The government will scrap its flagship edtech demonstrator programme after just over two years, claiming it is no longer needed as schools and colleges reopen after Covid closures.
The Department for Education told FE Week the programme would end after the summer term.
It was a key plank of the government’s 2019 edtech strategy, but was later repurposed to focus on Covid and education recovery.
Under the scheme, schools, colleges and academy trusts were appointed as “demonstrators” and funded with up to £200,000 to help other institutions harness education technology.
Initially run by the London Grid for Learning and Education Foundation, the £850,000 contract for the second phase was controversially handed to the United Church Schools Trust (UCST), the sponsor of United Learning, England’s largest academy trust.
Ministers recently extended the contract to July, but schools and colleges have now been told it will not be funded beyond the end of this academic year.
A DfE spokesperson said the programme had “provided important support during the pandemic, helping bridge the gap from crisis response to supporting long term use of technology”.
“We will be ending the programme after the summer term as schools [and colleges] have returned to in-person teaching, but we will continue to work with the sector to build on education staff’s existing digital skills.”
James Garnett, the director of IT at United Learning, told the Schools and Academies Show this week there would still be support through other non-government schemes, but urged schools and colleges to “make use of the programme” before the end of term.
But one demonstrator warned that scrapping the programme represented a “missed opportunity”.
The leader, who did not want to be named, said the scheme’s launch had marked a “long overdue renaissance at the DfE around the potential of technology and its role in education”.
“To see the programme end after only two years is very disappointing and represents, for me, the wider missed opportunity and lack of vision we’re again seeing at the DfE about how technology could be enhancing schools and colleges.”
Initially launched with just 20 demonstrator schools and colleges in April 2020, the programme grew quickly, and by the end of its first year involved 48 demonstrators.
Four schools and a college backed out at the start of phase two, leaving 43 demonstrators working with UCST.
However, only 27 have been asked to stay on until July this year. The government also recently announced funding allocations to cover the final four months of the scheme.
Originally, £5.5 million was shared between demonstrators in the second phase, with grants ranging from £10,000 to £200,000. Between now and July, grants for the remaining 27 schools will range from £5,000 to £60,000.
Ty Goddard, the chair of EdTech UK and co-founder of the Education Foundation, said the programme had become a “major response to the needs of England’s schools and colleges in early 2020, supporting thousands of institutions and staff teams”.
He paid tribute to the demonstrator schools and trusts, which he said were “not only running their own schools and colleges but were part of this educator-led pandemic response”.
The DfE “deserves credit” for investing in the original scheme, he said.
The country’s best-known first aid training charity is facing a suspension on apprentice recruitment after Ofsted found “insufficient” teaching.
Formed 135 years ago, St John Ambulance describes itself as “the nation’s leading first aid training provider”.
The charity was accepted onto the register of apprenticeship training providers in November 2020 and started its delivery of apprenticeships in March 2021.
However, during its new-provider monitoring visit, Ofsted found that leaders had made ‘insufficient progress’ to ensure SJA was meeting all the requirements of successful apprenticeship provision.
According to inspectors, leaders and managers failed to make sure apprentices were benefiting from high-quality training that led to positive outcomes.
“Leaders and managers have been too slow to implement the curriculum effectively,” the report said.
“They do not ensure that the requirements of an apprenticeship are met. Inspectors identified that not all apprentices were given time away from their job roles to be able to complete their off-the-job training.”
Ofsted said that SJA did not ensure there were sufficient staff resources to support the delivery of the apprenticeship programmes when recruiting apprentices.
“Consequently, most apprentices have not been able to make sufficient progress in all the components of the apprenticeship programme,” inspectors said.
At the time of Ofsted’s visit, there were 60 apprentices in learning, all on standards based programmes.
Of these 60 there were 34 apprentices on the level 4 assessor/coach programme all employed by SJA.
There were 17 apprentices on the level 3 lead adult care worker programme and eight apprentices on the level 2 adult care worker programme.
Inspectors found that apprentices who were nearing completion of their apprenticeship programme were not adequately prepared for their functional skills exams.
And apprentices on adult care programmes had to wait for several months into their apprenticeship before the appointment of their skills coach.
Other issues identified were that skills coaches did not work with employers to plan effective on- and off-the-job training.
“Not all apprentices on adult care programmes receive the time to complete off-the-job training. This means that leaders are not meeting the principles and requirements of an apprenticeship,” Ofsted said.
St John Ambulance’s head of education and training products, Andrew New, said: “We are taking on board Ofsted’s monitoring report and will address the points raised.”
New told FE Week that learner experience is always their “top priority” and feedback from the monitoring visit prompted them to take action immediately, to ensure apprentices received the support they needed.
This support included transferring some apprentices to another provider.
“Starting this new strand of work during the pandemic has proved to be challenging, but we will learn from this feedback and any future apprenticeship provision through St John will meet the high standards people rightly expect from our training,” New added.
Employers are losing interest in T Levels, a new study has found.
A survey of 5,000 employers carried out by government researchers has found that interest in providing T Level placements declined by six percentage points between 2019 and 2021, from 36 per cent to 30 per cent.
The “employer pulse survey” was conducted between July and November 2021 and asked employers about a range of topics related to skills and training. It was last carried out in 2019 and researchers compare the results to previous employer surveys, such as the employer skills survey (ESS) and the employer perspectives survey (EPS).
Three quarters of employers had not heard of T Levels
Just three per cent of employers said they had good knowledge of T Levels, eight per cent said they had some knowledge and 13 per cent said they were “aware, but do not know what they are”.
Figures showing T Level awareness by sector reveal low levels of knowledge even in industries that have been engaged with T Levels since the early stages of their roll-out, from 2020.
Construction industry employers reported the lowest levels of awareness (18 per cent) and, perhaps unsurprisingly, employers in the education sector reported the highest level of awareness, although even that was only 41 per cent.
A key component of the government’s flagship technical education qualification is the mandatory 45-day industry placement.
In 2019, 57 per cent of employers said they were not interested in offering T Level industry placements; 21 per cent were “not very interested” and 35 per cent were “not at all interested”.
Results from the 2021 survey paint a worrying picture. Overall, 63 per cent of employers reported that they were not interested in offering T Level placements, a six percentage point increase. The proportion of employers who said they were “not at all interested” increased from 35 per cent in 2019 to 41 per cent in 2021.
Even the offer of the £1,000 incentive payment currently available to employers hosting T Level placements didn’t appear to pique employers’ interests.
Employers who said they weren’t interested in offering T Levels were told about the incentive payments and asked again whether they would be tempted to offer placements.
Researchers found that only seven per cent changed their minds.
Other notable findings from the research:
Employers continue to be more likely to use private sector training providers than public providers, but the proportion has reduced from 60 per cent in 2016 to 49 per cent in 2021.
Awareness of traineeships increased to 56 per cent from 45 per cent in 2019.
Despite this, the main reason given by employers for not providing traineeships was “lack of awareness”, cited by 50 per cent of employers.
There was a slight increase, three percentage points, in the number of employers saying that “structural barriers” were their main reason for not offering apprenticeships. The most common of these was a perception that apprenticeships were not suitable for the size of their business.
Just over one-third, 35 per cent, of employers said they were “actively choosing” not to offer apprenticeships. The most common reason reported was because “all staff were fully skilled”.
And more than a quarter, 27 per cent, said that “training providers not offering the right skills areas or levels” was at least part of the reason for them not offering apprenticeships. This was most common in the transport and storage sector (36 per cent) and in manufacturing (33 per cent).
Ofsted has reassured training providers that auditing apprentice pay will not become a “routine” part of inspections.
The watchdog’s deputy director for FE and skills, Paul Joyce, said compliance with employment contracts will only be looked at by inspectors in “limited circumstances”, such as when concerns are raised by apprentices themselves.
His intervention comes after FE Week revealed how a charity had its new provider monitoring visit report downgraded from ‘reasonable’ to ‘insufficient’ progress following a tip-off about illegal apprentice wages and “unsuitable” employment.
The report, published last month for the Uganda Community Relief Association, is understood to be the first time the inspectorate has policed apprentice pay. The case raised questions about which government arm is responsible for audits – a job that usually lies with the Education and Skills Funding Agency.
Ofsted regularly reminds the sector that the focus of inspections is on the “quality of education”.
Our job is to inspect. It’s to focus on quality. We don’t audit.
Joyce explained that in order to evaluate the quality of education, inspectors use a “wide and diverse” range of evidence to inform their judgments, which is where apprentice pay can be looked at.
He told FE Week: “So inspectors will not routinely examine contracts of employment or pay rates, but these may on occasion be reviewed if, for example, inspectors are concerned about the amount of on- or off-the-job training that apprentices are receiving.
“[Apprentice pay may also be examined] if apprentices raise specific concerns about employment terms and conditions with inspectors that have an impact on their training, or the quality of it, or if inspectors have concerns that leaders and managers at a provider are not meeting the requirements of an apprenticeship training programme.
“It can become a source of evidence to help inspectors to triangulate to make sure things are as they should be.”
Joyce said training providers should not be concerned that inspectors will audit pay in normal inspections, especially if apprentices have “appropriate contracts of employment and are paid appropriately”.
He added: “We won’t routinely do that. If lines of inquiry take us down that route we may in limited circumstances. But our job is to inspect. It’s to focus on quality. We don’t audit, we don’t check compliance.
“But there may be some circumstances in a limited number of inspections where either apprentices themselves raise concerns, or where inspectors are concerned that apprentices aren’t being recruited in line with the requirements of an apprenticeship training programme, or where there’s insufficient time allocated for their on- or off-the-job training.”
The Department for Education is pleading with the Education and Training Foundation to return up to £7.5 million after the charity earned a huge, unexpected surplus on a T Levels contract.
But delivery of the scheme has been much cheaper than anticipated, which the contract didn’t account for. ETF and the DfE refused to confirm the value of the unexpected surplus. However, FE Week understands this to be in the region of £9 million so far.
Officials in the DfE are now pleading with the ETF to repay up to £4.8 million from the surplus in 2020/21, and potentially £2.7 million from 2019/20.
But the ETF has sought legal advice – an action that FE Week understands has angered the DfE – and believes the maximum the foundation should have to return is £1.5 million.
The ongoing dispute, which cannot be challenged legally because the contract requirements have been delivered, even led to a delay in signing off the ETF’s accounts.
November 2021 board minutes for the foundation said: “The board noted that due to the ongoing discussions regarding the treatment of the TLPD contract, the 20/21 audit and the production of the annual accounts had not been finalised. As a result, the board agreed to postpone its review of the accounts.”
ETF’s 2020/21 accounts detail the repayment costs being requested by DfE and state that the TLPD contract is “complicated”.
Jenny Jarvis, who took over as interim chief executive of the ETF after David Russell quit as the foundation’s boss earlier this month, told FE Week that changes to planned activity caused by Covid-19 and related lockdowns, including reduced face-to-face interactions and events, led to the “unexpected surplus generated on our TLPD contract”.
She said the ETF notified the DfE of this “issue” and “actively addressed this surplus in a prudent manner by making provisions in our accounts for a possible repayment, ensuring that it has no impact on the ETF’s current or future activity”.
Jarvis added: “Our direct engagement with the DfE has resulted in active discussions to agree a mechanism to determine any repayment of these unspent funds. These conversations are ongoing and remain commercially sensitive.”
The DfE told FE Week that it is working “collaboratively” with the ETF to ensure that payments made under the contract “reflect the impact of Covid on the delivery of services to date, which will continually be kept under review as service delivery continues”.
Russell, who was the ETF’s first permanent chief executive and has led the organisation since it was launched in 2013 to deliver professional development for the FE sector, resigned on April 6. This was less than a week after cuts were announced to the grant funding the ETF receives from DfE.
The ETF claimed that the TLPD contract dispute and loss of grant funding are unrelated to Russell’s sudden departure.
The ETF initially claimed Russell was heading to a new job as an executive in residence at the Oxford Saïd Business School. But FE Week has now learned that Russell will remain an ETF employee while he sees out his notice period, during which time he will be researching “a self-improving system in FE” at the business school. The project, which will start in May, is expected to last 12 months.
The TLPD programme is designed to promote understanding of the government’s new flagship T Level qualifications. Over 50 TLPD courses have been released to date – 28 online and 26 face to face.
Jarvis said: “Our work through this important programme has resulted in tens of thousands of continuing professional development activities being undertaken. Feedback from attendees has been very positive, with attendee satisfaction levels at over 90 per cent, and the vast majority believing it will benefit their professional development.”
The ETF has significantly increased its headcount in recent years to account for the TLPD contract and other grant-funded programmes: staff numbers shot up from 75 in 2019/20 to 141 in 2020/21.
Jarvis said the ETF’s relationship with DfE “remains strong, open and collegiate” despite the contract stand-off.
But FE Week understands the issue has created tension.
ETF’s accounts show it had unrestricted reserves carried forward at the end of 2020/21 of £12.7 million, up from £7.9 million the year before. Its total income for 2020/21 was £37.9 million.
The ETF was launched in 2013 and was initially funded entirely by the then Department for Business, Innovation and Skills but “owned” by the Association of Colleges, Association of Employment and Learning Providers and adult education provider network HOLEX.
Over the past few years, the UK has identified a vast increase in people facing Mental Health issues, and the education sector is continually identifying this as an issue for students.
Over time, this worsening situation has become more prominent for both the government and awarding bodies in its potential seriousness. The sector has reacted well and provided a range of remedial support solutions in the form of college counsellors and wellbeing support staff. However, these are now facing capacity challenges and, in some cases, leaving these staff to deal with more serious situations that they may not be qualified to deal with.
Given the overwhelming demand and the restricted public service solutions such as CAMHS qualified professional support is extremely limited. Students in particular riddled with anxiety and pressure find alternative pathways that aren’t healthy or positive, often leading to avoidance of life and addictive and harmful behaviours and substances.
We also understand the demand on teachers’ time, to deliver curriculum-related teaching, and we understand that they get involved in, life skills, that often don’t fit into a student’s timetable, or that a college doesn’t have staff to teach.
Let us provide you with additional resources
IPS Ltd can provide a range of opportunities to enhance the resources you already have. Together, we can help students and get them on the right pathway, and even reach out to the students that will not want to admit that they need help, especially in front of their peers.
“Established for over 13 years, IPS Ltd has provided a range of systems and resources to enable the FE sector to have both integrated and automated technology, that supports Safeguarding policies and procedures, and additionally to minimise the workloads of college staff.
We have worked heavily with systems, facilitating access to college services by increasing accessibility and efficiency to the students. We have delivered contactless ID cards, making safeguarding and access safer and more reliable. Our bursary management and cashless systems reduce cash handling. We have already developed self-service kiosks, that use facial recognition, so staff and students can reset passwords or print replacement cards. We can create and delete user accounts as an automatic process for door systems, computer systems, payment systemsand our register management system. We integrate into your MIS system, meaning that this becomes the heart of your technology, and no additional input is required.
Our passion for teaching and learning is always at the forefront of what we do, and our regular conversations with our customers ensure that our systems benefit from their feedback.
However, our conversations have always reverted to the issues you are facing around students’ mental health, and as I mentioned, our passion for education of course resulted in us wanting to help fill the gap and increase the resources that are available for you.
With the wealth of contacts and partnerships IPS Ltd has, it was only obvious to bring them together, which has now resulted in us branching out as a company further and helping you extend your Student Experience Resources, and depending on your requirements, we can help you to Prevent, Educate, Support and Dream.” Robert Powell, Managing Director, IPS Ltd.
As we all know, all Colleges’ geographics and demographics are different, and we have considered this. Therefore, we have created a number of packages to provide you with a selection of choices, giving you the extensive resources that you may need.
Prevent Package
Our prevent package is a highly intelligent system that integrates to your access control and provides alert notifications to staff when students scan their ID Cards regularly at unusual intervals, this highlights through AI unusual behavioural patterns which have been found in some colleges to indicate drug dealing.
Furthermore, we have tools to discourage students from passing cards to unauthorised people to enter the buildings.
The purpose of the prevent package is to provide staff with the intelligence they need so that they can investigate any alerts further, and action situations as they need to.
As an education provider, the last resort for you would be to exclude or withdraw a student, however, if students are resulting in alternative pathways for Mental Health, then it is likely that this may be considered. We can provide you with another option, our Educate package.
Educate Package
Our ever-growing Educate platform provides a series of webinars that you and your students can activate at any time of day or night.
Many problems of living today are attributed to mental health, and often they cause anxiety and stress that can be overcome with the right tools.
Such as managing your money and budgeting, a webinar that we put together that has mathematics at its heart.
This package is suitable for all students, and we aim to provide them with information that could help them understand and deal with life better, from mental health issues or even just day-to-day stresses including exams. Therefore, we have our healthy mind healthy body series including webinars on the benefit of Meditation and Mindfulness, and why Diet & Exercise work best together.
We have also included webinars that are focused on a range of addictions, including gambling, alcohol, drugs and gaming. These webinars have guest speakers who have faced these addictions, and your students will have the chance to hear about the experiences and situations that they faced. They will also learn how our guest speakers went into recovery and gain knowledge of where to go if they need help.
Support Package
Additional to the Educate platform, our Support package provides a range of functionalities, from face-to-face discussions either through an online portal, or a campus visit. Our guest speakers can join groups of students and discuss with them a range of topics, providing solutions that can help the students to move onto the right pathway.
As an example, we are inviting Tom May a rugby superstar into a college to share information about his mental breakdown and what it did to him, along with a former student, who will be sharing their story of when they were studying carpentry at a college and would do anything to fit in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3djXDRE_fw
Extending this package further, IPS Ltd is in partnership with Mindspace 24/7, a company that provides access to private and confidential online qualified therapists, who have a range of specialisms. They are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week even out of college term time and can also be an additional aid for your current Counsellors and Wellbeing Coaches, who can refer students that they see this as a benefit for.
Quite simply your college has a bank of credits that student support can issue so that the student can talk to a qualified professional instantly and plan a longer-term support package if needed.
Dream Package
Our Dream package extends the reach of advice and guidance to students, that need to understand the careers that they could achieve once they have completed their courses. This package can provide them with a range of information to ensure that they are on the right journey for their dream careers and help them to meet their full potential.
This platform provides a range of webinars with top professionals as guest speakers, to give a range of information to students. They provide knowledge on how they started their career, the pathways that they took and where they currently are within their working life, providing a wealth of information to students and giving them alternative avenues to consider.
Find out More
We are delighted to provide you and your colleagues with the opportunity to join us at our FREE Student Experience Resources Webinar, on Wednesday 11th May ’22 from 10.30am – 11.30am.
During the webinar, you will have the opportunity to listen to some of our guest speakers, who will be providing information on alternative methods of therapy, to help issues around Mental Health, including laughter and meditation.
We will be providing you with further information on the Enrichment Resource Solution packages. To enable you to visualise how they would work within your college, and you will also have the opportunity to ask any questions to our panel.
For more information and to register for our webinar please click HERE
Royal assent for the bill moves the country closer to an employer-led skills system, but it can’t happen without providers on the ground, writes Alex Burghart
Never in my lifetime have I known an economy so hungry for skills. There are 1.3 million vacancies out there. This is for many reasons, but the obvious ones are growth, Brexit and Covid.
Our ability to fill these roles and nurture high quality skills within our country will be central to our prosperity. This has always been true, but in the past few years it has become particularly true again.
In the six months since I became the minister for skills, I have seen employers who for years have been able to depend on the import of cheap, pre-trained foreign labour becoming actively interested in our country’s skills agenda.
I welcome this, because I want employers to be at the very heart of our skills system.
We need employers’ voices to be heard throughout the system – especially when setting the standards for qualifications, and when offering courses.
The process is well under way now.
Since 2017, we have had a reformed apprenticeship system so that each of the 640 standards available reflect the needs of employers.
I have seen employers become actively interested in our skills system
It helps employers achieve their goals and provides apprentices assurances that they are learning skills that will allow them to compete in the labour market.
Since then, we have introduced a new gold-standard in technical qualifications at 16 to 19: T Levels.
They are based on the same standards as apprenticeships, and include nine weeks of on the job work experience – making sure students learn on the job, for the job.
And our new Institutes of Technology (IoTs) are bringing together colleges, universities, employers from Siemens to Fujitsu to the NHS.
IoTs are going to be the pinnacle of technical education, giving local people advanced skills.
Alongside this, we need a skills system that’s responsive to local need and that means making sure employers have access to the skills they need in the places they need them.
To do so, we are handing employers responsibility for setting local skills priorities.
In the next few months, we will designate employer representative bodies (ERBs) across England who will be charged with identifying those needs.
Our eight trailblazer ERBs have told me that, for the first time, employers in their area know exactly who to call when they have skills needs.
Using that intelligence, ERBs will work with employers, providers and stakeholders to produce local skills improvement plans to nudge local learning in the right direction.
This could help the next giga-factory, the next offshore wind farm, the next nuclear plant, the next electric vehicle factory, to find the workers with the skills they need.
It can help the retrofitters, the digital networkers and the constructors of HS2, all get the skills our green revolution needs.
Local skills improvement plans will help areas harness the talents of their people to build the infrastructure of tomorrow, to build the homes of tomorrow, led by employers, supported by government and driven forward by our excellent further education colleges and other providers.
None of our ambitions, however, can be turned into reality without colleges.
Last autumn saw the best funding settlement for over a decade. An additional £3.8 billion by the end of the parliament is a cash increase of about 42 per cent.
In this financial year, that’s £615 million extra for 16-19 education, which is going to lift funding rates and give 40 more hours per student.
And, in a few years’ time the lifelong loan entitlement, will make it possible for people to invest in their own future by drawing down on up to four years of post-18 funding to be used across higher or further education as they need.
This will help people develop the higher technical skills which we’ve for so long lacked in this country.
Increasingly, we are finding ways of helping people to skill up, move up, earn up. And in turn, we are charting a new path toward prosperity.
Legislation central to the government’s reforms to further education and skills is officially on the statute book.
The skills and post-16 education act 2022 was confirmed in parliament today as one of the final pieces of legislation to get over the line as the current session of parliament came to an end this afternoon.
Alex Burghart, the skills minister said the new act would “transform the skills, training and post-16 education landscape and level up opportunities across the country.”
“This legislation will make sure everyone can gain the skills they need to progress into a rewarding job, and businesses have access to a pipeline of talented, qualified employees for their workforces – boosting productivity” he said.
It’s taken 11 months for the skills bill to officially become an act of parliament.
Since its introduction in the House of Lords in May 2021, the bill had a rocky journey through parliament, including several government defeats in Lords debates and high profile rebellions by senior Tories.
Former conservative education secretary Lord Baker and education committee chair Robert Halfon MP successfully took on the government to increase the number “mandatory encounters” that school pupils have with technical education and training providers.
When Nadhim Zahawi replaced Gavin Williamson as education secretary, he delayed the defunding of level 3 qualifications that overlap with T Levels by one year.
Attempts by Labour to delay this even further were unsuccessful, however their efforts did force the government to clarify that only a “small proportion” of qualifications will face the chop.
This was welcomed by the Sixth Form Colleges Association which is leading the #ProtectStudentChoice campaign, whose chief executive, Bill Watkin, told FE Week: “The skills act performs two valuable roles for the sixth form sector.
“First, it sets back the defunding of BTEC qualifications by one year, and second, it allows Catholic sixth form colleges to become 16 to 19 academies. Both are welcome developments that we intend to build on and will benefit thousands of young people in England.”
MPs and sector campaigners pushing for universal credit flexibilities and for tighter rules around who should be involved in local skills improvement plans (LSIPs) were defeated over the course of the bill’s journey through parliament.
“We would have liked to have seen the lifetime skills guarantee on the face of the bill, the role of colleges as co-constructors of LSIPs formalised, and a commitment to look at the rules around Universal Credit conditionality” said David Hughes, chief executive at the Association of Colleges.
While much attention has been paid to level 3 qualifications and careers advice, the act gives the secretary of state a host of new powers over the FE and skills sector.
For example, the secretary of state now has legal powers to designate and remove designation of employer representative bodies (ERBs) responsible for developing LSIPs. They also have powers to introduce “statutory guidance” to tell ERBs who they should consult with and what should go in to their LSIPs.
The lifelong loan entitlement now also has some statutory underpinning. The flagship policy to provide loans with four years of post-18 education for modular and full qualifications at levels 4 to 6 is set to come on stream in 2025 and is currently out for public consultation.
Another of the secretary of state’s new powers is to introduce an official list of approved post-16 training providers along with new conditions for registration and restricting access to funding to providers on that list.
The act introduces new duties on college governing bodies to review and publish how their education and training offer is meeting local skills needs. The secretary of state gains new powers to use the intervention system where providers are failing in this duty.
The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education gets powers to approve and withdraw approval for technical qualifications under the act.
Its chief executive, Jennifer Coupland, said “Following passage of this landmark legislation, we can look forward to creating a unified skills system which is simpler to understand and employers and learners can really trust.
“IfATE has empowered employers to drive up the quality of apprenticeships and roll out exciting new T Levels. The time is now right to extend the employer-led reforms across technical education.”
Leaders in the sector are now turning their attention to implementation.
The Association of Employment and Learning Providers’ director of public affairs, Rebecca Durber, welcomed greater access to schools for her members, but told FE Week “officials must offer reassurance that the costs and requirements to join the list of post-16 providers will be proportionate and not squeeze smaller providers out of the market”.
Ministers have already been criticised for “reneging upon promises” by the Federation of Awarding Bodies’ chief executive, Tom Bewick, who says that his members were promised by officials that there were no plans to charge awarding organisations to have their qualifications approved by IfATE.
“Before the ink is even dry on the new legislation, we see that ministers have already instructed the Institute to develop a fees and charging regime. We believe this will divert millions of pounds away from course innovation and supporting learners,” Bewick said.
Looking ahead, Learning and Work Institute boss Stephen Evans told FE Week that while the act has “good measures like the lifelong loan entitlement”, it doesn’t address the shortfall in funding needed for retraining.
Evans told FE Week: “We need to focus on delivery. That requires more public funding to reduce the £750 million real terms shortfall compared to 2010, policy reform to better support retraining and apprenticeships, and a laser-like focus on joining up support. It is these that will help to determine if these reforms stand the test of time.
“The passing of this bill is not an end, it is a beginning.”
Apprenticeship starts in small employers increased for the first time in five years in 2020/21 – but the numbers are still way off pre-pandemic and levy reform levels, new government data shows.
Businesses with fewer than 50 employees saw their starts numbers shoot up by 12 per cent compared to 2019/20, the first recorded increase since 2015/16.
However, this remains 45 per cent lower than in 2016/17 (pre-levy introduction) and 9 per cent lower than in 2018/19 (pre-pandemic).
The increase in 2020/21 means that small employers accounted for 30 per cent of all apprenticeship starts – up 3 percentage points on 2019/20.
Meanwhile, apprenticeship starts in medium sized employers (those with 50 to 249 employees) fell slightly by 5 per cent in 2020/21 compared to 2019/20. This leaves them 21 per cent down on pre-pandemic levels and 56 per cent lower than pre-levy levels.
In 2020/21 starts in large employers fell slightly by 3 per cent compared to 2019/20. Apprenticeship starts in large employers reached their highest level in the series in 2018/19 (224,970) but have now fallen for two years in a row. As a result, starts in large employers in 2020/21 were 20 per cent down on pre-pandemic levels and 14 per cent lower than before the levy.
The “experimental” data, revealed in today’s ‘apprenticeships in England by industry characteristics’ publication, shows that after falling for the previous three years, in 2020/21 the proportion of apprenticeship starts amongst SMEs increased to 41 per cent – 3 percentage points up on 2019/20.
However, SMEs’ share of apprenticeship starts is still lower than it was when the apprenticeship levy was introduced (54 per cent in 2016/17).
Today’s data comes a week after SMEs, particularly the larger medium-sized employers, told FE Week they are currently having to turn apprentices away because the Department for Education is refusing to reset a cap on their starts currently set at 10.
The slight rise in SME starts may have been driven by the cash incentives the government offered businesses for hiring new apprentices – of which 99,140 were claimed in 2020/21 in total. However, there is no breakdown of incentives claims by employer size, meaning it is not known how many were from SMEs. The incentives have now ended but can be claimed up to May 20.
The figures also show which sectors saw the biggest falls in terms of apprenticeship starts during the pandemic, and which industries held up.
Health and social work accounted for a quarter of all apprenticeship starts in 2020/21, and was one of the few sectors with an increase in starts (up by 18 per cent since 2019/20).
The information/communication sector also saw an increase this year as its starts went up by 16 per cent. Other sectors seeing small increases in 2020/21 were the education, financial services, public administration and transportation.
Meanwhile, manufacturing (down by 25 per cent since 2019/20) and the arts/entertainment (down by 18 per cent) sectors saw the biggest falls since 2019/20. Starts in construction fell by 12 per cent.
The DfE said that generally, industry sectors with higher proportions of apprenticeship starts at level 4 and above were more likely to have seen an increase since 2019/20, whilst those with more starts at lower levels saw falls.
