The apprenticeships minister should be a joint Department for Education and Treasury role to ensure the policy and financial side of the levy are aligned, a think tank’s director and former special adviser to education ministers has said.
Policy Exchange has also called for the requirement for apprentices to pass GCSE level equivalent maths and English to be abolished, for small and medium-sized employers to be funded for off-the-job training hours for apprentices under 25, and for a quarter of the levy to fund non-apprenticeship training.
Iain Mansfield, Policy Exchange’s head of education who is a former special adviser to three education ministers, published a report that warned the apprenticeship system is not delivering the number of apprenticeships the UK needs – with young people, those from disadvantaged backgrounds and SMEs being hit the hardest.
Endorsed by former education secretaries Nadhim Zahawi, Gavin Williamson and Lord Blunkett, as well as the DfE’s former director of apprenticeships Keith Smith, the report makes several “significant” proposals for reform.
It pointed out that the government’s apprenticeship levy system suffers from both a “lack of transparency and poor understanding about its purposes”, adding that the apprenticeship budget, the money raised by the apprenticeship levy, the amount of money in levy-payers’ accounts and the money actually spent on apprenticeships are “all different things, both in principle and in fact”.
The report claimed that over the last five years, “£4.3 billion was raised by the levy but not spent on apprenticeships, but rather kept by or returned to the Treasury”. To calculate this figure Policy Exchange compared the annual funds raised from apprenticeship levy employer receipts to the spend on the DfE’s annual budget for England. It does not include apprenticeship spending in the other devolved administrations – data that is not published – so the true figure likely to be smaller.
Join up the apprenticeship minister role
Mansfield’s report warned the current situation, in which the minister for apprenticeships – the minister most directly accountable in the eyes of parliament and the public for apprenticeships – has no responsibility for the levy has “hindered reform, by splitting responsibilities and reducing the incentives to deliver change”.
To address this, he said the apprenticeship minister role should be a joint ministerial role between the DfE and Treasury, with responsibility both for apprenticeship policy and the apprenticeship levy.
Spend a quarter of levy funds on non-apprenticeship training
The report also called for the levy to be transformed into an “apprenticeship and skills levy”, with up to 25 per cent of the levy able to be spent on “high quality employer-relevant skills training that relates to occupational standards, studied at a regulated college, university or training provider”.
This should include bootcamps, T Level placements, approved Higher Technical Qualifications and “specified qualifications relevant to the shortage occupation list, as well as pre-employment development for those currently in long-term unemployment”.
Policy Exchange’s report said all employers should also be able to draw down £1,000 for each T Level placement they provide, which would cost the government an additional £50 million annually.
Fund off-the-job training for young apprentices at SMEs
Training providers have long argued that the government’s rules that require an apprentice to spend around a fifth of their time studying off-the-job training is a major barrier for SMEs.
To overcome this, Policy Exchange has recommended the government provides SMEs with a contribution of £2,500 to fund the off-the-job training hours for apprentices under 25, with an additional £500 achievement premium for completion. The think tank estimates that this would cost around £260 million a year.
Develop new contract for employers that could force apprentices to repay training costs
For use “only by employers that wished it”, Policy Exchange said the government should develop a “model apprenticeship contract for employers” who wish to ensure they retain apprentices after completion, to require an apprentice who completed their qualification to continue with the employer for a period of time, or else repay a portion of their training costs.
This would not impact apprentices who did not complete their apprenticeship and use of this contract would be “entirely optional”.
The model contract would be a template that would be of use to employers where concern that apprentices would leave after completion was seen as a barrier to taking on apprentices.
How to increase apprenticeships among young people
The report states that the “rapid and severe” fall off of apprenticeships among young people “must be reversed if we are to increase social mobility”.
To this end, the government should abolish the apprenticeship minimum wage with minimum wages aligned with the national minimum wage for each age group.
The child benefit regulations should then also be amended so that parents of an apprenticeship aged 16 to 19 continue to receive child benefit, as they would if the child was at school or college, while mayoral combined authorities should offer free public transport to all apprentices under 25.
Policy Exchange has also called for 16 to 19 apprentices to be funded through the DfE’s education funding budget instead of the levy, and for an end to the requirement to pass GCSE level equivalent maths and English to complete an apprenticeship as this rule is “limiting opportunity for those who are not academically gifted”.
In the wake of the shocking murder of George Floyd by a police officer on the streets of Minneapolis nearly three years ago, businesses and public institutions pledged to redouble their efforts to tackle racism and discrimination. Pledges, diversity charters and steering groups were launched to show that action was being taken.
Representative organisations in further education joined in making firm commitments to act on equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) and improve non-white representation in sector leadership positions. Jeff Greenidge, diversity director at the Association of Colleges (AoC), was determined to hold them accountable and ensure they were not just virtue signalling.
AELP, WorldSkills UK, the Education and Training Foundation (ETF) and the Federation of Awarding Bodies are all on board, and the FE commissioner has recently committed their support, an “important indicator” for Greenidge that the dial is shifting.
But real cultural change needs more than just the big players to make grand statements. Has the sector really changed in the way that Greenidge had hoped?
He believes the FE sector has “shifted the conversation” on EDI in response to global movements, particularly the murder of Floyd, the Me Too movement, the murder of Sarah Everard, increased awareness of “up-skirting” and, more recently, Andrew Tate-inspired misogyny and debates around the rights of transgender people. But change is still needed when it comes to the sector’s own diversity.
As Greenidge admits, “progress is slow”.
It’s less about characteristics and more about the practice that people undertake
The percentage of ethnic minority college leaders dropped from 13 per cent in 2017 to 5-6 per cent in 2020, and has fallen again over the past year, according to FE commissioner Shelagh Legrave, a situation which she describes as “regrettable”. The AoC said it did not collate that data so was unable to provide up-to-date figures.
At the same time, the percentage of ethnic minority students continues to rise – from 37 per cent in 2019-20 to 41 per cent in 2021-22.
Jeff Greenidge
The ETF and AoC are currently providing programmes for people from under-represented backgrounds to get into college leadership roles, but Greenidge warns that “we also have to have the pipeline coming in at the bottom”.
The sector bodies all have advisory groups within their organisations looking at diversity and inclusion, which Greenidge describes as a “positive step forward”, and he praises City and Guilds for its work in making their staffing more inclusive.
But he wants to see more sector bodies “amplifying each other’s voices” in order to have that wider impact.
The dangers of data
Greenidge will not be drawn on specifics about the sector’s key objectives, because “that leads you down the road of box ticking”.
He is wary of box ticking, having been one of the authors of the independent culture review of London Fire Brigade published last November, which found the service to be “institutionally misogynist and racist”.
“It’s quite easy for people to say, ‘we’ll make sure we’ve done our awareness training’, to tick the box on equality and diversity processes. But actually the practice falls far below what needs to happen,” he says.
The FE sector is “very data-driven”, however – something which Greenidge sees as a “challenge”. While data tends to capture visible diversity, it does not capture people’s invisible characteristics.
When it comes to LGBTQ+ identities, it is hard to chart progress without “delving into” a person’s sexual identity, and data cannot easily capture “intersectionality” such as “a black woman who is menopausal”.
“It’s less about characteristics and more about the practice that people undertake within further education that’s important, and I’m beginning to see a shift there,” he says.
Coaching movement evolves
In 2019, he set up a “game-changer” coaching programme for FE leaders to create a “groundswell of practitioners” in FE who were “daring to do something different”.
Originally restricted to those from under-represented backgrounds but now open to all, the programme has coached more than 120 people, giving them “the confidence to put forward a compelling vision for the future”.
About half (60) have since started change projects within their own organisations, which have included coaching others.
Greenidge is pleased to see principals being “much more vocal about their vulnerability in some cases”, and “enabling things to happen within their organisations”.
He applauds individuals such as Lynette Leith, vice principal of Hull College, who is making a positive impact with white working-class boys. Also Kam Nandra, assistant principal at South and City College Birmingham, and Hilda Koon, assistant principal of The Manchester College.
But he wants more people in the sector to speak up about the good work that they are doing.
“People in colleges often hide what they’re doing because they feel it’s never quite good enough. They want the perfect end result. But there’s good stuff I know taking place.”
The whole college approach
Greenidge highlights how the entire staff of Highlands College in Jersey have undertaken a coaching programme involving a “complete rethink” when it comes to EDI. Similarly, Wiltshire College put in place EDI training for all its staff.
Gail Larkin , Wiltshire’s HR director, believes EDI “has to be talked about at every table” and “woven through all its strategies”.
EDI has been included in her college’s strategic plan in a way that is inclusive of “the whole college community – students, staff and stakeholders too where appropriate…led from the front” by principal Iain Hatt.
Wiltshire is “very aware” of its own lack of racial diversity; only 3 per cent of the county’s population is non-white, doubling to 6 per cent of the college’s students. Its EDI agenda is therefore “very different” from that of a diverse metropolitan college.
“Our students need to be prepared to go out into the wider world, where there is a lot more diversity than they see within their communities,” says Larkin. “So we really need to be able to talk about it and model behaviours.”
Any strategic groups designed for ethnic minority students would be “too small”. So the college has formed a student-centred group capturing intersectional diversity, asking: “if you are demonstrating any diversity, what does that look and feel like for you?”
Wiltshire’s Jo Grenfell and Gail Larkin
FE commissioner
EDI has been a “focus” for FE commissioner Shelagh Legrave since she took up the reins in 2021. It is a subject she feels “very strongly” about, and the recent drop in black college leaders is “regrettable”.
Both The Black Leadership Group, formerly known as the Black FE Leadership Group, and the AoC have provided training to her team of six deputy FECs and 11 advisors.
She says her team has been “stressing the importance” of the EDI agenda at the annual strategic conversations with each college principal or chief executive and governors, and uses her termly letters to “remind colleges to have strategies in place to address EDI “challenges”.
But she cautions that it will take time to see the results of such initiatives.
The FE commissioner will also “actively look to encourage” those with diverse characteristics to apply as mentees on the FE leadership mentoring programme run by the ETF, which launches later this month. It will provide FE staff with up to 18 hours of confidential, one-to-one sessions with mentors with experience as senior leaders in colleges.
WorldSkills UK
Neil Bentley-Gockmann, who just stepped down as chief executive of WorldSkills UK, made boosting diversity one of the body’s key objectives in recent years. His approach was led by good quality, albeit perhaps uncomfortable, evidence.
In 2020 WorldSkills UK commissioned independent research to “investigate its record” on the inclusivity of its skills competitions. Its findings showed that WorldSkills UK competitors were not representative of young people in the UK, and white, non-disabled men were over-represented.
Having the evidence gave them the ammunition to respond. An EDI steering group, with representation from across the sector, was launched. The EDI heroes awards were created to profile role models and a competitor support fund was established to help young people access their programmes.
It has also launched centres of excellence in partnership with NCFE to widen participation in its programmes, with colleges predominantly in deprived areas.
Its strategy seems to be working. Registrations for WorldSkills UK competitions from ethnic minority students are up 14 per cent this year (from 8 per cent in 2020) and females up 44 per cent (from 31 per cent in 2020).
Winners and judges of WorldSkills UK Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Heroes Awards
LGBTQ+ identities
Greenidge says there are “transgender challenges out there” that colleges are currently “finding it difficult to understand, support and manage”.
One organisation working to increase awareness of LGBTQ+ issues is the awarding body VTCT.
More than 6,000 learners have now gone through its EDI qualifications, includinglevel 2 certificates in equality, diversity and inclusivity in an educational environment and in LGBT inclusivity in a health and social care environment.
Its head of customer engagement, Mark Child, says teaching staff are getting “more and more learners coming through that don’t identify as male or female, and they want to understand how to support their learners more fully”.
He says the LGBTQ+ qualifications have been “really popular with learners and teaching and assessment staff”, and “everyone is really keen to understand the changing landscape of how people identify”.
VTCT is also undertaking a review of its qualifications to ensure that gender-neutral language is used “to break down stereotypes that barbering, hairdressing and beauty, adult care, early years qualifications are not just male or female-centric but instead are gender fluid”.
It is also supporting colleges and training providers with curriculum planning to embed added value qualifications alongside apprenticeship delivery, with a focus on LGBTQ+, mental health, sustainability, and equality and diversity.
New forms of discrimination
Racism is “still there” and “always will be” in FE, just as in society, says Greenidge. But there are also new and evolving forms of discrimination on campuses that the sector needs to be alert to, particularly around misogyny and the “fear that some women have” as a result, often for their own safety.
So, while people may feel they are making progress on misogyny, without “underlying culture changes” and the “calling out” of those misogynistic individuals by their friends and colleagues, they will simply “go underground” and “come out sometime in the future”.
Wiltshire has organised workshops for staff and students in response to a rise in misogyny over the past 12 months. While this was sparked by the online popularity of Tate, Larkin says that – like many colleges – they are “trying not to directly mention” the social media influencer because “you’re directing young people to that content if you talk about him”.
At 65, Greenidge knows that he won’t be able to hold the sector to account forever, and he wants to ensure that progress is sustainable.
“This is not about me as an individual. I create a space for those tough conversations to be had, but this has to be a collaborative effort across the sector.”
His final plea to his colleagues across the sector is to be “comfortable having uncomfortable conversations”.
“The more we have principals and senior leaders who are comfortable in that uncomfortable space, the more the culture changes and people feel much more willing to call things out.”
Two London training providers stung with ‘inadequate’ Ofsted ratings last year have been allowed to see out their adult education budget contracts.
Care First Training Ltd and London Vocational College Limited both received grade four ratings in inspection reports published in September 2022.
Both were swiftly removed from the register of apprenticeship training providers and banned from delivering apprenticeships, in line with central government guidance from the Education and Skills Funding Agency.
But the pair, who also held adult education contracts in London which has devolved powers for that provision, have since had monitoring visits from the education watchdog, both in March with reports published this month.
Now, Greater London Authority has confirmed that their adult education budget contracts will continue until the end of July 2023, in line with the original end date. It means the providers have been allowed to continue for nearly a whole academic year despite the concerns raised by the education watchdog.
The authority said the decision to retain the providers’ contracts was to ensure the programmes were closed with minimum impact to learners.
It added that its performance and intervention policy includes termination where necessary, including for grade four Ofsted ratings, but this is at the discretion of the authority and made on a case-by-case basis rather than an arbitrary decision made across the board.
According to the GLA’s AEB allocations, London Vocational College held a contract for £2.5 million from 2019 to 2023, while Care First had a contract worth just under £1.5 million from 2021 to 2023.
At the time of their inspections last year, 70 adult learners were studying at Care First while London Vocational College had 664 adult learners on programmes ranging from entry level to level 3.
Greater London Authority’s stance is one mirrored across most mayoral combined authorities.
All of the authorities confirmed they took a discretionary approach on whether to terminate AEB contracts for providers rated ‘inadequate’, except for Liverpool City Region which takes a more hardline approach.
A spokesperson for Liverpool City Region said: “Under Liverpool City Region terms, an ‘inadequate’ rating for quality for a contract for service provider is considered as a breach of contract. In these situations, in line with the Department for Education’s policies dating back to rigour and responsiveness in skills, contract for service providers can expect to have their contracts terminated.
“Where providers have quality-related issues outside of inspection or have ‘insufficient progress’ identified, a range of risk-based interventions are employed, including recovery plans monitored with increased levels of support and challenge on a more frequent basis.”
West of England was the only authority not to respond to FE Week’s approach for comment.
The ESFA’s contracts guidance states that it has discretionary powers which can include options such as suspending new starts, reducing payments or terminating the contract entirely following an Ofsted grade four report.
However, it is understood that on non-devolved AEB contracts the ESFA usually opts to terminate within three months of an ‘inadequate’ Ofsted report.
The only exception to this rule appeared in the case of Learndirect, which was England’s biggest training provider when it was rated ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted in the summer of 2017 and was allowed to continue its national AEB contract until July 2018.
Officials in the DfE explained at the time that the provider had around 70,000 learners and allowing it to complete its programmes would minimise disruption for learners.
The Department for Education was unable to provide another instance of where it had allowed a provider to see out its contract, explaining that it did not comment on the contractual performance of individual training providers it funds.
London Vocational College declined to comment, while Care First did not respond to FE Week’s request for comment.
London’s Croydon College has become the first general FE college branded ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted in seven years, after a “significant minority” of students reported instances of homophobic language and “taunting” behaviour.
But the college’s leaders, who secured positive feedback and judgements in other areas, have hit back saying they are “extremely surprised and disappointed” at the overall grading which “does not fairly reflect what inspectors experienced during their visit and the evidence we provided”.
Ofsted downgraded Croydon College to the lowest possible judgement from a previous ‘good’ grade in a report published today following a visit in February.
It makes the college the first general FE college to be given the bottom rating under Ofsted’s education inspection framework since it launched in 2019.
The mixed report issued ‘inadequate’ judgements for behaviours and attitudes and leadership and management, gave ‘requires improvement’ ratings for the quality of education, personal development, education programmes for young people and high needs provision, while apprenticeships and adult learning programmes were judged as ‘good’.
The college confirmed it had challenged several aspects of the report, including submitting additional evidence, but said it was very disappointed the complaint was not upheld.
Inspectors said that “a significant proportion of learners who inspectors spoke with do not feel comfortable at college,” particularly in social and communal spaces.
The report continued that “a significant minority of learners told inspectors they experience homophobic language and taunting and at Coulsdon, female learners do not feel comfortable in areas such as the student common room”.
Despite the discomfort of learners, Ofsted inspectors regarded safeguarding arrangements as “effective”. FE Week has asked Ofsted to clarify its position on safeguarding when learners themselves told inspectors they were not comfortable.
Attendance for young learners was deemed too low, with leaders not setting high enough expectations of young learners’ attendance and behaviour, inspectors said.
Croydon College merged with Coulsdon Sixth Form College in March 2019, but inspectors noted that there was “considerable variation” in the quality of teaching across the two colleges.
Croydon was characterised as a “positive experience” while at Coulsdon too many learners had a poor experience which resulted in a low proportion of students achieving qualifications.
It said that the quality of education at Coulsdon had declined in the last three years, with tutors failing to prepare learners well enough for vocational exams there.
The report also noted the challenges the college had faced that had included staff recruitment problems, the aftermath of a flood, and the issues from Covid-19, but explained that leaders and governors had not been rapid enough in improving the quality of provision and attendance.
Concerns were also raised on the curriculum for personal development, as tutorial lessons were often used as a coursework catch-up opportunity that left learners with “limited” knowledge and skills on making safe and informed decisions on relationships or understanding the dangers of extremism.
A joint statement from the college’s principal, Caireen Mitchell, and the chair of governors, Tony Stevenson, said they were “extremely surprised and disappointed” at the grading.
“While we acknowledge there are improvements to be made at both colleges, we feel strongly that the grade given does not fairly reflect what inspectors experienced during their visit and the evidence we provided,” they said.
“The very mixed profile of the inspection report, with two significant areas rated as ‘good’ and many positive comments about the quality of education and outcomes for all learners, does not align with the final grading delivered. Ofsted’s concerns about the behaviours of a small number of learners are not behaviours we recognise on a day-to-day basis at our colleges. We raised our concerns directly with Ofsted and provided more evidence to address the areas highlighted.”
The college said an improvement plan was already in place and had already been delivering improved attendance, with further improvements expected to be demonstrated to inspectors in a monitoring visit in six months’ time.
Despite inspectors’ concerns, the report also said that adult learners had a positive learning environment featuring “well-planned and taught courses”.
Apprentices also enjoyed a curriculum that enabled them to develop “highly relevant” skills and behaviours for their chosen industries.
On meeting local skills needs, the report said the curriculum is aligned effectively to priority sectors in London, including construction, health and social care and digital, leading to a “reasonable contribution” judgement.
It also found that leaders had a “clear rationale” for the subjects taught and progression pathways offered.
There were 2,585 young learners – around two thirds of whom studied at Croydon with a third at Coulsdon – as well as 2,620 adult learners, 217 apprentices and 200 students with high needs at the college.
Both Croydon and Coulsdon had received ‘good’ ratings during short inspections early in 2018.
Think of careers advice and you may be taken back to your school days, sitting outside a commandeered classroom on an uncomfortable plastic chair and waiting to be seen by the careers counsellor. You might even remember the ‘talk about your future’ and the definitive list of the qualifications you would definitely need in order to confidently pursue your chosen occupation.
If you’re of a certain age, you may even have experienced this at a time when it wasn’t unthinkable to imagine your working life stretching out in front of you as a series of well-mapped out progressions along a prescribed path.
Today, working life is rather more uncertain. As a result, it’s not only people just starting out who find themselves wondering about their career direction, what employers want and how they can best equip themselves for the next stage in their working lives.
External forces such as economic crises, technological change, the pandemic and the war in Europe have transformed national and international labour markets. The types and quality of jobs have changed, as have the demands of employers and employees.
Workers are rightly anticipating the need to upskill, reskill and adapt to new roles, but they need a well-connected and established skills system with career guidance support at its heart to help them understand what skills are required now. More than that, they need support to gain and maintain the skills to meet future employer demands.
Recent research on the labour market information system for careers in England found that there are significant gaps in adult career guidance services, such as little detailed information on skills and sectoral information. These gaps were emphasised during the pandemic, when adults were looking to transfer their skills to new roles. Advisers found that there was a lack of current information on the labour market and demands that could be used to help them.
Workers are anticipating the need to upskill, reskill and adapt
It is in this context that ReWAGE has recently published Adult career guidance and its role in skills development, which argues that adult career guidance services should be the foundation of a skills system supporting those in work to remain employable and those out of work to gain employment. This would not only benefit employees, employers and the economy alike, but also ensure that the UK’s workforce of 2030 and beyond is ready and able to meet the challenges ahead.
The paper includes evidence that other countries are using a combination of legislation, strategic leadership, coordination, collaboration and professional standards to offer support for adults to explore career options, return to education, reskill, upskill and attain sustainable work. There is no reason why the UK can’t follow suit, and the paper offers four key recommendations to get started.
First, greater public investment in supporting adults into employment would increase their understanding of available job, education and career opportunities and enable them to access support to make informed work and learning decisions across their life course.
Second, government should provide a transparent and stable career guidance system. This requires legislation, strategic leadership and collaboration with stakeholders including local government, employers, education and training providers, employment services and the National Careers Service.
Third, government should encourage and support employers to invest in careers support and development for employees. This would ensure a skilled and adaptable workforce and benefit individuals, employers and the economy.
Fourth, there needs to be greater investment in labour market information and data, particularly at a sectoral level. This would improve intelligence for those developing and providing services to support adults looking to upskill, reskill and transfer their skills. As part of this, we need better classification of occupations and skills taxonomies to enable better linking of data across services.
There is overwhelming evidence to support the benefits of career guidance. When enriched by employer engagement and work experience, it enables a better understanding of the work environment and raises aspirations.
It’s time we reached a clear agreement on what good careers guidance looks like for adults. Today’s employees need it, and our economy demands it.
Any English teacher working in FE will understand the trials and tribulations of getting students to complete a piece of creative writing. For our cohort of re-sit students, studying English is the blight on their college experience. Cajoling them into the classroom is a huge challenge in itself; asking them to write a creative piece is like asking them to push a boulder up a mountain using a feather.
When faced with a blank page, the only thing many students who struggle with English can see is a big, blank space. Then the only thing they can think of is the big, blank space, and the more they stare, the scarier and more monstrous it becomes. The physical act of putting pen to paper and starting the story is so overwhelming that they simply can’t make a start. The fear of failure becomes all-consuming, and their well of creativity is just a big, dark void.
Faced with this challenge, teachers are worried that instead of working to overcome this fear, students will simply try to cheat their way out of it with AI. But what if AI was in fact the solution?
Enter The Creative Engine, an AI Chat Bot that is trained to create story prompts based on the archives of Seven Stories. Funded by Newcastle University Humanities Research Institution (NUHRI) in collaboration with The National Centre for Children’s Books and the English Association, a team led by Tiago Sousa Garcia have created an app designed to help students kickstart their writing and boost their creativity.
The Creative Engine, which launches on 23 May, uses the archives from Seven Stories and Inference API (Hugging Face) to generate the opening of a story from a simple prompt. A lot of data gathering, power, expertise, something called ‘Optical Character Recognition’ and technical wizardry has gone into its creation. I don’t understand and won’t attempt to explain the tech behind it, but my students and I were given the opportunity to test it and I am excited by what we experienced.
Something quite beautiful was happening: their faces lit up
As a result off my membership of the English Assocation, I was invited to be involved in teachers’ workshops that gave me and colleagues from around the country the opportunity to talk to Tiago, navigate the first prototype and consider ways in which it could be improved to really enhance student experience and creativity. We suggested that the team include starting prompts, the opportunity to customise the page, and a feature allowing students to interact with web pages. The English Association facilitated many meetings in which our collaborative voices and experience helped Tiago and his team to create an app that was effective, affordable and easy to use.
Next, we got the students involved. Tiago visited several schools and colleges including Calderdale College to begin the testing process with three different models. To test each one’s ease of use, he gave the students no instructions, and to test their robustness and effectiveness, he positively encouraged them to try to ‘break’ the apps. They willingly obliged. (NUHRI had implemented safeguarding profanity filters and toxic material and reporting filters, so the students could navigate the app safely!)
At first, the students were a little hesitant; however, after only a few minutes there was a definite buzz in the air. They were really invested in their roles as testers – but something else was happening, something quite beautiful: their faces lit up with enthusiasm.
More than testing the app, they were invested in their stories. They took pride in their creativity. They became alive with possibilities rather than fixed on that terrifying void. Possibly for the first time in their lives, they experienced autonomy in their work, the right stimulus to ‘get started’ and none of the crippling anxiety of the blank page.
My re-sit English class was joyful and itself became a ‘Creative Engine’.
Yes, AI has nefarious potential. But the solution is writ large in this experience. By bringing teachers and developers together, we can see to it that more students are supported to develop their creativity and fewer are tempted to shortcut the process – a net win for creative writing!
Qube Learning has left creditors owed almost £3 million worth of debt following its collapse, new insolvency documents show.
FE Week revealed at the end of March that the company, which was one of the country’s largest training providers, ceased trading without warning, leaving hundreds of staff and thousands of learners in the dark about their future.
Qube’s statement of affairs, published this week by voluntary liquidators Interpath Advisory, outlined the extent of its insolvency. Creditors will be left over £2.95 million out of pocket following the sale of the failed company’s assets.
Owner Claire Whichello told staff in an email when it shut down that there was “too much uncertainty” to continue trading due to “increased competition in the apprenticeship market, challenges regarding stagnant funding bands, uncertainty around adult education budget contracts and the expected expiry of our traineeship contracts”.
The news followed an abrupt withdrawal by the Department for Education of its HGV skills bootcamps contract just days before its sudden closure.
Interpath liquidators identified over £4.2 million worth of assets, including a £1.5 million director loan, but estimated that only £691,273 can be raised to pay off its debts to preferential creditors, namely former employees and tax owed to the government.
The training provider, which made 203 staff redundant, is expected to pay back over £300,000 of wage arrears and holiday accrual to former employees. Liquidators will then realise the debt owed to HMRC to the sum of £303,359.
But Qube’s remaining available assets will not be enough to mitigate its large liabilities from unsecured creditors.
The statement of affairs revealed that Qube owes money to more than 200 trade creditors, the largest being HMRC, the Department for Education, Vodafone. It also owes money to lenders such as National Westminster Bank and IWOCA.
Liquidators have estimated that Qube has accrued an approximate £2.95 million total deficiency that it will not be able to pay back. The company was struggling to make a profit according to its latest accounts for the year ending December 31, 2021. In the year, Qube recorded revenue of £10.9 million but posted a loss of £590,000. It made a £744,000 profit the year before.
The government’s reasons for wanting to de-fund dozens of technical qualifications seem reasonable. As the DfE says, the aim is to ‘simplify the system for young people’ and create a ‘ladder up for all’.
An impressive range of T Levels is now available which offer an attractive option for those seeking to mix their studies with industry placements. But while curriculum reforms are welcome, there are some worrying gaps in replacements for all of the NCFE, BTEC and other applied general courses which are set to be phased out by 2025.
This is one of a number of concerns about the proposals that demand urgent action. The challenge is to introduce these reforms in a manner that doesn’t disadvantage any students or cause successful existing pathways into work to disappear.
In this regard, the DfE’s claim that only unpopular or failing applied general courses, or those that overlap with T Levels will be defunded deserves scrutiny.
Uniformed public services courses that are currently offered by FE colleges are a prime example. These help students, often with very few qualifications, to develop the skills they need to progress and pursue a career in the police, fire service, army, prison service or ambulance service. These are all crucial sectors for our society, and all are facing challenges in terms of recruiting or retaining staff and ensuring their workforces are sufficiently diverse.
Undermining social mobility
These courses, running from Level 1 to 3, provide a unique pathway for young people for whom a direct route into A Levels (or indeed T Levels with their five-GCSE entry requirement) is simply not available.
And there is strong demand for them. At Leeds City College, some 350 16- to 18-year-old students want to join a uniformed service. In addition to these, 40 adults have also come to us to acquire the 80 UCAS points they need to acquire through a Level 3 qualification to join the police through Leeds Trinity University’s Police Constable Degree Apprenticeship, which is funded by the West Yorkshire Police apprenticeship levy.
But the government’s planned reforms provide no direct alternative qualification for learners who want to work in the uniformed services. Instead, the DfE has made arrangements for colleges to apply for funding to run a ‘small Alternative Academic Qualification (AAQ)’ in their place from 2026.
The expectation will be for these small AAQs to be studied in combination with two A levels, which will make this new pathway much less attractive (and in some cases inaccessible) to many. This change would restrict choice and, nationally, lead to a significant reduction in the number of people attempting to join our uniformed services.
That would represent a disastrous blow for social mobility.
Delivering a diverse workforce
Our uniformed services still have a long way to go to ensure their workforces reflect our society. The government’s police workforce report for England and Wales, for example, shows that as of March 2022, white officers made up nearly 92 per cent of personnel.
In West Yorkshire, last year’s racial diversity report showed that just 7.4 per cent of the force’s officers were from a ethnic minority backgrounds. Rightly, the region’s deputy mayor for policing and crime, Alison Lowe described this as ‘woeful’.
Our courses are helping to address these shortcomings. Some 20 per cent of our Level 3 public services students in Leeds last year identified as BAME.
The gender split among students is also helping to address the historical imbalance which the police still suffers from. In England and Wales, the workforce is 66.5 per cent male. At Leeds City College, our public services students last year were 60 per cent female.
In addition, 40 per cent of Leeds City College’ public service students in 2022 came from some of the country’s most deprived postcode areas.
FE providers are doing the work to create the diverse workforce our public services are crying out for – through courses that could soon disappear. Gillian Keegan must ensure that a public services T Level is created to continue meeting skills needs in these crucial sectors.
Previous Job: Director, Delivery and Schemes, Ofgem
Interesting fact: Philippa enjoys walking in the countryside with her family. A trip up Scafell Pike last summer completed a family challenge of scaling the three peaks (although the challenge was completed over a six-year timescale!)
Robert Herriot
Strategy and New Business Manager, 1st for EPA
Start date: May 2023
Previous Job: Sales Marking Manager, Federation for Industry Sector Skills and Standards
Interesting fact: In a previous role, Robert met with the top 19 entrepreneurs in Scotland to get their signatures for charity. Robert hopes his role at 1st for EPA will involve meeting the same calibre of customers.
