CEO’s mission to make AI a force for good in classrooms

Priya Lakhani, founder of one of the world’s biggest AI EdTech companies, is at pains to express how many of her glowing achievements have been driven by a strong moral conviction to make the world a better place.

This is important for her, not only because she sits on the government’s AI Council and her social enterprise, Century, is now the largest provider of online maths, English and functional skills programmes in colleges in the country. But also because she is defending herself from detractors who say “cruel” and “horrible” things about her.

At one investor meeting, a fellow EdTech entrepreneur held up on stage a picture of Elizabeth Holmes – the American founder of Theranos facing 11 years in jail for fraud related to the failed blood-testing company – and said, “This is the AI in EdTech in the UK”.

Lakhani says the jibe was “really awful and very hurtful”, because “everyone knows” that Century, a personalised teaching and learning platform which has been used by over 1.2 million students in 55 countries, is “the big AI company not just in the UK, but Europe…and frankly the US. How dare they do that? That’s a defamation case, isn’t it?”

Lakhani would know the answer better than most: in a former life, the philanthropist-entrepreneur was a barrister specialising in media law. I cautiously tread the line between objective journalism and not wanting to offend Lakhani. 

In some ways this is easy, because she is instantly likeable. Her door sign at Century’s London office, where Lakhani has been making “pancake cakes” (like pancakes but spongey) for her staff, reads “Dumbledore’s office”. Like Harry Potter’s headmaster, Lakhani is clearly a wise and morally steadfast education leader. Unlike him, her thoughts tumble out at 100 miles an hour, and I struggle to get a word in edgeways. 

Priya Lakhani

Autism controversy

One reason Lakhani has attracted such vitriol is her controversial claim two years ago that her AI can predict, with 96 per cent accuracy, whether a child is autistic. Industry experts promptly called for verifiable evidence.

Lakhani says the technology tracks student behaviour, and this correlates with demographic data from information management systems indicating whether a student has special needs.

“With autism, it was overwhelming, the patterns that we saw,” she says. 

A tool able to diagnose autism would be the holy grail for some EdTech investors, with the potential to make billions. But Lakhani cautions that her AI is “not a diagnostic” tool. And she is refusing to give in to pressure to publish Century’s “commercially sensitive” studies on the matter.

“We are an EdTech company, we put the ed before the tech…I have learned from the experts who know what they’re talking about that this [technology] is not an appropriate way to diagnose autism.”

Lakhani would “love to” work with an autism charity and academics to publish a “full study” on the autism issue, but this is “just a matter of timing and people and resources” and is not a priority for the moment. 

For now, Lakhani’s focus is “getting the technology in front of as many students as possible, improving outcomes, reducing teacher workload and to personalise as much as we can”. 

Relentless drive

Century’s journey has been shaped by Lakhani’s formidable work ethic, which has been a constant theme of her life. At school, Lakhani was told by certain teachers she would “never be a lawyer” because she was “brown and female”. She worked through every lunch hour to prove them wrong. 

While other law students had two or three work placements, she had 20 and “no holidays through university”. 

When she married, Lakhani chose to make her own iced version of Nigella Lawson’s chocolate fudge cake for her 600 guests, the day before the wedding.

How much of this boundless energy could be down to her own ADHD? Lakhani only discovered she had ADHD in her thirties and is “quite happy” not to have been diagnosed earlier “because maybe the label would have affected me negatively, maybe not”. 

Priya Lakhani

Inspired by Hancock

The fact that Lakhani’s AI platform is prompting controversy is ironic, given that the inspiration behind her concept was sparked by a politician who has courted more controversy than almost any other in recent years – Matt Hancock. 

By 2012, Lakhani had quit law and built up the country’s first fresh ethnic sauce company, Masala Masala, based on her mum’s traditional recipe. The social enterprise provided over three million meals and thousands of vaccines to the underprivileged in India and Africa and funded several schools there. 

Lakhani was appointed as an advisor by Vince Cable, the then business secretary, on his Entrepreneurs’ Forum, alongside Dragon’s Den’s Julie Meyer and James Caan. Lakhani recalls Hancock, then a joint minister between the education and business departments, stating during a meeting that “20 per cent of our nation can’t read, write or do maths well enough to get a good job at the end of formal education, and this is a problem that we need to solve”. 

While Hancock never got a chance to solve that particular problem, it was a “real wake up moment” for Lakhani.

She recalls thinking, “oh my goodness. I’ve just spent four years funding schools in Commonwealth countries that all replicate the British model, which doesn’t work for 20 per cent of our kids. What’s going on?”

Priya Lakhani and her mum Dipa Lakhani

The turn of the Century

Lakhani wound up her involvement with Masala Masala and turned her sights to education.

She set up meetings with leaders from the “most challenged” schools as well as the “top of the league table independent” schools, and discovered that while “every school” and “every teacher was different”, they used the same “one size fits all delivery”.

 “Teachers were complaining, poor things…They were showing me all this marking and assessing they were doing which looked just like when I was at school. They were frazzled with all this work,” she says.

Lakhani turned to AI, which she knew something about from her experience as a BBC current affairs commentator.

Lakhani took several ‘nanodegree’ online AI courses and became “completely hooked”. 

She was the victim of a “very violent robbery” 13 years ago in which she was beaten with a brick, and in order to overcome the severe post-traumatic stress disorder she experienced, Lakhani set out to read “every medical journal related to PTSD written since the Vietnam War to explain what was happening in my brain”. 

“Because of that, I learned a lot about neuroscience. If it hadn’t happened, I doubt Century would exist today,” she says.

Building an AI company is not easy for those without Silicon Valley credentials, and Lakhani was initially “laughed out the door by every venture capitalist” because she was “not a former Google engineer”. 

She was told “you don’t look like an AI entrepreneur”, with one investor asking her: “Sweetheart, can you explain what AI is to me?” 

But Lakhani convinced enough backers to believe in her. Century has raised £22 million in investment, and Lakhani claims it no longer requires further rounds and is now “on the path to break even”.

Despite now being 10 years old, it is still classed as a “small” company and does not have to file audited accounts (meaning it meets two of the three thresholds: a turnover of £10.2 million or less, £5.1 million or less on its balance sheet, or fewer than 50 employees). 

Annual accounts show Century has posted a £16.5 million loss since it was founded – £3.3 million of that was in 2021-22. Lakhani says this shows the invested money being spent. But she also gives the impression throughout our conversation that her overriding objective is to improve education, rather than make as much money as possible.

Priya Lakhani

Journey into FE

After achieving success in schools, Lakhani decided there was “not enough love” for FE and Century began investing through match funding in devising assessments and personalised learning plans to help students resitting their maths and English GCSEs. 

An initial evaluation of six colleges showed spending ten minutes a week on the platform led to twice the national progress results. It has since been adopted by 74 per cent of colleges, and Century’s AI is being used by partners including BPP Law School, Oxford University Press, Pearson and Bond.

Century’s initial assessment tests, which adapt questions based on how previous questions were answered, are also used by independent training providers for apprenticeships.

Philosophical debates

Century’s global expansion is continuing at pace. It has partnered with the Canadian online learning company D2L to host its K-12 curriculum on Century’s platform and last month launched in the US. There are plans to launch six other partnerships over the next six months.

Lakhani is also currently advising the chancellor on reviewing AI regulations. 

She describes with relish the “incredible” debates her 120 staff of engineers, data scientists, teachers, neuroscientists and educational psychologists, get into. 

“Lots of philosophy and ethics! And that’s great, because we didn’t build Century for any other reason than we wanted to try and improve education…there are 120 people here who will stand by that purpose.”

Twitter unkindness

She still faces detractors. Most disturbingly, one created a fake account for Lakhani on Twitter, “perfectly curated” to attract over 200 education-influencer followers. At a time when “a fair few ministers across different countries” were seeking to adopt Century’s technology, the impersonated account tweeted ministers, calling them “really horrible words” that Lakhani declines to repeat.

Indeed, the ruse was so authentic that she was messaged by a DfE official asking her to stop tweeting.

Lakhani believes such underhand tactics are not unusual in the business world but is “shocked and surprised” it happens in education. 

“I’m just trying to mind my own business, just trying to solve a couple of problems in education and the amount of vitriol I have received…is extraordinary,” she says.

It is one reason why she is now writing a book on disinformation and fake news – her third, following one on why the current education system is failing and a sci-fi children’s story.

Lakhani would never allow her own two children to be “unkind”.

But then there are those “extraordinarily kind” people in the education sector, including ASCL’s general secretary Geoff Barton and Jonnie Noakes, director of teaching and learning at Eton College, who “keep [her] going”.

“When I meet them, it just reminds me of why I’m doing what I’m doing. Sometimes I need that reminder. People think entrepreneurs are just so resilient, but actually it does take the community.”

‘Lower than expected’: T Levels attract 10,200 new students in 2022

More than 10,000 young people were recruited onto T Levels in the third year of the rollout, new government data shows.

Sector chiefs have warned that the figure shows lower-than-expected demand for the flagship qualifications as colleges struggled to hit their enrolment targets.

Figures in the latest T Level action plan published on Thursday showed 10,200 student starts across 16 T Levels in 2022, compared to 5,210 new learners across ten T Levels in 2021.

Just over 1,000 students studied one of the first three T Levels in the inaugural 2020 year, meaning a total of about 16,400 learners have started a T Level since they were launched.

Some 164 providers across England delivered the courses in 2022, up from 102 in 2021 and 43 in 2020.

In 2022/23, new T Levels launched in accounting, design and development for engineering and manufacturing, engineering, manufacturing, processing and control, finance, maintenance, installation and repair for engineering and manufacturing, and management and administration.

In her written announcement of the delay to four of the T Levels due to launch this September, education secretary Gillian Keegan said: “The T Level action plan, which was published today, sets out that T Level starts doubled from around 5,000 to around 10,000 between 2021 and 2022.

“Most importantly, T Level students, teachers and employers continue to give us great feedback on the quality of T Level courses.”

On the T Level transition programme – a year-long 16 to 19 course for those not ready to start a T Level but who wish to do so later – early DfE data recorded 5,600 students across all routes last year compared to 3,348 in 2021 and 847 in 2020.

T Levels were launched in 2020 to be rigorous technical equivalents to the academic A levels route, with future courses due to be rolled out in the next few years.

Julian Gravatt, the Association of Colleges’ deputy chief executive, said his organisation’s members have struggled to recruit against their targets.

“While only DfE has current data on total student numbers, the AoC autumn 2022 enrolment survey showed that for 11 out of 16 T Level subjects, enrolments were lower than expected at over half of colleges – with particular challenges in digital business services, health and healthcare science,” he told FE Week.

Characteristics data on ethnicity and special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) suggested that T Levels were not as accessible for those learners as other level 3s.

The percentage of T Level students with an education health and care plan (EHCP) was 2.4 per cent in 2020 and 2.7 per cent in 2021 – lower than the 3.5 per cent and 3.2 per cent respectively on level 3 vocational and technical qualifications.

In 2020, 11 per cent of T Level students were recorded as being from an ethnic minority background, rising to 18 per cent in 2021 (excluding school data), below the 24 per cent across other level 3 technical and vocational subjects.

The action plan said that as a new course the DfE “might expect providers to be more reluctant to recommend them to students with SEND until they have a good understanding of the courses and until they are well embedded into the system,” adding that the ethnicity data “reflects the fact that T Levels are at an early phase of rollout,” and geographical spread was “not yet even”.

Ex-DfE ministers call for ‘apprenticeship levy 2.0’

The apprenticeship levy “will not level up Britain” without serious reform, the cabinet minister that introduced the policy has said.

Justine Greening, along with the former skills minister Anne Milton and eight business leaders, have written to chancellor Jeremy Hunt urging him to launch a formal review of the levy in next week’s spring budget.

The intervention, seen by FE Week, points to “billions of levy [funding] going unspent by employers” as their main argument for reform.

“There is a real opportunity for reform, not least having more transparency and engagement with employers on how that centrally returned levy is invested,” the letter says.

The former ministers are the latest figures to claim the apprenticeship levy is suffering from huge underspends. While that was true for the early years of the levy, data obtained by FE Week in December showed that just 0.4 per cent of the apprenticeships budget went unspent in 2021/22, reigniting fears the budget could soon run dry.

Current skills minister Robert Halfon has denied the need for controls on apprenticeship spending to manage the budget, despite growth in expensive higher level and degree apprenticeships swallowing an increasing amount of the budget.

Greening, now founder and chair of the Social Mobility Pledge said: “When I introduced the apprenticeship levy in 2017 its overriding objectives were driving improved social mobility through better quality skills education and tackling Britain’s skills shortages, which were acute even then.

“The introduction of the levy was a hugely positive step which has enabled many apprenticeship opportunities nationwide but five years on and with billions of levy going unspent by employers, there’s a risk that without serious reform the levy doesn’t level up Britain in the way we intended.”

Anne Milton, former apprenticeship minister
Anne Milton

The business leaders and former politicians hope for a “properly structured review” this time, and what they call “apprenticeship levy 2.0”.

 This time last year, then-chancellor Rishi Sunak announced that the Treasury would “consider” and “examine” the effectiveness of levy in his Spring statement in the House of Commons, only for the Treasury to deny days later that this amounted to a formal review.

Ideas put forward in the letter include increasing the levy transfer cap from 25 per cent to 40 per cent, reviewing prior attainment requirements “particularly with regards to maths”, and allowing funding to be used for wider skills training.

Adding their names to Greening and Milton’s calls for action are Shirine Khouvry-Haq, chief executive of The Co-operative Group, Mark Goodyer, HR director of Sodexo and Daniel Curtis, head of talent of Travelodge.

Khoury-Haq said the Co-op is backing a review because the current levy model doesn’t promote social mobility. 

“Apprenticeships are one of the best tools we have to promote social mobility, but the levy as currently designed holds us back. A structured review by government could empower more employers to offer apprenticeships to those who would most benefit,” she said.

“At the Co-op we’re already working to create apprenticeship opportunities for disadvantaged individuals and communities – we do this by working with other employers to pool and redistribute unspent levy funds. If the cap on redistribution of unspent levy funds were to be increased from 25 per cent to 40 per cent with increased flexibility on how the levy can be used, we could deliver even more of these opportunities.” 

Anne Milton took over as skills minister just two months after the apprenticeship levy was introduced in April 2017. She has co-signed the letter as chair of Purpose Health Coalition. 

“Five years on from the introduction of the apprenticeship levy, now is the right time to review how it is structured and make sure the operation of the levy is properly aligned with the drive to level up our country. We need, in effect, an apprenticeship levy 2.0, and I hope the chancellor will take the opportunity presented by next week’s Budget to fire the starting gun on this process.” 

This intervention comes just one week after another former DfE minister, Jo Johnson, called for the chancellor to double employer contributions for a new apprenticeships and skills levy.

The chancellor will deliver the spring budget in the House of Commons on Wednesday March 15.

How cloud migration can increase colleges’ data security: protecting the people that matter most

Recent cyber-attacks on colleges have resulted in the loss of important data, putting students and staff at risk. Moving to secure cloud systems provides the security needed to give colleges peace of mind and save money says Marcus Blackburn, Operations Director at Civica Education.

In recent years, we’ve seen a spate of high-profile cyber-attacks on colleges and further education (FE) institutions. It’s a common tactic for cyber criminals to use ransomware attacks on their targets. Usually, attackers work their way to gaining access to a college’s on-site systems and delete or encrypt files and data. They’ll then issue a ransom note demanding payment in return for release of the stolen data. 

Further education, along with the wider education sector, has seen an increase in ransomware attacks over recent years. Organisations which use a range of different systems and which have large number of people accessing their network should ensure they have a robust cyber security strategy in place to mitigate risks. And with the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) indicating that 88% of FE colleges had identified and reported a breach or attack in the last year, it’s not a threat that is going away any time soon.

Once attacked, colleges found themselves immediately unable to deliver services, make or receive payments or even access records. It’s hard to exaggerate the scale and effect of these incidents. Impacts are mainly felt on three levels: operationally, as colleges struggle to get back up and running; financially, as revenues are lost and remediation costs pile up; and reputationally, as people question the security of the data that’s held about them.

1. The operational impact

In many cases, it has taken colleges weeks, or even months, to fully recover from a cyber-attack. Restoring a compromised IT estate can be exceptionally challenging, time-consuming, and stressful for everyone. Teachers, administrators, managers and students can be affected by operational disruption, as well as key stakeholders like suppliers and employers.

For the short-term, the safest course of action is to shut down all IT systems hosted internally, which can include email and virtual learning environments. There have been instances where college enrolments and online classes were cancelled until further notice and A-level result announcements were delayed. To get back up and running operationally, IT teams needed to work overtime, often employing external consultants to help with the workload.

2. The financial impact

For many IT departments, safeguarding infrastructure poses a significant challenge to the budget in many ways. From Jisc CSIRT’s work in helping HE institutions and FES providers recover from ransomware incidents, they are aware of impact costs exceeding £2m. That’s precious funds that could be used elsewhere to enhance the learning and infrastructure of the college.

Recovery costs can also extend to hardware that’s compromised during attacks – from on-site servers to the devices used by individual staff. These may need replacing and reinstalling, costing thousands of pounds.

3. The reputational impact

You don’t have to do extensive research to discover high-profile reports of colleges and groups who have suffered from cyber-attacks. The negative headlines can be damaging for colleges who often compete for student admissions.

What can colleges and FE institutions do to tighten security their IT estate and operations?

Security isn’t optional

Moving to cloud solutions means colleges no longer need to choose between ‘more security’ and ‘better usability’. Many colleges moving to the cloud want to integrate and streamline their processes and operate more efficiently, enabling college providers to ease burdensome administrative tasks such as HR, student admissions, timetabling and records management. Staff members and students can securely access, amend and update information from anywhere. There are also scalability benefits which are not easily available on-premises without in-house system development teams.

Ultimately, colleges and FE groups are tasked with providing high-quality education for students. Resource should rarely be focused on updating and maintaining IT services. By choosing a cloud-operated supplier, who is responsible for aspects such as security and upgrades, colleges can focus on improving the student experience, driving retention and attracting new students. Colleges can then shift their focus to managing operational costs and forecasting budgets more effectively, rather than on data and software security.

Every cloud has a silver lining

It’s not just about security. Today, all colleges are facing significant challenges around budgets, resources, and compliance. They’re faced with the classic ‘do more with less’ conundrum – deliver a better (mostly digital) service but with less money and fewer people. Migrating to the cloud is an opportunity to improve student enrolment and retention, internal and external communications, as well as refocus energies on the purpose of further education – teaching, learning and research.

Cloud MIS can tackle these challenges from several angles. Their self-serve options can cut workloads for internal teams. There’s no IT estate to manage and update, because access is via URL on any connected device. Reporting is easier and more powerful. And importantly, costs are predictable.

Cost savings offer another compelling incentive for colleges to adopt a cloud-optimised environment. By only paying for the services that are used, the cloud offers significant opportunities to accelerate the return on investment – as well as eliminating the threat of costly and disruptive workload from system failures of cyberattacks.

Do more with less. Civica can help protect your data from cybercrime

Civica REMS cloud system has the scale and focused expertise that’s needed to combat cyber threats. It’s hosted in highly secure data centres, with its security capabilities constantly updating to reflect the changing threat landscape. Colleges and FE groups can manage and support learners with no need to secure on-premises hardware and software.

As cyberattacks continue to increase in our ever-more digital world, taking action to move more systems to the secure cloud could be the answer, bringing peace of mind and cost-effective solutions to already money and time-strapped colleges across the UK.

Get in touch

Discover more: civica.com/rems

Start the conversation: educationsuite@civica.co.uk

Keegan delays launch of new 2023 T Levels

The launch of four new flagship T Levels due to begin in September have been delayed due to quality concerns, FE Week understands.

Multiple sources have confirmed that some of the fourth wave of the government’s flagship new qualifications, designed to be technical equivalents to A-levels, are due to be pushed back by education secretary Gillian Keegan today.

Seven T Levels were due to begin from September 2023.

FE Week understands that of those, the three being designed by NCFE – hair, beauty and aesthetics; craft and design; and media broadcast and production – will be delayed by a year.

It is also understood that the catering T Level, being awarded by Highfield, will postponed for two years until 2025.

Pearson’s T Level in legal services is expected to stick to a roll out date of September 2023, as is City and Guilds’ agriculture, land management and production qualification.

A T Level in animal care and management, which City and Guilds secured the contract for, had originally been due to launch in September too, however it was confirmed last year that the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education decided to defer that until September 2024 because the content and structure of the qualification needed more work.

A written ministerial statement was released by Keegan shortly after this article was published which confirmed the delays. She said: “T Level technical qualifications will only be approved for delivery where we are sure they are good enough and can be delivered to a high standard.

“As such, there is more work for awarding organisations to do before the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education and Ofqual can be clear that these T Levels are capable of meeting the high quality bar required by both organisations to enable them to be taken into delivery, and that will not be possible in time for launch this September.”

The announcement leaves questions over whether the government should also delay its plans to axe overlapping level 3 qualifications like BTECs as a result. However, FE Week understands Keegan is going to stick to the current timetable.

Last week, 360 headteachers and principals signed a letter to the education secretary calling for the cull of BTECs and other applied general qualifications to be postponed by a year, arguing that they did not have sufficient time to ensure “students are on the right courses, or the right staff are in place with the right level of training”.

The DfE has been working to streamline the landscape of level 3 qualifications, working to create a system for 2025 to encourage students to study either A-levels, T Levels or do an apprenticeship post-16.

It warned that qualifications will only continue to be funded if they did not overlap with the T Levels and pass a stricter new approval process.

Former universities minister Jo Johnson earlier this month raised concerns at the pace of change, warning that there was a “clear evidence base that T Levels are not yet ready to take the weight and shoulder the burden that’s being placed on them”.

But Keegan’s ministerial statement confirmed there will be no delay to the defunding timetable. She said: “Qualifications that overlap with the three T Levels moved back to 2024 were already due to have funding removed in 2025 and this will not change; there will still be dual running for one year. We will confirm implications for qualifications that overlap with the Catering T Level when we provide an update on the timetable for introduction.”

Association of Colleges chief executive David Hughes said the DfE is “right to ensure only T Levels of high enough quality enter the market”.

But he warned that colleges will be “massively disrupted” by this announcement happening so late in the year”.

He said: “Colleges already had plans in place for how to deliver these now delayed T Levels and have been marketing them to potential learners. Alternative arrangements will now need to be made urgently. DfE must guarantee any providers which are affected have the support they need to ensure no students misses out on learning because of these delays.”

Tom Bewick, chief executive of the Federation of Awarding Bodies welcomed the delay.

“Far better to get these technical education reforms right, than to try and meet some risky, politically driven timeline,” he said.

James Kewin, deputy chief executive at the Sixth Form Colleges Association, said the DfE’s decision to plough ahead with the level 3 defunding timetable is “astounding”.

“It makes sense to delay the roll out of these T levels if there are concerns about quality, but it makes absolutely no sense to press ahead with plans to scrap existing level 3 qualifications in these subjects,” he told FE Week.

“The government’s dogmatic approach to level 3 reform will leave many young people without a viable pathway to higher education or employment. It is still not too late to chart a different course, but that will involve dropping the ‘ministers know best’ approach that has characterised policymaking in this area and starting to listen to the concerns of students, education professionals and employers.”

Only current degree apprenticeship providers will get slice of £8m expansion fund

More than 100 universities and colleges will receive a slice of an £8 million fund to help accelerate the growth of degree apprenticeships, the Office for Students has announced.

But the funding will only go to those higher education providers that already deliver the programmes, rather than those that are struggling to kickstart their degree apprenticeships offer.

The government has given the HE regulator an additional £16 million of recurrent funding this year, with the intention to use half to support the development of level 6 degree apprenticeships and the other half to increase the provision of level 4 and 5 qualifications.

The funding can be used by higher education institutions (HEIs) to develop new degree apprenticeships beyond their current offer, refresh their existing programmes to “better meet the needs of the labour market” and upskill staff in delivering the courses.

Providers can also use the fund to “grow a pipeline of new degree apprenticeship vacancies” through research and intelligence-gathering, forming employer and skills body partnerships, and ensuring the alignment of degree apprenticeship provision with local needs.

The OfS has used a formula-led allocation using in-year student data based on degree apprenticeship starts, meaning the HEIs with the most degree apprentice starts in 2022/23 will receive the biggest amount of funding.

Anglia Ruskin University will receive the largest slice of £770,163, followed by Sheffield Hallam University with £445,222, and then Staffordshire University with £414,452.

Nelson and Colne College will receive the lowest amount of £466 (click here to download allocations in full).

The OfS said the allocations method includes a weighting to reward providers that have increased the number of degree apprenticeship starters since 2021/22.

Of the 102 providers receiving funding for level 6 degree apprenticeships, 57 recorded growth in the number of students starting study towards such courses in 2022/23 compared with the previous year.

Then-further and higher education minister Michelle Donelan first revealed financial incentives were on the cards to encourage more providers to offer degree apprenticeships in 2021. She then confirmed an £8 million fund would be developed last year.

Current skills, apprenticeships and HE minister Robert Halfon has repeatedly said it is his goal for every university and higher education provider to offer degree apprenticeships.

During a speech at the Universities UK conference last month he said level 6 and 7 programmes now make up over 12 per cent of apprenticeships overall, adding that in the last academic year, they have risen from just over 39,000 to more than 43,000.

Halfon then said: “When I made my first speech in this job, I challenged those universities who don’t offer any degree apprenticeships to ask themselves ‘Why?’

“With funding of up to £8 million on offer this year, there is a great opportunity to forge strong employer partnerships and develop new offers.”

Despite this, the OfS confirmed that the fund will not go to providers that do not have any degree apprenticeship students this year, even if they want to start offering such courses in 2023/24 and beyond.

‘I hope the next phase will encourage new providers to grow degree apprenticeships’

Mandy Crawford-Lee, chief executive of the University Vocational Awards Council, said: “Higher education providers have been waiting a considerable time since the financial incentive of £8 million via the strategic priorities grant fund for offering more degree apprenticeship opportunities was announced by a former minister last year.

“Despite the wait, I would observe that not since the higher apprenticeship fund in 2011 to 2013 has there been such a clear indication that universities need to get behind expanding opportunities through degree apprenticeships.

Mandy Crawford-Lee

“While the first £8 million has been allocated I hope the next phase will encourage new providers as well as existing HEIs to grow degree apprenticeships and diverse their programmes to meet professional, sector, national, regional and local skill needs.”

Responding to today’s announcement, Halfon said: “Degree apprenticeships offer people of all backgrounds an alternative route to achieving their career goals than doing a traditional three-year degree. They enable students to earn while they learn the skills needed to build a successful career. I’m delighted that the OfS is continuing to support and encourage HE providers to expand their degree and degree level apprenticeship offer.

“This investment will help us continue to build a skills and apprenticeship nation and extend the ladder of opportunity to even more people.”

The OfS said it will monitor providers’ use of the degree apprenticeships funding allocations through a “light-touch monitoring exercise” that will be completed after the end of the 2022/23 academic year.

Providers will be asked to “provide a brief narrative to set out how they have used their funding allocations in line with the purposes, and to identify benefits and outcomes achieved”. Further details are to be announced “later this year”.

DfE hikes FE teacher training bursaries

The government will increase the cash on offer in FE teacher training bursaries next year to entice new entrants amid a growing recruitment and retention crisis.

But stricter eligibility criteria is now in place and caps have been introduced, meaning it will be tougher for some applicants to gain the grants.

Tax-free bursaries in four “high priority” subjects of maths, science, engineering and computing will shoot up from £26,000 to £29,000 in 2023/24, with grants for trainees in English growing from £12,000 to £15,000.

The only other subject where a bursary is available is special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) – but the amount on offer will stay at the same level of £15,000.

Research suggests that staffing in FE has fallen by a third in the last 10 years. The vacancy rate in colleges is also said to be around eight or nine per cent currently – double what it was prior to the pandemic.

Sector leaders have called on the government to step up its efforts to attract more people to teach in FE after highlighting recruitment struggles largely caused by the fact that average FE teacher wages are around £10,000 lower than school teachers, with universities able to pay even more, all while many technical and vocational lecturers can earn more in their industry.

The DfE controversially scrapped FE teacher bursaries in 2019, only to reintroduce them a year later.

Catherine Sezen, education director at the Association of Colleges, said: “We welcome the bursary funding and the recognition of the challenges faced by colleges to recruit teachers in an extremely competitive market.”

But she pointed out the bursary scheme “does not address staff retention – for that colleges need a funding offer that will enable them to compete with industry”, adding that the AoC’s latest workforce survey shows 96 per cent of colleges reported having difficulty filling posts in 2020/21, up six percentage points from the year before.

Sezen added: “It is interesting therefore that construction is not one of the priority sectors given the massive difficulties the sector faces in ensuring they have enough skilled workers to meet ever growing demand. The top two vacancies colleges struggle to fill are teaching jobs in construction and engineering.”

Stricter eligibility criteria

Updated guidance states that FE teacher training bursaries are worth £15,000 to £29,000 over the length of the course. For example, if the course is two years in length, a £29,000 bursary would amount to £14,500 per year.

But from 2023/24 for the first time, bursary funding will not be awarded to trainees undertaking initial teacher education (ITE) delivered by providers who have received an Ofsted judgement of ‘inadequate’ or ‘requires improvement’ for ITE at their most recent inspection.

The DfE has also ruled that in order to allow for more of a focus on SEND and science, technology, engineering and maths subjects, English places will now be capped at 100.

For a trainee to be eligible to receive a bursary, they must have achieved a standard equivalent to GCSE grade 4 (C) or above in English and maths, and at least a level 3 qualification in their subject of teacher training, or have relevant professional experience.

Bursary recipients must also be taking a qualifying pre-service ITE course in England and be intending to seek an FE teaching post after qualification.

Trainees will not be eligible if they already hold a Diploma in Education and Training (DET) qualification, receive a salary or other payment for any teaching work associated with the FE ITE programme for which they are receiving the bursary, or if they are on an apprenticeship programme.

Trainees will also not be eligible for a bursary if they already hold, or are eligible to receive: early years teacher status (EYTS); qualified teacher status (QTS); qualified teacher learning and skills status (QTLS); advanced teacher status (ATS).

The DfE guidance warns that not every candidate who meets the eligibility criteria will necessarily be able to receive a bursary as it will “depend on the total number of eligible applications received”.

As with previous years, the DfE will allocate funding on a first-come-first-served basis. A total budget of £8.25 million is available in 2023/24.

The department said that due to the demand-led nature of the scheme, it is “not possible to accurately estimate the total number of bursaries that will be awarded from the available budget”.

The DfE added that it welcomes applications from everyone irrespective of background but, as ethnic minority groups are currently under-represented in the FE teaching workforce, “we would suggest that ITE providers encourage applications from members of these groups”.

Revealed: 63 providers win slice of £32m higher technical skills injection fund

The Department for Education has unveiled the winners of a £32 million fund to sweeten providers in delivering flagship higher technical qualifications.

DfE data published today revealed that 63 organisations had secured a share of the Higher Technical Education Skills Injection Fund, which is to be used by providers to invest in equipment, resources and training for delivering the qualifications.

Those to have secured the cash include further education colleges, universities, training providers and institutes for technology, although the DfE data does not include how much each winner has been allocated.

In July last year, the department said that £22 million of the pot would be for capital costs, such as perpetual software licences, specialist equipment and refurbishing existing facilities, but not to be used for new build facilities.

The remaining £10 million of the fund is for resources, such as staff upskilling, learner recruitment events or curriculum planning.

FE Week has approached the DfE to clarify the allocations breakdown for each provider, but the department said it was unable to share that information at this stage.

The winnings bids have been announced on the same day the DfE released its response to the lifelong loan entitlement consultation (read full story here).

DfE guidance said the injection fund is intended “to support providers to create additional capacity to grow and deliver high quality level 4/5 provision and HTQs,” adding: “We want to ensure that the quality of higher technical education provision is sustainable and that courses and providers support learners to build up qualifications more easily at levels 4, 5 and 6 throughout their lives.”

The DfE guidance confirmed the fund can be used for providers in approved level 4 and 5 qualifications, as well as newly approved routes in digital, construction, and health and science coming in for September 2023 or January 2024.

An “early adopter” opportunity to apply for funding was also open to subject areas launching in September 2024 or January 2025: business and administration; education and childcare; engineering and manufacturing; legal, finance and accounting.

Organisations which have an ‘inadequate’ Ofsted rating or are not registered with the Office for Students could not secure any of the cash.

DfE guidance says that funding is capped at £5,000 per learner, although the final amounts are based on the number of successful applications.

However, as part of the application providers had to provide predicted learner numbers, and the DfE had warned that those who failed to hit 80 per cent of their anticipated numbers could be at risk of clawback.

The DfE guidance said it wants to make higher technical education “a more popular and prestigious choice that provides the skills employers need”.

The full list of winners is below.

Lifelong loan entitlement: Maintenance loans in and ELQ rule out

Adult learners will have access to maintenance loans under the government’s flagship lifelong loan entitlement (LLE), it has been announced. 

This will be the first time that maintenance support will be available for adults studying part time and on modular courses, the Department for Education (DfE) said. 

Ministers also confirmed that the controversial equivalent and lower level funding rule (ELQ), which prohibits funding for higher level courses at or below a level a learner is already qualified, will be scrapped under the scheme. 

However a bar on over-60s accessing the scheme has been branded an “ageist strategy” by one expert.

The DfE has today published its response to the LLE consultation which closed last May, providing some much-needed detail ahead of debates on LLE legislation in parliament. 

MPs, including Robin Walker, the chair of the education committee, raised the need for more clarity on the LLE policy in parliament last week during the second reading of the lifelong learning (higher education fee limits) bill in the House of Commons. 

Walker pushed the minister, Robert Halfon, to release the consultation response before the bill, which contains some supporting legislation for the LLE, gets to committee stage in the House of Commons, which is scheduled for March 21 to 28. Halfon promised Walker he would be “speedy”. 

Committee stage is where a group of MPs scrutinise the bill line by line and debate amendments. The committee’s membership hasn’t yet been appointed, but it is now accepting written evidence on the LLE from the public.

Researchers at Public First found last year that, while the idea of lifelong learning was popular, the idea of a lifelong loan was not, casting doubt on the premise of the policy. 

The education secretary, Gillian Keegan, said: “Lifelong learning is critical to career progression, helping to fill skills gaps and boost the economy, which is why this overhaul to our student finance system is so important.

“The lifelong loan entitlement will give people flexibility to study, train and upskill throughout their working life, in recognition that careers aren’t linear. In doing so, it will

facilitate a complete culture shift in the way further and higher education is viewed and who it is available to.”

Phased roll out

The LLE is a new system of student finance which gives adults access to tuition and maintenance loans for courses at levels 4 and 6, including higher technical qualifications. 

The government hopes the LLE will reverse the decade-plus long decline in part time learning and higher level technical training by providing student loans for modules as well as short and full higher level courses.

Students will get an online account which will show them how much loan funding they are entitled to, and which courses and modules they can spend it on. The loan entitlement will be worth the equivalent of four years undergraduate tuition fees – currently £37,000.

DfE example of lifelong loan learner account
DfE example of LLE learner account (click to enlarge)

Completing a module with give students a “standardised transcript” which should enable them to transfer credits to another provider and build up to a full qualification. 

Today’s consultation response confirms that the scheme will be phased in gradually. 

LLE loans will be available for modules of higher technical qualifications (HTQs) and “some technical level 4 and 5 qualifications” first from 2025. Then from 2027, the scheme will expand to other level 4 to 6 qualifications. 

David Hughes, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, said that the LLE “has the potential to be a game-changer” but wanted “more thinking about how the LLE fits into the whole tertiary education offer, including FE and apprenticeships, at every level and particularly at level 3 and below. Demand at level 4 depends on pathways for adults to take at lower levels”. 

Maintenance questions

While today’s announcement on access to maintenance loans was welcomed by sector leaders, there is not yet any clarity on how much future students will have access to or how it will apply to students studying short or modular courses. 

“Maintenance loans will be available for student studying many more technical and part-time courses, including modules of courses, for the first time. This will set the system on a par with traditional full time study and open up new study and training opportunities for people from all backgrounds,” DfE said.

Maintenance loans for living costs and certain targeted grant schemes, such as the disabled students allowance (DSA) and the childcare grant will be available for “for all eligible courses and modules that require in-person attendance under the LLE”.

Eligibility under those schemes, such as the applicant’s income, is likely to remain the same as now. 

The department said details of how maintenance loans will be calculated for part time, modular and short courses will be provided prior to the LLE’s launch in 2025.

Jane Hickie, chief executive of the Association for Employment and Learning Providers said: “the development of lifelong learning accounts will help empower much greater choice for adults deciding how and where to undertake their future training needs.

“We are also pleased to see the introduction of maintenance support covering provision at level 4 for the first time – as this will help more adults with the costs of living while retraining.”

ELQ rule scrapped

Calls grow for reform of ELQ rules

Students will be able to access a loan for modules and full qualifications at an equivalent or lower level than a qualification they hold already under the LLE. 

The so-called “ELQ rule” currently in place means that students can only access student finance for level 4+ courses at a higher level than one they have studied before.

Calls for removal of the rule have grown since the LLE was first announced and the government floated “amending” ELQ restrictions with the LLE in its skills for jobs white paper in January 2021 prior to consulting on the LLE.

Scrapping the ELQ rule for the LLE was welcomed by leaders.

Vivenne Stern, chief executive at Universities UK, said: “The removal of ELQ requirements and the expansion of part-time maintenance support should be celebrated and will help new and returning people access the courses they need to thrive.

“If we get the communication out to learners right and keep the burden on providers low, then the Lifelong Loan Entitlement has the potential to be truly transformative.”

Too old to learn

The LLE will only be available up to the age of 60.

This, according to Susan Pember, policy director of HOLEX, is an “ageist strategy”.

By the time the LLE is fully rolled out, the retirement age will be 67, Pember states, and argues that even a reduced entitlement would be put to good use by older people.

“The upper age cap not only undermines the need to attract and retain older people in the labour market, but also takes opportunities away from people with a huge amount to offer their communities through volunteering.

“It draws a hard line which says that some people are too old to learn” Pember said.

A “residual entitlement calculation” will be in place, so that someone who did a three-year degree before tuition fees were introduced, would still be entitled to a loan worth one year (£9,250) under the LLE.

This principle will also be applied both to adults who did a degree before tuition fees were introduced, and to those who went to university when tuition fees were lower.

 DfE told FE Week more detail behind the calculation will be available in autumn 2023.