, training or college place lined up.

Laura-Jane Rawlings, chief executive of Youth Employment UK, said poor council tracking was a “structural weakness in how we identify and support young people before they fall through the cracks”.

She added: “Youth Employment UK’s 2023 research for The Careers & Enterprise Company found that access to and sharing of NEET data was the single biggest driver in preventing and reducing NEET among 16 and 17-year-olds. It also found a patchwork of local systems, inconsistent risk of NEET indicators, and major challenges around capacity, data-sharing and accountability.

“It is welcome that the DfE is now recognising the scale of the problem, but better data alone will not support a young person. Councils need the capacity, tools, guidance and local partnerships to act on that data.

“A credible youth guarantee has to start with knowing who young people are, where they are, what barriers they face and what support will help them move forward.”

FE gets £485m to help match school teacher pay rise

Colleges and training providers will receive £485 million over two years to help match pay rises for school teachers, the Department for Education has announced.

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson confirmed “colleges and other further education providers” would share £120 million in financial year 2026-27 and £365 million in 2027-28 to contribute towards staff pay awards.

However, it is unclear how the department will distribute the funding. In recent years, funding designed to go towards pay awards has been distributed through the 16 to 19 funding formula, which disadvantaged colleges with larger adult education and apprenticeships cohorts.

Updated guidance suggested 16 to 19 national funding rates, T Level rates, the disadvantage rate related to low prior attainment, and the rate supporting students in care and care leavers would be increased, but it doesn’t say by how much.

Providers that receive national insurance contribution grants for non-16 to 19 education delivery and local authorities with centrally employed teachers will see those grants increase. Again, the DfE has not said how the extra funding will be split across the base rate, formula and other grants.

Meanwhile, grants covering teacher pension scheme employer contributions are set to reduce.

The FE funding announcement comes two weeks after the Association of Colleges (AoC), the University and College Union and Unison jointly warned Phillipson that without a “material change” to funding, a “very low pay award, possibly zero” was the limit of affordability for 2026-27.

Their joint letter also flagged the growing pay gap between school and college teachers, which is now estimated to be £12,500 in favour of school teachers. The AoC’s recommendation for staff pay rises in FE colleges is non-binding.

College leaders told FE Week it would be hard to determine pay awards without sight of how the new funding will be allocated.

In a written ministerial statement to Parliament, Phillipson also announced that, from April 2027, employer contributions to the teachers’ pension scheme (TPS) will fall following its March 2024 revaluation. Phillipson confirmed employer contribution grant funding would reduce but remain “proportionate”, and stressed the change would not erode the value of the scheme to current or retired teachers. It means the cost of TPS employer contributions will drop by £3 billion in 2027-28.

David Hughes, chief executive of the AoC, said the two-year funding boost would help fund a “meaningful pay increase” for staff this year.

He added: “Until now, we had feared we were heading towards a potentially very low or even zero pay award recommendation.

“It shows that the government has been listening to the case we made as a sector and recognises that its funding decisions are critical for ensuring colleges can address the cost-of-living crisis their staff face.”

While the DfE has not yet confirmed how pay funding will be allocated, Hughes said he was “pleased that these funds look like they will benefit not only those predominantly teaching 16 to 19-year-olds, but also those with large adult and other cohorts”.

“Today’s very positive announcement does not mean we will forget that, after a decade of neglect from 2010, college pay still lags a long way behind schools and industry,” he added.

“Our ask on that is that we want to work up and agree, with the unions and government, a long-term plan to close the gap which at the moment is in excess of £10,000 per year between school teachers and college lecturers.”

UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: “Colleges will only be blessed to fix the recruitment and retention crisis by closing the pay gap between further education staff and their counterparts in schools.

“This will require a pay award above 3.5 per cent.”

Last year, the Sixth Form Colleges Association (SFCA), which negotiates pay in sixth form colleges, came close to taking the government to court over unequal pay rise funding settlements between schools and colleges. Threats of legal action were dropped following assurances there would be additional funding to cover wage increases.

Bill Watkin, SFCA chief executive, said: “A fundamental principle established following the settlement of our legal action against the government last year was that colleges will be treated in the same way as schools when it comes to supporting the implementation of pay awards.

“Colleges will be pleased that this principle has been upheld for the second consecutive year. This will go a long way towards making it possible to afford a more appropriate pay award for college staff who, through their dedication, skill and impact on young people’s lives, have shown that they deserve nothing less”.

Meanwhile in schools, where the government does set teacher pay levels, ministers have accepted the School Teachers’ Review Body recommendation for a 3.5 per cent pay increase for 2026-27 and a further 3 per cent in 2027-28. Despite the extra funding being provided to schools, they will have to fund around a third of both years’ pay rises themselves, our sister paper Schools Week reports.

Jobs we dismiss are often the ones that shape us

We grow up imagining who we’ll become: a doctor, an engineer, a teacher, a writer. We picture a straight line from school to career, as if life moves neatly from one stage to the next. Spoiler: it doesn’t. Developmental psychologists have been saying for years that human growth is nonlinear, messy, and occasionally chaotic. In other words, life behaves exactly like a teenager’s bedroom.

It takes us down unexpected paths, through jobs we never planned, roles we never imagined, and experiences we didn’t think mattered. And yet those are the very things that shape us.

I remember sitting in my English class in high school. My teacher used to make us do hot seating after we finished reading Macbeth. Usually the confident students volunteered, the ones who practically lived with their hands in the air. I wasn’t weak or strong; I was somewhere in the middle, quietly hoping no one would notice me. But he did. He saw a spark I didn’t recognise in myself.

He didn’t start me off as Macbeth. He gave me the shorter side characters first, the ones who appear, say three lines, and vanish before anyone can judge them. Perfect. And then one day he said, “You’re Macbeth.” Just like that. Suddenly the class was firing questions at me, and I had to answer in character, not by remembering the “right” interpretation, but by giving my own. It was the first time I realised I could think, not just repeat. A very Bruner approved moment of constructivist learning though at the time I just thought, “Well… here goes nothing.”

Years later, I found myself doing the same thing with my own students.

One of them said to me recently, “Sir, I’m just a packer,” like the job meant nothing, and added no value to who he was becoming. So I asked him, “What did you learn?” He shrugged. “I just packed things.” I pushed: “What else?”

That’s when he paused. You could see the thinking begin, the slow realisation that even the jobs we dismiss teach us something. Time management. Accuracy. Stamina. Teamwork. Working under pressure. Adapting to change. Showing up even when you’re tired. Basically, half the skills employers beg for.

He has basic qualifications and is studying for a degree but still feels useless. But he was never useless. He was simply unseen, even by himself.

And as I watched him search for his own strengths, I recognised it was the same question I was once asked when someone challenged me to name the skills I’d gained from the detours in my own life. I didn’t see them at first either. I thought my path was broken, delayed, off track. But that question, ‘What have you learnt?’, is the one that turns experience into value, and detours into direction. Kolb would call this experiential learning. I call it ‘finally realising your life wasn’t a waste after all’.

We live in a world that treats success like a spreadsheet, assets, income, job titles, things you can point at and say, “Look, I’m doing well.” But what about the things you can’t photograph, that are achieved internally? The resilience we build, the confidence we grow into, the courage to speak, the ability to think for ourselves. Those don’t show up on bank statements, but they’re the real indicators of who we’re becoming. Yet we rarely celebrate them because you can’t post them on Instagram or list them on a mortgage application.

Teaching doesn’t just happen through PowerPoints, whiteboards or homework apps on tablets. Real teaching happens in the moments where you ask a question that forces a student to reflect, not to hunt for the “right” answer, but to actually think. Anyone can memorise. Anyone can click through tasks. But when you ask a question that makes them stop, look inward, and name what they’ve learnt, that’s where education actually begins. Mezirow calls this transformative learning. I call it “the moment the room goes quiet and you know something real is happening.”

This is what education should be about. Not everybody on the same page, producing the same answer at the same time. Real education isn’t “Can you remember what I told you?” It’s “What can you do, see and make sense of?” It’s helping students recognise the value in their own experiences, not forcing them into a single mould. If everyone learned the same way, we’d all be walking around like photocopies.

We set out to become one thing, and life quietly trains us for something else. The jobs we think are “nothing” are often the ones that build the resilience, discipline, emotional intelligence and grit that shape who we become.

Careers aren’t chosen at sixteen. They’re carved, slowly, unevenly, through every job, every challenge, every moment that teaches you who you are and what you can handle.

And sometimes the path you never planned becomes the life that finally makes sense.