Gillian Keegan delivered her first speech to the FE sector in her new role as the education secretary at today’s Association of Colleges conference.
Predictably, Keegan, who was appointed three weeks ago, did not announce anything new ahead of tomorrow’s autumn statement from the chancellor, and she could not shed any further light on the Office for National Statistics’ review of college classification other than to say the government will work to manage any change “as smoothly as possible”.
But she did tell delegates of her desire to ensure apprenticeships, especially those at higher and degree level, are going to “enjoy more than just a moment in the sun” under hers and skills minister Robert Halfon’s leadership in the Department for Education.
Keegan then shared three things that she thinks are “gamechangers” for post-16 education:
Local skills improvement plans ‘will work’
The Department for Education has set aside £20.9 million to create and implement local skills improvement plans in 38 areas over the next three years.
First proposed in the FE white paper, the plans aim to make colleges and training providers align the courses they offer to local employers’ needs. They are led by an employer representative body, mostly chambers of commerce, in each area.
Keegan said the local element of the plans are “crucial”.
“The plan brings together employers and further education colleges and universities and other providers to come up with skills priorities for a particular area. Skills businesses needs in Cumbria are not always going to be the same as they are in Kent. And we know collaboration is key and there are incredible examples of this underway.”
FE Week has however heard of tension in some LSIP areas in the early stages of the plans, and AoC chief executive David Hughes told Keegan after her speech that college leaders’ experience to date of working with the employer representative bodies is “varied”.
Keegan firmly told conference that the plans “have to work” and “will work”.
Institutes of Technology
Keegan said the second gamechanger is Institutes of Technology (IoTs), which are collaborations between FE providers, universities and employers, and aim to deliver higher technical qualifications in areas like STEM and digital, as well as industries with skills shortages.
The education secretary said the first of these to open, since 2019, are “shaping the way we train people in critical areas such as zero carbon energy production, electric vehicles, and clean, sustainable manufacturing”.
The first 12 IoTs comprise more than 40 FE providers, 60 employers and 18 universities, backed by £170 million of government funding to provide industry-standard facilities.
A fresh wave of nine further IoTs, backed by a further £120 million, was announced by the DfE in December last year.
Excellent teaching in FE
Keegan claimed that government has been increasing the level of investment in FE so that colleges can “get the staff they need”.
She reminded leaders of the £1.6 billion additional investment by 2024-25 promised at last year’s spending review, and highlighted the DfE’s new recruitment campaign to attract industry professionals in FE teaching.
But college leaders are still suffering from severe underfunding which is well below 2010 levels, combined with huge inflation and budgetary pressures which are preventing them from offering competitive salaries compared to industry.
Colleges are also battling to retain staff as most cannot offer the pay rises needed amid the cost of living crisis, which has led to the biggest wave of strike action colleges have ever seen this year.
Labour cannot commit to boosting FE funding levels in a future government until it has seen the “scale of the damage” to the economy, the party’s shadow education secretary has said.
Bridget Phillipson warned that “some very difficult choices” lie ahead, saying she would only make funding commitments she could deliver.
Phillipson told delegates at the Association of Colleges conference in Birmingham today that “colleges are central to the ambition Labour has in education”, and stressed that she recognised that college leaders were worried about cash, staff, energy prises and uncertainty of government support. But she did not make any funding pledges during her speech.
Speaking to FE Week following her address, the MP for Houghton and Sunderland South said the economic landscape had changed significantly and could not pledge any uplift in cash for further education or address the disparity between FE and higher education funding until the economic outlook was clearer.
“Because the Conservatives have crashed the economy we don’t know the scale of the damage we will inherit,” she said.
“Until Thursday we still don’t have even the OBR [Office for Budget Responsibility] report as to exactly the shape of the public finances, it makes it very difficult to arrive at the definitive conclusions until we have really got that picture in front of us.
“But the reality is we will face a very tough situation, that next Labour government, and that will force us to make some very difficult choices.”
Despite the bleak picture, Phillipson said that investing in skills would be a part of the party’s economic growth plan.
And for 16-to-18-year-olds, per student spending in further education and sixth form colleges is set to be 10 per cent lower by 2023-24 than when the Conservatives entered government.
Phillipson referenced her own local college in Sunderland and its work with local schools, businesses and the university.
“That is the kind of model that is so effective and has such a brilliant impact in delivering change,” she said.
“Thinking about the different parts of our system in isolation isn’t the approach we would take, and I think sometimes the government seeks to pit one part of the sector against the other, when actually we will be more successful if we work as one with a wider understanding about the importance of education.”
She also used her AoC speech to reiterate her party’s commitments to widening the apprenticeship levy, increasing devolution and launching a new national taskforce called Skills England.
Further education colleges will retain their reserves and continue to operate subsidiaries in the event they’re reclassified to the public sector as widely expected, FE Week understands.
As the Office for National Statistics (ONS) comes to the end of its six-month long classification review, fears that a move to the public sector could result in a raid on reserves appear to have not materialised.
Due to report later this month, the statistics body is expected to reclassify colleges from the private sector – a change which will trigger the need for decisions on a range of issues including tax, staff pay, accounting, and borrowing.
Possible reclassification of colleges to the public sector was first reported by FE Week two years ago when the government’s further education white paper was being developed.
The very same white paper, Skills for Jobs, and its resulting legislation, the Skills and Post-16 Education Act 2022, triggered the ONS’ current assessment of colleges’ classification status.
The ONS regularly carries out classification reviews to check that various parts of the economy are properly accounted for on the government’s books. Reviews are independent of government and follow a strict set of criteria and international standards on government finances.
Neither the Department for Education nor the Treasury will comment on the ONS’ review while its ongoing. However, both departments have been negotiating on new rules for colleges following reclassification to the public sector, according to sources.
One fear of reclassification to the public sector was around whether colleges would be able to retain their reserves.
According to David Hughes, chief executive at the Association of Colleges, colleges have been approached by firms telling them to “hide their reserves” in charitable trusts in case DfE “decides to take them away. Which they could,” he told us in a recent interview.
Multiple sources have told FE Week that colleges will be able to keep their reserves.
While this might come as some relief to colleges, further questions remain unanswered.
One of those is on tax, where the AoC believes over £200 million could be reclaimed by colleges in VAT if they are be made exempt in the same way as schools and academies.
Others will remain fearful that a return to public sector accounting rules will come with more red tape and a loss of autonomy.
Colleges were last reclassified, as private sector, by the ONS in 2012. Since then, colleges have found themselves treated as private sector organisations, for example by not receiving public sector grant funding for the recent rise in national insurance, public sector organisations, because of their requirements to offer staff particular pensions right, and exempt charities, by not being allowed to make a profit.
The ONS are due to reveal their classification on November 29.
Much has rightly been made that the Prime Minister is of Indian heritage and Hindu belief – the first British Asian to hold the highest political office in the land. A significant and historic moment for all of us who believe in diversity, inclusivity, and aspiration. A role model surely for all citizens of colour, giving encouragement to young people in the skills and education system that they can aim high – even if their skin is not white.
What has not caught the media’s attention in the same way (and yet is, I believe, just as powerful a testament to the changing cultural faces and social structures of contemporary Britain is that we have, for the first time ever, two women simultaneously holding the roles of education secretary and shadow education secretary. We have had women at the helm before at the Department of Education – in Conservative and Labour governments alike – but none has held office at the same time as a woman in the shadow counterpart role.
Furthermore, it is noteworthy that Gillian Keegan and Bridget Phillipson are both northern and working class – and as it happens both from Catholic heritage, whether practicing that faith or not. Their voices retain the unmistakable intonations of Liverpool and Sunderland respectively. A Scouser and a Georgie both wielding considerable power and influence in their political parties, in the country, and crucially in the education and skills system.
Both are role models for girls and young women from schools and communities across the north west and north east. Both come from working class backgrounds similar to thousands of young women in today’s schools, colleges, and training providers. They look and sound like our pupils, students, and apprentices – living examples of how education is a route out of poverty to prosperity, the road to self-improvement, career advancement and positions of significant national political authority.
They look and sound like our pupils, students, and apprentices
Here’s the thing. Who was the apprentice? Stereotypically, and in ignorance of their different educational journeys, you might be inclined to think that the Conservative MP would have followed the Oxbridge path, while the Labour MP went through the traditionally working-class apprenticeship route. And you’d be wrong. Ever since her first outing on the post-16 education and skills scene as a junior minister, Keegan has made much of her comprehensive school credentials, apprenticeship, and real-life business experience, in contrast to the Oxbridge-educated Phillipson.
This is a happenstance to be lauded. We now have two high-profile, relatively young women leaders in education, defying old fashioned pigeon-holing – exemplars of social mobility in action, regardless, and in defiance of their familial affiliations. I welcome this because I think it gives hope to girls and young women that people that look and sound like them can make it to the top.
It is also good for post-16 educational practice. Although Keegan and Phillipson have different personal experiences of education, we can expect both to place post-16 skills investment at the heart of their policy implementation. I believe that apprenticeship reform, investment in technical skills and workforce development in FE Colleges and ITPs, and greater devolution of skills funding to local communities and devolved regions form the core of the agenda for post-16 skills over the next decade and that this is an agenda to which both are committed.
Both will address the Association of Colleges conference this week, so let’s see, and let’s welcome them as trailblazers for women, for the working classes, and for skills.
Teachers in sixth form colleges across England have voted to strike over pay, and will likely walk out for the first time in six years later this month.
This more than meets the thresholds needed to make strike action legal. The first planned day of strike action is November 30, though the union today appealed to the education secretary to make the case for larger pay rises.
School staff in the NEU are also currently being balloted for strike action over pay, though the result will not be known until January as that ballot started later.
Most staff in schools and sixth form colleges have been offered pay rises of 5 per cent, though starting salaries are due to rise by 8.9 per cent this year. Inflation is currently at 10.1 per cent.
The NEU warned today that sixth form college teachers had seen a “20 per cent cut in real terms pay since 2010”.
Dr Mary Bousted, the union’s joint general secretary, said the close of the ballot was “well-timed”, coming just before the autumn statement on Thursday.
“It is hoped that Gillian Keegan will quickly use her influence as education secretary to make the case for sixth form colleges.
Below-inflation pay rises ‘unacceptable’
“Further below inflation pay increases are simply unacceptable to our members. Strike action is always taken with great regret, but the sentiment of this ballot result is clear: enough is enough.”
She said the government must “listen and take notice of the effect real-terms pay cuts are having on our members, and, if we continue down this unsustainable path, the consequences that their leaving the profession will have on both the sector and the young people they teach”.
Bill Watkin, chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association, acknowledged staff salaries were “being eroded, as energy costs and other inflationary pressures increase”.
But he said the government funded sixth form colleges “at a lower level than schools, universities and other colleges”, and warned they “simply do not have the resources to meet demands for such a high pay rise”.
“It is disappointing that a generation of young people, who had their education so disrupted by Covid, now risks losing yet more time in the classroom, on the sports field and with staff whose job is to support their mental health and emotional well-being.”
Sixth form colleges are standalone 16 to 19 institutions that offer similar provision to school sixth forms. Most are now academies and some are in multi-academy trusts with schools.
Ballots are also currently being held by the NAHT school leaders’ union and the NASUWT teachers’ union. ASCL, the country’s other headteacters’ union, has said it will run a consultative ballot to test the mood of its members following this week’s autumn statement.
Closures, recruitment struggles and low performance: even Michael Gove who gave university technical colleges the green light while education secretary said they haven’t worked. But, Baker Dearing Trust chief executive Simon Connell tells Billy Camden things are looking up – with new ones on the horizon and plans afoot for new ‘UTC sleeves’…
Since their introduction in 2010, university technical colleges have struggled – so much so that Michael Gove, the then education secretary who gave them the green light, said the schools for 14- to 19-year-olds had just not worked out.
The evidence backed that up. In 2017, when Gove delivered his verdict, more than half of UTCs inspected by Ofsted were rated ‘inadequate’ or ‘requires improvement’.
Low student recruitment left some financially unviable. The National Audit Office found that deficits had doubled across UTCs in an investigation report published in 2019. Almost £800 million of public money had been spent on the programme.
Twelve have closed, leaving just 47 open.
The latest evidence points to us going in the right direction
But the Baker Dearing Trust – the organisation that promotes UTCs – takes a different view.
“It would be nice if we [the sector] could all get along because actually, we’ve got more in common than that which divides us, but that’s life,” chief executive Simon Connell says. He adds that the views that are important to him are from the 40,000-odd students who have gone through UTCs rather than detractors, such as Association of Colleges chief executive David Hughes.
Last month, Hughes told FE Week: “The government’s track record on establishing new institutions to deliver is not a good one, with many UTCs not faring well.”
Connell hits back: “Undoubtedly the latest evidence points to us going in the right direction. That’s not to say it’s perfect, but if you look at current Ofsted outcomes, student recruitment, if you look at destinations, broadly things are positive.”
He says UTC aggregate enrolment rose 8 per cent to 18,736 students this year. And latest Ofsted data shows 78 per cent of the colleges are rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ with none ‘inadequate’.
What he doesn’t point out is most poor-performing UTCs were given a fresh start with their Ofsted grades wiped after joining a multi-academy trust.
He wants every UTC to be Ofsted ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ by 2025, saying there is “no excuse for that not happening”.
But the picture on recruitment is still worrying. FE Week analysis found while five are oversubscribed, more than half are still less than two-thirds full (the capacity that Connell says is needed to be financially viable).
Four UTCs even have less than 20 per cent full, according to the latest data published on the government’s Get Information About Schools website.
But Connell is not worried about any more going under, claiming that mechanisms are now in place to keep struggling UTCs afloat – because of multi-academy trusts (MATs).
Seven in 10 UTCs are in MATs – a move favoured by ministers and, despite initially resisting it, the Baker Dearing Trust which began to encourage the process in 2019 to enable the colleges to survive.
“I see the value in UTCs being part of MATs, being part of the local education landscape, having the expertise and the credibility of a new offer within an established group of schools,” Connell says.
“It helps shore up their finances. We’ve seen examples of acceleration in student recruitment. I’m confident with some of those that needed to join MATs, that need to improve their recruitment, that that will happen.”
In addition to MAT mergers, almost four in 10 UTCs have lowered their age range from the traditional 14 to 19 model. Six now recruit from year 7 while 12 recruit from year 9.
So are these schools even UTCs anymore?
Connell says the year 9 recruitment model is a “minor tweak” that allows young people to settle in before starting their GCSEs in year 10 and can make “quite a bit of difference”.
But he believes UTCs have “exhausted” the year 7 model and doesn’t think any more will go down this route.
He says because of this, plus the tens of millions of pounds of “transitional funding” from government to clear their debts, the financial picture of UTCs nationally is much healthier than three years ago at the time of the NAO’s report.
While Connell doesn’t go as far as claiming the current crop of UTCs are “among the most successful state schools in the country”, like Lord Baker said in The Times this week, he says the “facts show” they are on an upward trajectory.
Plus, at the encouragement of the Department for Education, bids for three brand new colleges have gone into the latest wave of free school applications.
Connell said the bids will be in “areas that government will be interested in”, hinting at the 55 education investment areas identified in ministers’ levelling up plans. But has few more details.
Lord Baker
He hopes at least one will be successful, but barriers include the government having no money for capital and numbers of pupils in secondary schools set to fall after peaking in 2024.
The last time bids for new UTCs were submitted was 2019, but all three applications were rejected.
One beacon of hope this time around is the reappointment of Robert Halfon as skills minister – a UTC fanboy who has repeatedly spoken of his desire to open one in every town.
Connell also says setting up UTC “sleeves” in schools provides an alternative way to grow – a model first put to ministers last year.
Halfon said at the Conservative Party conference in October they were an “exciting concept”, which would “help mitigate the higher costs of building new facilities” and “firmly embed vocational education alongside traditional academic learning”.
The model would involve a secondary school offering the technical education curriculum, including T Levels, used in UTCs alongside their usual academic pathway, developed with the help of an employer board. Students would enter the sleeve at age 14 and leave at 19, like a normal UTC.
Connell says 12 schools have contacted him over the past year to express an interest in piloting the sleeves.
One has already opened – but not as originally intended. Struggling Bristol Technology and Engineering Academy was taken over by Abbeywood School, located next door, in September. But Connell says schools would ideally open up mini-UTCs in their schools from scratch.
Over the years, proponents of the UTC movement have heard it all – they’re a fad, a vanity scheme, Lord Baker’s pet project. It’s Connell’s job to be ambitious and optimistic about UTCs. And the “pitch” of sleeves to a new administration at the DfE that are hungry for ideas, but even hungrier for funding, could be compelling.
Previous Job: Director of Apprenticeships, SCL Education Group
Interesting fact: Lyn loves holidays and visiting new places but with her beautiful new granddaughter being only 1 week old, she’s plans on going nowhere for a while!
Lloyd Davis
Principal, The London City Institute of Technology
Start date: October 2022
Concurrent Job: Director of Curriculum, Newham College of Further Education
Interesting fact: Lloyd only stopped playing rugby at the age of 50 ending a run of 183 consecutive games for Teddington Rugby Club
Neil Bates
Chair, Educationwise Academy
Start date: November 2022
Concurrent Job: Chair of Edge Foundation
Interesting fact: Neil was the first ever chair of the Association of Learning Providers (now AELP) and led the first ever incorporation of a new further education college
David Warnes
Principal and Chief Executive, Chelmsford College
Start date: October 2022
Previous Job: Deputy Principal, West London College
Interesting fact: David worked at LOCOG on the FE Education programme for the London Olympic Games and sat three desks down from Seb Coe
CEO and Group Principal, Milton Keynes College Group
Start date: October 2022
Previous Job: Principal, Milton Keynes College Group
Interesting fact: Sally loves live music, in particular small up-and-coming bands. She has travelled the world to catch brilliant bands in new exciting venues, going as far as Nashville to do it.
Lord Baker
Vice chair, All Party Parliamentary Group on Apprenticeships
Interesting fact: Lord Baker collects political caricatures and prints and has written books about them
Colin Butler
Executive Director People and Culture, North Warwickshire and South Leicestershire College
Start date: October 2022
Previous Job: HR lead, Hill & Smith Holdings plc
Interesting fact: Colin became an avid skydiver after successfully completing his first parachute jump to raise funds for charity and has since completed around 20 freefall jumps
As staunch forces in Ukraine continue to fight for the freedom of their country, loved ones who sought sanctuary in the UK live with the fear and uncertainty of what they might one day return home to. Jason Noble finds out just how instrumental Britain’s colleges have been in helping refugees build their home away from home.
“It is always in my heart. It is always in mind. It feels like a double life. I speak to you, I smile but inside…”
Tetiana Udovichenko’s words are deeply personal, yet felt by millions of Ukrainians in the wake of the invasion of Vladimir Putin’s Russian forces.
Some seven million citizens left their home nation to find sanctuary in Europe and abroad, all the while as patriotic loved ones fight each day to repel Russian forces and retake occupied lands.
Since February 24, when the invasion first began, almost 150,000 found that sanctuary in the UK, thanks to the generosity of people welcoming them through the Homes for Ukraine resettlement scheme.
With it has come the dedicated efforts of the country’s colleges to lay on ESOL (English for speakers of other languages) courses, and other learning opportunities to help Ukrainians settle as best they can.
While exact numbers at the country’s further education colleges and sixth forms have not been recorded, a Department for Education survey over the summer found dozens – at least 59 – had enrolled students, either adults or teenagers.
Elvira Koshlata, a Ukrainian student at Preston College
At least seven colleges have recorded more than 100 Ukrainian students on their books.
Many learners are on ESOL courses to get up to speed with English as quickly as possible, but at least 1,200 students are on A-level or other post-GCSE courses.
Elvira Koshlata, 29, arrived from Kharkiv – Ukraine’s second largest city and one of the most heavily bombed regions of the war – in May this year, and was immediately enlisted at Preston College’s four-week ESOL classes in June. She has continued classes this autumn and found work as a hairstylist, as she had been back at home.
“The college for me is like a holiday, I really enjoy my time here,” the 29-year-old says. “When I came here, I was really struggling with the British accent and thought ‘oh my god, how can I order a coffee’. When I came to college everyone was so nice and talked clearly, I got so many tips. I can ask teachers about something not about classes – they can tell me who to answer these questions. I thrive in lessons to be honest.”
At Preston she met Tetiana, also from Kharkiv, and together the pair have formed a strong friendship.
“This organisation makes me feel more safe, I feel very protected,” Tetiana, 40, said. “During lessons we get a lot of useful information. It’s not just about language, it is about practical issues we can possibly have.
“I feel the state cares about me.”
Tetiana Udovichenko, a Ukrainian student at Preston College
That feeling of safety is a natural one given just how terrifying those early days and weeks were at home.
Tetiana says: “It was very stressful. After the first air raid I decided to escape. I was with my daughter and family of her boyfriend. After a very hard night [around a week into the bombing] a lot of people got scared very much. Before that night the Russians didn’t use aviation, they didn’t bomb from aircrafts before this, and a lot of people were scared and decided to save their lives, the same as me.”
That was a train into the western side of the country, but Tetiana wanted to head to the UK where her partner was living. It meant separating from her daughter, who decided to stay with her boyfriend, as well as Tetiana’s two brothers, parents, niece and grandmother, who remained in occupied territories.
That is the moment she describes as her “double life” – living each day in the UK with the constant worry of loved ones at home.
At Exeter College, 26-year-old Ann-Mary Truskavetsa arrived from Lviv with mum Olha, 48. Both are now studying GCSEs, with Olha also working at the college as a learning support assistant.
“The UK is full-on different. It is a good way of different in which you get to explore a lot of things,” Ann-Mary said. “The fact Exeter College was so welcoming, they accepted us from the get-go, which, apart from a distraction from what was happening out there, it gave us a sense of purpose.”
Kateryna Andriukhina, 31, who came to England from Luhansk via Kiev with her daughter, said: “For me, this feeling of being nervous is normal because the country is different and we are just worried about more stress because this is not in the plan. We got used to it. This is what now fills every feeling of every Ukrainian, just worried about family in Ukraine, worried about home, and worried about myself now.”
Nataliia Ponomarenko, 42, who came over from Kremenchuk in May with her son, added: “Of course we were worried. We have family and friends at home in Ukraine, and we read in the news every morning every evening that it doesn’t stop.”
But far from just teaching English to new arrivals, college staff nationwide have been vital in other areas of life too, many laying on extra support beyond just language courses.
Common additions have been free bus passes or subsidised travel, lunch vouchers, and loaned laptops.
Summer ESOL classes for Ukrainian refugees at Exeter College
Rachel Watkins, assistant head for skills development and curriculum lead for ESOL at Preston College, which has 65 Ukrainians on its roll, said: “Built into our curriculum is a lot of employability and work-related topics, [such as] writing CVs here in the UK. So, we are planning all the time for students’ progression, whether it is in the next three or four weeks or the end of the year.”
Keighley College meanwhile is supporting 50 students and helped Ukrainians with Department for Work and Pension support, as well as employability and housing advice.
It was a similar picture at Stratford-upon-Avon College, which has 24 Ukrainian students, and set up an integration course over the summer at the request of the local Welcome Here group which had been supporting refugees.
Alex Blewer, programme manager for English and maths, said it was “very much led by [students] and what they wanted to know”.
He added: “The whole idea is to improve their employability in the UK. A lot of them are highly skilled back home, but, at the moment because of the language, they are doing jobs they can do but are capable of far more.”
Crucially, Ukrainians were immediately given some settlement status so they could access Universal Credit and free education. Students already here were granted visa extensions. But the picture is ever changing, and with it the needs of the learners.
Jo Rusden, deputy head for adult and community at Keighley College, said: “Now what we are finding is suddenly because there has been an escalation in the conflict in Ukraine, we are finding that a lot of students over the last few weeks have been finding it a lot harder.”
Some of the Ukrainian students studying in the UK
For instance, with Guy Fawkes Night having recently passed where the sounds of fireworks in the evenings were prevalent, Jo said some students found the noises difficult reminders of the conflict at home. That became something the college talked about in class to prepare them ahead of the weekend.
Jo continued: “We know that their needs are going to change and adapt. So that might be wellbeing, which we are sourcing from external organisations such as Migration Yorkshire. It’s different when it is just a few months but the conflict is dragging on and on. It is quite difficult for some of our students because a lot of their older family members refuse to leave Ukraine. They are finding that really hard.”
Alex added: “We have been very careful about teaching materials, discussions we have – there are a lot of triggers for some of these people, such as talking about family they have left behind.”
Signposting to housing support is likely to be needed as refugees come to the end of their stints with host families.
A common theme emerging from the colleges – particularly in the ESOL departments – has been the preparedness for responding to such a crisis. It would have been easy for those colleges to have been overwhelmed by the sudden extra numbers, but many have had experience from previous years.
Dawn Griffiths, academy director for ESOL and international English at The Sheffield College, which has about 200 Ukrainian learners, said: “In the ESOL department we are quite used to doing that. We have responded to the Afghanistan crisis, the Syrian crisis. We have been through a number of critical situations like this one was, and we get on board. We say, ‘this is the situation, we are going to have to respond very quickly.’”
Exeter College recalled a phone call from Devon County Council last autumn when the Afghan refugees arrived in which they were asked to put on provision for 87 refugees with just a day’s notice.
Many colleges put on dedicated courses in the summer to help Ukrainians specifically – often non-qualification courses – before enrolling them on the autumn programmes. Those progressing well often move on to GCSE English and maths, while IT skills courses are also helping students.
Olha Truskavetsa, Nataliia Ponomarenko, Kateryna Andriukhina, Ukrainian students at Exeter College
Many have also had groups largely comprising adults with only a handful of teenagers, but Sheffield has about 18 young people aged 16 to 18 who have gone on level 3 courses such as science, business or public services.
Dawn said those students had done “phenomenally well”, with some now eyeing university places or access to higher level courses.
Exeter College has about 300 Ukrainian students, with 33 adult courses running. It employed three new teachers and existing teachers have taken on extra hours too.
Laura Grix, ESOL programme leader at Exeter said: “If you are fleeing a war-torn country, your primary aim isn’t to get to an FE college in time for their enrolment. We have to be responsive with what is happening in the community around us rather than being rigid about when they turn up and when we assess them.”
By far the most common words used by college staff to describe their Ukrainian learners are “determined” and “resilient”, which speaks volumes to the efforts they have made since arriving. But how do they look to the future when they do not know how long the war will last at home?
Ann-Mary said: “I would lie if I said I didn’t want to go back. It’s my country, my people, my home, and I don’t want to leave my home.
“In terms of the UK, you have a beautiful country. When I heard of English people in general stereotypes you are cold and reserved – no way, you are actually very heart-warming people who have a big heart. The whole experience I did not expect anything and I got a lot. I don’t know if you could ask for anything more.”
