London shows local FE partnerships are key to driving the green skills agenda  

Further education colleges are fundamental to the flow of skills into industry and the exponential growth of green jobs is creating huge opportunities for them and their learners if they can seize them. In the Local London region alone, there is a projected rise of between 61,000 and 91,000 green jobs over the next seven years.  

From electric vehicle charging and heat pumps to retrofitting and smart infrastructure, the scope for exciting new job opportunities is immense, but developing new training programmes and finding the right people to deliver these can be challenging. There is also widespread need for capital investment to fund new facilities.

As a green consultancy, we have been working with Local London Green Skills and Jobs Partnerships to ascertain how the needs of green industry employers can be better met by colleges. Comprising 13 FE Colleges across the region, together with local authorities and employers, the partnership (funded by the DfE’s Strategic Development Fund) is working to ensure that people are provided with the skills and tools they need to access the many green jobs of the future.  

As part of this work, we looked at and considered each college’s facilities as well as staff training, curriculum and industry engagement. These are all vital elements of a college’s ability to effectively deliver green skills training.  

Each of the colleges we visited have clearly made great strides around green skills provision. The majority have received capital equipment funding and have installed equipment required to support the new green skills-focused curricula. Yet challenges remain for many around lack of space, resources and recruitment of teaching staff.  

Many staff are keen to upskill, yet 74 per cent of teachers felt they needed more support to build the wider subject knowledge needed for the new qualifications. Confidence around new technologies needs to be built and staff supported with high quality CPD from industry experts.  

A real positive from our engagement with over 100 employers and other stakeholders is that more than half are keen to get involved and play their part.  

This is a good start, but more needs to be done for us all to benefit from the many opportunities that the net zero goal and its associated policies offer and to meet the challenge of climate change mitigation.

To keep building on this foundation, we have developed three key recommendations for ensuring colleges are well placed to play their part.

Collaboration and partnership working

While engagement with employers in FE is widespread and positive, smaller colleges often lack the dedicated resource to drive employer engagement. Partnerships between colleges can provide so much benefit here, supporting institutions of all sizes with more structured access to employers and ensuring equity of opportunity for students.  

Accessing new sources of funding can also be better achieved in a partnership set up, with specific joint initiatives offering much greater impact. This is also the case for careers information, advice and guidance, and for communications and marketing campaigns which all benefit from combined expertise, funding and support.  

In addition, partnerships offer strengthened CPD and cross-college training through sharing of best practice, facilities and expertise. Delivery of curriculum pathways can be also be coordinated across colleges and aligned to learner needs, facilities and staff expertise.  

A dedicated plan of action

The example of the Local London region suggests identifying two or three key areas of excellence for a region to specialise in, such as retrofit and EV charging, is beneficial. This focus creates the opportunity to become a centre of excellence for a specific growth area, which in turn supports increased industry and expert engagement.  

Adaptability built in 

The green skills sector is moving at great pace. To keep up, a frequent and structured review of new technologies on the horizon and employers’ current and future needs are as fundamental as keeping abreast of ever-changing FE policy and qualification reform.

FE’s work to support green skills is encouraging, but we must build more momentum to ensure the workforce of the future is equipped to meet the needs of a net zero economy.  

And to do that, we must leverage the power of collective working.

The government’s transgender guidance must finally lead to greater inclusion  

To read or listen to the UK media, you’d think the world was overrun with trans people. We’re everywhere.  A threat. An ‘issue’ that needs to be resolved and a ‘debate’ that needs to be had. Yes, we exist. We’ve existed forever. But for years we’ve been talked about and not to, doubted not trusted, and often ostracised by the very systems that should be enabling us to reach our potential – our education system. As FE awaits government guidance on how best to support trans people, we want to stress the need for openness and inclusion. 

We know how it feels to grow up trans. Growing up in a body that feels alien to you, ‘othered’ by society from an early age, knowing that who you are is perceived as freakish and wrong. Most of us try our hardest to overcome and accept those feelings by effectively hiding our real identity. But we also know the difference support and understanding from friends, family, teachers and peers can make.  

That’s why it’s vital that the forthcoming guidance is implemented with inclusion at its core. Trans people who are supported through their transition have the best outcomes. We need a system that listens to the young trans person.

The end goal should be to stop it being an issue at all; for a young person’s gender identity to be irrelevant so that they can just get on with being a young person. In an era of equity, diversity and inclusion, trans people need to be afforded the same opportunities and chances as their non-trans peers – without barrier or hindrance.  

This culture of inclusivity needs to begin at the very top, with sector and college leaders and to filter down through every staff meeting and into every classroom. Trans persons should feel safe, respected and supported. 

Through our work as patrons of the charity Mermaids, we hear about an education system that falls way short of the support it should be offering and the example it should be setting – educators refusing to correctly gender a young person or refusing to call them by their correct name, and young people being endlessly and cruelly questioned about who they really are.

 Our education system falls way short of the support it should be offering

Unsurprisingly, these youngsters very quickly reach a point where they no longer want to go to college and opt for home education instead. These young people are being ostracised to such a degree they are sacrificing all the social inclusion and development that college should bring.  

Meanwhile, the education sector is still working with antiquated systems. The Individualised Learner Record (ILR), for example, only recognises male or female. These systems need to evolve to be truly reflective and representative.  

When someone comes out as transgender, those around them are likely to be shocked or surprised and, quite often, they might struggle with how best to deal with it. That’s not unreasonable. The guidance should warn against a situation where the fear of saying the wrong thing leads to nothing being said at all, which only results in the trans person becoming cut off or distanced from those around them. Instead, we should be willing to go on that journey with that young person. After all, it’s a circular process – the more open the young person feels they can be, the quicker those around them will learn and the more support they can then offer. 

Let’s not treat the trans community the same way we treated the gay community back in the 80s. Let’s not confuse the need for discussions around best practice with fearmongering, and let’s not pretend this is about bathrooms when it’s actually bigotry. Let’s not condone the media turning the ‘issue’ of trans people into a feeding frenzy or allow political parties to turn trans rights into a political football.

Instead, let’s reach a place where society is learning and growing alongside the trans community, until eventually it isn’t a thing and people can just be people.  

You can hear more from Jake and Hannah Graf one the Let’s Go Further podcast produced by the Skills and Education Group.

Education must adapt to deliver the key employment skills of a changing workplace

Artificial intelligence is weaving its way into our everyday life. Technological breakthroughs have begun to disrupt our workplaces and will change the jobs that are available in the labour market of the future and the skills needed to do them. The impact of technology, particularly AI and automation, is also likely to be compounded by social, environmental and economic changes, including those brought on by Brexit.

Anticipated changes to the labour market threaten to exacerbate existing skills shortages, which are already a major issue. There are currently over a million job vacancies in this country, with some recent employer surveys suggesting we are seeing unprecedented levels of skills shortages. According to Manpower Group’s most recent talent shortage survey, 77 per cent of employers report difficulties in filling roles, a 17-year high.

Severe skills shortages threaten England’s prospects for economic growth. In 2019, the Open University calculated the cost of skills gaps to the UK economy at £4.4 billion a year, for example in recruitment fees and temporary staffing. More recently, a 2022 report by Skills Builder Partnership  put the cost to the UK economy of low essential skills at £22.2 billion. And skills shortages don’t just impact the economy; They have damaging consequences for individuals that cannot access satisfying, well-paid work, and they threaten to widen social inequalities.

Before we can get to grips with this challenge, we need a detailed, data-driven understanding of both future ‘skills demand’ – the skills which will be required in the labour market of the future – and of future ‘skills supply’ – the skills that can be expected to be available. Our findings so far suggest that skills shortages could worsen, implying urgent action is needed to prevent knock-on effects to our economy and society.  

Severe skills shortages threaten economic growth

Specialist skills and knowledge are vital in most occupations, but our research suggests it is transferable ‘essential employment skills’ that will be in greatest demand across the labour market in 2035. These skills are anticipated to be in even greater demand across the workforce by 2035 than they are today, and almost 90 per cent of the 2.2 million new jobs that are anticipated to be created in England between 2020 and 2035 will be professional and associate professional occupations, which require higher levels of these skills. Employers are already reporting difficulties recruiting people with these skills, and these shortages may worsen between now and 2035 unless action is taken.

Working with researchers at the University of Sheffield, we identified the six most vital ‘essential employment skills’ for future employment as communication, collaboration, problem-solving, organising, planning and prioritising work, creative thinking and ‘information literacy’ (skills related to gathering, processing, and using information).

These six skills were identified by projecting the skills that will be required in each occupation in 2035 and combining these with future employment projections. To meet future skills demands, we need to support more workers to develop these vital skills and to ensure young people have higher levels of these skills than previous generations when they first enter the workforce.

Our findings also highlight the need for a greater understanding of the supply of ‘essential employment skills’ and the role our education and training systems can play in developing them. Unlike many other countries, the English national curriculum does not define and integrate a set of transferable ‘essential employment skills’. It is time to revisit this and adopt the six skills we have identified as the basis of this list.   

In the next stage of the Skills Imperative 2035, we will estimate what the future supply of these essential employment skills is likely to look like in 2035 and predict where skills gaps are likely to arise – including identifying which groups are most at risk of lacking the essential employment skills needed. We will then investigate how the education system can best support the development of these skills.

FE can lead us out of the permacrisis if we work together

We often think of self-defence as skills we learn individually to protect ourselves from immediate danger, providing us with agency in difficult situations. Outside of actions like collective bargaining, it’s much rarer to think of self-defence as a collective skill we learn, practice and deploy in times of crises.

Whether it’s allowing groups to use college kitchens to cook and distribute community meals during Covid-19 or opening up a warm bank as energy prices soar, the need for spontaneous and localised responses as self-defence against economic and social disasters that punctuate this enduring crisis we’re living through feels like a skill we need to master, together.

Community self-defence isn’t new. The building of solidarity across communities as a means of survival through reciprocal exchange of services, support, supplies and skills has always been practised. Whether it’s coastal communities coordinating the first volunteer lifeboat services, or a network disseminating supplies in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, community-led localised disaster responses are often far more effective than waiting for the bureaucracy of government or top-down actions of charities. During the Covid-19 pandemic, you probably heard of this self-defence referred to as “mutual aid”, where the community takes the lead in protecting itself.

During 2020 as part of a research project, I spoke with workers across further education about their experiences of mutual aid in their day-to-day work. Participants talked about how competition between providers led to some of them feeling isolated in their roles and how it was easier to connect to other FE workers further afield. They added that communities like #UKFEChat (a weekly online discussion group – set up by the indomitable Sarah Simons) provided a space both to develop themselves and to share with others across the profession, building a horizontal community out of necessity and creating a space for survival against the ‘hostile attempts to paint the profession in a poor light’.

Mutual aid isn’t about limping on from disaster to disaster

The research discussions also explored mutual aid taking place within communities during the pandemic, and the parallels and possibilities it held for the further education community. One participant noted that they hoped the similar horizontal community building they had experienced out of necessity during the pandemic would help to ‘demonstrate the agency that people have in their communities’. Others discussed how we could develop adult community learning in ways that drew on what was happening within the local mutual aid groups, where people were learning a range of different skills and knowledge from each other, from gardening to navigating the welfare system.

As lockdown hit, some colleges and training providers were quick to respond to community need and embedded themselves within their local mutual aid networks, offering use of their catering teaching facilities, making PPE and providing free short courses. This pivot provided a space for FE to facilitate learning that met people’s much broader needs as opposed to the narrower focus on skills and employability. 

But practising mutual aid isn’t about establishing a new normal as quickly as possible and limping on from disaster to disaster. Instead, it’s a way of wedging open those cracks within our current system and building practical solidarity across our communities to re-make our world. It’s the way communities have always defended themselves, but it’s often so buried under bureaucracy that it seems radical.

So often we see the most straightforward route of change-making is to make immediate demands of the people who are often responsible for the mess we’re in. With another general election on the horizon, understandably the sector is starting to strategise and lobby. 

But whatever shade of politician and policy change comes our way every few years, we will still need to protect ourselves from those big social, economic and environmental disasters that have become the benchmarks of our current settlement. We’re not going to do this with a blueprint or a strategic plan, but instead by finding ways to strengthen our interdependence locally and develop emergent ways of responding to community needs. 

There’s no better place than in further education to learn the skills and tools to build the world we want to see – from the bottom up, without permission from anyone but each other. 

The government’s muddled messaging over skills risks undermining its whole agenda

In November 2017, I told the Association of College’s Annual Conference that “further education (FE) is central to the challenge of delivering a prosperous future for this country after Brexit”. Much has changed since. We’ve had to grapple with the economic and educational impact of the pandemic, not to the mention the near constant political changes in Downing Street and the DfE. Yet what I said back then remains true. The importance of FE to the country’s future has never been clearer.

Fortunately, the list of Conservatives throwing their rhetorical weight behind skills and further education has grown considerably. Rishi Sunak, Jeremy Hunt, Boris Johnson, Gillian Keegan and more have said they want to help the country to re-skill and upskill. They quite rightly see increased skills levels as a means of driving growth, supercharging productivity, tackling regional inequality and improving life chances.

Technical and vocational education and training is certainly the key which can unlock the country’s economic potential. But in setting out their pro-skills agenda, the government’s communications approach is not showcasing the sector to its fullest. They are treating skills as amorphous and theoretical when they are in fact firmly rooted in local education and training organisations.

On average, colleges work with more than 500 local businesses. They are often a leading employer in their own right. Independent training providers are equally pivotal in supporting learners and driving economic growth both locally and regionally. Yet this importance is not reflected by the government, or indeed the national media. It is on government to more clearly set the tone and state how they will make skills growth a reality.

During my time as apprenticeships and skills minister, it became clear to me that it was incumbent on government to recognise and champion skills from the grassroots level up. Without this constant advocacy and adequate finance, the gap between academic and vocational education will not be bridged.

A sea change in communications is needed

Every August, thousands of learners receive results for vocational and technical qualifications, but they are never given the spotlight those studying GCSEs and A Levels receive. This is in spite of the fact V-Certs, BTECs, Cambridge Technicals, T Levels and more make up a significant proportion of the results received during this period. Skills ministers make valiant attempts to gain more press coverage but this needs to be replicated across government.

What’s more, initiatives to put technical education in the shop window can either fall flat or be short-lived. Why, for example, do occasions like National Apprenticeship Week and National Careers Week so often come and go with so little attention?

A sea change in communications is needed. Government, and particularly the incumbents of numbers 10 and 11 Downing Street, must make a more robust effort to champion these courses with new audiences.

We have long talked about tackling the stigma associated with technical education, but a positive, accessible story is still not being told. Gillian Keegan is heavily invested in skills, and the product of an apprenticeship herself. It is not churlish to say that government could be making much more of this to influence perceptions of the sector.

The narrative power of technical education is evident: it delivers brilliant individual stories and a wider economic narrative. Finding a way to connect these dots is a challenge government must finally rise to if it is serious about changing perceptions around skills and turbocharging its economic and educational ambitions – irrespective of political parties.

The challenge is often picked up by colleges and independent training providers, the vast majority of whom do a brilliant job of marketing themselves. But more can always be done, whether that’s through working locally via social media, with local radio and media outlets or enlisting the support of those with the skills to help get the message across. Schools could arguably do more too.

I am genuinely optimistic about the future of vocational and technical education and training. But to make the most of the sector’s potential, we need vocal champions right at the top of government to start telling a more powerful story.

FE is bucking the trend on the attainment gap. What could it do with more funding?

Last month, the department for education released new analysis of attainment and progress to the age of 25. Hidden in this statistical release was a good news story. The department’s analysis shows that the proportion of young people who achieve a good standard of English and maths by the age of 19 is the highest on record at 74.9 per cent.

This increase in achievement of basic skills qualifications in English and maths has been driven by the country’s post-16 sector. Progress in these subjects between the ages of 16 and 19 is now the highest on record. Two decades ago, fewer than 6 per cent of young people who had not passed GCSE English and maths at 16 had gone on to achieve them by the age of 19. Today, that figure is almost six times higher.

Progress in English and maths in post-16 education has been on an upward trajectory since 2014 when the condition of funding was introduced. Notably, the department’s analysis also shows that more young people from disadvantaged backgrounds are passing GCSE English and maths in 16 to 19 education than their peers. This bucks the longstanding trend for the country’s attainment gap, which emerges early and typically widens as children progress through the education system. Instead, our 16 to 19 education sector is having some success in narrowing the attainment gap in GCSE English and maths.

This is a huge testament to our further education sector. This is the part of our education system that serves a significant proportion of 16- to 19-year-olds from disadvantaged backgrounds and 90 per cent of young people retaking GCSE English and maths. And it is the part that typically gets on with the job with little fanfare and funding.

Real-term cuts across the FE sector stand at 8 per cent. Teachers in colleges get paid on average £7,000 a year less than their peers in schools. There was no additional funding for FE in the Autumn Statement, and notably there has never been Pupil Premium funding for 16- to 19-year-olds. Across every metric, funding to support students from disadvantaged backgrounds nose dives at 16.

The financial context makes this progress all the more impressive

This financial context makes the increase in attainment and progress in basic English and maths skills and the subsequent narrowing of the attainment gap all the more impressive. By any measure, these improvements have been achieved on nothing more than a shoestring.

Of course, there is still more progress to be made. Despite these improvements, 2 in 3 young people who miss out at school still have not achieved a Level 2 qualification in English and maths by the age of 19. Moreover, the narrowing of the gap is only slight at 3 percentage points. It could and should be closed further.

But policymakers should take note. Imagine what could be achieved in FE if the sector was properly funded. What might we expect the sector to deliver if FE teacher pay matched that of schoolteacher pay and colleges could compete for qualified staff? And how much more might we close attainment gaps if funding for disadvantaged 16- to 19-year-olds matched that of school-aged young people?

Those working in the FE sector have long known about its potential to be transformational for social mobility. Research too is catching up, with the latest studies in cognitive neuroscience suggesting there is a “window of opportunity” for learning in late adolescence and early adulthood.

This week, former minister for apprenticeships and skills, Anne Milton has written of the need for the highest levels of government to back the sector. This latest analysis from the department should be the catalyst for the new narrative she rightly calls for. There can be no stronger evidence to justify better funding than this narrowing of the attainment gap in English and maths – proof positive of the vital role colleges play for young people, the economy and society.

Construction training body takes wrecking ball to subcontracting

One of the largest providers of construction apprenticeships has ended its troubled subcontracted provision and dropped from Ofsted ‘outstanding’ to ‘requires improvement’.

The Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) tumbled from the watchdog’s top grade, which it achieved twice in the 2010s, in a report published this week.

The executive non-departmental public body, sponsored by the Department for Education and chaired by former Education and Skills Funding Agency chief Peter Lauener, has been among the biggest providers of subcontracted provision in further education for the past decade.

But Ofsted’s latest report revealed it has stepped away from the practice after finding ineffective oversight, with inspectors stating that leaders “focus too heavily on contract compliance and not on the quality of education”.

CITB confirmed it is winding down its subcontracted delivery, which it currently undertakes with 24 partners in areas like carpentry and joinery, construction skills and bricklaying.

The organisation said the decision was linked to government policy in 2021, which demanded providers in FE significantly reduce their subcontracted provision after scandals and cases of poor oversight were brought to light.

Ofsted’s previous report on CITB from 2017 showed it had 9,000 apprentices on its books, but the report from this week showed just 629.

The company claimed this did not, however, represent a dramatic decrease in its direct provision.

A spokesperson said: “The number of learners reduced from 9,000 because we made a strategic decision to withdraw from managing subcontracting providers. In 2017 the significant majority of learners were in subcontracted provision, rather than our own CITB apprenticeships.

“We reviewed our strategy for apprenticeships delivery and took the decision in 2021 to discontinue our subcontracted provision. We now focus on specialist apprenticeship delivery in niche provision that it would be difficult or prohibitively expensive for other providers to deliver.”

The CITB spokesperson said that Ofsted’s report also included “many examples of high-quality practice” at the organisation, adding that it has “committed investment to improve our training for apprentices and continue to transform provision with a focus on improving performance monitoring, supporting staff to deliver quality, specialist learning and, providing high-quality careers guidance”.

Ofsted’s report comes months after CITB’s accounts revealed it faces a clawback of up to £10.3 million to the ESFA following an audit of historic non-compliant apprenticeships data.

New provider ‘power’ over EPAOs risks ‘race to the bottom’

A new rule that puts the power of choosing apprenticeship end-point assessment organisations (EPAO) into the hands of training providers will cause a “race to the bottom” on quality, officials have been warned.

The Department for Education announced this week that from August 1, the register of EPAOs will merge with the register of apprenticeship training providers (RoATP) and be called the “apprenticeship providers and assessment register” (APAR).

Included in the move was a “bombshell” statement, as described by one EPAO, that will make training providers responsible for choosing which organisation should do the end-point assessment for their employers’ apprentices, rather than the employer itself.

Experts told FE Week that providers have always been the main “influencers” when it comes to EPAO selection, although officially it has always been the employers’ choice and they usually pick from a “beauty parade” of offers.

But the new rule will empower providers to “game” the system by “using their right to negotiate the prices for EPA”, according to Terry Fennel, chief executive of awarding body and EPAO, FDQ Ltd.

He said: “Fundamentally now employers are more interested in quality assured services for their apprentices over price for EPA, therefore they are more likely to ‘shop around’ to find the best EPAO. However, providers often behave in reverse, putting ‘price’ over anything else so they will ‘barter’ with EPAOs to get the bottom price.

“If the max charged for an EPA is £2,000, but the EPAO is beaten down to £1,000 the difference is pocketed by the training provider therefore they have commercial incentive to always go with the lowest price.”

The price of an EPA is usually between 11 to 20 per cent of an apprenticeship funding band.

Helen Shinner, managing director of 1st for EPA, agreed with Fennel.

She told FE Week: “Many believe that this change is simply formalising what already occurs. While it’s true that many providers advise employers, we find that having the final decision does keep employers engaged in the process. Plus, they hold the power to switch EPAO if they see the need.

“The big concern is that the change may create a temptation for providers to use as few EPAOs as possible, to keep processes and systems to a minimum. While this may seem like a simplified approach, there’s a danger of taking the easiest route, rather than the best one.”

Shinner continued: “This will hit particularly hard for providers serving niche markets, where they may find that it is the niche EPAOs that hold the assessment expertise, as well as superior customer service. The ultimate result may be a drop in quality and impact apprentice certification.

“The message is: provider beware – don’t sacrifice long term quality and reputation for ‘quick wins’.”

Charlotte Bosworth, managing director of Innovate Awarding, an EPAO that is part of the Lifetime Training Group, said she didn’t see this move as “much as a concern as others”.

Her biggest concern is if EPAOs are “tiered” on the new APAR register so the assessment organisations are “deemed as a subcontractor”.

“This could lead to providers wanting to drive down the price of end-point assessment and create a system where EPAOs are competing mostly on price, which will end up impacting on quality,” she said.

The DfE said further information and guidance on both changes for employers, providers and EPAOs will be made “in the next few weeks”.

Scandal-hit Brooklands College’s accounts finally surface

Brooklands College has finally published accounts for the first time in four years.

The Surrey-based college was stung by an apprenticeship subcontracting scandal that came to light in 2019 following investigations by FE Week.

Left with a £25 million debt demanded by the government’s Education and Skills Funding Agency, the small college, which brings in just £11 million in income annually, has spent years negotiating a repayment deal that would prevent it from going bust.

In recent months the college has unveiled plans for a £45 million re-development, which includes selling an historic building and land for homes, to pay back the debt.

Even though the college is waiting on the local council to agree to planning permission, the plan, approved by the ESFA, has moved the college’s financial health up from ‘inadequate’ to ‘good’ and enabled the accounts for the past four years to be approved and published.

The accounts reveal the £25 million debt has been “discounted” to £23.1 million and can be repaid in the next three years.

“The amount due to the ESFA shown as a long-term creditor of £23m is supported by a repayment agreement and will not be called in for three years unless the development of the state enables this to be repaid sooner,” its latest accounts state.

They also show the principal that led the college at the time of the subcontracting scandal, which took place between 2014 and 2018, Gail Walker, received “compensation” of £14,175 when she after she resigned. The accounts state this was for “statutory redundancy only”.