Last week, the very first national tutoring summit took place in London. A little over two years on from the introduction of the National Tutoring Programme (NTP), this inaugural event brought together schools, tuition partners, research organisations, and think tanks to explore the power and potential of small-group and one-to-one tuition.
As with all good conferences, I left with a renewed sense of purpose, buzzing with new ideas, and keen to get started with new projects. But I also have a big question: what is happening in further education?
We know that tuition can have a highly positive impact on learning and progress, particularly for learners from disadvantaged backgrounds. According to the EEF, small group tuition can provide an additional 4 months’ progress while one-to-one tuition can provide an additional 5 months’ progress. It is an invaluable tool for supporting learners with low prior attainment or who are struggling with particular topics.
A key focus of the Summit was how schools, often working with tuition partners, might draw on recent studies into tuition best-practice to ensure that learners derive maximum benefit from the sessions. Ofsted, the EEF, and the NFER have all highlighted the value of accurate assessment of student needs, sessions targeted at specific gaps in knowledge and skills, and close working relationships between tutors and teachers.
Central to the discussions of the research underpinning our developing knowledge of effective tutoring was an emphasis on the value of micro-research. While macro-studies provide evidence of impact at scale, of the kind that is useful for ministers and policy makers, what practitioners often need are micro-studies – the kind generated through peer discussions and communities of practice that reveal precisely what approaches and techniques have worked in particular settings and contexts. There were calls for far more of this kind of research.
Which providers are doing what, with whom, and how?
And this is where my question comes in. What, exactly, is happening in further education? A year after the NTP was introduced, the DfE created the tuition fund to ensure that 16- to 19-year-old learners can also benefit from small group and one-to-one tuition. As a sector that supports a high proportion of learners from disadvantaged backgrounds and/or with special educational needs and disabilities, it makes sense that further education should be deploying a strategy identified as conveying particular benefits to those groups.
We know that effective tuition is happening in the further education sector. Ofsted has recently published phase one of its review of 16-19 provision, highlighting the value of tuition that is aligned to the wider curriculum and targeted at gaps in learners’ knowledge.
Working within a further education tuition partner, I know that our own work with colleges has helped to support student achievement in English and maths GCSE resists, with students who attended 12 tuition sessions being almost twice as likely to secure their grade 4. But it would now be good to hear far more about this provision: Which providers are doing what, with which students, and how are they doing it?
Within the national conversations about tutoring there is plenty of room for voices from further education that would help us to better understand what is happening – on both the macro and the micro levels. What do we know about the deployment of small-group tuition to support English and maths, vocational studies, personal development, adult learners, and apprentices? What are our communities of practice uncovering that might be shared and magnified? Which organisations are conducting the macro-studies needed to explore the widespread impact of tuition on post-16 learners?
While tuition, with all the benefits it conveys to the learners who need them most, remains a subject of national and political interest, how can we work together to ensure that further education is at the heart of the discussion?
The fact that the answers to these questions are not readily available is telling. In light of the introduction of the DfE’s new tutoring advisory group, it’s time that the sector and its policy makers grasped the opportunities to better our understanding – and young people’s educational outcomes.
Effective governance is not easy, and neither is it well understood. Governance, however, is fundamental to the viability of any organisation. It determines the effectiveness of the functions that underpin the very purpose of that organisation, covers how decisions are made and by whom, how those decision makers report the process and how they are held accountable. Governance requires that all stakeholders are considered and ultimately determines the very viability of a college.
The Covid pandemic tested colleges’ decision-making and makes for an interesting case study. Once it was upon us, colleges acquitted themselves well in crisis. But what about readiness?
When it comes to risk management, the government’s advice to the sector is clear about how a policy should be formulated, and adds that “maintaining an up-to-date business continuity plan is a funding requirement”.
Yet some basic research on 30 college websites chosen at random, looking at their governance and policies pages, returned not a single business continuity plan. I found one Covid emergency closure plan. If I cannot find it, as a parent, student or employee, then that decision making is fundamentally neither transparent nor accountable.
The focus of governing boards was primarily designed to be on the financial and educational requirements of legislative and regulatory frameworks set by government. They also address the wider safeguarding and welfare needs of their staff and students. But the dearth of a wider perspective is symptomatic of an inward-looking and reactionary governance culture.
The governance inertia identified in John Spindler’s recent article in these pages can be partly attributed to the scope of the board’s focus and make up. Notwithstanding the members who come from staff, students and local businesses, if the focus is on the immediate environment in which the college operates, then wider horizon scanning is unlikely to feature in the board’s analysis. This misses threats (including ones that would be obvious to a risk management professional) as well as opportunities and reduces the possibility of innovation, disruptive evolution and regeneration.
30 college websites returned not a single business continuity plan
Horizon scanning is a recognised function within commercial operations, embedded in marketing and strategy planning, and threat analysis is part of financial and safety decision-making processes. Innovation is integral to commercial survival.
Political turbulence like this year’s ins and outs at the department for education doesn’t help with either horizon scanning or threat analysis, but governance of risk management has been developing rapidly precisely because of the VUCAH (Volatile Uncertain Chaotic Ambiguous Hyperconnected) period we live in.
Corporate social responsibility is merging with the health and safety function and is evolving into enterprise risk management, which itself is becoming an integral aspect of strategy development. Frameworks and analytical tools to those ends are continuously becoming more sophisticated.
Management and leadership, culture and accountability are having to evolve to create the human behaviours necessary to function in this environment. ‘Agile leadership’ is maturing into an approach that accommodates devolved decision making while assuring stability and consistency of purpose. Executive education is reflecting this change.
A wider strategic perspective and the implementation of more comprehensive risk management should be an integral function of colleges’ governing boards. The wider benefits will be felt in the quality of planning, of curriculum design and delivery and, ultimately, by the students.
Here are six simple questions to start the process:
Which are the five most significant risks to the viability of your College?
Which three events in the last three years had the largest negative impact on the viability of your College?
Of those three, which of them had been foreseen 5 years ago?
Do you have a Business Continuity Plan that covers the impact of the risks in Boxes 1 and 2?
How would rate your College’s current Risk Management system?
Does the Board have a stated Risk Appetite?
The UK is relying on the FE sector to deliver its skilled workforce. Its governing boards must be effective, innovative and constantly aware.
Essential skills should be a vital component of the government’s ambitions for adult skills, but a slew of recent data points to continued poor performance when it comes to addressing adult literacy, numeracy and other essential skills needs, including English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL).
Last week, the department for education published further education and skills data showing that adult participation in English and maths has yet to recover to 2018/19 pre-pandemic levels. Over-19s’ English participation has fallen from 360,270 in 2018/19 to 239,160 in 2021/22, a decrease of 34 per cent since the pre-pandemic period. And in maths, adult participation has fallen from 364,000 in 2018/19 to 258,310 in 2021/22, a decrease of 29 per cent.
And of course, this takes place in the wider historical context of sharply declining participation in English and maths over the past decade. Our recent report, Getting the Basics Right, estimates that on current trends it would take 20 years to tackle literacy and numeracy needs.
The outlook on ESOL is slightly different. Alongside DfE data, the new 2021 census data on English language proficiency released this week helps to put ESOL participation in context.
DfE data show that overall adult participation in ESOL has recovered to pre-pandemic levels, rising by 3 per cent from 120,490 in 2018/19 to 123,730 in 2021/22. The figures highlight some regional variation; In the East Midlands, West Midlands, East of England and the South East, participation remains below 2018/19 levels, despite some signs of recovery.
Despite the slight improvement in participation, the 2021 census reveals significant unmet need for ESOL provision. 1,040,000 adults in England and Wales say they can’t speak English well or at all. That’s 20 per cent of all adults whose main language is not English (or Welsh in Wales), little changed on ten years ago though population growth means it’s an extra 177,000 people. 160,500 people say they can’t speak English at all, up from 137,500 in 2011.
At current levels of ESOL participation, it would take 25 years to address need
Given the current level of participation in ESOL, this means it would take around 25 years to address English language learning needs in England, assuming people need on average three years of ESOL provision to improve their English language proficiency.
As a result of Adult Education Budget devolution, we are starting to see changes in ESOL policy in devolved areas, aimed at reducing barriers to participation and increasing flexibility for providers to deliver in ways that meet local needs. Initiatives in devolved areas have included changing the low-income threshold so that more learners are eligible for fully funded ESOL, removing other eligibility restrictions and funding ESOL provision in the workplace.
All of these developments are welcome, though it will be important to monitor and evaluate their impact so that lessons learned can be applied in other areas of the country and in non-devolved areas and avoid a postcode lottery in terms of ESOL support.
English language skills underpin the employment prospects, integration and wellbeing of new arrivals. The chancellor’s autumn statement recognised that the UK underperforms on basic skills compared with similar countries. But while it’s clear we need more urgent action to boost English language provision alongside other essential skills such as literacy, numeracy and digital, no new investment was announced.
The government points to wider investment in adult skills and the £560 million Multiply programme as evidence of its commitment. The support for adult numeracy is welcome, and joined up, targeted Multiply delivery could well bring benefits to learners with literacy and ESOL needs too.
Looking more broadly across the adult skills landscape, support with essential English, maths and ESOL skills is key to helping adults access and progress into provision at level 3 and above, supporting upskilling and re-training in a changing labour market.
There is a real risk that by failing to address essential skills needs, including literacy and ESOL as well as numeracy, the government’s ambitions for a high-skill, high-wage economy are seriously undermined.
From classroom-to-career; the record of colleges sponsoring multi-academy trusts is a mixed one. Jessica Hill investigates if there is a secret to their success, and why some have fallen by the wayside.
While some see colleges and schools as uncomfortable bed partners, others claim there are profound benefits to be reaped for students when a multi-academy trust (MAT) is sponsored by a college which is actively engaged in the running of its schools.
And our analysis shows the college-led trust model is slowly gaining traction in some areas. But the path along the way is littered with failures, with one expert in the sector predicting around half of those remaining will disappear soon.
Although the Department for Education data appears to show 41 colleges have approval to sponsor trusts – up from 21 in 2018 – our analysis shows only 29 colleges appear to have schools under their remit.
But the number of schools being sponsored by colleges is up by 174 per cent in the last four years, from 57 to 156, with approved colleges now sponsoring more than five schools on average.
In some of those that failed, the college was one of several local sponsors. The Salford Academy Trust was set up in 2012 as a partnership between Salford Council, the University of Salford and Salford College, but in 2018 the schools were transferred to another trust after the regional schools commissioner cast doubt on the “ability and scale” of the trust to provide the level of support required. Its four schools had all received poor Ofsted ratings.
For others, the trusts folded because of poor reputations or because of their small size. Burton and South Derbyshire College’s education trust, set up in 2014, had one school – the Kingfisher Academy in Burton – which it gave up in 2018 a year after Ofsted rated it inadequate.
And Newbury College Academy Trust is set to merge next year with The Thames Learning Trust after it opened its only school, Highwood Copse Primary School, in 2021.
But some college and trust leaders claim there is a recipe for success in the model.
The ‘golden thread’
Some college-led trusts are believed to have failed because they were driven by financial motivations rather than conviction, and Sam Parrett, group chief executive and principal of London South East Colleges, thinks it essential for a college to only take on schools for the “right reasons”, with a “golden thread” permeating through the organisations that binds them together.
While the colleges’ London South East Academies Trust is on sound financial footing with a turnover of just over £30 million, the “very strong reasons” for setting it up in 2014 were not financial.
Parrett is frank about how the trust takes on schools that “no one else wants”, and that turning those struggling schools around requires a “deep personal commitment in our DNA”.
“There is a multi-academy trust dividend, and it’s greater when you pool services”
Since its launch in 2014, Parrett’s colleges’ trust has sponsored seven alternative provision and special schools and one mainstream school across Bromley, Bexley and most recently Surrey.
‘Swan’ schools
All its schools inspected by Ofsted since being taken over are good or outstanding.
But Parrett describes them as ‘swan’ schools – ‘schools without a name’ – when they first join the MAT.
“In most instances, the local authority and the DfE come to us and say, ‘we’d really like you to take on this school…but please change its name because its reputation so bad that we need it to have a fresh start’,” she explains.
“Our job is to make them glide and do all the beautiful things that a swan does above the water, whilst you’re paddling frantically underneath to keep it going.”
For Parrett, the golden thread has been around special educational needs provision. The trust’s journey started following the 2013 SEND reforms when the college’s local authorities of Bromley and Bexley became pilots for education, health and care plans, with the college as the transition to adult phase.
“We started working closely with all our special schools on ‘what does the local offer look like? And what does progression look like?’
“At that time, some of the schools were not performing very well in Ofsted terms. We had a long, hard debate at our governing body. We could see that through working with our schools where there were young people experiencing disadvantage excluded from mainstream schools who went on to do well in the college. We could see how together we could be much stronger.”
Joanne Harper
Technical education
For Activate Learning Group, which includes seven colleges, the golden thread is its focus on technical education – with four of its six schools being university technical colleges.
While for some colleges sponsoring a MAT simply requires them to appoint members to the trust’s board, for others the relationship is more involved.
Chief executive of Activate Learning Education Trust, Joanne Harper, explains how although the colleges and schools exist within two separate legal entities, they “share a learning philosophy – ‘brain motivation, emotion’ – right the way across, which really brings us closely together”.
College sponsored MATs also utilise their close connections with businesses in their area. In some cases that means bringing children onto college campuses to see courses on offer or take part in extracurricular activities.
Dudley Academies Trust, which has six schools sponsored by Dudley College of Technology, has gone a step further, with some school pupils working with college engineers on a project to build a two-seater aircraft which the trust’s chief executive Jo Higgins claims in two years’ time will be “flying over Dudley”.
Quality matters
Parrett plays an active role in the sector in supporting smaller MATs struggling with leadership and governance, and provides advice on how to merge.
With the government’s 2030 target for most MATs to be on a trajectory to have at least ten schools or 7,500 pupils, most college led trusts have an ambition to grow.
London South East Academies Trust is about to take on its ninth school in January, Michael Tippett special school in Lambeth, and is in discussion with two other special schools and two mainstream schools.
Parrett believes it is likely her trust will become larger in financial terms than its colleges within the next two to three years. But she admits that growing a MAT is difficult for a college to do if it “only wants good and outstanding schools to come to it, because there’s a lot of competition.
Why would a school join a college-run MAT, when they could join one [run by experts in] primary or secondary schools?”
The answer for some lies in the branding a well-regarded college can provide it.Higgins believes her organisation was “really helped in the early phases” by Dudley College’s outstanding Ofsted rating, which“ enhanced the character of the mat and boosted its branding”.
The trust has the green light from DfE for further growth focused on transforming struggling schools, and is “moving towards the government’s target of ten schools”.
Economies of scale
However, one of the biggest advantages for being part of a college-led trust is financial. Savings in back-office functions, for Parrett, means “more support in the front line”. For her, the efficiency savings have been “significant”. The group pooled its colleges’ and schools’ central services, with group directors of finance, IT, marketing and estates, with shared resources coming in handy particularly when a particular school requires extra help.
It also means greater purchasing power, with savings from a centralised MIS system coming in at “hundreds of thousands of pounds”.
Work is currently underway across the schools and colleges on a programme of resilience and wellbeing for staff.
And the group has a framework for training and development of staff from teaching assistants at level two and three apprenticeships through to level seven degree apprenticeships and PhDs for staff.
“We’ve got all of those wraparound things that cocoon and support a school to develop, that go far further than they would have in isolation,”
Parrett explains. “There is a MAT dividend, but that dividend is greater when you pool all of the support services of the college and the
school together to create that central team.”
Lines of accountability
Most college MATs are made up of two separate legal entities, a college corporation and the MAT itself under one group governance structure, with both bodies working together at committee level where they have shared interests educationally.
Parrett at Aspire with co-heads
“The more successful you are the more autonomous you are, the less successful you are, the more accountable you are”
Parrett describes her group as having “very structured formalized accountability frameworks and schemes of delegation”, with the schools given some independence to be embedded within their communities, because “the head teacher knows their local community better than I do”.
The shared education group then provides “infrastructure” to help “grow and support” the schools.
London South East uses the ‘earned autonomy model’ of intervention promoted by the Local Government Association. Parrett describes it as “we monitor you, we risk assess you, and the more successful you are the more autonomous you are, the less successful you are, the more accountable you are for what you’re doing”.
Parrett believes that structures in which “you haven’t got a single line of accountability” can prove problematic, and “might not be easy to grow from”.
Levels of delegation
In some other trust models, the college takes more of a back-seat role.
Harper is very clear that her MAT is “sponsored” by Activate’s seven colleges, which have “elements going into the governance of the MAT – but they don’t lead it”.
“We have grown that, so the sponsor only has a seat on the members board, so it’s an ‘eyes on, hands off’ approach. But we also talk to [college] curriculum leads about the courses running.
“Where it works is where there are clear levels of delegation and real understanding of partnership and trust.”
An Activate school. Credit: Karla Gowlett Photography
Smaller college sponsored MATs often have a single governing board. In 2015 Telford College sponsored TCAT MAT comprising of just one school, the Kickstart Academy, which operates from college owned premises. It is overseen by one board with a college appointed vice chair. The college is currently working towards transferring the academy to another trust.
Success is not guaranteed, though there are clear lessons to be learned here for colleges considering going down the MAT route.
Competition for post-16 places isn’t going away, but with colleges now finding themselves back in the public sector – with all the new associated challenges – the question now is, are college leaders up for the risk?
The government is urging colleges to carry out energy “spot checks” for left-on lights and turn the heating off an hour before the building empties.
New guidance on energy efficiency, published today, tells colleges that installing wind turbines can help generate their own electricity. The advice also recommends minimum temperatures however, which the government previously scrapped as statutory regulations.
The DfE confirmed today schools will split £442 million and further education colleges £53 million.
It said the average amount each college will receive is £290,000, but actual funding is based on total Education and Skills Funding Agency revenue funding for 2021/22. Allocations therefore range from £10,000 for The Marine Society and Sea Cadets to almost £1.3 million for NCG.
The government wants colleges to “prioritise” projects that make estates more efficient – but adds: “Where you judge this is not appropriate based on local circumstances, you have discretion to spend this on other capital projects.”
Government also expects colleges to spend it “in the financial year 2022 to 2023”, but colleges can spend it over the following two financial years “if necessary”.
2. Leaders should do an ‘energy audit’
The DfE’s guidance says a top action should be an “energy audit” and understanding usage, to best prioritise where to cut consumption.
This could include senior leaders, premises managers or external experts “walking around the site” to consider how to reduce consumption.
Colleges should review heating system’s annual maintenance contracts, ensure and evaluate regular meter readings, and understand energy bill data to budget and compare tariffs more accurately.
3. Turn heating off an hour before close
Colleges “could turn the heating off at 5pm” if the building empties an hour later, “as there will be latent heat within the building and the system itself”. The guidance reads: “You can often switch off the heating slightly earlier than the last usage.”
Leaders can also “consider reducing temperatures in some areas”, with a 1ºC cut wiping up to a tenth off bills.
The DfE says colleges could encourage behavioural change by premises managers, senior leaders or a college “eco club” carrying out “spot checks” – such as whether lights and equipment are off in empty rooms.
They could consider “prompts” like posters to remind staff and learners to switch equipment off, and discuss efficiency in staff meetings, assemblies and lessons. Staff should switch off devices like laptops when not in use.
Cleaners play a “key role” turning off items at the end of the day, with site staff who control heating and hot water settings and catering teams in high-usage kitchens also “key members in your community” affecting usage. Heating controls should match building needs such as class timetables, and CO2 monitors can “help balance” ventilation and warmth.
Colleges should “maximise” daylight to reduce need for lighting, drawing blinds up and regularly cleaning windows. Printing should be “only when necessary”, and running water turned off “when it is not needed”.
4. Cool Britannia – but not too cool
The DfE has issued new recommended minimum temperatures however, despite the energy reduction drive. Temperatures are set to plummet this week.
An internal set point of 20°C is recommended, with minimum temperatures of 15°C in washrooms, circulation areas and any teacher accommodation, 18°C for classrooms and offices, and 21°C for spaces where occupants are inactive or sick.
Colleges could consider gettig “expert guidance” on renewables, such as solar panels, solar thermal panels, and wind turbines. But they should “consider if the ongoing maintenance is affordable” for turbines.
Thermostatic radiator valves should be installed, pipes insulated where possible, and swimming pools covered to retain heat.
Meanwhile energy efficiency should be factored into equipment purchasing. For instance, laptops are up to 80 per cent more efficient than desktop computers.
Colleges should also “migrated to cloud-based alternatives” to replace energy-intensive management information systems or file storage.
Cast your mind back to the 18th of July this year, when temperatures hit 40 degrees and ministerial jobs at the department for education were available on a seasonal basis.
In a sweltering Westminster Hall, then-skills minister, Andrea Jenkyns was responding to the parliamentary debate triggered by the Protect Student Choice: don’t scrap BTECs campaign petition which had secured 108,000 signatures.
After MPs from all parties had expressed deep concerns about the government’s proposals for level 3 qualifications, the minister implemented the department’s well-established standard operating procedure for this policy area:
Step 1: repeatedly restate the government’s proposals
Step 2: talk about technical qualifications rather than applied general qualifications
Step 3: most importantly, only provide answers to questions that have not actually been asked.
This week’s response to the letter signed by the leaders of the 29 organisations in the Protect Student Choice campaign – including FE Week – suggests that this standard operating procedure is still very much in place.
The campaign letter contained three practical proposals that could be implemented before the government launches its (now overdue) qualification approval process. First, exempt the 134 reformed applied general qualifications from the approval process. Second, exempt all health and science qualifications from both the overlap and approval process. And third, adapt the process to allow medium and large academic qualifications to be submitted for approval.
The department’s response did not address any of these proposals and could very easily have been written before the campaign letter had been sent.
A letter signed by the leaders of organisations that represent and support students, staff and leaders in schools, colleges and universities alongside a range of employer representative groups deserved a much better response. But copying and pasting a selection of platitudes rather than addressing the issues is symptomatic of the department-knows-best attitude that has characterised the review of level 3 qualifications.
Successive ministers have been badly advised on these reforms
This matters because we are approaching a pivotal moment in the review. If the qualification approval process is launched without the adaptations suggested in the Protect Student Choice campaign letter, many applied general qualifications will disappear. For example, as currently conceived, there is no mechanism for awarding organisations to submit medium-sized (2 A level-equivalent) academic qualifications, and large (3 A level-equivalent) qualifications will only be funded in subject areas where there is no T level.
Successive ministers have been badly advised on the reform of level 3 qualifications. It has not helped that the tenure of some recent ministers has barely exceeded the 45-day duration of a T level work placement.
The future of applied general qualifications and by extension the life chances of tens of thousands of young people are largely in the hands of the minister that actually signed this week’s response to the Protect Student Choice letter.
Robert Halfon was only re-appointed recently and has a broad brief that includes apprenticeships, higher education reform, college governance and lots more besides. We might optimistically assume that on his watch, the sort of response received by the campaign this week will soon become a thing of the past.
It is hard to believe that, with Halfon’s extensive knowledge of and passion for the sector, he will allow the approval process to continue as planned, given this would see many of the 134 recently reformed applied general qualifications disappear. During the skills bill debate last year, he described BTECs as “qualifications with good outcomes” and emphasised that “quality BTECs should remain for all students to access”.
Unlike many of his predecessors, he also has the knowledge and experience to challenge the voices within DfE that believe most applied general qualifications must be removed for T levels to flourish.
As I wrote after that balmy evening back in July, students need genuine choice, not A levels, T levels and a very small group of applied general qualifications that are approved by exception.
Robert Halfon has a golden opportunity to make that a reality, to step back from the precipice and ensure no student is left behind through the level 3 review process. The Protect Student Choice coalition and the students, staff, leaders, employers and many other constituencies we represent all hope it is an opportunity he takes.
Schools and colleges will get £500 million funding to “futureproof” buildings by making them more energy efficient.
This will work out, on average, as £42,000 per secondary school, £16,000 for a primary school and £290,000 for a futher education college.
Allocations for 183 colleges and designated institutions were published this morning and have been based on total ESFA revenue funding for 2021/22. This means NCG, Capital City College Group and New City College will each receive over £1 million.
The Department for Education said funding would be paid to colleges in January and can be spent over the next two financial years.
Improvements could include “installing better heating controls, insulation to reduce heat loss from pipes or switching to energy efficient lighting”, the government said.
However colleges have been given discretion to spend the funding on “other capital projects” if they deem efficiency projects to be “not appropriate based on local circumstances.”
New guidance was also be published today to “support schools to maximise energy efficiency, reduce carbon emissions and improve sustainability and resilience this winter and beyond”.
It’s not clear if the £500 million is new funding, or recycled from elsewhere.
Education secretary Gillian Keegan said: “We’re putting this cash in the hands of school and college leaders quickly, so they can decide what work is needed and so that our brilliant teachers can focus on teaching in a warm and safe environment.
“Education is rightly a top priority for this government and we will continue to strive to provide every child with a world-class education.”
But Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the investment will “not pay energy bills in the immediate future”.
“We are deeply concerned that the government intends to end the energy relief scheme that is currently in place to help schools and colleges meet rising costs at the end of March.
“Removing this support will expose them to massive increases in energy bills that are simply unaffordable, and this will necessitate cuts in educational provision. Funding for energy efficiency upgrades is a longer term undertaking and will not address the present crisis.”
The architect of Labour’s plans for a radical shake-up of government has suggested that control of England’s colleges should be given to local leaders.
The report, penned by Labour’s Commission on the UK’s Future and led by former prime minister Gordon Brown, also proposes “new responsibilities for linking local employment needs to local skills training, including the devolution of the job centre network and freeing further education colleges from central control”.
There were 15 other members of the commission; four of whom were local authority leaders. The rest was made up of trade union leaders, former ministers and academics.
The report contains few details on the college proposals aside from further devolution of adult skills funding and local skills improvement plans, but at the launch event this morning Brown said: “To link the jobs people need to the companies who need them, we propose 638 job centres transferred from inflexible central control, down to local control.
“To match local skills with local employment needs, the devolution of 200 colleges of education to local control.”
However, there was no mention of devolving 16 to 19 and higher education funding in Brown’s speech or the report, so it is unclear exactly how much control over colleges Labour wants local leaders to have. FE Week has approached the party for more information.
While not formal manifesto pledges at this stage, the party said it would consult on the report before finalising its manifesto at a later date.
David Hughes, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, said it was “vital” colleges engaged with mayors and local government leaders, as well as employers and business groups, and said the AoC would engage to ensure Labour’s proposals “result in a more coherent, joined-up system with colleges at the heart”.
He said that the ambitions go “a lot further than current policy” in building on adult skills devolution and local skills improvement plans, but added: “Colleges will be nervous about any proposals which replace Whitehall bureaucracy and interfere with town hall versions of the same, but they will be keen on good devolution which recognises the need to stimulate demand for skills through economic growth and the need for an inclusive approach which offers the investment colleges need to meet demands.”
In 2017, Labour’s then-leader Jeremy Corbyn told FE Week at the Association of Colleges’ conference that he feared the independent status of colleges, following their incorporation in 1993, risked them drifting from local communities and the local education authorities, and spoke of forming a model that brings them closer together with that while maintaining a connection with local industry.
Labour’s new report said that the current system is “highly fragmented” with “at least 49 national employment and skills related schemes or services managed by nine Whitehall departments and agencies”.
The party wants to consolidate various adult education funding streams, such as the adult education budget (AEB), Multiply project cash and Shared Prosperity Fund into one pot, and be fully devolved to current and future mayors and economic partnerships.
In addition, it said that development of local skills improvement plans – key documents which map out current and future skills needs – should be led by directly-elected mayors and combined authorities, rather than local chambers of commerce.
The National Careers Service should be co-commissioned by partnerships of local authorities, combined authorities and metro mayors, it added.
The ambitions come after the party published a report penned by former education secretary David Blunkett in October for a shake-up of the skills system. That included proposals to widen the apprenticeship levy for use on other forms of training too, introducing a skills tax credit for small and medium-sized enterprises, a review of Ofsted, and bringing back the education maintenance allowance among other plans.
Under that report, the party had already proposed an overhaul of the careers service to operate as regional or sub-regional hubs, and forming a national skills taskforce to simplify the local patchwork of bodies overseeing skills and facilitate devolution of those responsibilities.
Government plans to boost the literacy skills of prisoners have moved a step closer, with the launch of a new reading app and commissioning of “innovative solutions”.
The Ministry of Justice this week announced that 300 offenders in Kent, Surrey and Sussex will be in a pilot for a new reading app, called Turning Pages Digital, as part of a £20 million plan to help cut the cost of reoffending and address education attainment.
The app will allow those leaving prison to improve their reading skills with trained mentors and help boost their job prospects.
It comes as the government also launched a £360,000 contract opportunity for bids to the Literacy Innovation Fund – a pot of cash for schemes that will help learners read, particularly those who are harder to reach.
The government’s contract notice online said it was looking for “solutions which deliver English learning in an appealing and accessible way to prisoners (including those that may have additional learning needs) who are currently unable or unwilling to engage in the current education offer to improve their literacy skills”.
“We are particularly interested in approaches that support prisoners with a range of reading and writing needs, including decoding, word reading, reading fluency, vocabulary learning, spelling and reading/writing practice.”
Bidders will be able to apply for projects in five regions, although will only be awarded one. It is planned as a 25-month contract with an optional 24-month extension, beginning at the end of February 2023.
The Turning Pages Digital app has been funded through the £20 million Prison Leavers Project, which aims to cut the annual £18 billion cost of reoffending by tackling some of the key drivers of crime, such as unemployment, poor education standards and substance misuse.
An education select committee report published earlier this year called on the government to improve prison education, which it dubbed a “clunky, chaotic, disjointed system which does not value education as the key to rehabilitation”.
A report by Ofsted and His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons in March found some “serious systemic challenges”, adding that the curriculum was not focused on reading but practising for exams.
According to the government, offenders who engage in education are nine percentage points less likely to reoffend, but with more than half of them having the reading ability of a primary school child they can continue to struggle after release.
Turning Pages Digital has been developed by digital agency Yalla Cooperative and the Shannon Trust, a charity which helps those from disadvantaged backgrounds learn to read and works in 80 prisons already.
Pank Sethi, a Shannon Trust board member who was a reading mentor during his own time in prison, said: “I helped a learner read his five-year-old daughter’s note saying ‘I love you daddy’ for the first time, and have supported another who is now at university.
“It’s not just about education or getting a job, it’s about the positive impact that literacy has on an individual’s whole life and wider family.”
