Government criticised for axing public sector apprenticeship target

The government has been accused of “throwing in the towel” after officials confirmed the public sector apprenticeship target is to be scrapped.

Under the target, public sector bodies in England with 250 or more staff had to aim to employ an average of at least 2.3 per cent of their staff as new apprentice starts over the period April 1, 2017 to March 31, 2021.

Figures published in November revealed this target had been missed as an average of 1.7 per cent of public sector employees started an apprenticeship over that period. This equated to a combined total of over 220,000 starts.

The armed forces performed the best, achieving an average of 7.9 per cent between 2017 and 2021, while schools were the worst at 1 per cent. The civil service achieved 1.8 per cent.

Last year the government announced the target would be restated for another year – from the period April 1, 2021 to March 31, 2022.

Ahead of the results of this extra year, the Department for Education confirmed today that the target would not be extended.

Toby Perkins, Labour’s shadow skills minister, criticised the move.

He told FE Week: “After the embarrassment of missing public sector apprenticeship targets last year, the government’s approach is now simply to scrap the target.

“It is typical of this government that, rather than working with the sector to drive up apprenticeships, to ensure that there are more opportunities in the sector, they are happy to throw in the towel.”

In-scope public sector employers will still be asked, but not mandated, to report their apprenticeship numbers. The data will be published annually to “support transparency and external accountability”, the DfE said.

Simon Ashworth, director of policy at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said his organisation was “disappointed” by today’s decision.

“Encouraging, rather than mandating, publication of apprenticeship starts will reduce transparency at a time it is still needed,” he said.

“Given the public sector still needs to improve its record on the number of apprentices it takes on, we would question whether now is the right point at which this guidance should end.”

The target encompassed schools, local authorities, central government and their arms-length bodies, NHS organisations, the armed forces, and emergency services.

We have more unaccompanied asylum-seeking students, but not enough support

Vulnerable refugee learners are being moved around between local authorities, threatening their education, writes Beth Moore

At just 16 or 17 years old, imagine being alone in a foreign country, with no family or friends, few possessions, very little money and being unable to speak the language.

Imagine also that you had been forced to flee your own country due to war or another life-threatening situation. 

This is the reality for 145 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASC) in our college, who make up four per cent of our total student population.

Many have come from countries such as Syria and Afghanistan, with little hope of returning, and are in the care of social services. 

We have seen this college cohort not only increase in size over the past few years, but the issues we are dealing with have become far more complex.

The unimaginable experiences of these young people are leading to a manifestation of mental health problems, including PTSD, which require expert support. 

However, accessing help can be extremely difficult due to the many social, cultural and language barriers these students face.

The complex bureaucracy involved in getting financial support and practical help is difficult enough as it is, let alone for vulnerable learners with very little English. 

We work hard to support these students, playing a significant pastoral role alongside our primary task of teaching English. This requires close working with other agencies, including social services and charities.

Sadly, the problems don’t ease when the students reach adulthood. Take Talia (not her real name), who arrived in the UK two years ago. She is studying hard at our college and wants to work towards achieving a degree. 

However, when she reaches the age of 18, she will be expected to live independently without the support of her current foster carer.

The problems don’t ease when the students reach adulthood

She is also currently awaiting a response from the Home Office regarding her immigration status. Understandably she is worried and distressed by the uncertainty of her situation. 

Another student, Abbas (not his real name), has been struggling with his mental health, alongside possible undiagnosed learning difficulties. When he turned 18, he was offered accommodation with other traumatised and volatile young men – which wouldn’t have been a suitable setting for him at all.

He was then left to find alternative accommodation by himself, which is an almost impossible task for someone so vulnerable and equipped with few English language skills. 

Meanwhile, some of our UASC are being moved to completely different areas mid-year – for example, we had one young man who was moved from Kent to Croydon.

This took him away from much-needed friendship and support networks and made it impossible for him to continue travelling to college. This relates to local authorities being under great pressure in terms of housing.

Developing proficiency in English and gaining a qualification is crucial for these young people to build a life for themselves and to integrate into their communities.

We must help them to do this in every way we can – but the ongoing practical issues with accommodation and transport is limiting.

We are living in difficult times, with the unfolding crisis in Ukraine having a wide-reaching impact across our whole college community.

Watching people having to flee their homes is particularly triggering for many of our own refugees, increasing anxiety and stress among students who are already struggling and alone. 

We also know that the number of UASC students will continue to increase and this will undoubtedly impact college services.

These vulnerable young people need alternative and differentiated support from the standard processes for looked-after children.

For example, access to interpreters and counselling support in their own language is essential to overcome communication barriers.

Staff also need to be well trained in a trauma-based approach so they can support the students effectively.

Colleges work hard to improve people’s lives on many different levels.

But more recognition and understanding by government of this group of young people, and the complex issues they face, is now needed.

Lessons from a newcomer to further education

Agreeing on priorities, and working with other sectors on behalf of learners, can drive the sector forward, writes Naomi Phillips

I recently joined Learning and Work Institute as deputy chief executive. While LWI draws on a 100-year history, I’m new to the further education sector.

So, what have I learnt in the month or so since I started?

1. Speak as a collective

​Leaders are passionate and driven, but I wonder if we can work together even more effectively to make the case for change.

Complexity and competing interests are found in every sector. But, to cut through, we need to be able to agree on priorities, describe them with clarity and be ruthless in pursuing them, speaking as a collective when it matters.

Influencing government, decision makers and budget holders, is tricky. However, if we can simplify the issues and offer practical solutions together, change is certainly possible.

2. Work outside silos

I firmly believe that to maximise our chances of making a real difference to people’s lives (which is what the FE and skills sector is all about), people must be front and centre of what we do. This is about prioritising lived experience, including through co-design of programmes and fronting campaigns.

Recognising each individual as a whole person rather than a set of specific needs also means being ambitious and intentional in reaching out to other sectors.

The levelling up agenda’s focus on people and places gives an opportunity to do just that, demanding that we work outside of silos.

This is already happening with initiatives such as Learning and Work Institute’s Festival of Learning, an annual celebration of lifelong learning, or our New Futures pilots, where diverse partners, such as employers, local government, training providers and community organisations, are working together to build skills to match local labour market needs and to provide outreach, careers advice and capacity-building support.

Another example is NHS social prescribing into adult learning ̶ linking people to activities and services outside NHS services that help to address health challenges.

Let’s champion great cross-sector practice where we see it.

3. Think differently about the big issues

LWI’s charitable purpose (the advancement of adult education and the relief and prevention of unemployment and poverty) could not be more relevant to the big issues our society is grappling with.

How do we prevent people who’ve lost their jobs during the pandemic from becoming disengaged with the workforce?

How can businesses scale up their (pre)apprenticeships programmes to ensure young people from marginalised communities get a proper foot in the door?

How do the benefits of lifelong learning link to wider health outcomes, tackling inequalities worsened by Covid-19?

Answering these commits us to being prepared to do things differently.

I’m looking forward to strengthening and expanding our fantastic research and development partnerships to influence policy and practice – to get more people into learning and work that benefits individuals, families, communities and the wider economy.

4. Skills are on everyone’s mind

Whether it’s understanding the impact of the cost-of-living crisis, working with government to review employer investment in skills and the apprenticeships levy following Wednesday’s statement, or strengthening social connections, the FE sector clearly has a role in finding solutions.

This is a great time to join the efforts for recovery and renewal, and I’m excited to be part of it. 

5. Face-to-face interaction is important

And my fifth reflection is more of a personal one. Moving job, organisation and sector can feel pretty lonely. My colleagues – and all the contacts I’ve met in my first month – are kind, clever and hardworking, and so generous with sharing their time and views.

But when the Zoom meeting is over, it’s back to being alone in the same bedroom office I’ve been in throughout the pandemic. I know this will change.

But I’ve also made sure that being visible (in-person where possible) and focusing on relationships are both built into my objectives, so I can be held to account on these important aspects of leadership.

There’s plenty of technical detail to learn too, of course, but I feel sure I’m surrounded by the right people in the sector to help me.

Why doesn’t Eton offer its ‘transformative support’ to all colleges in Dudley, Middlesbrough and Oldham?

Eton’s decision to reject a non-selective intake at its new sixth-form colleges says it all, writes Tom Richmond

For the famous Eton College to declare that they wish to spread opportunity and drive up education standards in deprived towns and cities is, on the face of it, a positive development. For me, the question is how many potential winners and losers their philanthropy will create.

The early signs are not encouraging. The proposal from Eton to give around £1 million a year to three new state-funded selective sixth forms shows that, far from expanding opportunities, they are seeking to limit the beneficiaries of their plans to the tiny number of students ‘lucky’ enough to attend these new institutions.

If Eton genuinely wanted to help young people across the Midlands and the north, wouldn’t they take a different approach?

For example, if the ‘speaker events’ that Eton promises students at their new sixth forms are so impressive, why not make them available online to all the schools and colleges in Dudley, Middlesbrough and Oldham?

If Eton’s support for their students’ university application forms and subsequent interviews is so beneficial, why are they not publishing their wonderful advice for everyone to see?

Why is Eton only interested in inviting students to a ‘summer residential’ at their new sixth forms, when low- and middle-achievers in these same deprived areas are surely more in need?

Shouldn’t Eton be aiming to advise all the local schools and colleges about how to run Oxbridge-style tutorials, academic essay prizes and debate clubs, instead of keeping these initiatives to themselves?

Remember, Eton’s motto is ‘May Eton flourish’

The sad truth is that Eton has no interest in sharing these new ‘opportunities’ with anyone else, because our competitive university admissions system privileges those with access to the extracurricular activities and covert application tactics that selective schools such as Eton employ to great effect every year.

For instance, the activities listed above will make for a much grander UCAS personal statement, and in the fight for a handful of Oxbridge places, they could absolutely tip the balance.

The assertion from Star Academies – Eton’s partner in the new sixth forms – that these institutions will dramatically improve outcomes “in the wider communities” around them appears baseless.

Meanwhile, Eton’s claim that the small class sizes in these sixth forms “will ensure that they do not disrupt the existing pattern of local post-16 education” is based on either naivety or duplicity.

Even at the best of times, spreading a cohort of students more thinly across a larger number of providers can undermine the viability of existing institutions – hardly a recipe for improving standards.

The best evidence we have on selective schools shows that creaming off high-performing pupils from other institutions may lead to a slight increase in the grades of those attending the selective institutions, but the performance of other local institutions decreases.

As a result, the overall net effect is zero. Eton has not even acknowledged this, let alone proposed a remedy. In this context, their decision to reject the idea of a non-selective intake speaks volumes.

This is not a matter of turning away Eton’s philanthropy, but rather asking why, if Eton truly wants to become part of the collective efforts to ‘level up’ the country, they are trying so hard to ensure that only 240 students a year in a town of tens of thousands of people will benefit from their supposedly transformative support.

What’s more, those 240 students in each new sixth form could be getting approximately double the amount of money invested in their education relative to other young people in the same community.

This is a curious interpretation of ‘levelling up’, particularly when the government has yet to address the miserly funding settlement for 16-19 education in recent years.

It is a great shame that Eton’s new selective sixth forms appear to be as much about their own branding and PR as they are about spreading opportunities to less fortunate members of society.

Perhaps I should not be surprised. After all, Eton’s motto is ‘Floreat Etona’  ̶  “May Eton flourish”.

Here are 5 ways ministers can improve prison education now

Yet another review has found that prison education fails learners at every stage. Action must be taken straight away, writes Francesca Cooney

The challenges of teaching people in prison to read reflect the challenges facing prison education as a whole.

Prison education is not organised in a way that supports people to improve their reading – and the Ofsted and HM Inspectorate of Prisons joint review of reading education in prisons describes a system failing learners at each stage of the process.

The findings are concerning, but not surprising. Prisons have been in crisis for years: underfunded, understaffed and overcrowded. This impacts on education delivery daily, with not enough officers to take people to classes, or to supervise activities.

Prisons have been slow to recover from lockdown. Although English courses could have been made available, education leaders have not always made this happen.

Education leaders have not always made English courses available

In most prisons, fewer than 30 prisoners were enrolled in any form of English education, which is a very small proportion of the prisoners who need reading support.

So, what needs to happen now? A strategic approach to education in prisons is long overdue, with a focus on equivalent provision to the community.

This should be part of the government’s “levelling up” agenda. But the promises in the prison strategy white paper remain vague and change is urgently needed.

The solutions are not all straightforward, but the Prisoners’ Education Trust has five suggestions that would lead to improvements.

1. Prison education contracts need more funding, and more flexibility

The current contracts are universally unpopular, being too bureaucratic and requiring intensive monitoring. They are too focused on qualifications and attendance, rather than teaching and learning.

Funding for prison education has remained static for many years and is way below levels for adult education in the community.

Without a significant increase in resources, and new commissioning arrangements, the picture will not improve and people will continue to leave prison unable to read.

2. The assessment process is ineffective

It is not dynamic, not detailed, and too focused on form-filling. Education staff do not have the capacity to interact with new learners and to take time to find out what their needs are.

This means that education teams are not assessing learners accurately and not really understanding their learning needs and skills gaps.

In addition, learners are not always allocated to the right-level class. Lack of space and lack of money mean that classes might not be available in all levels.

Ofsted found that provision of entry-level classes was particularly poor. 

3. Prison libraries are undervalued and underused

People in prison are supposed to be able to access a library regularly but following lockdown prison libraries have been slow to reopen and hours are reduced. Opening at weekends or in the evening is very rare.

Sometimes education sessions clash with library opening times, and library stock does not always support the courses put on by the education department.

Teachers told Ofsted that staffing shortages caused by the pandemic made escorting prisoners to the library even more difficult.

4. Teachers need more support and training

Ofsted found that the curriculum was not well designed and didn’t focus enough on improving reading.

Teachers sometimes did not know how to teach adults to read or which resources would be appropriate to teach phonics and early reading.

Some resources used were unsuitable for adults and some teachers gave written resources to learners who could not read well enough to use them.

5. Additional learning support is essential

The report finds that prisoners with the greatest need generally received the least support.

ESOL classes are not always available and additional learning needs are not always identified.

People who cannot read at all need face-to-face teaching, because they are unable to make improvements on their own.

However, Ofsted found that through the pandemic and beyond, there has often been no one available to offer help and support to prisoners who cannot read.

If people leave prison unable to read, then we have missed a key chance to help them get a job and turn their lives around.

Prisons, and the Ministry of Justice, must urgently ensure that every prisoner gets a high-quality education that meets their specific needs.

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: EDITION 384

Clare Boden-Hatton

Director of Operations – Employment and Skills, West Midlands Combined Authority

Start date: March 2022

Previous Job: Head of Skills Delivery, West Midlands Combined Authority

Interesting fact: Clare is an avid netball fan and, although she no longer plays, she is looking forward to watching England retain the gold at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham

Lewis Owens

Trustee, Prisoners’ Education Trust

Start date: April 2022

Concurrent Job: Trustee, Autism Centre of Excellence at Cambridge

Interesting fact: Lewis has one of the largest collections of original Magnet Magazines, dating from 1908, featuring the stories of Billy Bunter

Ken Merry

Trustee, Prisoners’ Education Trust

Start date: April 2022

Concurrent Job: Vice Principal (Quality), Barnsley College

Interesting fact: At the age of 13 years and 75 days, Ken was the youngest qualified football referee in Europe

Sunak’s ‘new austerity’: Spring statement offers no new money for education

The failure of the spring statement to address spiralling costs “signals a return to the austerity of the 2010s”, a union has warned.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak delivered his spring statement in the House of Commons on Wednesday, which began with a stark warning to leaders of public services hoping to see extra funding.

Interest on government borrowing next year is forecast to quadruple from last year’s payments to a record £83 billion, the highest on record.

“That is why we have already taken difficult decisions with the public finances, and that is why we will continue to weigh carefully calls for additional public spending,” the chancellor said from the dispatch box.

From the outset, framed against what the Office for Budget Responsibility described as “unusually high uncertainty around the [economic] outlook”, expectations for new money for education, had there really been any, will have dissolved.

While the chancellor acknowledged continuing skills challenges in his speech, the Treasury has made it clear that it won’t foot the bill and will assess what more employers could be doing to pay for training.

“We lag behind international peers on adult technical skills. Just 18 per cent of 25-to-64-year-olds hold vocational qualifications, which is a third lower than the OECD average, and UK employers spend just half the European average on training their employees,” the chancellor said.

Treasury documents state that “government investment alone will not address this challenge”, paving the way for its elusive ‘review’ of the tax system and how it can better incentivise employers to invest in “the right kind of training”.

Standout interventions announced in the spring statement were designed to ease the cost-of-living crisis facing households and rising costs to businesses. Policies included an immediate cut in fuel duty, raising the earnings threshold for national insurance contributions from April and a one percentage point cut to the basic rate of income tax in 2024.

Organisations with class 1 national insurance liabilities less than £100,000 will be eligible for a £1,000 increase in the employment allowance. From this April, this will allow those eligible to reduce their national insurance payments by £5,000, up from £4,000. This may bring some relief to smaller training organisations and charities.

There were, however, no measures in the spring statement to alleviate the broader funding concerns of colleges and training organisations, who have been warning of increased costs, particularly rising energy bills and inflation.

Inflation hit a 30-year high of 6.2 per cent in February this year. The OBR predicts even further price rises over the course of the year, peaking at 8.7 per cent in quarter 4 of 2022, and remaining above seven per cent until at least April 2023.

In a briefing for Association of Colleges members, its deputy chief executive, Julian Gravatt, wrote that the current predicted rate of inflation was “enough to wipe out the majority of the extra 16-to-18 funding announced in the 2021 spending review and to cause significant real-terms cuts in post-18 spending”.

The per-student national base rate for full-time 16- and 17-year-old students is set to increase from £4,188 to £4,542 from August 2022. However, in return for the increased funding, the Department for Education wants providers to deliver 40 additional teaching hours for students.

Increasing prices, energy costs and funding additional teaching hours will place even greater financial pressure on colleges and training organisations.

Yet the spring statement did not include any additional financial support for FE and skills providers.

Geoff Barton of the Association of School and College Leaders said he was “disappointed that the chancellor failed to address the financial pressures facing the education system amidst soaring inflation”.

And Mary Bousted, joint leader of the National Education Union, warned that the chancellor’s “refusal to increase education funding in the face of this inflation surge signals a return to the austerity of the 2010s”.

Marine specialist takes aim at Ofsted after grade 4 report

A marine training provider has accused Ofsted inspectors of lacking “experience” to judge their specialist apprenticeships and has made the “strongest of complaints” following a grade four report. 

Thames Marine Academy Ltd (TMA) confirmed to FE Week that it will no longer be able to offer apprenticeships because of the judgment published this week. 

In its report, Ofsted claimed that apprentices “make very slow progress”, too many are behind with their studies and that most employers, skippers and masters of apprentices “do not know what apprentices are studying”. 

However, Thames Marine Academy’s principal, Edmund Hadnett, has claimed that inspectors used criteria that was inappropriate for a vocational qualification in support of the marine industry. 

“Regrettably, the Ofsted report will mean that the Thames Marine Academy will no longer be able to offer these much needed apprenticeships to the marine industry,” he told FE Week. 

“The Thames Marine Academy and principal employer, GPS Marine, have made the strongest of complaints against Ofsted regarding the recent report citing the poor correlation between the process used for the inspection and the nature of a marine apprenticeship scheme.” 

TMA is a marine training company based on the banks of the River Medway in Kent. It became an approved apprenticeship provider in October 2019 and started training apprentices in January 2020. 

TMA offers standards-based apprenticeships in boatmaster and workboat crewmember, at level three. Currently, there are 12 apprentices on the boatmaster apprenticeship and five apprentices are studying the workboat crewmember apprenticeship. 

Three are aged 16 to 18. At the time of Ofsted’s visit in January 2022, training was a blend of face-to-face group lessons and one-to-one tutorials through live video-conferencing software and independent distance learning. 

Inspectors said: “Too many of the apprentices are behind with their studies. They do not benefit from regular progress reviews with their trainer and employers and rarely receive useful feedback to enable them to improve their work.”

The report claimed that “all apprentices” face delays to the completion of their apprenticeship as a result of leaders failing to ensure that arrangements were in place for their formal examinations and external assessment. 

“Apprentices studying the workboat crewmember standard have received very little training despite being on programme for over a year. Most are losing interest in the apprenticeship and others are restricted in their career progression plans,” the report added. 

Inspectors also found that most employers, skippers and masters of apprentices do not know what apprentices are studying. 

The report said they did not attend progress reviews and were not aware of what apprentices needed to do to achieve. 

However, TMA’s principal took aim against the judgment. 

“Despite the employer and apprentices expressing overwhelming support for the academy and the apprenticeship scheme, Ofsted used criteria that were appropriate to a secondary school rather than methods that aligned with the express purpose of delivering a vocational qualification in support of the marine industry,” he said. 

“The apprentices expressed disgust at the questions they were asked by the inspectors which were considered to insult their maturity and professional competence gained from working in the demanding and challenging environment of the workboat industry.” 

Hadnett claimed it was “clear that neither inspector had any appreciation of what is required to deliver a programme of training in support of the certificates of competence required to be employed as member of crew”. 

He added: “It is considered that Ofsted should amend the process for inspection to address the specific nature of a marine apprenticeship scheme and in order to make an informed assessment inspectors should have relevant experience of the sector of industry they inspect.” 

An Ofsted spokesperson said: “The inspection was carried out in accordance with the further education and skills handbook. Issues raised by the provider after the inspection were reviewed, in line with our complaints process.”

College pauses ‘stop and search’ security checks after student protests

“Stop and search” knife crime security checks at a London college have been paused after students staged a mass walkout, saying the measures left them feeling “violated”. 

Some 150 to 200 students attended the protest on Monday at City and Islington College, and a student governor resigned over the issue. Leaders at the college have now stopped the searches while they plan discussions with students to try and address their concerns. 

“We have paused the searches at that centre and we are going to be in further discussion with students with a view to finding a way of doing these searches that works for people and helps reassure them,” a spokesperson for City and Islington College told FE Week. 

“We want to do the right thing and we realise that we need to bring our students with us. That’s why we want to have these discussions and find out a bit more about what their concerns are.” 

City and Islington College started conducting random security checks at the entrance to its sixth-form campus on February 28, something leaders said was necessary because of a rise in knife crime. 

The policy change was met with strong opposition from both students and staff, who say that the measures amount to the “stop and search” tactics used by the police – a term the college disputes. 

A campaign against the policy has been ongoing since its introduction. But students said that following the scandal around Child Q, where a 15-year-old black girl was strip searched, they decided to stage the walkout.

Some 150 to 200 students attended the protest, according to the college. FE Week has also learnt that a student governor on Capital City College Group’s quality oversight committee – the parent group of the college – resigned over the issue. 

Justifying the college’s decision at the time, Kurt Hintz, City and Islington College’s principal, said: “There have been incidents resulting in injury or the death of young people, including students of our colleges in London. 

“As one of London’s largest sixth-form colleges, our duty is not only to educate and inspire our students, but to do whatever we can to keep them safe while they are in our care.” 

However, students told FE Week that the checks were unnecessary, and that they ended up making them feel less safe. 

“For me, personally, I don’t feel safer if, when I come into college, I have to be searched. I’ve never felt unsafe in college before,” one student at the college said. 

“The college is really welcoming. The teachers are really lovely. And the college has been great throughout Covid and throughout the two years I’ve been there. 

“I’ve never felt unsafe inside the college. But as soon as they started to introduce stop and search, I started to feel unsafe, because I felt like at any point I could be pulled up and I could be searched and my personal space could be violated.” 

Speaking about the fact some students said they had felt criminalised by the security measures, the college’s spokesperson said: “We are just really sorry that some students felt like that… We don’t want anyone to feel like that. That’s why we want to sit down calmly with students to get to the bottom of what it is that we have done so far that’s made them feel that way, and see if we can make it right.” 

The spokesperson did not say that the security measures would be abolished altogether, but that the situation would be addressed following discussions with students. 

He made the point that the security measures have been in use for three to four years at other sites in the college group. 

The decision to extend them to City and Islington sites this year was made due to increased risks regarding knife crime.

In 2019/20 Islington recorded 554 knife crime offences, which was a 19 per cent reduction compared to 2018/19. However, levels are still higher than five years ago. 

“According to intelligence we receive from local police sources, including the Violence Reduction Unit, they are seeing an increase in violent incidents,” the college spokesperson told FE Week