An apprenticeship training provider for eye healthcare specialists is “astonished” at its “inadequate” Ofsted rating after inspectors claimed its training was “more akin to CPD programmes” and therefore “not sufficient to claim public funds.”
The Association of Health Professions in Ophthalmology, which had 14 adult apprentices studying the two-year level four healthcare science associate apprenticeship, was handed the rating after an inspection at the end of March.
Ofsted shed doubt over the association’s ability to claim public funds for an apprenticeship, as the apprentices “do not develop substantial new knowledge, skills and behaviours” beyond what they knew before they started, as many have already worked as ophthalmic technicians for five years.
“The knowledge that they do acquire is not sufficient to claim public funds for an apprenticeship and is more akin to continuous professional development (CPD) activities that should be funded by their employer,” the report added.
Ofsted said the association’s apprentices “do not receive any teaching” during their apprenticeship, and they pass at the end of their apprenticeship “due to their extensive experience and knowledge of the sector” accrued before the apprenticeship began.
Inspectors gave the association “inadequate” ratings in four of the five judgements. Behaviour and attitudes scored a “requires improvement”. That gave it an overall “inadequate” rating.
The association has appealed against the rating, saying that it was “quite frankly astonished that Ofsted inspectors, who do not have knowledge, skills or experience in our sector, believed they were competent to determine the training of staff in our sector”.
They said the National School of Healthcare Science, part of the NHS, had designed the apprenticeship’s curriculum, and that prospective apprentices always have a “comprehensive skills scan” before they are accepted onto the program to show they do not yet have the required knowledge, skills and behaviour which they would then learn as an apprentice.
But in its appeal to Ofsted, the association said only three of the 14 apprentices had completed the first year of the apprenticeship at the time of the inspection meaning “these comments are unsurprising” as it delivers the ophthalmic-specific skills in the second year of the apprenticeship.
They said apprenticeship standards specify “we should develop apprentices as independent learners and we have designed our delivery accordingly”.
A spokesperson for the association told FE Week that they were “dumbstruck” by Ofsted’s comments. They said there is a difference between being able to press buttons on a machine, as any apprentice would be able to do before the apprenticeship, and “knowing how to assess the quality of the test result, how to identify patient difficulties and artefacts, and how to identify unexpected outcomes and report these to a more senior member of the team.”
But, since the inspection, the association has “introduced recorded reflective reviews” after every unit of teaching so that a learner’s progress can be recorded at every stage of an apprenticeship, to address some of Ofsted’s concerns. They also accepted that “our data collection [on the strengths and weaknesses of the apprentice] has not been perfect and requires improvement”.
The association joined the register of apprenticeship training providers (RoATP) in 2018.
Ofsted rejected the association’s appeal, but the organisation is preparing to appeal against any apprenticeship ban, as is often the case when a provider gets an “inadequate” rating.
Tracy Brabin greets me with a broad smile and bubbly manner that masks the fact she is a political force to be reckoned with.
The first mayor of West Yorkshire Combined Authority spent much of her life playing on-screen personas in shows including Coronation Street, Eastenders and Emmerdale, which has given her a knack for wearing a big smile at opportune moments – also an advantage in her political life.
Our interview is around one of her priority areas, the skills agenda, but she has to resort to paper notes as backup when the technical details evade her. This is understandable, given the wide scope of her mayoral role; her combined authority oversees regional transport, housing, planning, finance and policing matters, as well as controlling the adult education budget.
But she is keenly eyeing more levers of power.
Despite being the current chair of the M10, a cross-party group of English metro mayors who work together on policy issues, she watched from the sidelines as fellow mayors Andy Burnham and Andy Street, of Greater Manchester and the West Midlands respectively, recently clinched even more powers in their new landmark “trailblazer” devolution deals.
Brabin pulls no punches as she warns there will be “hell on if we’re not next” for such a deal.
Brabin reveals that the M10 mayors have approached the government with an “off the shelf” trailblazer option for the other combined authorities that are “mature enough” for it. They could then have “further conversations about particular bolt-ons” which she believed the government could feasibly sign off this year.
Brabin would like to get her hands on a single funding settlement for skills, which is currently split into five different streams: skills bootcamps, AEB, Multiply, Skills Connect and the UK shared prosperity fund.
But those enhanced trailblazer deals, which act as blueprints for other areas to follow, did not extend Burnham and Street’s powers that far. They did gain sway over which level three ‘free courses for jobs’ and skills bootcamps they can lay on in the future, rather than being dictated to by the government on such matters.
Brabin indicated she would use flexibilities to address chronic care worker shortages.
“We’re told we have to run a [skills] bootcamp within certain restrictions when we know that locally, there’s a real crisis in recruitment for care workers. Let us get on with what we need to deliver for our communities,” she says.
Burnham and Street can also now form post-16 skills “joint governance boards”, which Burnham hopes will facilitate the launch of his proposed ‘MBacc Greater Manchester Baccalaureate’ of technical qualifications to meet local skills gaps.
Brabin “agrees with the principle” behind Burnham’s MBacc proposal but would not commit to such a move herself.
Tracy Brabin
Achievements so far
Brabin claims that having devolved power over her region’s £65 million adult education budget has provided “strategic thinking” to “ladle [funding] between communities and identify areas of deprivation for big interventions”.
This approach seems to be working. In the year after the combined authority was formed in 2021, it boosted adult learner numbers by six per cent to 43,000, partly by expanding free training access to those on the real living wage rather than the minimum wage.
Adult learners in the most acutely deprived neighbourhoods rose from 37 per cent to 41 per cent.
West Yorkshire has also saved money by cutting back on subcontracting which, before devolution, took up £9 million a year of AEB funding.
Monitoring and scrutiny was ramped up, saving £1.4 million in management fees in the first year which was “woven back into delivery”. But Brabin is not totally averse to subcontracting, claiming it can “help us with that community base”.
Tracy Brabin at YouTube Hub event, Bradford
Devolution and dinners
Brabin, whose region covers Bradford Wakefield, Huddersfield, Halifax and Leeds, has “regular dinners” with local college principals.
The decision by West Yorkshire to raise its AEB funding rate for providers by 10 per cent in line with inflation “came out of our last dinner” as Brabin was told “really vividly about the challenges facing colleges, given their underfunding for decades”.
But because AEB funding from the government did not rise accordingly, money earmarked for future projects had to be used to pay for it.
When asked if the uplift has led to a lowering of overall learner numbers, Brabin responds “let’s hope not”.
Level two courses have seen growth this year, with demand coming through particularly strongly in employability programmes and English and maths.
Tracy Brabin at Mayors Big Bus Chat Afghan Womens Group
Distance dilemmas
The combined authority wants to ensure that in giving the uplift, a “quality provision” is being provided.
Now, provision which is mainly online receives the same funding as classroom courses where resource and staffing costs are much higher. The combined authority has been concerned that some providers are running courses with significantly lower guided learning hours than recommended.
Last July, Ofsted denounced some providers for retaining remote learning after the pandemic. West Yorkshire raised the issue in its discussions earlier this month with the Association of Employment and Learning Providers.
Brabin is concerned some providers are providing “100 per cent distance learning provision … where a learner has no contact with a tutor”, with even marking being automated.
Her combined authority is preparing a paper for its members to vote on proposals to ensure funding matches the number of guided learning hours being provided.
Multiplying difficulties
Brabin has been “really pressing the government to be next in line for the trailblazer deal” because of her frustration at having to roll out prescriptive national schemes like the £559 million Multiply scheme to improve adult numeracy rates, which have mountains of red tape attached to them.
“We’ve got to have that autonomy, we can’t be left behind picking up the 19-year-olds, trying to resolve problems from Multiply that come from the centre,” she says.
West Yorkshire was allocated £12.4m across three financial years, with its spending plans approved in June 2022 and accepted by DfE in August.
But part of a £3 million pot allocated for ‘business focused activity’ was held up because a tender open from December to January was unsuccessful and had to be republished, leading to an £816,000 underspend for the programme’s first year.
West Yorkshire asked DfE to rollover the unspent funds to the second year, but it has not agreed to this.Other areas are understood to face the same issue. “That’s a big issue beyond us. It’s a national issue, and it’s been frustrating,” says Brabin.
“We’re held to account as mayors. Yet we can’t press government to be timely in delivery.”
She doesn’t “think the centre understands” how much work is required to get learners “ready for learning”, with “so many who are so far away from even stepping into the classroom”.
Just under 2,000 people engaged in Multiply in its first year in West Yorkshire, which was under target. But Brabin is “really confident” of hitting targets for years two and three.
Female students at Leeds College of Building
Women and girls
Perhaps it is because she is England’s first woman to be elected as a metro mayor that Brabin has made championing the rights of women and girls a key theme of her leadership.
West Yorkshire recently helped fund a project which saw 300 women come together to build a barn as part of Leeds’s first WOW (woman of the world) event, only half of whom already had construction experience, to help encourage more women to consider a career in the trade.
Construction courses run in the barn afterwards were five times oversubscribed, and Leeds College of Building is now looking at putting on women-only construction, painting, decorating and plumbing courses after an upsurge of interest from them, according to Brabin.
Some women offered their services to teach at the college, which is currently bearing the brunt of an acute nationwide shortage of construction teachers.
Furthermore, Brabin’s apprenticeship levy transfer scheme, which helps apprenticeship levy-paying employers transfer up to 25 per cent of their apprenticeship levy funds to smaller businesses and training providers, has seen Asda’s unspent levy pivoted to training up police community support officers to work on buses, helping to ensure the safety of women and girls.
Brabin also claims she “persuaded” local bus companies struggling with recruitment to take on part-time drivers, to attract more women into the profession.
With forecasters hedging their bets that the next government will be a Labour one, Brabin has one eye on the shadow cabinet’s plans. Brabin believes there is now a “devolution arms race” taking place, “led by Michael Gove and the Labour Party”.
Labour’s commission on the UK’s future, led by Gordon Brown, published a landmark report last year which advocated merging centrally run adult education funding streams such as Multiply with the existing AEB budget, as well as giving mayors more powers to decide which FE courses should be funded.
Ben Houchen
LSIPs
Local skills improvement plans also came in for criticism from Labour’s commission for “side-lining democratically elected local leadership in favour of local Chambers of Commerce”. Brabin would agree.
She has a good relationship with her region’s two chambers of commerce. But the combined authority “talks to businesses all the time” and the chambers are “often coming to us for the knowledge, because we store the data”.
“It just feels like another lack of understanding. We could help the chambers with [LSIPs], we could work together. But it feels like it’s a disconnect with what’s happening on the ground.”
Brabin points out with a note of sarcasm in her voice how “it wouldn’t be fair for me to say” whether Conservative mayors currently get a “seat at the table” with government (Tees Valley’s Ben Houchen, who often appears to hold the ear of ministers, was recently handed a peerage in Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list).
But, under a Labour government, Brabin might hold similar sway with ministers.
She clearly already holds influence within Labour. She was “able to feed back” to her party how on a recent India trade mission, and she could guarantee a “talent pipeline” through her AEB budget to “co create a programme” in return for investment.
She has also spoken to Ed Miliband and Rachel Reeves about the party’s Green New Deal.
Two days before it was announced that Labour had watered down its commitment to invest £28 billion a year in green industries upon becoming elected, Brabin seemed already aware of the move, warning that it is “going to be important … for Labour that we have a focus on the green economy”.
West Yorkshire is a staunch Labour stronghold with its five Labour-controlled councils and Labour MPs, and Brabin believes they can “get a lot done” together if her party wins power nationally.
“If we had the resources that are in the South for research and development, or for infrastructure, West Yorkshire could turbocharge the national economy. We just need that investment, and that flex to deliver for our community.”
Apprenticeships are a powerful tool for bridging the skills gap in the pharmaceutical sector – essential if we are to keep one of the UK’s most innovative industries globally competitive.
With constant advancements in technology and medical research, the skills required within the industry are always changing and evolving. The demand for skilled workers has never been greater, and apprenticeships provide a win-win solution.
They allow employers to access a skills development pipeline across a wide range of roles, including those where priority skills gaps have been identified. At the same time apprentices get an opportunity to ‘earn while they learn’ and further their journey in a fulfilling career.
Traditionally, apprenticeships have been associated with skilled blue-collar or artisanal jobs. However, in recent years, the apprenticeship model has been gaining traction in many professional services roles and in the science and technology sectors, including pharmaceuticals.
Through a combination of on-the-job training and classroom learning, they provide a unique and flexible opportunity for people to develop relevant skills while directly contributing to the workforce.
Research by the ABPI has shown that the number of apprentices hosted by the biopharmaceutical industry in 2022 had increased year on year since 2015 (287.5 per cent) over that period. And encouragingly, apprenticeships are being delivered from level 2 to level 7 across a range of disciplines, and with increasing flexibility on duration.
This highlights increasing sector employer confidence in using apprenticeships, although to develop a skilled workforce for the future it is crucial we align skills supply with employer demand to secure have a talent pipeline suitable for the industry. To do this, we need closer collaboration between industry, educational institutions and policymakers.
More pharmaceutical standards
First, there must be consultation to identify the specific skills and competencies that the pharmaceutical industry needs, and where the skills gaps exist. The ABPI’s latest skills gap report analyses the skills gaps and trends within the UK pharmaceutical industry based on survey data from over 30 different employers.
The report includes past examples of using the apprenticeship route to take action on identified skills gaps, including the development of the Level 7 Bioinformatics standard, and of the Level 7 Clinical Pharmacology Scientist standard which launched in September last year.
So we know that actively involving employers in the design and delivery of apprenticeship programs is our best bet to achieve the outcomes we need. It ensures that teaching plans align with industry needs and that apprentices are actively prepared for the roles and challenges they will face in their careers.
What we need now is to replicate that work for more of the sub-sectors within the pharmaceutical industry, and to target efforts where there are the greatest shortages first. We also need clearer pathways to those Level 7 apprenticeships, so that younger people can understand more about their route into the industry earlier.
More flexibility
Next, the skills sector must be agile and responsive to the evolving demands of the industry. That means that any new and existing apprenticeship frameworks and qualifications must be flexible enough to quickly incorporate emerging technologies and research breakthroughs.
Employers would also like to see the government do more to increase flexibility in how the apprenticeship levy can be used to ensure that businesses of all sizes can benefit.
And if apprenticeships are going to deliver on their promise, they need to recognise the greater flexibility of today’s workforce too. We need a clearer and more coherent careers guidance system, and its focus can’t be only on young people as has traditionally been the case. Adults increasingly need careers guidance too, and we need to reach those sections of the population who tend not to see the sector as accessible to them.
Addressing the skills gap in biopharmaceuticals is vital for the UK’s continuing place as a sector leader and for our continued economic prosperity. We welcome the Department for Education and the Office for Life Sciences’ support for employers to tailor apprenticeship delivery to meet the needs of employers and their apprentices’.
There is a lot more work to be done to ensure our system competes with the best.
The Student Commission on Racial Justice will soon publish its 2023 Manifesto for Action. Over five weeks, its commissioners will set out its five key priorities and recommendations exclusively for FE Week.
Since becoming a commissioner on the student commission for racial justice last year, I have been working to bring about change in the way colleges address and tackle racism. One of the key ways they can either support or hinder that work is in how they manage and resolve complaints. Accordingly, a key recommendation in our manifesto for action is for colleges to review their complaints structures and processes and to involve students to increase trust in their effectiveness.
As part of our work for the commission, our research found that students from minoritised ethnic groups are less likely than white students to report the race-related incidents they experience or witness. Some say it’s because they don’t feel safe, and only 58 per cent believe appropriate action would be taken.
When I spoke with students about the changes they want to see in their settings, it was clear to see the reality behind those statistics. A great number told me about the biases they experience. This included a number of instances, for example, of security guards not letting students onto campus, which they felt could only be due to their ethnic background as they weren’t causing problems or being rude.
Sadly, I also had to witness unfair treatment first-hand when a student tried to speak out about racism. With courage, they decided to give the voiceless students in the room a voice. They put their foot down and called out someone in the room who, during an assembly, who had boldly used a stereotype to slander Indian people.
The student who spoke out was reprimanded and told they should leave the perpetrator alone. Meanwhile, the perpetrator got away with it. The student who had spoken on behalf of the South Asian community felt publicly shamed for doing so, and the perpetrator faced no consequences, let alone any expectation that they should take responsibility for their actions.
In this context, is it any surprise students believe it’s easier to ignore race-related incidents? Speaking out about racism is just as important as asking for help when you don’t understand your assignment. Every individual should be treated with dignity, respect and have the right to feel safe.
When a student speaks out, they should be listened to
Students spoke to us about how there should be more diverse ways to raise concerns when it comes to race-related incidents. They said they would benefit from having an anonymous drop-box or an email form. They want to be able to speak about their concerns and get a response that is quick and effective.
An example of a positive response is to have a mediation session where both parties involved explain themselves and show understanding. The mediator can then see whether the perpetrator is genuinely remorseful, whether the victim needs further support, and bring the situation to an end that satisfies everyone.
In cases where perpetrators don’t take responsibility for their actions, students in our research suggested the reasonable second step of requiring the perpetrator to complete an awareness course on the impact of racism, with a threshold pass mark for returning to college. Students should be supported to learn and understand, but safeguarding must surely require some proof that their potential victims are safe from further harm.
It speaks highly of the student body that, while some felt strongly that racism should be severely punished, most want to see a response focused on education to break cycles of behaviour.
And in the end, that willingness to learn must apply to teachers too. When a student speaks out about racially motivated unfair treatment, they should be listened to. There should be a clear process to follow that re-builds that student’s confidence and trust.
If we really mean to deliver racial justice in education, then we must break the vicious cycle of complaints being ignored. That means all teachers must be appropriately and adequately trained to fight racism as an integral part of their important role in shaping the next generation.
Previous Job: Chief Commercial Officer, Learn Plus Us
Interesting fact: Debbie ran her first fundraiser when she was just 10 years of age; a jumble sale in her garage. It was a massive success, raising a whopping £20 (a lot of money in 1970) and it set the scene for her future voluntary and fundraising work.
Ken Merry
Deputy Principal and Deputy Chief Executive, York College & University Centre
Start date: June 2023
Previous Job: Vice Principal – Quality, Barnsley College
Interesting fact: Ken once travelled to Iceland with the sole purpose of seeing the Northern Lights. Despite perfect conditions, he did not see them but, while in Iceland, the lights were visible each night in York
David Akeroyd
Principal & Chief Executive, Barnsley College
Start date: August 2023
Previous Job: Deputy Principal, Barnsley College
Interesting fact: David spends his weekends looking after his Miniature Shetland Ponies – Dinky and Calypso – in the beautiful Yorkshire Dales
In January 2023, I took on the role of head of teacher development and quality improvement at Suffolk New College. I’m determined to think differently about the teaching landscape to empower my colleagues to be innovative for our learners, and for me, one of the key factors driving us towards a new paradigm of education is the desperate need for more sustainable lives.
When the ETF announced the new teacher professional standards in 2022, an amendment caught my eye. PVA2 called on teachers to ‘promote and embed education for sustainable development (ESD) across learning and working practices’.
I was bemused. What does this even mean? Is this about using less paper? Recycling bins in classrooms? More digital lessons? And how could I teach this authentically to trainee teachers and my peers if I didn’t know? And with that I went on a journey.
I’m still on that journey, but at this juncture I have concluded that ESD isn’t just about green skills, climate change and the environment. It’s about developing, promoting, and eliciting the knowledge, skills, values and attributes we need for a different society altogether.
That sounds like a big ask, but the truth is that the solutions are mostly already here. We just need to tap into them, and that’s a question of engaging everyone in the effort. Our staff don’t need CPD on sustainability for their subject specialisms; they are already living and breathing their industries. They don’t need external ‘experts telling them what they already know. They need time to connect with each other to develop what they do.
To deliver sustainability education, we have to deliver education sustainably, starting with teacher education. So my team and I have been planning a whole day of CPD activity to model that.
We have a floor full of escape rooms for staff to crack, aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals and exploring themes such as poverty, health and education. Staff will be able to make artistic sustainability pledges to display to students. There’s a workshop dedicated to gamification tools to use as building blocks to engage individuals in solving problems and drive sustainable behaviours. And our last workshop has definite Mission: Impossible vibes, but the message it delivers will be most definitely not self-destruct.
To deliver sustainability education, we have to deliver education sustainably
This is about long-term change, and creating a culture of change. The solutions we develop now can’t become a new status quo. They will need to continuously evolve and refine, and the biggest challenge to that is that humans are creatures of habit.
Sadly, this includes some educators for whom inertia is comfortable and who meet change with resistance. The measure of our success will be whether our sustainability-led approach to teacher education and CPD can bring them along on the journey.
Sustainability demands that we experience the world in a different way, and that means teaching in a different way. In other words, teaching itself must become more sustainable, and what could make it more attractive and enjoyable than to systematically empower teachers’ critical thinking skills and their problem-solving prowess.
After all, how else can we expect them to elicit these same kinds of skills in our young learners? We have a responsibility to teach in such ways that our learners have the knowledge and skills necessary to live responsibly. Designing a curriculum for sustainability involves reviewing the content knowledge we impart, but that’s only part of it. We have to model what we teach to have any hope of truly affecting their perceptions and behaviours.
So I’m grateful to the teacher standards for putting me on this journey and I’m excited to be taking this next step on it to bring more of our staff along on the ride. I hope other colleges and institutions will join us in thinking differently about shaping the next generation of students and teachers to meet the challenge of climate change.
How we go about that will vary across regions and contexts, but the core aims will be the same: creating enabling environments and fostering a culture of change. And the way I see it, that starts with teacher development.
I recently underwent a neurodiversity assessment. Finally, at the age of 56, I have a formal diagnosis of neurodiversity and dyslexia. Finally, I fully understand the challenges I’ve always had. I no longer feel like I’m rubbish at certain things; instead, I employ strategies to counteract the challenges I face, and I know what support to ask for from friends, family and colleagues.
Those challenges are simple but disruptive. Because my short-term working memory is poor, I often forget to do things colleagues have asked me to do unless I write them down. My spelling is not what it should be. And I sometimes find myself stumbling through answers while desperately trying to remember what the question was. In short, my brain functions in an atypical way.
Yours might too. Across the nine domains they measure, Cognassist (who assessed me) estimate that less than 10 per cent of people sit in the ‘average’ cognitive profile range. This suggests that places of work and learning that aren’t assessing for neurodiversity are potentially letting many people down and missing out on many talents.
I loved school and I thrived in many ways – but none of them academic. I had detentions on a weekly basis for my spelling, and I left without an O level to my name. In reality, I was being punished for something I never stood a chance of excelling at. I just got used to people thinking I wouldn’t amount to much.
Of course, neurodiversity and its associated conditions such as dyslexia, autism, ADHD, and dyspraxia weren’t really recognised back then. We’ve come a long way since. Some brilliant work is happening across education, but there’s still so much more we could do.
When I left school at 16, I went to college. It was transformative. Finally, I was given the chance to learn in a different way – a heavily practical way that really suited me. I started to thrive and people started to believe in me.
Think of all the talented, neurodiverse learners that would bubble to the surface
A pivotal moment came for me a few years later, when one of my tutors suggested I should teach. It was the first time that I’d felt I had something to offer an education setting. Another year later, I became the youngest lecturer ever to have worked at Walsall College. My career since has spanned 35 years in further education, and I have taken my own education to masters level.
I was lucky. I found my way. But the fact remains that I was needlessly pushed to the bottom of the academic pile for years. I always had the ability to learn; I just needed the freedom to do it in a different way. How many talented people have fallen by the wayside because they never found their niche in education?
As chief executive of the Skills and Education Group, I am on a mission to ensure education policies and assessment practice become neuro-inclusive. Any policy or practice that is solely built around the assumption that we all learn in the same way is outdated.
We need to much better educate our teachers about neurodiverse conditions. Pupils can’t thrive on empathy alone; they need teachers who understand what their diagnosis means, the hidden challenges they present and the initiatives they can deploy to help them. We need to identify these conditions earlier, and we must be ready to support learners with them with every step of their journey.
And we need government policy that supports neurodiversity in delivery and assessment as a mainstream issue. Further education has traditionally provided a much more accessible curriculum for many by default. We can’t put this at risk through qualification reform when we should be codifying that inclusiveness and driving it to greater heights.
Colleges are precisely the kind of inclusive environments our whole education system should be learning from, but the sector can’t stop pushing forward. The collaborative networks of neurotypical and neurodiverse students they create are surely leading to a more understanding and accepting society.
Think of all the talented, neurodiverse learners that would bubble to the surface if that was the educational norm.
The hashtag #andcolleges has been doing the rounds on social media for a little while now, representing the post-16 education sector’s frustration in response to statements, projects and policies focused on schools (and often universities as well) that demonstrate no apparent awareness of the significance of post-16 providers in the education landscape.
When it comes to closing the attainment gap between young people from disadvantaged backgrounds and their peers, it is particularly puzzling to find colleges excluded from the discussion. After all, the majority of students from disadvantaged backgrounds progress to colleges at the age of sixteen, meaning that colleges support a far higher proportion (double the percentage) when compared with school sixth forms. More specifically, colleges work with the vast majority of the 300,000 students who need to resit their English and maths GCSEs each year, 70 per cent of whom are from disadvantaged backgrounds.
A significant focus of the report is on the role played by tuition, and the National Tutoring Programme (NTP) in particular, in the drive to ensure the disadvantage gap rapidly returns to pre-pandemic levels and continues to close. There was no mention of the NTP’s sister programme, the 16-19 Tuition Fund, which last year made £92 million available to post-16 providers so they could provide catch-up tuition to young people.
Colleges work with the vast majority of students who resit English and maths
One of the report’s five recommendations was that DfE “should monitor how much tutoring is being provided, in 2022/23 and 2023/24 when it is providing a subsidy, and in subsequent years, and intervene if tutoring levels drop significantly.” The focus here was on the NTP, in recognition of the impact that tutoring can have on learners from disadvantaged backgrounds in schools, but we can certainly follow this with our hashtag – #andcolleges – where tutoring can play a significant role in closing disadvantage gaps for older learners.
There is strong research evidence that small-group and 1:1 tuition can have a significant impact on educational attainment, particularly in maths and reading, and particularly for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. At Get Further, we have recently published our annual impact report for 2021/22 which demonstrates the equally significant impact that small-group tuition can have on learners resitting GCSE English and maths in post-16 settings.
With extra support provided by tutors, we have found that young people can achieve grade 4 in English or maths at rates considerably higher than the national average. We also know that achieving English and maths GCSEs can lead to economic benefits for learners, with an increase in lifetime earnings of over £45,000. Not only does the investment in tuition considerably improve the life chances of the individual young people who benefit from it directly, there are also significant benefits for the wider economy.
Post-16 education has a crucial role to play both in closing the disadvantage gaps that opened up during the pandemic and ensuring that the pre-Covid progress made in closing gaps is resumed. It is overwhelmingly colleges that are helping those young people who, due to disrupted education, missed out on a grade 4 in their English and maths GCSEs to catch up. They should not be left out of conversations about education recovery, not least because the financial and staffing pressures confronting schools are compounded in a sector that has historically been significantly underfunded.
In this context, and in light of the compelling evidence of the impact tuition can have the educational and life chances of all young people, including those over the age of 16, we are calling on the government to ensure that colleges are more than an afterthought in the decisions taken about educational recovery.
The government needs to extend and scale up national tutoring policies to ensure that high-quality, fully-funded tuition is available beyond August 2024 to all young people who need that extra bit of support to truly achieve their potential.
The workforce and learner demographics landscape is rapidly evolving, driven by factors such as demographic shifts, technological advances, and the changing dynamics of the global economy. In 2015, people aged 60+ represented 12.3 per cent of the global population, but by 2050 this will have increased to over a fifth (21.3 per cent). Additionally, more and more people are moving towards entrepreneurship, favouring its autonomy and flexibility over traditional employment structures.
It is increasingly clear that our current systems – those that govern work, education, and the intersection of the two – are at odds with these seismic changes. There is a change in how we learn, upskill and consume information. The adult education sector must adapt to fill this gap with new, innovative ways of delivering training.
For a recent report for the City of London, Social Finance conducted research into Global Skills Trends and Best Practices and came across the following workforce and learner demographics trends that are changing the employment landscape and training requirements.
An ageing population at risk of exclusion
Although working longer has financial and non-financial benefits, recent digital and technological advances mean older people are at higher risk of being excluded from the workforce. Regular skill development boot camps for older adults in lifelong learning centres could optimise the demographic benefit.
The spring budget showed the treasury is aware of this with its introduction of ‘returnships’ to motivate adults over 50 to rejoin the workforce. Elsewhere, India-based Magic Billion offers certified training to local talent, helping bridge skill gaps in nations with older populations. Collaboration with this kind of global expert could offer a temporary stop-gap and prevent an economic slowdown due to skill shortages.
Non-linear career paths
The notion of a career for life is waning, replaced by the rise of non-linear careers. Millennials in particular are leading this change, with over 21 per cent in the US having switched jobs in the past year, a threefold increase compared to non-millennials.
In the UK, millennials have held as many jobs as 55-year-olds have had in their entire careers. This trend is fuelled by a quest for better salaries, personal growth, work-life balance, and monetising hobbies. But job insecurity, the disappearance of industries and lack of progression also force frequent employment changes. COVID-19 has accentuated this trend.
Other systemic problems mean those spending significant time out of the workforce for reasons from parental leave to contact with the criminal justice system continue to face challenges when re-entering employment. For instance, only 23 per cent of those released from custody are employed six months later.
Whatever the reason, supporting such transitions with high-quality education and skills training at every life stage is crucial and requires collaboration between private trainers, employers, and government. Enhanced data collection would also help to track the challenges of those available to rejoin the workforce and refer them to existing services.
The age of entrepreneurs
Entrepreneurial activity among young people in the UK has doubled since 2000, with 53 per cent expressing a desire to set up their own businesses. This global trend sees individuals increasingly keen to turn hobbies into careers. Yet there’s a noticeable lack of training and support to capitalise on this upsurge in entrepreneurialism.
Unique programmes such as The Prince’s Trust’s Get Into offer potential solutions, with its hands-on training to support budding entrepreneurs. Likewise, Senart’s young creators programme offers invaluable mentorship aligned with participants’ goals.
Local government bodies can play a crucial role by fostering such practical learning programmes in collaboration with the private sector.
To tackle our already growing skills shortages and changing demographics, we need to re-envision an education sector where every learner, regardless age or circumstance, can learn, grow and contribute. To do that, we must respond to the trends shaping not only industry but the aspirations of individuals. Our report showcases various examples of how collaborative efforts are effectively narrowing the skills gap, and we must learn from their successes.
