The government has pledged to invest an extra £8 million to help universities “rocket-boost” degree apprenticeships – but it appears officials are yet to flesh out what the funding can be used for.
Joint FE and HE minister Michelle Donelan announced the fund on Twitter this week before telling MPs on the education select committee the pot is designed to incentivise greater numbers of degree apprenticeships.
The minister revealed that the fund would help with “start-up costs” but failed to provide any further detail.
The Office for Students, which will administer the fund, was unable to shed any further light at all on how the fund will be used specifically at the time of going to press.
Donelan claimed there are now over 39,000 degree apprentices in England – which is double the number since she came into her ministerial position in the DfE in February 2020.
Her ambition is for every university in England to offer the programmes.
University representative organisations welcomed any additional funding to further grow degree apprenticeships but questioned how the £8 million would be dished out to effectively incentivise more of their members to offer the courses.
They also warned that raising awareness of degree apprentices among prospective learners and encouraging more employers to offer the jobs need to be focused on in tandem with university capacity.
MillionPlus chief executive Rachel Hewitt said: “While degree apprenticeships have seen steady growth in recent years, key challenges continue to hinder expansion, including excessive bureaucracy and a relative lack of student demand.
“Efforts to address these issues need to go hand in hand with extra funding if the increased growth of degree apprenticeships that the government, providers and the public want to see is to be achieved.”
University Vocational Awards Council chief executive Mandy Crawford-Lee said she is unclear what the DfE refers to when it talks about an unmet degree apprenticeships demand.
“Do they mean particular types of standards? Is it actually gaps in the market where we need the creation of new potential work-based roots into some of the professions that have yet to be explored?”
Crawford-Lee told FE Week that the “race has already started” for start-up costs as there are now almost 100 universities actively delivering apprenticeships.
She said the fund should be used to support universities in diversifying their degree apprenticeship offer. “So moving into areas that potentially they haven’t moved into before, expanding their curriculum offer or their apprenticeship portfolio offer into new areas, new disciplines, new occupations, for example, and what that means in terms of building capacity.”
Crawford-Lee said some degree apprenticeship programmes are more expensive than others to deliver, particularly in STEM subjects, where the funding bands on offer to universities from the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education are unviable to match delivery costs.
The government has also handed a further £8 million to the OfS in 2022/23 to encourage greater provision of level 4 and 5 qualifications.
This is to be “allocated to providers with eligible learners on level 4 and 5 qualifications, through formula funding”, according to a letter from education secretary Nadhim Zahawi.
“As part of the HE reform consultation we are seeking views from the sector on how to support growth of high-quality level 4 and 5 courses and the possible role of grant funding in this, and responses will inform the detail of any allocations in future academic years,” his letter added.
No further information about the fund has been published yet.
Apprentice feedback will soon be used to trigger intervention in training providers, the Education and Skills Funding Agency has confirmed.
Views from apprentices about the quality of their training experience are set to be gathered through a new Tripadvisor-style review tool that was launched last week.
The results will generate an overall star rating on the government’s Find Apprenticeship Training website and be used as a quality indicator under the ESFA’s new accountability framework that came into effect in April.
Those with poor scores will be placed in a “needs improvement” category and become subject to “enhanced monitoring”, which could include management conversations with government officials, the development of “improvement plans” and potential referrals to Ofsted.
The ESFA told FE Week that a quality threshold for apprentice feedback will be announced in due course, once the data has “sufficiently matured”.
Employer feedback, gathered via a similar tool launched in 2018, currently triggers intervention if a provider’s average feedback is “less than 2.5” stars out of four.
News that apprentice feedback will be used as an accountability measure has been welcomed by the National Society of Apprentices, which bemoaned the government’s “inherently unbalanced” apprenticeship system that “values the views of employers over the views of apprentices”.
But Ian Pryce, chief executive of Bedford College, questioned the decision. He said he is not a fan of using feedback as a performance measure as it “distorts how we approach employers and apprentices”.
“It becomes about the result, not the insight,” he told FE Week. “Also, it implies a simplistic view of learning as the sole responsibility of the provider, when apprentices and employers also have responsibilities. Education is not an Amazon purchase.”
The ESFA’s digital service originally planned to launch the apprentice feedback tool in September 2018, with then-skills minister Anne Milton speaking in strong favour of its value over Ofsted inspections. However, it suffered a number of setbacks.
In an update to the sector last week, the agency said apprentices can now give anonymous feedback from their ‘My Apprenticeship’ account. The results will appear on each training provider’s Find Apprenticeship Training webpage for employers and prospective learners to view once ten responses have been submitted.
The apprentice will be asked to agree or disagree with 12 questions in the feedback survey before being asked to rate their training with one of four stars: very poor (1), poor (2), good (3) or excellent (4). An average of all the results is then calculated to generate a provider’s overall rating.
The same process is used for employer feedback.
However, the government does not publish or hold a central list of all training provider ratings for employers and apprentices to make comparisons.
The ESFA told FE Week: “The apprenticeship service infrastructure is currently configured to process and present data at a summarised provider view in Find Apprenticeship Training. We do not therefore hold the data in a format that would allow comparison between providers outside of the service.”
Jane Hickie, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said there is a place for feedback from learners and their employers when assessing the quality of apprenticeship training and agreed with the ESFA that this “should be measured as part of a framework that assesses a wide range of quality indicators”.
However, she added, “As apprenticeship feedback is new, it is important that ESFA takes time to ensure any threshold linked to intervention is realistic and proportionate.”
Ofsted also confirmed to FE Week that it will use apprentice and employer feedback as one data tool to inform inspections.
The Levelling Up agenda outlined by the government has been devised to address stark inequalities across the country, both geographically and in terms of people’s social and economic backgrounds.
London and the South-East remain the wealthiest areas with a highly educated, highly skilled workforce and well-paying jobs, with many other parts of the country left behind.
In their February whitepaper, the government outlined the steps that they intend to take to address these inequalities, with a focus on improving transport infrastructure, creating well paid jobs to boost salaries and living standards across the UK and rolling out high speed broadband nationwide.
These goals are certainly laudable and ambitious, and achieving them will depend, in no small part, on ensuring that people have access to the skills and training necessary to develop infrastructure and to take on the highly skilled jobs that the government aims to create.
We know that many of the sectors essential to meeting the infrastructure goals of the Levelling Up agenda are facing significant skills shortages, with more new job openings set to appear in the coming years.
In addition to playing a vital role in developing the infrastructure needed to achieve the government’s Levelling Up goals, these sectors also have the potential to offer sustainable, well-paying jobs with the potential for career progression and professional development.
The role of apprenticeships
The question, of course, is how to equip people with the skills needed to fill them?
Apprenticeships have historically been an effective way for people, particularly those from deprived backgrounds, to achieve higher wages and social mobility, as well as creating a talent pipeline for key industries and sectors. However, since the introduction of the apprenticeship levy in 2017, this career pathway has actually become less accessible for many people.
The vital role of apprenticeships in addressing inequality is arguably becoming even more important in light of the rising cost of university education (£9,250 per year), excluding many from low-income backgrounds who are wary of taking on debt early in their careers. Apprenticeships, offering the opportunity to ‘earn while you learn’ represent a valuable alternative offering financial security and strong career prospects.
At City & Guilds we have been championing apprenticeships for many years, and fully supported the switch to employer led standards in 2017. Since then we have supported, assessed and certified over 40,000 apprentices in conjunction with colleges, training providers and employers. Central to our approach is to help and support our delivery partners to provide each apprentice with the resources they need from start to finish. By offering a range of digital learning and assessment preparation resources, we are able to provide apprentices the best chance of success.
Success stories:
Lewis Postlethwaite – Started with Gen2 in 2006 as a Mechanical Apprentice
Lewis Postlethwaite is a determined individual who started his career as a mechanical apprentice at Gen2 at 16 and has gone on to have an amazing engineering career across the world, despite being diagnosed with dyslexia.
Following his completion of a 2 year apprenticeship programme with Gen2 where he developed his fundamental engineering skills, Lewis went on to complete an ONC, HNC and HND before going on to complete a four year master’s degree in mechanical engineering.
From there he went on to secure a position on the Morgan Advanced Materials graduate programme, a role which took him first to North Wales, then onto the USA and currently to South Korea where he is working as a technology manager.
Lewis is an example of what can be achieved through drive and determination and the potential apprenticeships have of helping people into outstanding careers.
Reskilling opportunities for a broader range of Adult workers
If the Levelling Up goal of tackling economic inequality is to be achieved, then apprenticeships will have to offer an accessible route to a better future for people from all economic and social backgrounds. A review of the current Levy system to expand the use of funds to include other forms of workplace training would be an effective way to open up opportunities for a wider range of people.
Apprenticeships are, of course, not the only potential solution when it comes to equipping the workforce with the skills needed to tackle the levelling up agenda.
Particularly for older workers in declining industries who are looking to move into a new sector, long term training which is either unpaid or paying a lower wage may not be suitable. In addition, people in this position may well have extensive skills and experience which can be applied to a new industry with relatively little additional training.
City & Guilds ‘Step Into’ courses and our wider Skills Bridges initiative aim to cater to people in this position, offering them the opportunity to acquire sector specific skills to build on their existing experience. These courses are delivered in a bite-size formant and make use of hybrid classroom and online learning to make them as accessible as possible while still offering valuable face to face training.
This kind of bite-size training to help people develop key sector-specific skills and knowledge is particularly important when considering the findings of our Great Jobs report. Older workers, those aged 55+, were the least likely to feel positive regarding the skills they had attained offering them positive future career prospects (44%). The same group was the most likely to have gone more than 10 years without receiving any workplace training.
Efforts and funding to create career paths for younger people will form a vital part of achieving the government’s levelling up goals. However, older workers must not be neglected when it comes to putting pathways in place to develop the skills to transition into growing industries. Short-term, accessible training can provide a vital stepping-stone towards achieving this.
Skills Bootcamps offer a similar short-form approach to equipping people with skills to provide them with a leg-up into high-demand sectors, or to enable employed people to upskill themselves to qualify for a higher-skilled role. Again, these provide a training solution for people who are not in a financial position to take on longer-term full time training, while still providing skills training in high growth technical fields, such as electric vehicle maintenance, construction and retrofitting.
Our own Rail Bootcamps, delivered in partnership with South Rail Systems Alliance, have helped learners to develop core competencies in the rail industry, with roles such as Plant Operator, Trackman and Track Operative available for learners who completed and passed the assessment. With the government’s ambitious plans to develop infrastructure and transport links as one of the key goals of the Levelling Up agenda, these short, intensive courses have the potential to train people with the necessary skills to achieve them as well as helping them move into well paid, sustainable careers.
Fostering social mobility
If the issue of economic inequality across the UK is to be successfully tackled, then a strong skills foundation will be vital to growing the industries and creating the infrastructure that can achieve this goal. Apprenticeships have played a vital historic role in fostering social mobility and growing regional industries, and they have the potential to do so again. By adopting hybrid digital delivery, not only for apprenticeships but for other short-form training, in tandem with a review of the funding model for skills training to ensure that it is truly available for all, the Levelling Up agenda can be made a reality.
A high-profile education commission has added its voice to calls for a new baccalaureate that mixes academic and vocational qualifications – estimated to cost the government an extra £1.2 billion a year.
Ministers are also being called on to open more “satellite” university wings in colleges in deprived parts of the country, as well as to launch the technical equivalent to “elite” academic sixth forms outlined in the levelling up white paper.
The recommendations are part of a 12-point plan from the Times Education Commission following a year-long inquiry, which has been backed by ten former education secretaries and two former prime ministers.
The commission, chaired by Times columnist Rachel Sylvester, said it found that the British education system is “failing on every measure” from early years to lifelong learning and is in dire need of overhaul.
First on the commission’s 12-point plan to “fix” the system is a “British Baccalaureate”, which would offer “broader academic and vocational qualifications at 18”. This would include “parity in funding” per pupil in both routes, and a “slimmed-down” set of exams at 16.
Kirsti Lord, deputy chief executive at the Association of Colleges, said the idea for a British Baccalaureate is worth exploring “so students are not pushed into a binary choice between technical training and academic study at 16”.
Under the Times Education Commission’s proposal, the British Baccalaureate would be a customised version of the “tried and tested” International Baccalaureate, which is which has almost two million students around the world including about 4,500 in this country.
Students studying for the academic diploma programme would take six subjects — three major, three minor — covering both humanities and sciences as well as units on critical thinking, communication and creativity. Those on the career-related programme would combine learning, which could include BTECs or a T Level, with work experience, the commission proposed.
There would be the option for students to “mix and match” elements of both programmes to “create the qualification that best suited them”. All students would do an extended project, community service and some literacy and numeracy through to 18. Digital skills would be woven through the whole curriculum.
At 16, the commission suggests that pupils would take a slimmed-down set of exams in five core subjects, with continuous assessment as well as online tests contributing to their grade.
This would “allow children to progress to the next level and provide accountability for schools, but lower the stakes and reduce the amount of time spent on preparing for and taking exams”, according to today’s report.
The commission claimed that their proposed British Baccalaureate would introduce greater breadth and flexibility to the post-16 curriculum while also ending the “sheep and goats” division between academic and vocational education.
There would be a cost attached because the number of teaching hours would have to go up, however the commission has been advised by Whitehall sources that this could be met by equalising the per-student funding of 16 to 19-year-old education with the budgets for 11 to 16 education.
This would cost about £1.2 billion a year, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, and would also “remove a historic anomaly in the funding mechanism that dates to the time when the school leaving age was 16”.
‘Career academies’, satellite uni wings in colleges, and better FE staff pay also recommended
The commission also wants a new cadre of “career academies” to be introduced — elite technical and vocational sixth forms with close links to industry, mirroring the academic sixth forms that are being established under the government’s levelling up plans.
Career academies would have a focus on creativity and entrepreneurialism.
The AoC opposed this idea however, saying that the focus should be on providing better funding for colleges which “already deliver cutting edge skills for 1.7 million students day in, day out”.
New university campuses have also been called for in fifty higher education “cold spots”, including satellite wings in further education colleges.
The commission gave the example of how Nottingham Trent University has opened a campus in West Nottinghamshire College, offering courses in nursing, sports science and business.
“It is already recruiting students who would not otherwise have considered going to university and the local hospital is also grateful for the supply of qualified nurses who live in the area and so are more likely to stay,” according to the report.
“The government is setting up a false choice between higher and further education and there should be more collaboration rather than competition between the sectors,” commissioners said.
But Lord said there are already strong links between colleges and universities so rather than reinventing the wheel, the AoC would “urge government to work with colleges which already have an established reach into their communities to promote lifelong learning”.
The commission also called for improved pay and conditions in the FE sector and a transferrable credit system like the upcoming lifelong loan entitlement.
After the commission pointed out that lecturers in colleges are paid more than £9,000 less on average than teachers in schools, former Conservative education secretary and chancellor Lord Ken Clarke of Nottingham said FE colleges have always been the Cinderella of the education service.
“The teachers do an equally important job,” he said. “Their status and pay and conditions should roughly match that of people of the same quality in the school system.”
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We thank the Times Education Commission for its report and always welcome new ideas and views from the sector and education experts.”
Strikes are on the cards at another 33 colleges as a dispute over low pay and “unmanageable” workload rages on.
Industrial ballots were opened by University and College Union branches across England (see full list below) today and will close on July 15.
It comes a month after the Association of Colleges recommended that its members offer staff a 2.25 per cent pay rise in 2022/23.
This was the highest pay recommendation since 2014, but well below the call from unions for a 10 per cent rise.
The UCU said that since 2009 college staff have seen their pay fall behind inflation by more than 35 per cent and three in four from a survey of more than 2,232 college staff say their workload has increased significantly over the past three years.
It is estimated by the joint trade unions that extra FE funding announcements in recent years mean that colleges now have an “additional £400 million that is completely free to spend on staff compared with 2019-20”.
But AoC chief executive David Hughes said that colleges cannot afford anything more than a 2.25 per cent pay rise next year because his members are “reeling from a decade of cuts and are now being hit by soaring inflation which has eaten away at any recent uptick in funding”.
Six colleges in the north west faced disruption during exams last month as staff took to the picket line to strike over pay. But two were called off after last-minute pay offers worth up to 7.5 per cent at Hopwood Hall College and 6 per cent at Bury College were accepted.
UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: “Our members must not pay the price of sky-high inflation. We will not accept staff having pay held down whilst the cost of putting petrol in the tank, heating the home and feeding loved ones soars. With three in four staff also facing dangerously high workloads we have no choice but to proceed to a ballot for strike action.”
This year numerous top female college principals are stepping down after giving their professional lives to the FE sector.
Jess Staufenberg sits down with three of them, all of whom have been awarded OBEs and been nationally recognised for their pioneering work. What are the highs and lows of leadership?
Karen Dobson, chief executive, Newcastle and Stafford Colleges Group
Tell us a bit about your background
I was born in Stoke-on-Trent, and my mum worked in a pottery factory and my dad was a lathe engineer. My secondary school had been a boys’ school and I was in the first year it went comprehensive. Looking back, I don’t think they had much interest in what the girls were going to do as a career. Some teachers were pretty horrendous – there was still the cane and the slipper and people throwing blackboard rubbers at you – but I had a really good history teacher, and generally pretty good sports teachers. After school I went to The Elms, which is now part of Stoke-on-Trent College, and then I went to work in a bank, which I absolutely hated. So I trained as a nurse. After that, I taught in the health and social care department at Cauldon College, which later became Stoke-on-Trent College.
What do you remember about your principal’s interview?
I came to the old Newcastle-under-Lyme College as director of curriculum, under Frances Wittering, the principal, who was a great role model. When she retired, I applied. I remember the chair telling me I’d got the job, and I probably looked a bit shocked. I was pleased, but you do think, ‘oh god, what do I do now?’.
What’s changed among the students?
Some young people nowadays almost face more challenges than when I started in FE. I think there’s almost too much out there about what the ideal young man or woman should be. You have to be quite strong not to just follow. I think there’s probably also something about today’s young people not being as resilient. There aren’t many opportunities to be on your own, fall down and recover. But I don’t think we can blame young people for that – we as adults have made the world that way for them.
What’s been the biggest change in FE policy?
The biggest single change has to be in adult learning. When I came into FE, adult education was a big thing that was properly funded. Evening school was much more of a routine for many adults. In the past 10 years or more, the removal of funding means FE colleges now have far fewer adults in them.
What has been your biggest challenge or darkest moment?
Probably Covid – closing up on March 20. You didn’t know what was going to happen. The other big challenge was when we took over Stafford College, which was a grade 4. It felt, for almost 12 months, every stone you turned over there was a problem. There were lots of sleepless nights. But it was absolutely the right thing. The students get a great learning experience there now.
What will you look back on most proudly?
I was really proud of our new building at Newcastle College, which we opened in 2010. It shows what difference you can make to the lives of young people when they can come into a fantastic building. And then in 2019, we got Ofsted ‘outstanding’. I cried. The lead inspector gave me a big hug. The team were just brilliant.
Tenure: 2004-2022
Replacement principal: Craig Hodgson, current vice principal for finance.
Retirement plans: Gardening, playing tennis and perhaps volunteering with the college’s Institute of Technology.
Julie Mills, group principal, Milton Keynes College
Tell us a bit about your background
I grew up in Bedfordshire, where at the time schools didn’t have sixth forms, so it was either FE college or work. I went to Luton sixth form college for A levels, really didn’t enjoy it and left to get a job. My mum was a teacher and my dad was an engineer, and they were surprised I wasn’t following my brother to university. But instead I worked in the unemployment benefit office. Some people were in desperate circumstances, but some were retired bankers getting their national insurance paid. It was an early awakening for me about just how different people’s lives could be. Later, I did an Open University degree and taught a bookkeeping course. Then in 1990 I got a job as a finance lecturer at Milton Keynes College.
What do you remember from your interview?
They asked me, ‘what would you do if the rest of your senior team disagreed with you?’ So I said that given they would be experts in finance, HR and so on, I would listen to them. But the board wanted to know I was assertive, and I’d persuade them. Isn’t that interesting? A macho person would have given a ‘better’ response. However, I’d stand by my answer now.
How did you get into prison education?
Before Milton Keynes College I’d worked in training with NACRO, for the resettlement of offenders, helping them get employed. Then, when I was at Milton Keynes College, the college had a contract with Woodhill Prison and I got a job there as deputy head of education. I worked with some of the nation’s most notorious and violent offenders, but the mantra I have is, these people are someone’s family.
What are your biggest lessons from leadership?
Leadership is all about relationships, it’s all about using power right. Prisons are really good examples of how it can happen well, and badly. It’s a really good place to learn to be a leader.
The biggest lesson is that it’s not about winning. For prisoners, their world is so small that the smallest things can become massive and you need to respect that. So in terms of conflict, whether it’s an angry member of staff, student or stakeholder, it’s not about winning by asserting yourself, it’s about de-escalating. It’s about maturity.
What’s changed the most in FE?
I think the nature of FE has changed significantly because of austerity. Many colleges used to be quite a mixed environment, with adults. There’s a risk now they feel a much younger-person place. Workload is also significantly higher, and that is linked to funding too. When I started in FE, a full-time course would be 24 hours a week, and now it’s 15 or 16. But the qualification hasn’t changed. So there’s twice the number of students for staff and less time to support them in. It’s really important that’s understood by senior leaders.
What are you proudest of?
Probably securing the Institute of Technology funding. We’re reaching parts of the community that classic FE and classic HE never has in this area before.
Tenure: 2011-2022
Replacement principal: Recruitment process underway
Retirement plans: Flip flops and shorts for the rest of my life.
Corienne Peasgood, principal, City College Norwich
Tell us a bit about your background
I grew up just outside Cambridge; my mum worked in office administration and my dad was a plumber. I was lucky enough to get a scholarship to the private Perse School for girls, but when I told the careers adviser I wanted to be a plumbing and heating engineer, she made it clear that was not appropriate. That made me even more determined. At speech day, they read out where everyone was going to university and they got to me and just said, ‘Corienne is leaving’. I did a plumbing apprenticeship, before running my dad’s company. Later we moved to Norwich and when I was 35 with children, I saw an advert for a plumbing lecturer at City College Norwich. I got it!
What do you remember about your interview?
It was probably the most nervous I’d been for any roles I’d gone for, because I wanted it the most. At that point, I knew who I would be as a leader. Around the same time I was on an aspiring principals programme with Amanda Melton (Nelson & Colne College), and we’d both always worked in one college. People were implying we needed experience in other colleges, but I didn’t agree – I think there are huge advantages to having many of the roles in the organisation you’re going to lead. You need to build lots of external networks too.
Which students will stick with you?
There’s a photo on the wall in my office of a student called Jared, who was with us for five years. He started on a part-time functional skills maths programme, and he left us with five A levels and is now going on to his doctorate at the University of East Anglia. Previously, his special educational needs had defined him in at school, but with us, he didn’t just flourish academically, he took on all the additional student activities. He became our student governor and we awarded him student of the year. He eventually won adult student of the year at the Association of Colleges awards at the House of Commons. His mum was in floods of tears.
What changes have you seen in FE?
Our expectations around the quality of teaching and learning students receive is much higher now than when I started in 1997. I also don’t think there was that expectation for the wraparound and additional support, which is a change for the better.
What’s been your biggest challenge or darkest moment?
Before Covid, I thought we’d done the toughest thing. We’d gone through a demerger and merger involving three institutions, three sets of lawyers, three sets of financial advisers, the FE commissioner’s office, ESFA and DfE. I honestly thought I’d never do anything that difficult again. But Covid was harder. It was such high stakes. We could do everything right, and someone could still get very, very ill.
What are you proudest of?
I think as principals we’re custodians of organisations, aren’t we? You look at what you’re passing on, and I’m confident I’m passing on a very different college. It’s ready to respond to what’s next.
Tenure: 2012-2022
Replacement principal: Jerry White, current deputy principal
Retirement plans: Spending September in Italy. No plans after that!
The annual FE choices learner satisfaction survey has been permanently axed, the Department for Education announced today.
The survey, which is usually taken by hundreds of thousands of students and has been running for most of the past decade, was paused in 2019/20 and 2020/21 due to the coronavirus outbreak.
In 2018/19, over 345,000 students and apprentices responded to questions about the quality of teaching, whether their support needs were met and whether they would recommend their college or training provider.
Announcing the decision to cancel the survey going forward, DfE chief statistician Neil McIvor said: “DfE does not intend to run the satisfaction survey again in its current form. DfE will instead be considering the most useful information to collect from learners that best supports the proposals laid out in last year’s public consultation document [Skills for Jobs: a new further education funding and accountability system] – taking into account the responses to that consultation.”
The funding and accountability framework consultation closed in October but the response has still not been released. It is therefore unclear exactly how learner feedback will be gathered and used in the future.
However, the consultation did propose introducing a new publicly available “performance dashboard”, which would provide a “performance snapshot of individual colleges for all interested parties and public scrutiny, as well as an overview of how well the local and national FE system is performing”.
The dashboard, if given the go ahead, would include a list of performance indicators that “reflect what excellent delivery looks like”, consisting of “student outcomes, employers’ and students’ experience, and how well a provider is engaging with meeting local skills needs”.
The FE choices employer satisfaction survey, which was also paused in 2019/20 due to Covid, has also been permanently canned, the DfE confirmed.
Today’s announcement comes a week after the DfE launched a new apprentice feedback tool, which followed a similar employer feedback tool that was introduced in 2019.
Social mobility is complex, as FE providers know. The Telegraph’s headline about my speech was the opposite of the truth, writes Katharine Birbalsingh
You may have read that last week we launched the “fresh approach” which we want the Social Mobility Commission to take over the next few years.
The Commission has a statutory duty to report to Parliament on social mobility and can make recommendations about areas to improve.
It has the potential to influence policy, and has done some excellent work in the past. We want to make it more effective and we want to shift the focus.
This was not what was said or implied (you can see my speech here). In fact, quite the opposite.
You only have to look at the institutions my deputy chair and college principal Alun Francis and I both lead to see how high we encourage our students to aim.
We want them to be the very best they can be, and want to live in a world where no-one is held back by their background.
And we acknowledge that there is a lot of very important work going on, in schools, colleges and universities, and among employers, to improve the opportunities for people from disadvantaged backgrounds to excel.
It is fantastic that this is happening. But what we’re saying is… it is not enough.
Social mobility is a very complex term. People have their own ideas of what it means for them, but in sociology and economics, where much of the measurement work goes on, the definitions and data are complex.
And in policy terms, the problem of social mobility is usually framed in a particular way.
It tends to focus on a very small group of very talented people making huge leaps from the ‘bottom’ to the ‘top.’
Of course we should strive for this to happen as much as possible – and indeed my own sixth form is all about getting disadvantaged kids into Oxbridge and Russell Group Universities.
But there’s also brilliant work being done in the FE sector with young people who are achieving other things and who have different talents.
Not everyone can or wants to be a rich banker in the City
Well done to the FE providers supporting those 16 year olds who leave school without brilliant GCSES, who want to find something they are good at, and want to build a decent life in the place where they grew up – but either can’t or do not want to go to university!
And well done to those supporting adults returning to learning, who want to improve their literacy and numeracy or other basic skills, or their vocational competence.
These are precisely the people that further education is devoted to.
But while many working in FE have the best of intentions when it comes to social mobility, on the current measures, most of their efforts – and more importantly, most of what the learners achieve – do not show up in the measurements.
Their progress only gets counted as social mobility if they are among the exceptional few, who leap from the bottom to the top – usually through extremely high academic achievement.
The focus we want to bring to the Social Mobility Commission is how opportunities are being improved for everyone – but especially those who are often overlooked and ignored.
Some may want to say this is lowering expectations. But that’s not what we’re saying at all. High expectations are the foundation of great learning.
Aspiration matters too. Of course we want to celebrate those who go to Oxbridge or become top lawyers.
But we also want to celebrate those who don’t follow those routes. Life isn’t just about becoming a top banker in the City – we should celebrate that fact, and recognise that there are great achievements to be had in other careers and other parts of the country too.
Not everyone can or wants to be a rich banker in the City – but they still want opportunities.
And while we want to encourage and inspire everyone to be their best, we also need to avoid prejudiced views about occupational hierarchies and places – what a “good” job is or where you should aspire to live.
It really is great to see those who break from the circumstances in which they were born, to become stand out superstars in their chosen field.
But this isn’t only about the few who are academically excellent – it has to be about the wider range of talents which FE typically discovers.
Taking place on Monday 27 and Tuesday 28 June, the 2022 AELP National Conference will be held at the Novotel London West. Kindly sponsored by The Skills Network, this flagship event in the calendar is a must-attend conference for anybody within the skills and employability sector.
We are delighted that this year’s conference will be chaired by Martine Croxall. Martine is a presenter with the BBC News and BBC World News TV channels.
She joined BBC News in May 2001 and began her broadcasting career in BBC local radio and regional TV where she worked in various roles. She now trains new TV presenters for the BBC’s Academy.
Updates and discussions will include key topical areas such as:
The apprenticeship levy under review – is the apprenticeship levy system and the levy itself meeting the needs of the economy, employers and apprentices?
A deep dive into what’s next after the Skills and Post-16 Education Act 2022 – the implementation of Local Skills Improvement Plans, the list of post-16 education or training providers, new responsibilities for the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education and much more.
Qualification Reforms at level 3 and below – understanding the changes to the qualifications landscape and what that means for learners, employers and providers.
As ever, AELP National Conference has a great line-up of keynote speakers covering some of the most interesting and important issues facing the sector. You can find out more about some of our speakers below.
Alex Burghart MP, Minister for Skills
Alex was elected as Conservative MP for Brentwood and Ongar on 8 June 2017. He served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Prime Minister between 2019 and 2021 before being appointed as a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Education in September 2021.
Tracy Brabin, West Yorkshire Mayor
Tracy Brabin was elected as the first Mayor of West Yorkshire, and the first ever woman Metro Mayor in England, in May 2021. During her campaign, Tracy pledged to create 1,000 skilled jobs for young people and lead a ‘Creative New Deal’ for the region. Born in Batley, West Yorkshire, Tracy was an actor and screenwriter prior to entering politics, appearing in several British soap operas and writing for several television series.
Kirsty Evans Deputy Director of Department for Education.
Kirsty has 25 years’ experience working in the post 16 education and skills system and is currently the Director of Post 16 Regions and FE Provider Oversight in the Department for Education. In that role she is responsible for effective oversight of the FE sector and FE providers, as well as the delivery of key place facing policy programmes such as Local Skills Improvement Plans and Institutes of Technology.
Jo Saxton Chief Regulator of Ofqual
Dr Jo Saxton became the Chief Regulator of Ofqual in September 2021 bringing a decade of experience in school leadership to the role. She has previously been a government advisor and was formerly an academic.
Anthony Impey MBE Chair of the Apprenticeship Ambassador Network.
Anthony Impey is the Chief Executive of Be the Business, a not-for-profit organisation that is working to transform the British economy by supporting small businesses boost their productivity. He also chairs the Department of Education’s Apprenticeship Ambassador Network and the City & Guilds Industry Skills Board.
Toby Perkins MP, Shadow Minister for Skills.
Toby Perkins has been the Labour Member of Parliament for Chesterfield since 2010. He has served in a number of frontbench roles and was appointed Shadow Minister for Apprenticeships and Lifelong Learning in 2020.
Workshops
Part of what makes AELP National Conference so special is our innovative and thought-provoking workshops hosted by leading sector experts. These workshops are a fantastic opportunity to network, hear vital updates and get involved in topical discussions affecting the Skills and Employability sector.
This year there will be a terrific selection of 50 workshops to choose from over the two days of the conference. All of these will share best practice and knowledge, with the opportunity to discuss the topic and ask pertinent questions about the issue at hand.
Gala Evening
Following Day One of the AELP National Conference, there will be a pre-dinner drinks reception and Gala Dinner. This provides excellent networking opportunities in a relaxed atmosphere and is well attended by both delegates and other conference attendees/exhibitors.
This year, the Gala Evening is open to conference delegates and non-attendees. The price includes the drinks reception, 3-course dinner, and live entertainment. All delegates should book their Gala Evening tickets at the time of booking conference places. Tickets for the Gala Dinner are not included with any complimentary conference places and therefore must be paid for separately.
AELP members can book a place for the Gala Evening only here, and non-members can book here.
We’re confident that our National Conference this year will be the best yet, so don’t delay – book your place today!
