Increased funding rates for “priority” adult education courses have been revealed by the Education and Skills Funding Agency.
But functional skills courses in English and maths will not see any base increase.
The government’s delayed reforms to adult education funding bring together multiple funding streams to a single new skills fund in 2024/25. Ministers have said reforms are designed to simplify the system and incentivise “priority” skills.
New rates will apply to ESFA grant funded and procured provision, with mayors in devolved areas setting their own rates.
Courses under the new skills fund will be organised along five new hourly bands that range from £6 to £12 by their sector subject area.
This replaces the current “single activity matrix” which organises funding along fifteen possible funding bands.
Under the new system from 2024/25, courses in travel and tourism will attract the lowest base rate of £6 per hour and engineering the high rate of £9.60 per hour.
There is a higher “specialist” band of £12 per hour for certain land-based courses, however officials are still reviewing which subjects receive the “specialist” band and which receive the “high” funding band.
The hourly band is then multiplied by a qualification’s guided learning hours to give a funding rate. Adjustments for disadvantage and area costs will apply as they do now.
For example, a diploma in engineering is 360 guided learning hours and currently receives £2,583. From 2024/25, the new funding rate for this qualification will be £3,456, calculated as follows: £9.60 (the new hourly skills funding rate for engineering sector subject area) multiplied by 360 guided learning hours.
Courses which are eligible under the government’s free courses for jobs offer will continue to receive extra funding: £600 for qualifications at or above 360 guided learning hours and £150 for courses at 359 guided learning hours or below.
The announcements isn’t all good news for providers delivering functional skills English and maths courses, which have been confirmed today to continue to be funded at their current rates.
New digital qualifications though will be funded by the new band for ICT for users, which is £8.40, meaning funding for a 55 guided learning hour qualification will increase to £462 from the current £336 for the functional skills ICT qualification.
Access to higher education courses will also be moved to the new five band system depending on their subject area.
Skills minister Robert Halfon said: “We are simplifying the way we fund skills training for adults so that more people can climb the ladder of opportunity into well paid jobs, and we can better meet the skills needs of employers and the economy.
“Our new funding reforms will ensure we are targeting money at the subjects and sectors with the greatest skills need, while giving providers the flexibility to develop innovative training solutions that work for their local communities.”
A cross-party group of Lords have urged the education secretary to withdraw “disastrous” plans to axe funding for recently reformed applied general qualifications.
Six peers, including two former education secretaries and two ex-universities minister, warn that scrapping these “popular” alternatives to A-levels and T Levels would have a damaging impact on social mobility, economic growth and public services.
Writing to Gillian Keegan, the Lords “express deep concerns” and “disappointment” that commitments made to them about the scale of the government’s level 3 reforms “do not appear to have been met”.
The letter follows an FE Week article and Protect Student Choice campaign analysis which revealed more than half of the 134 applied general qualifications, like BTECs, currently available to and taken by around 200,000 young people and included in the DfE’s performance league tables would be ineligible for funding from 2025.
It comes despite then education secretary Nadhim Zahawi promising the sector and Parliament through the passage of the skills and post-16 education bill that “only a small proportion of the total level 3 BTEC and other applied general style qualification offer – significantly less than half” would be removed.
The Lords said: “We were reassured to hear that only a small proportion of applied general qualifications would be removed, and in return were happy to lend our support to the skills and post-16 education bill.
“However, it now appears that many more than a small proportion of these qualifications will be defunded.”
The letter pressed that qualifications facing the axe, which include health and social care, science, IT and business, are “popular with students, respected by employers and valued by universities”.
“Removing them will have a disastrous impact on social mobility, economic growth and our public services.
“For example, it is difficult to think of a worse time to scrap the extended diploma in health and social care. Given their importance to the healthcare workforce, it would be very damaging to the NHS to remove funding for these qualifications.”
Signatories to the letter include former education secretaries David Blunkett and Ken Baker, former education ministers David Willetts and Jo Johnson, deputy speaker of the House of Lords Sue Garden, and Labour peer Mike Watson.
The Lords said there is “no need to remove these qualifications in order to ‘streamline the qualifications landscape’”, especially as the 134 applied generals were “reformed more recently than A-levels and are smaller in number”.
“While some are available in similar subjects to A -levels or T Levels, they are a different type of qualification that provide a different type of educational experience,” the letter added.
It concluded: “We urge you to withdraw the 134 applied general qualifications from the scope of your review.
“Retaining these recently reformed and approved qualifications would enable your department to focus on areas where there are genuine concerns about duplication or quality. In doing so you would retain a vital pathway to higher education and employment for tens of thousands of young people and provide schools, colleges and universities with the much-needed certainty they require to plan for the future.”
Bill Watkin
Bill Watkin, chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association that is co-ordinating the Protect Student Choice, said: “Unless the government reverses this decision, and starts to incorporate some evidence and transparency into its policymaking, tens of thousands of students will be left without a pathway to higher education or employment, and many employers will be left without the skilled workforce they need.”
A DfE spokesperson said: “Our reforms will simplify the system for young people, with popular BTECs continuing to be available alongside A levels and T Levels.
“The BTECs that will no longer be available are only those with low take up, poor outcomes, or which overlap with T Levels. We have also introduced a transition year to support students who may have taken BTECs, into T Level qualifications.
“We are committed to creating a world class education system that provides a ladder up for all and gives young people the skills and knowledge to prepare them for higher education and the world of work.”
Pictured above from left: Lord Willetts, Lord Johnson, Baroness Garden, Lord Baker, Lord Blunkett and Lord Watson
Talks have begun between a college and university in the Midlands for a “pioneering” tie-up that will see a further education company formed as part of the university group.
North Warwickshire and South Leicestershire College and Coventry University have launched discussions about the college joining the university group.
While the details of what that may look like are still being ironed out, college and university chiefs said it would not be a formal merger akin to others in recent years.
College principal and chief executive Marion Plant said “strong assurances” had been given “about the maintenance of high levels of autonomy of leadership and governance for the college within the group”.
University provost Ian Dunn said it would be an “education group, so not the college being a subsidiary but being an educational partner”.
The college and university already have a partnership with the college’s MIRA Technology Institute, while it also has a digital skills academy based at the university’s tech park in Coventry city centre.
Plant said: “That partnership has just proven that, by having a seamless join-up, we can respond better, more swiftly, and in a more agile way not just to industry partners but individuals trying to navigate the education system and find a sustainable career.”
The two institutions are working with the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) and the Office for Students on the plans.
With talks at an early stage, plenty of details are still to be addressed, although it is hoped more specifics will be available in the spring.
Among the issues will be the arrangements for the Midland Academies Trust, an independent charity established by the college.
The university group already has the Better Futures multi-academy trust, but Dunn said the trusts’ arrangements were among details to be worked on.
Chiefs also said it was too early to say what the tie-up could mean for provision, but there were ambitions for students to have a “line of sight” to their future.
Dunn said: “It’s a map – it’s not tramlines, you are not forcing someone to stay on that.”
He added: “It’s about the future – it’s about 10 years out thinking what’s going to be fit for the future in terms of local development and education.”
North Warwickshire and Hinckley College merged with South Leicestershire College in 2016, but in 2018 the merged college was given a financial notice to improve by the ESFA.
At the time the college explained it was a consequence of delivering £1 million of unfunded teaching in 2017/18 due to the funding methodology and a decline in apprenticeship income.
ESFA college accounts said it owed £2.5 million in exceptional financial support in 2016/17, with loans of £14.2 million outstanding.
The ESFA closed the financial notice to improve in July 2020. According to its accounts for 2021/22, the college made a £619,000 operating surplus.
Plant said the university tie-up plans were “pioneering” and “not driven by any financial imperative”. She said that “all the feedback from external stakeholders has been incredibly positive” but recognised any change could be disruptive so would make that a priority.
In 2018, the University of Bolton and Bolton College merged. The existing college corporation was dissolved and a new limited company formed with the university as its sole member, effectively giving the university ultimate control.
Lambeth College merged with London South Bank University in 2019 in a move which saw the college corporation close and a new company formed as a wholly-owned subsidiary of the university.
In 2021, the National College for Advanced Transport and Infrastructure became a subsidiary of the University of Birmingham, before Ruskin College was acquired as a subsidiary of the University of West London that same year.
In addition, Hartpury College attained university status and became a higher education company in 2018, changing its name to Hartpury University and Hartpury College. In that arrangement, its FE provision – Hartpury College of Further Education – became a subsidiary company to the higher education corporation.
Albert Einstein once said the definition of insanity is ‘repeating the same mistakes over and over again, expecting to get different results.’ At the Department for Education it appears ministers and senior officials might now be backtracking on solemn qualification reform commitments made to a cross-party group of peers, at the time of the skills bill deliberations.
Two former education secretaries – true titans of the post-war era – joined forces in the upper house during the passage of the legislation.
Conservative, Lord Baker and Labour’s Lord Blunkett, pointed out that England won’t be able to build a genuinely world-class secondary education system by trashing many existing, perfectly good qualifications in the process.
A change of ministers at Sanctuary Buildings helped ensure a rather more delicate consensus emerged.
It included the notion that alongside A-levels and T Levels, 16-19 year olds in England, in future, would still be able to pursue tried and tested qualifications like BTECs and other applied general qualifications.
That didn’t mean the culling of all qualifications at level 3 and below would cease. Quals that overlap directly with government-owned qualifications are already being removed.
But it did represent a breakthrough in the idea that government was seriously listening and responding to heartfelt concerns about learner choice.
This tentative cross-party agreement is now seriously under strain.
It means an incoming Labour government, riding high in the polls, could decide to break cover and openly oppose many of the post-16 reforms.
Dogma over delivery
Taking fright from any major political escalation, those in the FE delivery ecosystem could simply decide to go slow, effectively strangling the reforms, via a thousand tardy excuses as to why rollouts can’t go ahead as planned.
The fact the whole qualifications reform timetable straddles the febrile general election period should make senior officials wary of being seen to be too servile in their desire to please incumbent political masters.
We all know what happened to 14-19 Diplomas in 2010, when an incoming government applied the kibosh. Public money was wasted. Thousands of learners were issued with certificates which are now worthless in the labour market.
It’s why newly promoted to the cabinet, Gillian Keegan, is in danger of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
As skills minister, Keegan developed a reputation for placing dogma over delivery; ideological purity, over the inevitable pragmatism of what is required in high-office, particularly when government launches a controversial set of reforms.
I still have confidence that the education secretary will not renege on the letter from her predecessor to Parliamentarians, sent on the eve of the Skills Bill becoming law.
Any politician with an eye on their legacy is not going to crudely rip up what amounted in July 2022 to an important shift in level 3 policy.
Not least because history is never kind to politicians who engage in what Lord Baker called at the time, “educational vandalism”.
Voters won’t forgive education reform done badly
The experience of T Levels last summer and its ongoing fallout should be enough to caution ministers that, in the end, parents and learners will decide the fate of these reforms.
One misstep could bring the whole reform crashing down.
Already we’re hearing stories from FE providers of students transferring from the first year of T levels onto other courses.
The government may think the easy answer is to hunker down and carry on regardless.
They would be mistaken to put too much faith in a bureaucratic qualification approvals process at level 3 that is designed to manipulate the quals marketplace so egregiously, that it will leave students – particularly disadvantaged students – with nowhere to go.
Voters have memory. Everyone has an opinion about education because it is the one common shared experience that shapes us all.
People are not going to let go of vocational qualifications that their brothers, sisters, aunties and nieces have taken for decades. No more than we can expect Middle England to suddenly give up on A-levels, around since 1951.
In 533 Parliamentary constituencies across England, voters will want to know why a Conservative government has obliterated course choices and educational opportunity for young people.
On the doorstep, voters will ask why local sixth form colleges are operating a system of educational apartheid, with students forced to choose either an academic or the new technical routes.
The 1944 Education Act ultimately failed because society moved on. The comprehensive principle replaced learner segregation.
History tells us that education reform is only lasting when everyone comes together in the national interest, rather than pursuing some narrow agenda built on outdated dogma.
A “slightly shorter type” of apprenticeship could be explored to help get over-50s to retrain or back into work, the chancellor suggested today.
Jeremy Hunt voiced ambitions for conversations with education secretary Gillian Keegan on that idea to address out-of-work adults and aid the government’s economic growth plans.
Speaking at Bloomberg this morning, the chancellor said that education would be one of the four pillars of his economic growth plans, admitting that “we don’t do nearly as well for the 50 per cent of school leavers who do not go to university as we do for those that do”.
Hunt also said that there were around nine million adults with low basic literacy or maths skills and more than 100,000 school leavers each year who had not reached required standards in maths or English, which made it difficult for those people when they may need to train for several different occupations over the course of their lives.
He continued that the government had “made progress with T Levels, bootcamps and apprenticeships” as part of its reforms, explaining that “we want to ensure our young people have the skills they would get in Switzerland or Singapore”.
The chancellor said that encouraging older workers back into the workforce or helping them to retrain is one of the issues to help growth, issuing a rallying call to the more than five million working age adults who are economically inactive that “Britain needs you”.
Hunt said that would include looking at more occupational health support to help prevent those with mental health needs, back problems and other health conditions from leaving work.
But apprenticeships, which have a legal 12-month minimum duration requirement, could also be in scope for those plans.
“When it comes to apprenticeships, there is a sense that apprenticeships are for young people, but there are lots of people who are ready and willing to consider a new career in their early 50s,” he said following his speech.
“They are expecting to work potentially for another 20 years, and they might need a slightly different type of apprenticeship, a slightly shorter type of apprenticeship, and I think that could be very good.”
He added that it is “a dialogue with Gillian Keegan we very much hope to pursue”.
Economic inactivity among over-50s has hit the headlines in recent months, with work and pensions secretary Mel Stride telling MPs in November that he was looking for “quick wins” to get over-50s who have had health issues back into work.
The skills bootcamps programme was one such scheme set-up to deliver quick skills training in sectors where shortages are at their most acute, such as in lorry driving, digital and construction.
The 12-to-16-week courses are available for those aged 19 and above, and guarantee an interview with an employer at the end of the course.
Data published last month revealed that the government had exceeded its target for skills bootcamps between April 2021 and March 2022, securing 16,120 starts against a planned 16,000 for the short courses.
Data on number of completers for that period was not released, however.
Director of Finance and Corporate Services, Newcastle Stafford Colleges Group
Start date: January 2023
Previous Job: Director of Finance and Operations, The Grange School
Interesting fact: Debbie enjoys spending time with her family and friends, visiting new cities and running. She hopes in the near future to start running with her 18 month old, 43kg Rhodesian Ridgeback dog called Simba who she is busy training currently
Carly Sidebottom
Director of Employability, Learning Curve Group
Start date: January 2023
Previous Job: Head of ESF and AEB, Ixion
Interesting fact: Carly is a keen snowboarder and goes every year with her family. Her daughter has been on the snow since she was three and is now a better boarder than Carly (she is only 9 and leaves and her father for dust)
Exeter College has become the first college to retain its ‘outstanding’ grade and achieve top marks in the new skills contribution measure from Ofsted. Tallulah Taylor finds out how they did it.
An unexpected influence on John Laramy, the principal of Exeter College, is Terry Leahy, who was chief executive of Tesco in the supermarket giant’s prime in the late 1990s.
Despite needing to make huge profits every year, Laramy explains that Leahy would spend half a day each week in stores, talking to customers and learning what it was like to shop there.
Being in touch with students and staff is therefore a big part of Laramy’s leadership approach, which this week delivered Exeter’s second ‘outstanding’ Ofsted result in 10 years.
The first result, in 2014, came under the leadership of Richard Atkins, Laramy’s predecessor who, after retiring as principal in 2016, became the FE Commissioner.
At that time, then education secretary Michael Gove introduced a rule that exempted schools and FE providers judged ‘outstanding’ from further inspections. The exemption survived until September 2021, when concerns were raised about providers going 10-plus years without scrutiny.
Of the 35 previously ‘outstanding’ FE providers to have been inspected since then, 22 have declined by at least one grade.
Higher Education Graduation at Exeter Cathedral 2022
Laramy has led Exeter for the past seven years through the turbulence of policy change, funding restraints and, of course, the Covid 19 pandemic – all of which have been blamed by other providers who have struggled to get top marks from Ofsted inspectors.
The Exeter report refers to the “nurturing and supportive environment”, with high-performing students taught by staff who act as “exemplary role models” to the learners.
Laramy tells FE Week: “The senior leadership team and I, alongside the governors, work really hard to listen to students and apprentices so that we know what it’s like to be a student or an apprentice here. I think that sort of culture really does have an impact across the college.”
Exeter received ‘outstanding’ judgements for every category inspected, apart from in their provision for learners with high needs, for which the college was graded ‘good’.
Top marks were also awarded for the new skills contribution measure which was introduced in September, making them the first both to retain an ‘outstanding’ grade and be judged ‘strong’ in meeting local skills needs.
Praise for the curriculum, sequencing, dedicated support and extra-curricular activities – among many other qualities – is scattered throughout the report, indicative of a caring and safe culture across the college campuses.
“Our teachers are absolutely amazing and go above and beyond”
Their high-achieving culture starts at the top, Laramy says. The college governors set high expectations of the senior leadership team which are then replicated across the college.
The vision is for the college to be exceptional, something which Laramy thinks reflects the standards they expect from their students, many of whom travel considerable distances to attend.
Vice principal Jade Otty supports this idea. She says that, when you work somewhere that is aspirational, alongside enough other people with similar aspirations, “you get into a positive spiral of this kind of culture”.
The report praises teachers and staff for valuing all members of the college community and describes them as “exceptional role models”.
“Our teachers are absolutely amazing and go above and beyond,” Otty says. “They will put on bespoke sessions for students, whether that’s revision or catching up.
“They are really good at assessing their curriculum and their delivery and asking, ‘how am I doing’ and ‘what do we need to have extra support’ in this and that.”
This attitude is part of the established teaching practice at Exeter College, Otty believes.
“You don’t just teach things in a particular order at a particular time because that’s what you thought you were going to do a few weeks ago or a few months ago.
“They’re dealing with human beings. They look at how their learners are getting on and change their curriculum accordingly.”
Laramy meets all his staff from right across the college four times a year to find out what they are doing brilliantly what they could do better. And he thanks any that are doing a fantastic job. They also have staff award celebrations and a similar model for students.
Principal, John Laramy and chair of governors, Bindu Arjoon
Meeting skills needs through the community
The college fares “exceptionally well” in how they identify and meet the local skills needs of employers, according to the inspectors.
Deputy chief executive Rob Bosworth explains that “exceptional colleges shape the landscape with the community. It didn’t happen because of one conversation. It has been built over time.”
Bosworth has been building these partnership relationships over 20 years through speaking with employers as well as to local community members and industry groups like the chamber of commerce.
“The way we do it is we live and breathe everything in the community. Colleges are there to serve the needs of the community. To do that at an amazing level, they have got to be embedded into the community on a day-to-day basis.”
He works with Otty on teaching and learning, which is a “purpose-driven curriculum strategy” that has a line of sight to industry and next-step progression.
Every piece of the curriculum is co-designed with an employer or partner stakeholder to ensure they are shaping the landscape alongside the different industries.
But it is not all about the hard skills needs that you read about in skills plans or economic strategies. Exeter’s work with Devon County Council to meet the needs of non-English speaking residents of the area also won praise in the report.
Inspectors emphasised how leaders quickly recognised the challenges for Ukrainian refugees and created courses “to support this community and help them become active citizens”.
The college’s relationship with stakeholders is notably successful in improving opportunities for those who are the most disadvantaged in the community.
Bosworth explains that they used their community learning budget to create an urban Learning Academy with partners who helped to design the curriculum to re-engage those that are furthest away from learning.
“So, we’ve done everything from sitting in the library playing Monopoly for adults that struggle with GCSE maths. We’ve done courses in bibliotherapy, where parents that are struggling to read to their children can come into a course and learn how to teach their children to read.”
Students celebrate graduating from the Michael Caines Academy with a special dinner
High needs ‘particularly challenging’
The only area in which the college did not achieve ‘outstanding’ was in the provision for learners with high needs.
Ofsted found that the specific courses designed for these learners was not sufficiently challenging and ambitious and was not sufficiently personalised to meet each learner’s needs.
Why doesn’t the high expectations culture set at the top seem to reach those with additional needs?
Laramy responds that they are in the throes of opening a new building to accommodate high-needs learners, and that getting ‘good’ at this point for high needs provision is a “pretty stellar grade” when “you read what’s going on out there”.
“High-needs provision is a particularly challenging area now, which is well publicised nationally, the challenges with funding and so forth behind the students… We are not a – and cannot be – a specialist high-needs college…
“I think one of the areas that the government is thinking about carefully is investing in additional specific high-needs providers. Because, as I understand it, there’s quite a shortage of high-needs places across the country. So, I think we are part of the solution to that, but not the total solution.”
Despite offering help with the cost of living, training and offering professional development to teachers, one of Laramy’s main challenges is attracting and retaining his staff.
“It’s my job to ensure we pay them as much as we can afford,” he says. “But it’s not just about paying. It’s making sure they feel that it’s a supportive workplace, that they get developed, that they get to teach in a great space.”
Exeter College lifts the trophy for Engagement with Employers at prestigious Beacon Awards
T Levels are not part of that challenge. Laramy enthusiastically says the college has outstanding T Level provision, and he wished they were assessed this year.
Asked if they will need to do make any changes to achieve another ‘outstanding’, Laramy says that, although they had been out of scope for an inspection for many years, they did not actually do anything differently then.
He refutes the idea that ‘outstanding’ colleges know how to work the system to keep the inspectors happy.
“That’s the thing I’ve reflected on, having Ofsted come to visit. Even if they didn’t exist, I don’t think we would do much different as a college. And I think that is probably what the report reflects.”
Ministers are under fire for reneging on their promise to axe a “small” proportion of BTECs and other applied general qualifications, as new analysis reveals that more than half will be scrapped by government edict.
A cross-party group of peers led by Lord Blunkett has vowed to confront education secretary Gillian Keegan on the issue. “This, at best, is an act of considerable bad faith and, at worst, an indication that the government’s word isn’t worth the paper it was written on,” Blunkett said.
College leaders have warned the “ideologically driven” reform could cause “significant chaos”, as the plans would wipe out provision currently offered to almost two-thirds of sixth-form college students and almost a third of courses available in general FE colleges.
‘A clear reversal of the undertakings given last year’
The Department for Education is working to introduce a streamlined system for students finishing their GCSEs that pushes them to study either A-levels, their new technical equivalent T Levels, or an apprenticeship.
Officials have already announced that 106 alternative technical level 3 courses will have their funding removed from 2024 because they “overlap” with the first few T Level courses. Others face the chop in future years as more T Levels roll out to allow the qualifications to “flourish”.
The DfE launched the next phase of its level 3 review earlier this month, which involves a new strict approvals process that all “alternative” technical and academic applied general qualifications, such as Pearson’s popular BTECs, must pass to retain their funding.
But a guide published this month states that ministers have made the “conscious choice” to exclude “certain” academic qualifications from this process, either because the subject is “more suited to a technical qualification or because there is an associated A level”.
When the list of qualifications eligible for funding is mapped against the 134 recently reformed applied general qualifications currently available to young people and included in the DfE’s performance league tables, an “astonishing” 75 are found to be ineligible.
Source: Protect Student Choice Campaign
It means well-established qualifications, such as BTECs in health and social care, applied science, and law will disappear from 2025.
Experts also predict that many of the eligible courses will fail to gain approval through the new process.
The analysis, shared exclusively with FE Week by the Sixth Form Colleges Association that leads the Protect Student Choice campaign, shows that 62 per cent of applied general students in the sixth-form college sector are currently enrolled on qualifications that will be scrapped before the approval process begins.
This comes despite then education secretary Nadhim Zahawi promising the sector and Parliament through the passage of the skills and post-16 education bill that “only a small proportion of the total level 3 BTEC and other applied general style qualification offer – significantly less than half” would be removed.
Bill Watkin, chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association, criticised the government for their decision not to run a “transparent and impartial approval process”.
He also criticised officials for not being clear about what evidence was used to draw up the list of subjects that will be funded in the future, describing their decisions as “indefensible and entirely unnecessary”.
Blunkett hit out at ministers for a “clear reversal of the undertakings given last year” after promising the Lords “in writing and from the despatch box that only a minority of advanced qualifications would cease to be funded”.
He told FE Week: “This is either a mistake that can be easily rectified, or a deliberate and calculated U-turn.
“A range of peers from all parties have agreed to take this matter up with education secretary Gillian Keegan, and I feel sure that she will want to demonstrate her honesty and integrity and act accordingly.”
Toby Perkins MP, Labour’s shadow skills minister, said the government’s reassurances on level 3 choice “have been shown to be hollow” and called on officials to “work with the sector and think again before pursuing this approach”.
A DfE spokesperson said: “Our reforms are intended to help more people to progress into work, an apprenticeship or on to further study, so it’s vital that the qualifications on offer are of the highest possible standard.
“We have already introduced T Levels as the new gold standard technical qualification and the changes we are making through our review will make sure only qualifications that are necessary, lead to good outcomes for students and meet the skills needs of businesses are approved for public funding.”
‘Reforms could cause significant chaos’
College principals have warned that the government’s plans create more problems than they solve.
A quarter of Oldham Sixth Form College’s 2,300 students are currently studying applied generals that face the chop in years to come, mostly extended BTEC diplomas in health and social care and applied science.
Associate principal Suzannah Reeves told FE Week that both “highly valued” courses are “incredibly successful, with many students progressing onto university, locally and nationally, into science, nursing and early childhood jobs”.
Her college is particularly concerned at losing health and science BTECs because of the major issues with their T Level counterparts last summer, which led to results for over 1,000 students being regraded. Many dropped out of the course after this debacle and transferred to a BTEC instead.
Reeves said her college now has “little confidence in the quality assurance of awarding, of the examination design and of coursework aspects of the T Level”.
She added that applied science BTEC is also vital for students who did not achieve a grade 4 or above at GCSE but want to pursue a career in the field.
“A-levels are not easily accessible for these students because of the content they have covered at school, usually on the foundation pathway,” she said.
“For those students wanting to take the BTEC applied science from 2025, they would have to go on to A-level single sciences or a combination of single diplomas and A-levels. I think their educational experience would potentially be poorer as a result.”
Graham Pennington, principal of Sandwell College in the West Midlands, said around half of his 4,000 level 3 students would be impacted by the DfE’s reforms. Of those, about 80 per cent would not have an “obvious and clear” alternative to transfer onto.
He said he sees T Levels as a positive step in technical education but warns the new qualifications are not suitable for many disadvantaged learners.
Pennington echoed Watkin’s concern that ministers have failed to evidence their decisions to date. “There’s a lot of assumptions as you listen to the narrative but not evidence-based assertions,” he said.
“Everyone wants to see the new qualifications succeed, but not by removing choice and opportunity.”
Reeves added: “It feels like this reform has been ideologically driven, and it has the potential to cause significant chaos.”
An apprenticeship provider has had its funding contract terminated by the government after another failed legal challenge against a grade four Ofsted report.
The Education and Skills Funding Agency’s decision to kick The Opportunity Group out of the apprenticeships market comes seven months after inspectors visited the Newcastle-based provider.
After receiving the lowest possible rating, The Opportunity Group instructed Lester Aldridge Solicitors – a law firm retained by numerous providers in a similar position in recent years – to appeal against the “unfairness” of the report.
The ESFA held off on ending the provider’s contract while representations were made and until after Ofsted had conducted a follow-up monitoring visit, the report for which was published this month. It resulted in three ‘reasonable’ judgements but one of ‘insufficient’ progress.
Agency officials contacted The Opportunity Group’s owners last week to confirm they would go ahead with contract termination, in line with funding rules for apprenticeship provider’s judged ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted.
The company will continue to deliver commercial rather than government-funded training, but jobs will be lost as a result.
Co-founder Kate Temple-Brown said: “We are saddened by the decision the ESFA has made to terminate our contract despite us providing clear examples and reasons as to why we disagreed with the judgements and gradings in our full inspection.
“We have exhausted our ability to continue legal action due to the high costs involved and the likelihood of us succeeding against the ESFA. We have also seen the sad outcome for other training providers who have had their contracts terminated, despite legal challenge.”
Training providers have long complained about the regime adopted by the ESFA whereby an ‘inadequate’ Ofsted report leads to automatic contract termination. Many firms threaten legal action where they feel the judgement is unreasonable, but they rarely follow this through due to the significant costs involved.
Two providers failed in high court bids to overturn ‘inadequate’ judgements and contract termination last month. Like The Opportunity Group, both firms argued against alleged factual inaccuracies and disproportionate Ofsted judgements, including that inspectors had failed to take into consideration the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Temple-Brown said she hopes that, through the “collective power of independent training providers” that policy “will change, so that this removal of funding, based on the current system of inspection, doesn’t continue to happen unjustly to other providers”.
The Opportunity Group was delivering training to over 600 apprentices mostly on leadership and management programmes at level 3 and above at the time of Ofsted’s full inspection in June 2022 – nearly triple the number it had during a monitoring visit from Ofsted in early 2020.
In the report, Ofsted criticised the provider for allegedly putting adults on to unsuitable apprenticeships – an issue that led to large numbers dropping out and too many apprenticeships running significantly beyond their planned end date.
The watchdog also found that, in too many cases, apprentices were not receiving sufficient time to complete their apprenticeship during working hours or attending off-the-job training.
The provider claimed these issues were a consequence of delivering apprenticeships throughout the pandemic.
