Independent Training Providers (ITPs) are under pressure to ensure that the apprenticeships they provide are deemed to be of high quality, minimising withdrawal rates and adhering to the Accountability Framework’s achievement rate targets.
However, research by The St Martin’s Group has demonstrated that not all of the reasons why a learner withdraws are within the ITPs control. Indeed, a lack of support from employers was the most common reason for non-completions (37 per cent).
But how can an ITP manage the aspects that are in their control to increase engagement and deliver the best outcome for learners?
Blended learning
Blended learning is here to stay and can provide the agility an ITP needs to maintain engagement levels. Virtual classrooms remain predominant, with 97 per cent of organisations now using them as part of their training strategies.
Following the pandemic rush to online delivery, ITPs have now had time to test and assess which components of online learning work best, enabling them to establish a high-quality and effective delivery model with an improved experience for learners.
When an ITP understands the multiple touchpoints they have with learners, they can maximise engagement in every moment. The most successful learning programmes include a mix of resources, including:
Pre-recorded multimedia like videos and podcasts that appeal to those who like or need to access and revisit learning materials on their own terms.
Live lessons delivered by experienced tutors are great for people who learn best by listening, interacting and asking questions.
Live learning workshops like interactive Q&As and breakout sessions, which are an opportunity to spot learners who are falling behind and take quick action.
Written resources like handouts and guides that support and build on what’s been discussed in lessons and workshops.
Quizzes in the form of SCORM content that reinforce the learning objective and instantly capture results.
Many other changes are currently happening in the industry, such as faster delivery of learning which could have a huge impact on engagement levels for apprentices. This involves providers recognising prior learning so that their course content becomes more relevant to apprentices and their learning needs, which could result in learners becoming fully competent sooner.
Easing enrolment and onboarding
Making sure that a learner feels supported and integrates well into their learning are core aspects of the onboarding process. But trainers should also make sure that they’ve spent time discussing in depth the learner’s ambitions and that the learner understands what’s required of them during the apprenticeship programme.
One of the reasons learners can become disengaged is because the course didn’t live up to their expectations. Making sure that they’re on the right course that will help them reach their goals and that they’re not disillusioned about what it entails will give them the best chance for success. (Not to mention that this is among Ofsted’s key criteria.)
Monitoring engagement
When tracking the progress of learners, it’s important to monitor engagement levels in real time as a key aspect of their overall performance. If a training manager and employer can see the engagement of every learner on their programme via live data dashboards they can identify learners who may be struggling, intervene and work together to put strategies in place to support them and minimise withdrawals.
As mentioned before, engagement is multi-faceted, but ITPs can measure aspects that are within their control such as how regularly learners communicate with their trainer, how speedily they have completed submissions, any positive feedback they’ve received from managers as well as performance metrics.
Working with employers
All parties – learner, employer and training provider – need to be on the same page to prevent non-completion. From enrolment to end-point assessment, employers need to support and understand learners, and be flexible to enable them to complete their on-the-job hours.
As digital transformation and blended styles of learning continue to transform the apprentice’s journey, the ability to benchmark engagement levels across training providers will allow them to test and learn new ways of empowering that flexibility.
It’s a metric that will not only improve the individual learner’s experience and outcome but will also determine how providers successfully deliver apprenticeships in the future.
In November 2022, a think tank report using government data found that almost half of apprentices (47 per cent) are now dropping out of their scheme, and a huge 70 per cent of those who drop out report problems with the quality of their training – equivalent to an astonishing 115,000 apprentices every year. But what does poor quality mean to them?
RateMyApprenticeship plays host to over 40,000 reviews of these programmes, which are fundamental to helping young people across the country learn, understand and explore their future career options. So we delved into our nine years of data to reveal the key reasons apprentices are dropping out of their schemes.
Leadership matters
“The apprenticeship programme is not well structured. There is never any set meeting with my assessor and she’s really busy so it’s hard to get regular meetings. The units aren’t really explained and I teach myself the content to complete the apprenticeship.”
This student is not alone. Only 14 per cent of apprentices in our sample felt the mentoring they were offered was well-managed. Informal support is always highly regarded by all apprentices, and it’s important to ensure an apprenticeship scheme incorporates both consistency and structure. Senior managers acting as coaches and junior employees mentoring through buddy systems were cited among the higher-rated reviews.
Skills for life
“I feel the qualification merely asked me to answer questions to show the knowledge I already should have to fulfil this role rather than adding to these skills. I don’t feel as though the scheme has taught me any new skills.”
Over the past five years, we’ve seen a substantial increase in the number of apprentices rating their learning highly, from 23 per cent to 29. But that means some 70 per cent still don’t.
The best-rated programmes offer apprentices responsibility and practical experience, allowing them to develop a blend of soft skills and technical skills. Apprentices see their scheme as part of a long-term continuous growth plan.
Part of a culture
“I have not been invited to any social or team event at work since the second month of my employment, and even that was only by accident.”
One of the main considerations for young people who follow this route is missing out on the university experience. Networking opportunities, extra-curricular activities and an inclusive culture go a long way to ensuring young people feel valued and that they belong.
In addition, learners are passionate about an organisation’s impact and purpose. CSR and sustainability initiatives are often cited in higher-rated reviews as empowering and communicating a wider purpose to their programme.
Passion projects
“The work is mundane at times, although I did not expect to come into this apprenticeship and love all the work I did.”
With low unemployment levels, apprentices have high expectations of the company and programme they join. They want to feel engaged and inspired, proud of their work, and match up the work that they do with a broader overall company mission.
Encouraging apprentices to pursue passion projects alongside their everyday tasks can enhance the enjoyment of their schemes. This could be joining a social impact teams, shadowing other members of the business or supporting other tasks that aren’t part of their assessed activities.
Cushioning the cost
“My salary just covers my outgoings each month. It costs a lot of money to get here each day by car, therefore I have to get alternative transport but this is still quite expensive.”
More than one-third (38 per cent) of apprentices found their travel costs challenging. To make an apprenticeship programme more viable, organisations need to think longer-term and pay their apprentices enough to minimise financial pressures.
If they do, research suggests they’ll get more out of the apprentice too. A recent report from ISE shows organisations in the graduate labour market offering interest-free loans, sign-on bonuses and transportation allowances to help cushion the rising cost of living.
Drop-out rates represent a massive loss of time and talent for businesses. But the solutions can’t be found among employers and providers alone. It’s crucial we listen to apprentices themselves to drive up quality as apprenticeships take centre-stage in the nation’s economic planning.
Appetite for skills bootcamps appears to be dwindling as mayoral combined authorities report slower take-up and revised targets for the latest wave of courses.
Competition with the government’s own £60 million national programme and lack of public awareness has been cited among the reasons.
Wave three of the skills bootcamp programme – short courses up to 16 weeks in areas of skills shortages – is underway, with learners in this cohort needing to enrol by the end of the month.
Some combined authorities have struggled to hit their target numbers. Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority’s latest skills committee report said its forecast learner numbers had been revised down to 840 learners from 1,780.
West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) reported 1,607 enrolments against a target of 3,450. It has a predicted out-turn of 2,500 depending on provider performance.
Both pointed to the digital bootcamps where the predicted shortfall was highest, and highlighted competition from the national programme.
The WMCA said the DfE had funded 5,000 places in the region, and six of the national providers were also awarded contracts by the combined authority, which it said led to capacity issues.
WMCA said it had not been made aware of national allocations until its own contracts had already been awarded.
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, which has bid for lower numbers for wave four funding, also found some providers were more inclined to accept the larger national contracts.
The authority is lobbying for longer-term funding to encourage providers to invest in programmes.
A spokesperson said the authority remained “very supportive” of bootcamps because of the “real benefits for employers, people’s career opportunities and for growth”.
North of Tyne Combined Authority, which had a target of 1,700 wave three bootcamp enrolments, has recruited more than 1,000 learners to date. It expected more starts before the end of the month but did not specify how many.
Greater London Authority said it did not know final delivery numbers until learning had been completed, with data expected in the summer.
However, it reported that funding agreements from the DfE were delayed, leaving bootcamp providers with only six months to deliver the courses.
Greater Manchester Combined Authority said its information for wave three will be published by the end of the year.
Combined authorities for the West of England, Liverpool City Region, West Yorkshire and Tees Valley did not respond to requests for comment.
Other reasons behind the shortfalls include a tight labour market where potential earners can secure jobs without attending bootcamps.
Authorities also said more work was needed to build awareness for the courses locally and nationally.
The DfE said the overall target for the national and local programme was 36,000 learners.
A spokesperson said the department was “well on the way to meeting our target for skills bootcamps thanks to both the local and national programmes,” adding: “We are constantly communicating with local authorities and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.”
Despite the take-up issues, West Midlands confirmed it had secured a 97.5 per cent completion rate against a target of 80 per cent and had already recorded 51 per cent positive outcomes within two months of completion – a figure set to rise as providers have six months to submit data.
DfE figures published in December indicated that it had exceeded its target numbers of bootcamp learner starts in 2021/22, reporting 16,120 against a 16,000 target.
Of those, 4,740 were on the HGV bootcamps which attempted to quickly train drivers to address the national haulage driver crisis.
December’s figures did not include completion or outcome data.
DfE funding conditions guidance for wave three of the skills bootcamps programme indicated that milestones one and two – learner start and learner completion – must be achieved by March 31, 2023, and learner outcomes achieved within six months of the end of the final year.
It said that 45 per cent of funding is claimable upon learner start, 35 per cent on learner completion and 20 per cent on learner outcome being reported.
My college had always planned to launch its digital development programme in September 2020, but the advent of the pandemic meant we had to go further, faster. As we responded to the need to deliver learning online for a prolonged period, I was in the privileged position of strategically leading this digital transformation with a team of specialists.
As I often am when I reflect on leadership, I was immediately taken back to a book I’d read in 2012 and which has shaped my thinking ever since: Will it make the boat go faster? by Olympic gold-medal winning rower, Ben Hunt-Davis and executive coach, Harriet Beveridge. I could only over-simplify the book’s ideas here, but its key questions never fail me when I’m entrusted to make change at any level, especially an institutional one.
My starting point for consideration was therefore to ask if my institution would benefit from a clear strategy and approach to the use of edtech. Would it improve teaching, learning and assessment and enhance provision? In the context of the pandemic, when it was that or nothing, the answer was a no-brainer, but the question forced me to reflect on our specific needs beyond our present context.
The next step was naturally to get a broad and deep insight into the edtech tools currently used in our organisation, without judgement. Where were they being used really well and how? Where were they less prevalent and why? What was being used and what was the impact on learners?
To that end, I triangulated as much data and information as possible. Quantitative data through student voice, the quality department and the management and information (MIS) department were a good start. I followed these up with gathering qualitative data through focus groups. The picture became clearer, but I became aware of a blind spot: I speak with teachers on a regular basis and assumed I understood their views. A survey of staff allowed me to analyse and synthesise the priorities of 254 staff. This challenged my assumptions, completed the picture and refined my strategic priorities.
For rowers to pull together, their coaches must do the same
The key lesson was that, to make this boat go faster, we needed to tailor our development programme to the needs of rowers with very different experiences, needs and abilities. Our first aim would be to get everyone rowing in the same direction, from a starting point of ‘digital explorer’ to a self-actuating level of ‘digital innovator’. With the college’s digital and e-learning team and coaches, we devised the steps along the way: ‘digital adopter’ and ‘digital leader’. We then set about creating content within each level to enable staff to gain the skills and confidence to thrive.
This part of the process was the most rewarding, but also the most heated. For the rowers to pull in the same direction, the coaching team must do the same, so it’s crucial to invest time in creating consensus before moving to implementation.
The next phase was to develop the quality of the CPD training to support staff development towards our goal of becoming an edtech-savvy organisation. Sessions were tailored in response to the data and views gathered in the research phase, and we offered synchronous and asynchronous opportunities for staff to engage.
In the summer of 2020, 1,300 attendees had commenced their journey through the programme. Staff could track their engagement, see their progress and receive badges on completion of certain levels, which was really well received, and we have continued to review, refine and evaluate the provision.
Based on this process, the boat didn’t just go faster (launching months before its target date and in the midst of the pandemic). It brought more people along with it and it is still travelling in the direction it was set, with agile course corrections along the way.
As James Earl said in these pages recently, we have to get beyond edtech knee-jerk and bolt-on solutions. Doing so requires a long-term development plan like this, based on a genuine understanding of organisational needs.
This article is one of a number of contributions to The Staffroom from the authors of Great FE Teaching: Sharing Good Practice, edited by Samantha Jones and available from SAGE.
Apprenticeship completion rates averaged 51.8 per cent for standards in 2020-21 in contrast to a government target of 67 per cent, prompting skills minister, Robert Halfon to say to FE Week last month that “achievement rates are one of my priorities and we’re working very hard to try and improve that”. To do so, he will need to look closely at functional skills.
A significant factor in non-completion is the many thousands of learners who cannot achieve their functional skills, which are a mandatory part of an apprenticeship unless the learner has a grade 4 or above GCSE or an equivalent-level qualification. The damage of course is really being done to apprentices because they are struggling to get through functional skills; they are failing and leaving, which is disheartening, frustrating and damaging for learners, providers and businesses.
Employers regularly comment that functional skills, as structured, are too in-depth for their current needs. For example, why do chefs need functional skills with the current breath required, which they are never likely to use in their chosen career path? Should we really be requiring them to:
use coordinates in 2-D, positive and negative, to specify the positions of points
draw and interpret scatter diagrams and recognise positive and negative correlation
draw 3-D shapes to include plans and elevations (a new requirement)?
Unless you are regularly using or applying these skills in your everyday working life, you will simply not retain them or commit them to your long-term memory, which leads to higher failure rates in exams and reduces the perceived value for learners and employers. This is not skills for life; it is teaching to a test. This results in learners being demotivated when they cannot see the value of what they are being taught. It also has a negative effect on apprentices’ mental health when they walk away from completing their apprenticeship because of knowledge they know they will never need or use.
This is not skills for life; it is teaching to a test
There needs to be an urgent review of the curriculum for functional skills to ensure that what is required is more relevant to apprentices and the majority of employers. We should also consider ‘fusion skills’ as an alternative. These are competencies, characteristics and tools which individuals need to flourish today are gaining momentum. They include oral communication skills, problem solving, organisational skills, resilience and creativity and arguably equip learners to operate in today’s world much more practically than our current set of functional skills.
Another long-standing issue with functional skills is that the funding is insufficient. As part of an apprenticeship, £471 per learner simply does not cover the base costs of delivery. Once registration and certification costs and a decent platform have been secured and paid for, together with any resit costs, circa £400 remains to cover either English or maths.
This can’t possibly be enough to help someone who has already been let down by the system. It is only sufficient to cover a maximum of four learner visits (not all learners can learn remotely, of course) whereas to cover monthly taught sessions, the cost would be more like £150 per month or £1,800 per annum. This underlines the extent of the current shortfall and why the functional skills qualification is failing.
The government should establish a free online system for every learner who wants to do functional skills, similar to the portal built for “Multiply”, with free access given to all providers.
There are other complicating factors. Because of the time needed to coach a learner through functional skills, some employers are now starting to prescribe passes in English and maths before taking on learners, and even though we have a serious skills shortage in this country, migrants struggle with functional skills when their underlying skillsets are often excellent.
Clearly it’s time for another wholesale review of functional skills (curriculum, funding and platform) with strong employer input if we want to improve the apprenticeship brand.
At next week’s 9th Annual Apprenticeship Conference in Birmingham, we’ll be launching our latest research: Raising the standard: Sectoral approaches to raising apprenticeship achievement rates, which we’ve been working on jointly with City & Guilds. The publication explores the underlying detail behind headline achievement rates, but also makes it clear that we need to do far more to increase the perceived value of apprenticeships.
Easing skills shortages
At AELP’s national conference last June, then-skills minister, Alex Burghart announced his desire to see apprenticeship achievement rates reach 67 per cent, up from 51.8 per cent in 2020/21. That’s an ambitious goal, requiring some real thought about how the skills sector works with government, employers and learners to achieve it.
Last year’s City & Guilds report, Great Jobs also prompted this study, given its focus on skills shortages in essential industrial sectors across the UK. That report showed that half of the jobs in the UK are categorised as ‘essential’ by the government, and predicts the number of roles in key industries will grow in the next five years. This is despite employers facing acute skills shortages already.
Apprenticeships could make a significant contribution to tackling these skill shortages, but the achievement rate is still a critical problem. So Raising the standard investigates the factors affecting the withdrawal of apprentices from providers’ perspectives through interviews, but warns we must also look at improving the value and currency of apprenticeships themselves.
Reducing withdrawals
Through interviews and focus groups, our research identified a variety of sectoral and cross-sectoral issues around why apprenticeship achievements are not all they could be, and we explore these in some detail.
Apprentices can withdraw because they receive a better-paid job offer, or find faster options such as bootcamps and/or NVQs to get the qualifications they need to get the job they want. Some potential apprentices never start at all because of the way the compulsory education system appears to prioritise higher education and academia as a preferred route structurally, portraying apprenticeships as a lower-level or second-rate option.
If we aren’t doing this, how can we expect other employers to?
But it seems that fundamentally the underlying reason for apprenticeship withdrawal is very often simply that the thought of completing the apprenticeship is not valued as much as the other factors affecting this decision – competing pay offers, better conditions elsewhere, more suitable learning environments in other settings and so forth.
Providers and employers both know how much completing an apprenticeship can positively enhance future job and learning prospects. Yet it seems this point is still not made clearly enough – particularly in the wider labour market, which does not regularly cite an apprenticeship as a requirement for a vacant job role. This means apprentices do not see clearly the benefits of completion.
Modelling the change we need
Nearly half of apprentices withdraw before completion. This is a serious problem which compounds skills shortages and must be addressed as quickly as possible. Our report contains fifteen recommendations outlining how we can do this, alongside some further reflections on sector-specific issues that came to our attention.
However, almost all of the factors and themes can ultimately be reduced to a single overarching conclusion and recommendation: much more work needs to be done to raise the perceived benefit and value of apprenticeship study.
We need to spread the message about their value much further and ensure that the time and effort employers put into training apprentices is reflected in their wider recruitment strategies. This is even the case in roles advertised within the skills sector itself – and if we aren’t doing this, how can we expect other employers to?
There is a strong need to show more clearly the value and benefit of taking an apprenticeship, differentiating this from other options in order to motivate and incentivise learners to keep pursuing them – as well as evidencing their value in real-world labour market situations.
I hope the release of this report will add some evidence to an important challenge for the skills sector and will reinforce the need for us to be clearer – with actions as well as words – about the importance and value of apprenticeships, and the very real benefits they bring to both individuals and employers.
Ofsted has downgraded a college after finding “poor behaviour” including students vaping in the building.
East Surrey College, which along with John Ruskin College and Reigate School of Art forms Orbital South Colleges, received an overall ‘requires improvement’ report this week from the watchdog. It was judged ‘good’ on its previous inspection of 2017.
The college was rated ‘good’ in all areas of its most recent inspection except for behaviour and attitudes, and apprenticeships, which both had grade three ratings.
Inspectors said that students benefitted from “well-considered tutorial and enrichment programmes” and “develop their skills confidently and competently”.
But they also reported that “staff do not encourage students to attend consistently and so their attendance is too low”.
The report found that “too many students do not behave appropriately in communal areas,” while staff “do not challenge poor behaviour effectively”.
Among the problems the education watchdog reported were students vaping indoors, playing “loud, distracting music” and groups of students blocking corridors without letting people pass.
According to the inspectors, teachers did not give feedback to apprentices that helped them understand their strengths and areas for development effectively enough, which meant they were too slow to develop the skills and knowledge they needed.
While apprentices received careers advice at the start of their course, it did not continue through their programme to help them understand how their skills and knowledge could be used in other sectors or jobs, the report added.
Despite the overall grade, the report praised leaders’ work with local enterprise partnerships to understand and contribute to local skills needs.
They found that “many students become respectful and empathetic to the needs of others” through opportunities to be active citizens.
Most courses were planned logically, and most teachers used assessment well to evaluate students’ learning, the report said.
The college last received a full inspection in December 2014, but kept its ‘good’ rating in a short inspection in October 2017.
Inspectors said in October 2017 that John Ruskin College ‘requires improvement’.
At the time of the most recent inspection, Orbital South Colleges had about 2,500 16-18 students, 950 adult learners and 800 apprentices, as well as 230 high-needs students and 175 learners aged 14-16. It also had 25 students on supported internships.
Bob Pickles, chair of Orbital South Colleges Corporation, said: “There is much to be proud of in this report, and since the inspection three months ago we have already made significant progress on the two areas identified for improvement.
“We have a new chief executive and exec team in place who are committed to addressing the continuing development or our apprenticeship provision, and providing a mutually respectful environment for our students to thrive in.”
Brooklands College has finally signed a repayment agreement with the government following a long-running £20 million subcontracting scandal – but leaders are keeping the details under wraps.
The college has been locked in negotiations with the Education and Skills Funding Agency over a clawback dispute since 2018, after officials found illegal use of funding at SCL Security Ltd, which delivered apprenticeships on behalf of Brooklands.
The Surrey-based college, which has failed to file accounts for the past four years, recently announced plans to sell a historic building and land in a deal understood to be in the region of £45 million to help balance the books and pay the agency back.
Last week, the ESFA published a revised notice to improve for Brooklands which confirmed the college is still in formal intervention and “supervised” status due to its “declining/weak financial health” and the “significant financial risk presented by the findings of the investigations into subcontracting”.
The notice revealed the college continues to be suspended from entering into any new subcontracting arrangements, and places a condition that states the governing body must “demonstrate that it has the requisite capacity and capability within its management team and professional advisers to deliver this significant capital development project”.
It also said the college must use its “best endeavours” to agree and sign “the repayment agreement, along with related security and bank documentation, by 28 February 2023”.
The college must then “prioritise the repayment of DfE funding related to non-compliant subcontracting”.
Brooklands principal Christine Ricketts told FE Week the corporation “passed a resolution to sign the repayment agreement on the February 27”.
She said: “The college is in the process of finalising the details of both the estates development project and the repayment agreement, and this is in the advanced stages of reaching a conclusion.”
However, the college “is not in a position to share the details at this stage”, she added. “The college has a very good relationship with the ESFA and we will continue to work closely to reach a conclusion.”
Reports have emerged in recent weeks of unrest among Brooklands College staff.
University and College Union regional official Michael Moran said staff at the college are working “above and beyond to provide a decent education for their students”, adding that leadership “must improve both working conditions and the learning environment at the college, or see its reputation drop even further”.
Ricketts claimed the college “continues to keep staff updated on the financial position”.
Priya Lakhani, founder of one of the world’s biggest AI EdTech companies, is at pains to express how many of her glowing achievements have been driven by a strong moral conviction to make the world a better place.
This is important for her, not only because she sits on the government’s AI Council and her social enterprise, Century, is now the largest provider of online maths, English and functional skills programmes in colleges in the country. But also because she is defending herself from detractors who say “cruel” and “horrible” things about her.
At one investor meeting, a fellow EdTech entrepreneur held up on stage a picture of Elizabeth Holmes – the American founder of Theranos facing 11 years in jail for fraud related to the failed blood-testing company – and said, “This is the AI in EdTech in the UK”.
Lakhani says the jibe was “really awful and very hurtful”, because “everyone knows” that Century, a personalised teaching and learning platform which has been used by over 1.2 million students in 55 countries, is “the big AI company not just in the UK, but Europe…and frankly the US. How dare they do that? That’s a defamation case, isn’t it?”
Lakhani would know the answer better than most: in a former life, the philanthropist-entrepreneur was a barrister specialising in media law. I cautiously tread the line between objective journalism and not wanting to offend Lakhani.
In some ways this is easy, because she is instantly likeable. Her door sign at Century’s London office, where Lakhani has been making “pancake cakes” (like pancakes but spongey) for her staff, reads “Dumbledore’s office”. Like Harry Potter’s headmaster, Lakhani is clearly a wise and morally steadfast education leader. Unlike him, her thoughts tumble out at 100 miles an hour, and I struggle to get a word in edgeways.
Priya Lakhani
Autism controversy
One reason Lakhani has attracted such vitriol is her controversial claim two years ago that her AI can predict, with 96 per cent accuracy, whether a child is autistic. Industry experts promptly called for verifiable evidence.
Lakhani says the technology tracks student behaviour, and this correlates with demographic data from information management systems indicating whether a student has special needs.
“With autism, it was overwhelming, the patterns that we saw,” she says.
A tool able to diagnose autism would be the holy grail for some EdTech investors, with the potential to make billions. But Lakhani cautions that her AI is “not a diagnostic” tool. And she is refusing to give in to pressure to publish Century’s “commercially sensitive” studies on the matter.
“We are an EdTech company, we put the ed before the tech…I have learned from the experts who know what they’re talking about that this [technology] is not an appropriate way to diagnose autism.”
Lakhani would “love to” work with an autism charity and academics to publish a “full study” on the autism issue, but this is “just a matter of timing and people and resources” and is not a priority for the moment.
For now, Lakhani’s focus is “getting the technology in front of as many students as possible, improving outcomes, reducing teacher workload and to personalise as much as we can”.
Relentless drive
Century’s journey has been shaped by Lakhani’s formidable work ethic, which has been a constant theme of her life. At school, Lakhani was told by certain teachers she would “never be a lawyer” because she was “brown and female”. She worked through every lunch hour to prove them wrong.
While other law students had two or three work placements, she had 20 and “no holidays through university”.
When she married, Lakhani chose to make her own iced version of Nigella Lawson’s chocolate fudge cake for her 600 guests, the day before the wedding.
How much of this boundless energy could be down to her own ADHD? Lakhani only discovered she had ADHD in her thirties and is “quite happy” not to have been diagnosed earlier “because maybe the label would have affected me negatively, maybe not”.
Priya Lakhani
Inspired by Hancock
The fact that Lakhani’s AI platform is prompting controversy is ironic, given that the inspiration behind her concept was sparked by a politician who has courted more controversy than almost any other in recent years – Matt Hancock.
By 2012, Lakhani had quit law and built up the country’s first fresh ethnic sauce company, Masala Masala, based on her mum’s traditional recipe. The social enterprise provided over three million meals and thousands of vaccines to the underprivileged in India and Africa and funded several schools there.
Lakhani was appointed as an advisor by Vince Cable, the then business secretary, on his Entrepreneurs’ Forum, alongside Dragon’s Den’s Julie Meyer and James Caan. Lakhani recalls Hancock, then a joint minister between the education and business departments, stating during a meeting that “20 per cent of our nation can’t read, write or do maths well enough to get a good job at the end of formal education, and this is a problem that we need to solve”.
While Hancock never got a chance to solve that particular problem, it was a “real wake up moment” for Lakhani.
She recalls thinking, “oh my goodness. I’ve just spent four years funding schools in Commonwealth countries that all replicate the British model, which doesn’t work for 20 per cent of our kids. What’s going on?”
Priya Lakhani and her mum Dipa Lakhani
The turn of the Century
Lakhani wound up her involvement with Masala Masala and turned her sights to education.
She set up meetings with leaders from the “most challenged” schools as well as the “top of the league table independent” schools, and discovered that while “every school” and “every teacher was different”, they used the same “one size fits all delivery”.
“Teachers were complaining, poor things…They were showing me all this marking and assessing they were doing which looked just like when I was at school. They were frazzled with all this work,” she says.
Lakhani turned to AI, which she knew something about from her experience as a BBC current affairs commentator.
Lakhani took several ‘nanodegree’ online AI courses and became “completely hooked”.
She was the victim of a “very violent robbery” 13 years ago in which she was beaten with a brick, and in order to overcome the severe post-traumatic stress disorder she experienced, Lakhani set out to read “every medical journal related to PTSD written since the Vietnam War to explain what was happening in my brain”.
“Because of that, I learned a lot about neuroscience. If it hadn’t happened, I doubt Century would exist today,” she says.
Building an AI company is not easy for those without Silicon Valley credentials, and Lakhani was initially “laughed out the door by every venture capitalist” because she was “not a former Google engineer”.
She was told “you don’t look like an AI entrepreneur”, with one investor asking her: “Sweetheart, can you explain what AI is to me?”
But Lakhani convinced enough backers to believe in her. Century has raised £22 million in investment, and Lakhani claims it no longer requires further rounds and is now “on the path to break even”.
Despite now being 10 years old, it is still classed as a “small” company and does not have to file audited accounts (meaning it meets two of the three thresholds: a turnover of £10.2 million or less, £5.1 million or less on its balance sheet, or fewer than 50 employees).
Annual accounts show Century has posted a £16.5 million loss since it was founded – £3.3 million of that was in 2021-22. Lakhani says this shows the invested money being spent. But she also gives the impression throughout our conversation that her overriding objective is to improve education, rather than make as much money as possible.
Priya Lakhani
Journey into FE
After achieving success in schools, Lakhani decided there was “not enough love” for FE and Century began investing through match funding in devising assessments and personalised learning plans to help students resitting their maths and English GCSEs.
An initial evaluation of six colleges showed spending ten minutes a week on the platform led to twice the national progress results. It has since been adopted by 74 per cent of colleges, and Century’s AI is being used by partners including BPP Law School, Oxford University Press, Pearson and Bond.
Century’s initial assessment tests, which adapt questions based on how previous questions were answered, are also used by independent training providers for apprenticeships.
Philosophical debates
Century’s global expansion is continuing at pace. It has partnered with the Canadian online learning company D2L to host its K-12 curriculum on Century’s platform and last month launched in the US. There are plans to launch six other partnerships over the next six months.
Lakhani is also currently advising the chancellor on reviewing AI regulations.
She describes with relish the “incredible” debates her 120 staff of engineers, data scientists, teachers, neuroscientists and educational psychologists, get into.
“Lots of philosophy and ethics! And that’s great, because we didn’t build Century for any other reason than we wanted to try and improve education…there are 120 people here who will stand by that purpose.”
Twitter unkindness
She still faces detractors. Most disturbingly, one created a fake account for Lakhani on Twitter, “perfectly curated” to attract over 200 education-influencer followers. At a time when “a fair few ministers across different countries” were seeking to adopt Century’s technology, the impersonated account tweeted ministers, calling them “really horrible words” that Lakhani declines to repeat.
Indeed, the ruse was so authentic that she was messaged by a DfE official asking her to stop tweeting.
Lakhani believes such underhand tactics are not unusual in the business world but is “shocked and surprised” it happens in education.
“I’m just trying to mind my own business, just trying to solve a couple of problems in education and the amount of vitriol I have received…is extraordinary,” she says.
It is one reason why she is now writing a book on disinformation and fake news – her third, following one on why the current education system is failing and a sci-fi children’s story.
Lakhani would never allow her own two children to be “unkind”.
But then there are those “extraordinarily kind” people in the education sector, including ASCL’s general secretary Geoff Barton and Jonnie Noakes, director of teaching and learning at Eton College, who “keep [her] going”.
“When I meet them, it just reminds me of why I’m doing what I’m doing. Sometimes I need that reminder. People think entrepreneurs are just so resilient, but actually it does take the community.”
