The 16 ‘old and tired’ college buildings getting a £600m revamp

Sixteen college estates across England that are “nearing the end of their life” are sharing £600 million to undergo major rebuilds, FE Week can reveal.

The Department of Education has set aside the money pot to revamp college buildings which have “some of the worst condition need in England”, according to an answer to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request.

Some of the buildings identified have been empty for long periods of time due to unsustainable running costs and safety concerns, while others cannot be used for teaching owing to extremely out of date facilities.

Of the hundreds of college buildings up and down the country, the Department of Education selected the 16 sites as the most in need. Assessors deemed the best way to get them up to scratch would be demolition and a full rebuild in most cases.

The fund itself forms stage two of the £1.5 billion FE capital transformation fund, which was launched by the Department of Education to refurbish and upgrade colleges in the UK.

Stages one and four of the total fund involved England’s 180-odd colleges receiving individual allocations from pots of £200 million and £280 million respectively. Stage three of the total fund involves 75 colleges sharing £410 million.

But more than a year after stage two was announced, only one of the 16 colleges to get a slice of the £600 million, Newcastle & Stafford College Group, has managed to get a contract signed with a building contractor and started work, FE Week’s FOI response shows.

Last February, the college appointed Bowmer & Kirkland to develop a three-storey skills and innovation centre at its Stafford campus, for £23.5 million.

Work at Stafford is scheduled for completion and handover at the end of June, while the college expects the buildings to be occupied from September with its new cohorts, a spokesperson for the college said.

But work is far from starting at most of the other 15 colleges, which in the meantime are having to fork out money to maintain buildings, and in some situations, have had to leave buildings empty.

The £600 million fund is split between the different colleges depending on need. Around £40 million is going to Cornwall College, where the vast majority of its St Austell Campus (pictured top) will be demolished and then rebuilt into a new and improved campus.

St Austell campus is no longer fit for purpose. Originally, the main building was the headquarters for the local clay industry, which the college “remodelled”.

“It’s sadly a large office block, and it’s not fit for modern day teaching,” John Evans, chief executive and principal of the Cornwall College Group told FE Week.

The main six-storey building is not in a fit state, and the college has already moved out of the two top floors “because it leaks so badly”, Evans added.

The longer that goes on for, the more money needs to be spent on maintenance – which drains money from frontline provision. That, coupled with an annual £750,000 spend on energy, means Cornwall College would have had to close the whole site for post-16 students and apprentices – leaving it with the task of trying to relocate around 1,200 students – without the injection from the FE capital transformation fund.

Cornwall’s other campuses are more than an hour away and, with no sixth forms in St Austell the area would really have suffered, Evans said, and added that St Austell “deserves a high-quality post-16 facility”.

BAM construct has been contracted for the Cornwall project, which will go to planning in June with an aim to start work in September and complete by the middle of 2025.

Elsewhere, most of the Isle of Wight College’s pre-1970s campus, where too much funding is sapped up on energy and maintenance, will be demolished.

“It’s really basic now,” Ros Parker, principal and chief executive of the college said. “The buildings require an awful lot of investment to keep them going.

“Hopefully the new building will result in energy savings, and a more efficient and more effective build that will be more sympathetic to the environment.”

Isle of Wight College is in a unique position in that it provides the only further education provision on the island, so it needs to offer “the broadest range of skills possible” to prepare islanders for work, Parker added.

The college expects the new build to offer courses in electrical installation, a restaurant that will be open to the public where catering students can practice their new skills in a professional setting, and new sports and fitness facilities.

Stanmore College’s project will involve demolishing five buildings and a boiler house which are “beyond their economic life […] and cannot be retrofitted”, according to Bob Pattni, the college’s deputy principal for finance and planning.

Stanmore College

He said the capital funding secured by Stanmore, the value of which could not be shared due to DfE commercial sensitivity rules, would be used to help provide “an excellent standard of educational facilities” for students.

“Any efficiencies made through being more sustainable and reducing utility bills will be reinvested into the classroom and staff,” Pattni added.

For instance, it could fund additional staffing, enhance continuing professional development, or go towards high tech teaching materials such as VR goggles.

Stanmore College has submitted an outline planning application for the project, which it expects to take three years from planning approval to completion.

Part of the £600 million funding is heading Yeovil College’s way, as it undergoes a major repair worth more than £43 million, according to its most recent financial statement.

“[That] is a value the college would not be able to consider on its own,” the accounts added. Three existing buildings will all be demolished and replaced, while a new construction centre will also be built.

There is no doubt the new funding is “very welcome” at all the colleges. “I can’t state it enough, it’s a massive game changer for post-16 education in St Austell,” Cornwall’s John Evans said. “On completion, it will become a draw for St Austell and have a positive impact on the local economy.”

A DfE spokesperson said: “We want to build a world class further education system which delivers for all learners, and a key part of this is ensuring colleges are fit for the future.

“As part of this investment, the Department is working closely with 16 colleges in the second phase of the FE capital transformation programme, an initiative that spans multiple financial years, to improve some of the worst condition sites in the college estate in the most efficient way.”

AQA look at ‘Duolingo-style’ test for GCSE resitters

England’s largest exam board is investigating whether a new “Duolingo-like” on-screen, on-demand test could help young people who repeatedly fail GCSE maths and English. 

AQA is exploring whether a numeracy and literacy assessment would support more pupils who don’t get the grade 4 in both subjects needed to complete an apprenticeship or get a job.

It follows calls from the Association of School and College Leaders for a “passport” in the two subjects – a test taken between 15 and 19 when the pupil is ready. 

The recommendation was part of its “forgotten third” inquiry to “end the wasteful GCSE resit industry”. 

In pre-pandemic 2019, just 30 per cent of pupils aged 17 or more achieved a grade 4 or above in English; 21 per cent in maths. 

AQA is in the early stages of consulting school and college leaders and employers.

Ed Reza Schwitzer, the board’s head of external affairs, compared the potential assessment to the Duolingo app for learning languages, which also has an English proficiency assessment accepted by 4,000 universities worldwide. 

“Most people will accept now that Duolingo is a pretty good measure that someone can speak a language. 

“So there’s a world in which you say – actually this young person hasn’t necessarily got a good grade on their maths GCSE, they want to do this apprenticeship, would it be enough to have a high-quality assessment from some sort of on-demand, on-screen provider?

“But it would be enough to say actually yes I can do statistics, I can do proportions and the kind of numeracy you need me to do to do this apprenticeship.” 

Tom Middlehurst, ASCL’s assessment specialist, said the union was “encouraged” by the research, but would prefer to see a new qualification. 

Dr Michelle Meadows, the former deputy Ofqual regulator, said AQA’s plan could help. “But we need to invest in creating programmes of teaching and learning that really engage and support pupils who find maths and literacy very challenging. 

“Without this foundation, even the cleverest approach to assessment won’t get us very far in solving this enduring problem.”

Kate Shoesmith, from the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, said many people had the skill sets in literacy and numeracy for work or vocational qualifications, but struggled to sit “really pressurised” exams. “Anything that unlocks potential has to be positive.”

Munira Wilson, Lib Dem education spokesperson

As a coalition government seems increasingly likely, FE looks to the Lib Dems’ Munira Wilson to see if the party really is “the party of education” as its education spokesperson claims it to be.

The central command of Munira Wilson’s party has avoided speaking on education issues lately. The “latest news” section of the Lib Dems’ website features 97 stories and not one relates to education. The focus instead is on health, the environment and the cost of living.

Wilson blames this on education being a “low public priority”. In an Ipsos Mori poll last year, only 6 per cent of respondents cited “education/schools” as the most important issues facing Britain, the lowest score since 1984.

“When my team go out to journalists with education stories, there’s such little interest,” Wilson says. “It’s polling as such a low priority amongst the public. That makes me weep because…we need to see education as a future investment like infrastructure. It should be one of the biggest priorities for any government.”

Wilson is currently drawing up what she describes as a “strong education offer” in the Lib Dem manifesto.

Will Lib Dems be a voice for FE?

She highlights how FE funding has “fallen through the floor, and was totally overlooked in the autumn budget when schools were given a bit of an uplift”.

But so far, apart from at the time of the autumn statement, Wilson has rarely spoken up on FE, with her campaigns – children’s mental health, free school meal eligibility, pollution and crumbling buildings – focused around schools.

Her party “recognises the importance of lifelong learning and adult education. If we’re serious about meeting the challenges of all the new emerging technologies and growth industries, we have to invest in FE.”

But Lib Dems who fought the corner for FE historically, like Sir Vince Cable and Baroness Margaret Sharp, are no longer active in the party.  Wilson took over the Twickenham seat from Sir Vince in 2019 and knows he and Baroness Sharp “well”.

She is candid that she does not know as much about the skills agenda as Sir Vince, but adds that it “doesn’t mean I think it’s any less important”.

Given the Lib Dems are champions of local devolution, I ask what she thinks of the employer-led Local Skills Improvement Plans that set out what skills provisions are needed in different areas.

Wilson has not looked at the issue in detail so does not have a “new policy to offer”, but will be “interested to see whether they’re fit for purpose and meeting the needs of local areas”.

Sir Vince Cable

Skills working group

She claims one reason she has not “focused” on FE and skills as much as “some other areas” is because Sir Vince,  with Wilson’s education predecessor Layla Moran, had already put in place a “brilliant policy” around the skills wallet – £10,000 to be released to adults over a 30-year period to support lifelong learning. “With the grant, you could get match funding from your employer or from a local authority where there’s a skills gap in that particular area.”

While the Lib Dems “still stand by” that policy, the party has now formed a “live working group” looking at skills that “with some fresh thinking”.

“Fear not, we haven’t forgotten about FE and skills. It’s just we’re a slightly smaller party so, there’s not as much division of labour as there used to be.”

She believes that take-up of the government’s lifelong loan entitlement due to be rolled out in 2025 will be low. “All the surveys show that if you’ve got a mortgage and kids you’re not really wanting to take on that debt to be able to study more.”

A recent pilot for higher education short courses, intended to be a step towards the lifelong loan entitlement plans, met with limited interest.

The infamous U-turn

But it is hard to listen to her talk with brevity on the need for student grants rather than loans after her party’s much-derided U-turn over increasing tuition fees when it was in coalition with the Conservatives.

She justifies it on the grounds that the Lib Dems had been trying to “put university funding on a sustainable and secure footing”, and how Sir Vince “fought very hard behind the scenes to make sure that the threshold at which you have to start paying back fees is kept at a higher level”.

She also points the finger of blame at the Tories for scrapping maintenance grants, while funding for grants and bursaries has “not kept up with inflation”.

“There’s much more that can be done around making the threshold for loans more progressive, but also boosting maintenance grants,” she says.

Wilson claims the reason she is a Liberal Democrat is because her party has “always been the party of education”, and recalls their policy under Paddy Ashdown of adding a penny on income tax for education.

“Our biggest spending areas have always been about education. But sadly, we will always be punished for this one thing we made a big pledge on.”

Red lines and alignments with Labour

So would Wilson have any red lines when it comes to FE policy if her party was to form a coalition with Labour this time round? Wilson claims she’s “not thinking about what happens the day after the next election”.

But the two parties share a perspective on Ofsted, with both seeking to reform rather than replace the watchdog.

This represents a shift for the Lib Dems: before the last election the party campaigned to scrap Ofsted and replace it with a new inspectorate.

The Lib Dems are also aligned with Labour on their opposition to the defunding of BTECs, which Wilson describes as “totally regressive and not thought through”. But she does not take issue with the concept of the T Levels designed to replace them.

She wants to ensure there remains an “adequate mix of vocational qualifications”.  “Critically until the T Levels are bedded in, well understood both by students and employers and shown to be successful, rolling back BTECs in this way is really concerning.”

One point of difference could be the thorny issue of VAT.

The Treasury recently confirmed that despite colleges being reclassified by the Office for National Statistics as public bodies, there are no plans to change the law and exempt them from VAT, which would cost around £200 million a year.

Labour has failed to commit to exempting colleges from VAT. But Wilson appears more forthcoming; she believes the “VAT anomaly needs to be addressed”.

Maths musings

The Lib Dems do not have a set policy or “firm settled view” on the requirement to pass maths and English GCSEs. But Wilson indicates she would like to see change.

She believes the current process is “really demoralising” for those students who fail a second time around. She wants to “look at a more supportive practical maths offer for those who just really struggle academically to be able to pass a maths GCSE, which involves trigonometry and Pythagoras and all sorts of other things that even I can’t remember what they mean – and I’ve never used them since I passed my maths GCSE”.

Not cut out for teaching

Wilson’s passion for education runs deep as she wanted to be a teacher when she was a child. But she “quickly realised” after volunteering as a school teaching assistant that she was not “cut out” for that.

“I just realised I didn’t have the right skills to be a teacher, which requires the patience of a saint, and the ability to explain complex things in simple ways, which actually ought to be a gift for a politician. So maybe I’m not very gifted politician either!”

She was previously a lobbyist for Save the Children and the pharmaceutical company Novartis, and puts her success down to her parents’ influence. They emigrated from Zanzibar and “drummed into” her and her older sisters “from a very young age the importance of education”, prepping Wilson for north London’s Henrietta Barnett School where she was “pushed really hard in a very competitive environment”.

New department

Wilson “very deliberately” describes herself as the spokesperson for education, children and young people” rather than just “education”.

She believes children and young people’s policy is currently “fragmented across several different departments” with “no joined-up thinking” –  for example, with youth services “hived off and sitting in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport” and young offender institutions coming under the Ministry of Justice.

“They’re working with some of the most disengaged young people who were probably excluded from school years ago and have all sorts of special educational needs. And they’re not even recognised as an educational establishment, which is just bonkers.”

Wilson would re-create the Department for Children, Schools and Families, ironically abolished in 2010 when the Lib Dems were in the coalition. Or “at the very least” she would create a cabinet minister for children with a “roving brief across departments”.

“We need to look at everything that sits around and outside of schools and colleges, and not just what’s going on inside them.”

Tributes to ‘brilliant and generous’ former Nottingham college principal

The former principal of New College Nottingham, who led a city-wide merger of colleges in the late 1990s, has died after a short illness.

Dame Patricia Morgan-Webb dedicated her career to education in Nottingham. She became head of Clarendon College in 1991, then spearheaded its merger in 1998 with Basford Hall College, Arnold and Carlton College and High Pavement Sixth Form College.

What became New College Nottingham (NCN), one of the largest FE colleges in the UK, is now known as Nottingham College following its merger with Central College Nottingham in 2017.

Morgan-Webb was made a dame for services to further education in 2000, becoming the first FE college principal to receive the honour. She died on May 16, two days before her 80th birthday.

Sir Geoff Hall, who served as her vice principal at NCN, led the tributes. He remembered Morgan-Webb as a “brilliant mentor, a stimulating colleague and a great friend”.

He added: “Her commitment to equal opportunities was uncompromising. Many who served under her went on to leadership roles at other colleges or in the wider sector.”

Dame Sally Dicketts, the former CEO of Activate Learning, said Morgan-Webb was “very generous” when she mentored her as a young principal.

“She was astute, future-focused, gave great advice, was very generous with her time particularly for me, as a mentor,” Dicketts added. “She was always available and helpful, never overbearing with her advice.

“She had stature. She was well respected.”

The daughter of a coal miner and a homemaker, Morgan-Webb was raised in south Wales. She graduated with a degree in history from the University of Swansea in 1964 and entered the FE sector after getting a post-graduate diploma in education.

After taking some time away to raise her son, Morgan-Webb returned to full-time work in 1979, rising to become principal of Clarendon College in 1991.

She was principal of NCN until her retirement in 2003. While at the helm, the college achieved the Queen’s Anniversary Award for Further and Higher Education in 2002.

David Hughes, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, said he got to know Morgan-Webb during the merger when he worked in the voluntary sector in Nottingham. She encouraged him to work in FE.

“She was a smart operator, passionate about learning, students, skills, fairness and worked tirelessly in Nottingham and beyond to improve things,” he said. “She got things done, got results and made a big impact. 

“She inspired and encouraged me enormously to get into FE and I will forever be grateful to her for that. She will be missed, but her legacy continues in Nottingham.”

Morgan-Webb also led some building renovations in Nottingham, including the regeneration of the Lace Market area of the city. “She had quite an innovative design for what she wanted for that building,” said Dicketts.

After retiring from NCN, Morgan-Webb established The Morgan Webb Education Ltd, an educational consulting firm. She also chaired the AoC Beacon Awards.

The funeral service is will be held at Sutton Coldfield Crematorium, Birmingham at 11.30am June 23, 2023. Family flowers only. Donations in Pat’s name to the NSPCC.

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: EDITION 427

Nicola Cove

Principal & CEO, Furness College

Start date: September 2023

Previous Job: Deputy Principal, Furness College

Interesting fact: Nicola is an ardent Plymouth Argyle fan and likes to follow the mighty Green Army to away matches when they are playing in the North West.

Haroon Bashir

Deputy Director, Learner Services, Halesowen College

Start date: May 2023

Previous Job: Head of Equality and Diversity and Deputy DSL, Halesowen College

Interesting fact: Haroon shares a birthday with David Beckham and shares the same wedding anniversary with him and Victoria Beckham.

Ian Browne

Interim Vice Principal: Curriculum, Telford College

Start date: May 2023

Previous Job: Vice Principal – Student Success, City of Wolverhampton College

Interesting fact: As a leaving present from Wiltshire College, Ian fulfilled one of his life goals which was to skydive. He jokes that maybe his PA arranged it because she didn’t like him.

Care apprenticeships could be in line for bigger funding boost, and more from SEG conference

Senior officials joined FE Week editor Shane Chowen on the main stage at the Skills and Education Group’s annual conference this week to debate ‘levelling up the sector’. Here are the highlights:

Double cash bump for care apprenticeships?

Officials are considering boosting adult care apprenticeship funding by more than one band, FE Week understands.

The government launched an exceptional funding band review for 20 apprenticeships under the most pressure from rising costs last year. But the outcome of the process, which has since been stripped down to just 10 standards and was supposed to be wrapped up by May 1, has been beset with delays and is yet to surface.

The hold-up is down to the Treasury, FE Week understands, but sources indicate there could be good news on the horizon for the two adult care apprenticeships that are part of the review and funded at a current rate of £3,000 per apprentice.

Officials have raised the possibility of bumping them up by more than the stated maximum uplift of one funding band and, during this week’s Skills and Education Group conference, Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE) delivery director Rob Nitsch indicated that this could happen.

Asked by FE Week editor Shane Chowen whether care apprenticeships will move up by more than one funding band, he simply replied “maybe”.

Nitsch added: “Some of the [challenges] are ingrained. There is the issue of pay, completion rates in that sector are woefully low. It’s certainly not at the back of the queue.”

He said the institute was “absolutely supportive” of the funding band review and acutely aware of challenges in the care sector, following a recent FE Week investigation which highlighted the viability of the funding model in care training.

When asked when IfATE would announce the review’s results, Nitsch shirked responsibility for their publication. He said the institute’s role was to make a recommendation on funding bands to the Department for Education, who then report to Treasury.

Colleges can’t staff priority courses

FE commissioner Shelagh Legrave speaking at the Skills and Education Group’s annual conference this week

Earlier in the panel session, Shelagh Legrave, the FE commissioner, was pressed on why just three intervention reports were published last year, plus one so far in 2023. Her predecessor Richard Atkins released 20 reports in 2020.

“Legally, if colleges ended up in inadequate financial health, we would have to publish an intervention report,” she said. “So that does suggest that there were fewer colleges in inadequate financial health.”

She added: “The danger of that is that we look as if we’re OK as a sector, when in fact financially we’re not.”

Legrave explained that, in her tour of the country’s colleges, she is seeing the impact of years of financial pressures.

“There is a real danger that the sector will not be able to deliver the reforms that the government is looking for in further education because you can’t find the staff to teach the qualifications. Every college I’ve been to has not been able to honour some qualifications because they can’t find the expertise to teach it.”

Ofsted prepares for new inspection framework

Ofsted’s Paul Joyce, deputy director of FE and skills, revealed that the inspectorate has embarked on a review of the implementation of the education inspection framework (EIF).

“Given the EIF was introduced in 2019, we are embarking on a review in terms of how it has been implemented,” he said. “Is it working in the way it was intended to work? Is there anything we need to do differently? It’s the right debate.”

One area under the spotlight is how Ofsted inspects “large and complex” providers in FE and skills. Joyce reassured delegates that the regulator was not looking at expanding inspection teams for large providers. “There is no more money for inspections,” he said.        

“If anything, I’m looking at notice periods and whether some of our larger providers need more notice to be able to get the stakeholders together that you want us to meet with,” he added. 

Joyce also said that Ofsted was reviewing its reports as some providers complain they are “quite short, not detailed enough and aren’t unique enough to the provider”.

Elsewhere at the conference, senior Ofsted inspector Julie Ashton said the organisation’s internal data tool – the further education and skill intelligence tool (FESIT) – is finally set to be shared with providers in the autumn despite plans to put it into the public domain two years ago.

“They said that two years ago, but there have been various things happening in the last two years,” she quipped, adding that the regulator was having some technical issues with its release.

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.