It’s rare for a college chief executive to hail from the community their institution serves.
But Jerry White, who has just left City College Norwich (CCN) after 17 years to become the Association of Colleges’ policy and projects consultant, is a Norfolk ambassador in more ways than one.
Until recently, his office was 500 meters from the hospital where he was born, and roughly the same distance in the other direction from his old high school.
His predecessor, Corrienne Peasgood, was also Norfolk-born and bred.
At college open days, White could talk to the “lads or lasses” from almost any local school and know its catchment, headteacher and surrounding employers.
“I’ve been embedded within the community for so long,” he says.
That matters in a county where geography shapes opportunity. Between its three campuses, CCN educates around one third of Norfolk’s young people. For many, “we’re the only college they could go to”.
One aviation degree student left home at 5.30am and caught three buses during a two-and-a-half-hour commute to Norwich Airport, White tells me.
And he says CCN’s mergers with Paston Sixth Form College and Easton College were attempts to “save other Norfolk institutions”, not acts of empire building.
CCN now describes itself as “three colleges within a group”, recognising their distinct identities.
Jerry White with City College Norwich’s history timeline board behind him
‘Magic FE dust’
White’s connection to the college stretches back beyond his own career.
His nostalgia-driven hobby of collecting old prospectuses led him to one from 1952, where a description of a large printing department revealed that his father must once have studied there at night school.
The eldest of six boys, White’s father left grammar school at 15 to help pay the family’s bills. He later left typesetting and retrained for a job in a stationery office, taught at college by industry workers giving up their evenings to “give something back”. He instilled in White, and his brother, a strong belief in education.
White left Norfolk for university in Canterbury alongside his girlfriend who he later married. In a “bizarre” coincidence, his classmates included future DN Colleges Group chief executive John Rees. And later, when White taught there, one student was future Bradford College boss Chris Webb.
“There was clearly some magic FE dust in the Christ Church ether in that era,” White jokes.
After 12 years and with a second child on the way, White returned home to join Norfolk Council’s adult education service to run sport and health courses, later becoming deputy head of service.
Much of the provision was “leisure learning and yoga classes”. His favourite inherited course was titled ‘swimming (widths for terrified ladies)’, although he wondered why terrified men had been excluded.
Behind the quirky titles was a serious social purpose. Keep-fit sessions for Bangladeshi women had a “real impact” on their health and created a safe space outside their homes.
It remains an issue White feels passionate about, but one where benefits are hard to demonstrate through “straightforward metrics”.
Since he joined CCN as head of planning and funding in 2009, the college group’s adult education budget has fallen by around two-thirds.
“Every year we earn our full allocation plus a few per cent. We can’t start anything new without stopping something,” he says.
The question then becomes: “What do I stop to start this new thing that is also needed by Norfolk? And you can’t respond.”
Jerry White at a CCN graduation day
Local power, local upheaval
Devolution has yet to land across Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex. White believes that local political leaders gaining greater influence over adult education spending is both a “risk and a potential opportunity”.
During nine years as deputy principal and four as chief executive, relationships with political leaders became “absolutely critical”. His AoC role will involve helping colleges navigate devolution, SEND and qualification reform – which he describes as a “pretty volatile mix”.
Nowhere is that clearer than SEND. Around 800 of CCN’s 900 students with education, health and care plans had them issued by Norfolk County Council, an authority that could disappear under local government reorganisation.
White wants councils to remember that high-needs capital must service young people up to the age of 25.
“Thinking that this issue is only an issue up to the age of 16 is not going to solve the system that runs from five to 25,” he says. “You built all these new complex-needs schools – where are they going to go at 16?”
Offical Launch of Easton COllege Sports Centre, ribbon cutting with Norwich City Footbal Players, Liam Gibbs & Louie Moulden, along with students, Max Parsley & Yasmin Taylor
Finding Jared’s ‘superpower’
Asked to name his proudest achievement from 32 years in education, White recalls Jared Carpenter.
Jared, who is autistic, arrived at CCN from a complex-needs school with no qualifications. His mother had been told he was unlikely to achieve any.
Staff began by “unpicking what his superpowers were”. Jared “nailed” his functional skills, then took GCSEs and A Levels. His extended project involved complex mathematical theory.
When the college nominated Jared for AoC’s adult student of the year award, another challenge emerged. He did not own a suit or feel confident shopping for one alone, and White says he felt “incredibly proud” when Jared asked if he could take him.
Jared was highly commended by the AoC. White still remembers Jared’s “amazement” that someone had recognised “he was going to be great at something”.
Then, earlier this year, an email arrived. Jared has completed his PhD at the University of East Anglia. Dr Jared Carpenter is now an advocate for autistic people.
White’s Norfolk drawl wavers as he becomes visibly emotional. Jared’s journey, he says, shows “the power of colleges, second chances, inclusion, and just taking your time to get to know a young person and how to unlock their potential”.
“That’s what we’ve got to do, not just for SEND but for NEET young people. That’s the superpower that colleges have.”
Jared Carpenter at the AoC awards
‘What are you good at?’
This belief underpins White’s support for expanding vocational opportunities for 14 to 16-year olds.
When he joined CCN, more than 1,000 pupils from five schools attended vocational courses there each week. Schools said it was the “highlight of their week” for many youngsters who struggled in conventional classrooms.
School accountability changes later wiped out the provision. White believes the consequences remain visible.
He would make a point of manning the front desk at college open days to ask prospective students a simple question: “What are you good at?”
Around one in three, he says, gave him the same answer: “Nothing.”
“How have we ended up with an education system that makes them feel that way?,” he asks.
White believes that loss of confidence and purpose is contributing to the NEET crisis and young people’s mental health problems.
But colleges face an immediate constraint if the policy winds blow towards 14-16 provision: “We’re struggling to meet the demands of our 16-18 bulge, let alone grow 14-16.”
Jerry White at City College Norwich
A market for everything
White’s enthusiasm for vocational education does not mean uncritical support for qualification reform.
CCN is among the largest T Level providers and White believes the courses are gaining traction. V Levels could encourage partnerships in which colleges deliver vocational courses and school sixth forms offer A Levels, but competition makes that difficult.
“There should be a mechanism of coming together and asking not what’s the right thing for that institution, school or university, but what’s right for this place.”
His scepticism about markets extends to awarding organisations. He questions the value of multiple organisations producing competing qualifications while raising fees “above inflation and taking money out of the public purse”.
White contrasts England with Switzerland, where the apprenticeship system “wasn’t a market. It was centrally controlled and prescribed by central and regional government”.
Switzerland has around 200 apprenticeships, he says, while England has more than 700 standards.
“Markets are great for certain things. But they’re going to lead to inefficiencies and competition, not collaboration and coordination.”
Jerry White with skills minister Jacqui Smith
‘The latest custodians’
Peasgood taught White to see college leaders as “just the latest custodians” of their institutions.
When White arrived in 2009, CCN’s Norwich campus was awaiting demolition and rebuilding through a capital programme that then collapsed as austerity arrived.
The senior team worked “incredibly hard” to “keep the show on the road”, which involved stopping buildings “leaking and breaking”. Under White, the group invested £25 million in its estate.
After a career spent worrying about Norfolk’s institutions, young people and what will be left for the next generation, that feels an appropriate measure of success.
“To have done our job as custodians and leave the college better than we found it – I’m proud of that,” he says.