We desperately need parents to control student device use at night

Parents want us to help their struggling child – but worrying habits at home are the biggest problem, writes Emma Boulton Roe

We are fighting a losing battle.

Another student of mine is struggling. Lethargic, desperately trying to focus and depressed. Not meeting his potential. In fact, he is far from being the best version of himself.

I try hard to find ways to help this student, with regular one-to-ones, a support plan, counselling referrals and trying out different techniques to engage him in sessions.

It turns out that there is a very easy fix for these issues.

The student in question is a gamer. He doesn’t sleep until 4am and his diet consists of junk food and energy drinks. 

This, unfortunately, is not an isolated incident. I have multiple students who seem to be surprised that the reason they are tired, feeling depressed and struggling with their workload is that they are not getting enough sleep.

The reason that they have headaches and can’t focus is that they are exhausted and have a poor diet. We have water fountains across the college yet they seem to be relying on fizzy drinks and high-caffeine energy drinks. 

When I asked one of my groups what limits they had imposed on their use of tech at home they all said none. The consensus was that they are responsible for managing their own time, and the consequences are theirs to deal with.

It seems that technology develops faster than most of us can keep up with. Parents may not be aware of the types of challenges their children are facing.

Today’s devices are more advanced than the ones we grew up with.

Internet safety, blue light disruption of the circadian rhythm, melatonin suppression, hours spent scrolling aimlessly through a multitude of social media apps, connection online to other gamers at all hours.

These are real and potentially damaging problems. 

The parent or guardian’s job, which is to set a regular bedtime and good sleep hygiene, is easier to implement with younger children.

The difficulty arises when you have young adults (16 years upwards) who work and are supposed to be independent learners in charge of their own timetable.

These students can eat chips and sweets for lunch every day if they like. They can spend their money on giant cans of energy drinks bought from the local shop. They might not listen to their parents ̶ they are nearly adults, after all.

Teachers are faced with many challenges when trying to engage learners in sessions. We spend precious time trying to negate the fallout from these bad habits.

Often, the full picture doesn’t come to light until further down the road.

Parents have complained to me that we aren’t supporting their child enough, yet I can have absolutely no control over what happens in their home. 

The pandemic has had a lasting effect on our students, not least on their mental health. Teachers have been similarly impacted, yet the push for progress and high grades is ever present.

I am single-handedly waging a war on energy drinks

Families face rising living costs and may be working extra hours, relying on their college-age kids to help out at home and take on more responsibility for themselves.

Perhaps the best place to implement healthy change would be within the tutorial programme.

Advice for parents on limiting screen time could be delivered in tandem with sessions for students, going back to basics on diet and sleep. (Perversely, there are apps for this very purpose.)

I advise on healthy eating. We talk about good bedtime routines. I am single-handedly waging a war on energy drinks. My team is in a unique position where we can combat some of the physical impacts of poor posture with warm-ups and yoga.

We try, at least, to instil a positive routine and work ethic into those we teach.

But until parents monitor their children’s device use, embed healthy sleep and food patterns, we are fighting a losing battle. 

The government must act quickly if targets for electrical vehicles are to be met

We are on countdown to 2030, when no more new petrol and diesel cars will be allowed – but apprenticeships are lagging, writes Sue Pittock

At the conclusion of the Commons passage of the skills bill, the government said the new “future skills” unit within the Department for Education will give schools data to show the opportunities apprenticeships can offer to students.

The bill also gives statutory backing to the local skills improvement plans (LSIPs).

These will be additional recipients of the apprenticeships data and we can confidently predict that green apprenticeships will feature strongly in nearly all areas’ plans.

That’s despite there being currently, and wrongly, no formal requirements in the bill for LSIPs to consult the independent providers that offer them.

However well-intentioned these measures are, I felt a little sceptical about their real value, as I showed shadow skills minister Toby Perkins and local MP Dame Margaret Beckett around Remit’s two automotive academies in Derby this week.

Many of our 1,900 apprentices are now being trained in our academies to help fill the huge skills gap in electrical vehicle (EV) maintenance for cars, vans and trucks, in addition to their core light- and heavy-vehicle programmes.  

The reason for my scepticism is that we don’t need to be told by government that in six to 12 months’ time there will be huge demand for qualified EV technicians – we already know!

Local and national sector skills forecasts have been available from commercial suppliers for many years.

Global brands, especially truck manufacturers, are knocking on Remit’s door now for support.

Some are investing heavily in their own training to keep trucks and vans on the road, and Britain supplied with the food and goods it needs.

According to the Institute of the Motor Industry, only six per cent of the current 250,000 technicians in the automotive sector are EV qualified.

But the country needs 90,000 qualified by 2030, when no more new petrol and diesel vehicles will be allowed on the country’s roads.

On the face of it, this might appear to be good news for us as a provider wanting to keep our academies full.

But the government really needs to wake up to the implications of all this for apprenticeships.

The government really needs to wake up to the implications of this target

Many leading car and truck manufacturers would prefer to see more apprenticeships as the solution to filling the EV skills gap.

However, a lack of urgency in the government’s response to the issue means that training providers and employers are choosing to train with alternative EV qualifications instead.

Faster action is therefore required to introduce apprenticeship standards that are much more tailored to meet the demand for EV technicians. This is particularly needed for heavy vehicles.

The incomplete funding band review for apprenticeships by the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education is already two years old.

The spectre of high inflation means that government must act now to lift funding rates to cover significantly increased operating costs.

These costs include higher salaries for automotive tutors when demand for their experience and expertise is soaring.

Independent training providers in the automotive sector do not receive any capital funding from government to support the substantial investment needed for state-of-the-art training academies – even further education colleges are struggling to make training for the sector sustainable.

More investment in facilities and up-to-date equipment will dry up if operating and eligible costs are not addressed properly by the funding rates.

In short, £4,000 for each apprentice per year simply is not enough to meet running costs and make the required capital investment.

Why does this matter? Remit could scale down its automotive apprenticeship programmes and concentrate instead on commercial training.

Just as Toby Perkins said during the skills bill debate, we believe that apprenticeships are “the gold standard”.

Our vehicle manufacturer customers want the choice of their technicians gaining the knowledge, skills and behaviours within a high-quality apprenticeship programme.

So, if the government is serious about green apprenticeships, it needs to worry less about plans and future skills forecasts and act on what really matters.

Otherwise, if ministers are happy to simply rely on commercial training, the 2030 EV target poses a considerable risk to keeping vehicles roadworthy.

How can we recruit more talented post-16 and FE teachers?

A new government website and marketing campaign won’t be enough to tackle rising staff vacancies, writes Geraint Jones

We’ve seen a lot of justifiable hand-wringing of late about the crisis in teacher recruitment and retention.

It comes after the latest government figures showed a worrying 24 per cent fall in applications to initial teacher training in a year.  

Yet within the debate, there has been surprisingly little attention given to the current situation in post-16 and further education – where things are equally dire.  

As far back as 2019, the Augar Review reported that over 40 per cent of lecturers and leaders in the sector intended to leave the profession, and the mood in colleges up and down the country has arguably not improved.  

More than half of college principals find recruitment difficult, a Department for Education survey for last year’s Skills for Jobs white paper revealed. 

Meanwhile vacancy rates in “crucial” subject areas, such as engineering, and construction, were as high as five per cent. Overall, vacancies within FE colleges were 32 per cent higher last year than they were in 2020, according to recruiters Morgan Hunt. 

This is a crisis that cannot continue. As the country shapes its industrial strategy for a post-Brexit world, the demand for a highly skilled workforce sharpens.

This is a crisis that cannot continue

Rightly, government is coming forward with measures designed to bolster post-16 vocational and technical education. These include T Levels, qualification reform and, recently, its “Teach in FE” campaign.  

Indeed, who could argue with its aspiration to encourage 4,000 additional teachers into FE by 2025?  

But a marketing campaign and new website alone won’t achieve this.

At the heart of government’s campaign is acknowledgement that we need more industry professionals in FE, with up-to-date skills and knowledge of their sector and craft.

And so the idea of the “portfolio career” was born.  

This is nothing new: practitioners have always lectured in FE colleges, and these relationships form the backbone of our vocational education today.  

What would benefit these staff, however, is excellent training in the actual craft of teaching. This involves: how to break down learning, plan lessons and make a course engaging; how to assess, coach and stretch students; how to manage a class and spot pastoral problems.

In essence, we need training that shows staff how to blend first-class industry practice with the gift of teaching.

Acquiring these skills while maintaining a viable portfolio career is currently very difficult, as few professionals have the luxury of stepping away from work while they train.  

At the National Institute for Teaching and Education we have plans under way to launch a targeted PGCE post-16 and FE course that is delivered online. It will be available via apprenticeship or tuition fee routes. 

The course will follow our existing “any time, any place” model. It is hoped this will enable aspiring lecturers, who often already have successful careers, to balance their working lives with studying for a fully accredited teaching qualification. 

Alongside recruitment, the government needs to address retention. Removing the qualification requirement to teach in FE was a blow to the sector’s status.

Lower-on-average pay rates have also done very little to bolster morale.  

It is critical that wherever students learn, they have access to high-quality teaching. 

This includes aspiring graphic designers, electricians, veterinary nurses and other professional and vocational students training in sixth forms and colleges, everywhere from Cumbria to Cornwall.  

For them, having the opportunity to learn their craft from an experienced professional is essential; and that’s why we need practitioners who can deliver engaging learning, accessible subject knowledge and positive coaching.  

This means encouraging highly skilled talent into the sector, training them in the craft of teaching, and creating the conditions that make them want to stay.

How can student engagement with Ukraine go beyond a flag on Facebook?

College leaders are increasingly having to develop thoughtful responses to the Ukraine conflict and other highly politicised issues, writes Stuart Rimmer

On a global scale the world looks east to the Ukraine conflict and the humanitarian fallout. But more locally in colleges, the conflict raises questions. How should we react and act?

It has always been easy to argue that teaching and, more broadly, education is in itself a political act. What we teach, how we teach it, what we fund, how we are inspected, who we include and exclude is driven by political choices.  

Through the pandemic we saw how government often made political choices rather than moral ones about how our sector was treated.

On more than one occasion, leaders were forced to make ethical decisions. We have also had to adopt a position on matters usually way outside the education arena.  

Increasingly, global events such as the pandemic, conflict, sustainability and any of the other impending horsemen of the apocalypse will force colleges to take moral positions and act accordingly. We must be ready for these debates and, importantly, action.  

The Russia-Ukraine conflict will likely affect students and staff in every college. In this case, backing the position of our government and the EU against the international aggression seems straightforward.  

FE adopting a stance in itself won’t have Putin shaking in his jackboots. Nevertheless, some students are reporting they wish to understand the conflict better, or are fearful of the conflict getting bigger. 

Many students and increasingly many staff won’t recall the Cold War or the Troubles and will be experiencing a conflict close to home for the first time. So there is a great opportunity for doing what we do best ̶ engaging and teaching.

We should be able to teach without our own bias and through factual presentation. We can use it to reinforce messages around British values, which we’ll have already done through induction and tutorial.  

The conflict creates real opportunities to discuss the rule of law, liberty, respect and democracy.

(Such lessons are likely much needed post “party-gate” and the recently reported governmental corruption.)  

We can also proactively seek out staff and students with familial connections in Eastern Europe who might be experiencing particular distress, and put in place specific support.

One Ukrainian student in my college, Vanessa, is worried about family and friends she has in Richka, a village in western Ukraine.

She says some students are “shocked” but also said that many students feel “it doesn’t affect them”.  

Meanwhile one of my amazing ESOL tutors, Oksana, is Ukrainian and her family is in Kiev. She is personally impacted but is bravely using it in her teaching.

She says, “It’s scary to get the news and to continue is hard… but it’s my job.”

She says she is not only proud of her nation’s response but is experiencing empathy from her students from Iraq and Afghanistan, who know conflict. I am sure this is being replayed in colleges across UK.

So this is a live debate in our student communities. It means there is an opportunity to talk about student activism through petitions, demonstration, fundraising and engagement. 

Controversially, making space for the Russian historical perspective may be required to create balance and empathy.   

Making space for the Russian historical perspective may be required to create balance and empathy

We should also discuss the differences between being humanistic and empathetic, without unnecessary virtue signalling.

We can discuss how students can show their concern through real action rather than just plastering a yellow and blue flag on their Facebook page.

For example the ‘Good for Me Good for FE’ campaign has mobilised quickly with Red Cross to support fundraising for Ukraine. 

There are economic implications that will play out all over the world, whether this is petrol pump prices or the cost of gas (mostly Russian!). By recognising these issues, we help create global citizens.  

So we’ll need to stretch beyond our classrooms, and beyond the constraints of one unit in a technical qualification specification. Encouraging students to think critically and to take action where they feel moved to feels like a good first step.

College staffing crisis hits two-decade high, claims AoC

Colleges are calling on government to boost their funding to help improve staff pay after a survey found there are around 6,000 job vacancies in the sector.  

According to the Association of Colleges (AoC), which carried out the research, this is the highest number of vacancies seen in “two decades” – a claim that is based on assumptions from experienced senior leaders since there is a lack of comparable data. 

High levels of persistent vacancies were found in government priority areas such as construction, engineering, health and social care and science and maths. 

The AoC has now called for a “concerted national push to tackle the recruitment and retention problem before it worsens”, namely by increasing funding rates which have been cut over the past ten years. 

Their concerns about the “staffing crisis” have been echoed by staff unions, including the University and College Union (UCU) and Unison.  

“The issue for colleges around recruiting and retaining staff has been building for some time. It is a symptom of the decision to freeze or reduce colleges’ funding for over a decade and has left the sector struggling to keep pace on pay,” said Kirsti Lord, deputy chief executive of AoC.  

 “In relation to schools, college pay doesn’t even come close, and when potential staff can earn far more in their specific industry, it makes it increasingly difficult for colleges to attract the people they desperately need.” 

The survey of college HR directors was carried out in December 2021 and had responses from 48 per cent of all colleges.  

The colleges that responded reported 3,293 vacancies. The report said this implies a total of 6,000 vacancies across the sector, a vacancy rate of 5.5 per cent.  

It found that the average number of vacancies per college was 30, with one reporting 162 vacancies.  

Some 1,853 of these vacancies were in support areas, with high levels of persistent vacancies in learning support roles, student services and facilities and estates roles.  

The current level of vacancies is creating increased pressure on existing staff according to 96 per cent of survey respondents. 

And 61 per cent said that vacancies were having a significant impact on the amount they are having to spend on agency fees. 

Speaking on the reasons for the high numbers of vacancies, the AoC noted that the sector had been hit by a “decade of cuts and endless reform”. 

“As it stands, teachers in schools are currently paid over £9,000 more than college lecturers on average, despite many college lecturers being more specialist and having brought real-life industry experience to their roles,” the organisation said in a statement. 

The AoC is also now calling on the government to take “important short-term actions, including adjustments to the 2021/22 adult education performance rules and providing sufficient flexibility in 16-18 funding for 2022/23”. 

They also want the government to commit to action on whole-college funding, including increases and reform, action to reduce external bureaucracy and improvements to teacher training routes. 

UCU general secretary Jo Grady said: “This report clearly demonstrates the consequences of underfunding the college sector with 6,000 posts lying empty and a yawning chasm in pay remaining between those who teach in our colleges and school teachers.” 

However, Grady argued that college leaders are “not blameless in all of this” and had repeatedly used a lack of government funding as an excuse to hold down staff pay. “Employers can and must pay staff more, and the government must ensure increases in funding are sustained and not one-offs,” Grady said. 

“Failure to do so will leave the blame for the continued recruitment and retention crisis at the feet of both college leadership and government.” 

Unison head of education Mike Short said colleges have had to axe thousands of jobs in the absence of sufficient government cash. “Ministers must invest in further education or young people won’t get the education they deserve. The economy will also miss out on the skilled workers it craves,” he said.  

Jerry White, deputy principal of City College Norwich, told FE Week: “Across the sector we are all struggling with the levels of funding that we receive and have received over the last decade to pay rates that are, in many cases, competitive to the sectors you are trying to recruit people from.” 

A Department for Education spokesperson said that FE teachers are needed across many subject areas. “That is why we have launched a national campaign to encourage industry professionals, particularly those in priority sectors such as construction and engineering, to teach in FE,” the department told FE Week. 

“We will be investing an extra £1.6 billion in 16-to-19 education and training by 2024/25, compared with the 2021/22 financial year, which includes funding for colleges. This includes an up-front cash boost which will see the rate of funding per student boosted by over eight per cent in 2022/23.” 

Former education secretary Gavin Williamson knighted

The former education secretary Gavin Williamson has been knighted, the government has announced.

It comes less than a year after he was unceremoniously sacked in a reshuffle by prime minister Boris Johnson.

Williamson – also a former chief whip and defence secretary – had faced heavy criticism for his handling of the pandemic’s impact on education providers, most notably 2020’s exams fiasco.

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said leaders and parents alike would be “surprised” by the decision. Williamson’s tenure was “one of endless muddle, inevitable U-turns, and even threats of legal action to override local decisions”.

Sam Freedman, a former DfE adviser, accused the government of “waiting for a major war to sneak out the knighthood” because of their embarrassment.

Honour shows ‘contempt’ for children and staff

Williamson’s dismissal also followed criticism over chaotic school, college and provider closure and reopening plans, as well as the BTECs debacle.

Lib Dem education spokesperson Munira Wilson said people would be “outraged”, adding: “The only award Gavin Williamson should be given is the one for worst education secretary in history.”

Shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson said the honour showed “utter contempt” for students and staff.

Last year Williamson was accused of endangering the health of hundreds of thousands of pupils by scientists, who warned fully reopening schools, colleges and providers without robust mitigation measures” was “reckless”.

Knighthood was left out of new year’s honours

Williamson’s name was conspicuous in its absence from the new year’s honours list, having been tipped for a knighthood in 2021.

The Telegraph reported that a government source said it was due then but delayed over the Sue Gray report, before being approved once police decided against investigating a DfE gathering.

A brief statement released by Downing Street today said the Queen was “pleased to approve that the honour of knighthood be conferred” upon Williamson.

Anyone can nominate individuals for honours, but who receives one and which honour they receive is typically decided by committees of civil servants and independent members.

These recommendations go to the prime minister, who then recommends them to the Queen.

A new system of awarding of honours for parliamentary and political service was only introduced relatively recently under the Conservatives in 2012.

A House of Commons Library report in 2017 noted it was a “controversial part of the honours system”, because of public suspicion it could be dished out for political support – or for “just doing the day job”.

Chief government and opposition whips serve on the parliamentary and political service committee – meaning its former members include Williamson himself.

Barton said problems under Williamson’s tenure as education secretary were “not all Williamson’s fault”, however, with Downing Street partly at fault. Covid would have been “challenging for any education secretary”.

Colleges warned as cyber threat from Russia increases

Colleges are being warned to brace themselves for possible cyber-attacks amid a heightened threat from Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.

The Association of Colleges has already informed members about “unusual activity” on its jobs website and provided advice to mitigate possible threats.

There are no known cyber-attacks on individual colleges from Russia in recent weeks as yet, but they have been warned they are particularly vulnerable institutions likely to be targeted following the West’s sanctions against Russia.

Henry Hughes, director of security at education technology experts Jisc, said: “Education and research are likely targets, alongside other sectors, and reporting indicates that the chances of Russian state-sponsored action, including via social engineering, have increased significantly.

“Ensuring that fundamental protections are in place and are functioning correctly is the most important priority. This applies in normal circumstances but is now critical.”

Known Russian groups currently being monitored for attacks include Turla, Wizard Spider, Mummy Spider, TA505, LockBit and REvil.

Leveraging crypto currency monetary platforms has become a focus for Putin and the Russian government

The National Cyber Security Centre, part of GCHQ, said it is not currently aware of any specific cyber threats to UK organisations in relation to the Russian invasion but “strongly encourages organisations to follow our guidance on steps to take when the cyber threat is heightened”.

However, KryptoKloud, a cyber security solutions company with over 100 clients, including 12 colleges, told FE Week it has seen a 212 per cent increase in targeted “spear phishing attacks” in the past 14 days compared with early January and February – with some coming from Russia.

Chief executive Paul Burrows said: “To date, KryptoKloud has seen several new ransomware and malicious behavioural activity for the new HermeticWiper, WhisperGate and SaintBot malware families, while correlations for the Buhtrap activity have also been implemented into our cyber-protection capabilities.

“These new cyber-attacks are particularly nasty and seem to be more destructive in nature than previous attacks.”

He told FE Week that Russia has also significantly ramped up its traditional ransomware as a service operation and since the sanctions placed on the Russian banking sector by the West, leveraging crypto currency monetary platforms has “become a focus for Putin and the Russian government”.

Burrows warned that Russia will continue to look for easy targets – such as the education sector – and all FE providers “should ensure they are resilient to these attacks and ensure that they have the necessary processes and controls in place to ensure they can remail cyber and digital secure”.

Cyber-attacks affecting colleges, which have included doctored emails from principals and hoax terror attacks, have been on the rise in recent years and saw a spike during the pandemic following the switch to online learning.

South and City College Birmingham was forced to shut its eight campuses following a “major” ransomware attack that disabled its core IT systems last year. And Lincoln College was hit by a similar attack in 2020, which KryptoKloud stepped in to help fix, which came from Russia.

In a message to members on Wednesday, the AoC said: “Since the recent Russian invasion of Ukraine, we have seen some unusual activity on AoC Jobs. Although our systems can cope with this so far, we wanted to make you aware of some changes that will affect you using the system and some additional precautions you can take as users of the system. 

“We are also adding an additional level of security [such as blocking unknown IP addresses] and potential mitigating risk access points, to ensure that the recruiter portal of AoC Jobs remains as secure as it can be.”

Jisc has issued the following checklist that it advises colleges to follow:

  • Ensure critical assets are patched and up to date, and that appropriate compensating controls are in place where they are not.
  • Review account management practices, and ensure that only those who need it have admin rights to services.
  • Ensure antivirus protections on both servers and workstations are up to date and are being monitored.
  • Review firewall rules and remove/disable any redundant rules that could allow a threat actor access.
  • Make sure back-ups and recovery processes are following the backup 3-2-1 methodologies and have been tested.
  • Ensure all critical services are being monitored.
  • Update the incident response plan and test it, to ensure the organisation is prepared in the event of a security incident.
  • Revisit phishing awareness training, as this is a common threat route for most advanced persistent threat groups.

Ofsted rates sixth form college ‘outstanding’ again – 13 years on from last inspection

A sixth form college has retained an ‘outstanding’ grade from Ofsted 13 years after its last inspection.

Blackpool Sixth Form College was lauded by inspectors for creating a “truly aspirational place to learn” in a report published today that resulted in grade ones across the board.

Principal Jill Gray said she was “absolutely thrilled” with the result, which is a “real testament to the staff who work tirelessly for our students”.

She added: “It has been a challenging few years so to have Ofsted come in and tell us what we’re doing is great is just so rewarding. I’m so delighted for the students, for the community and for Blackpool.”

‘Outstanding’ schools and colleges began to be inspected last term for the first time since 2010, after an exemption was removed last year.

Blackpool Sixth Form College was last inspected in 2009.

Ofsted praised the “calm, professional and inclusive learning environment where students feel safe and can flourish” at the college in today’s report.

Inspectors judged the college’s curriculum to be “high-quality, comprehensive and ambitious” supporting students “to make substantial progress throughout their learning programmes”.

They were impressed with the expertise of teaching staff who “create a range of stimulating learning activities” and also noted the progression of students to further study and careers, supported by “a very strong programme of ongoing careers advice while on their courses”.

At the time of the inspection, there were 2,205 students attending the college, almost all of whom were studying level 3 full-time education programmes, such as A-levels and applied general qualifications, for young people.

Ofsted pointed out that the proportion of young people who leave school with five GCSEs in the Blackpool area, including in English and mathematics at grades 9 to 4, is significantly below the national average. There are also “pockets of significant deprivation across the area that the college serves”.

Inspectors highlighted opportunities for personal development beyond the students’ classroom learning as a key feature of the college. It was noted that “staff provide extensive enrichment activities that they purposefully, skilfully and seamlessly integrate into every student’s curriculum”.

Support for students with additional needs was judged to be exemplary, with staff implementing “support strategies to help them to achieve at least as well as their peers”.

The inspectors also highlighted the way in which the college creates “a culture where respect for others and diversity are celebrated” for example through the college’s LGBT+ group, and they noted that students are encouraged to help their local communities through activities such as charity fundraising.

DfE reveals plan to scrap thousands of level 2 and below qualifications

Thousands of level 2 and below qualifications face the chop under government plans announced today to “streamline” the system.

Sector leaders have called the proposals “devastating” and a “full-frontal assault on the very idea of lifelong learning” which “fly in the face of the ambition to level up the country”.

A consultation on reforms to technical and academic qualifications at level 2 and below, excluding GCSEs, functional skills and essential digital skills qualifications, has been launched by the Department for Education.

Officials claim the current landscape is “confusing” with around 8,000 qualifications available at these levels, many of which cover the same or similar subjects. For example, there are more than 650 building and construction qualifications at these levels, and nearly 560 in health and social care.

That figure includes nearly 3,700 qualifications at level 2 and below that have already been identified for funding removal because they have low or no enrolments, or on the list of excluded qualifications above.

It leaves around 3,200 ‘in-scope’ qualifications which have just under 600,000 enrolments in this review.

An impact assessment report from the DfE shows it estimates that 72 per cent (c.1,530) of ‘in-scope’ level 2 qualifications for 16- to 19-year-olds, 61 per cent (c.1,290) of ‘in-scope’ level 2 qualifications for adults, and 57 per cent (c.640) of ‘in scope’ level 1 and entry qualifications face being axed.

Today’s consultation follows a separate contentious review of level 3 qualifications which proposes to remove funding for most courses – including Pearson’s popular BTECs – that overlap with T Levels and A-levels from 2024.

The level 2 and below consultation does not set out exactly what qualifications are set to lose their funding, but it does shows new “groups” that qualifications will need to fit into in order to survive (see images below). 

The DfE said it expects the process for deciding which level 2 and below qualifications will remain to be done in a phased way from 2024 to 2027, starting with reform to qualifications in the construction route at level 2, followed by other level 2 qualifications and finally, in 2027, level 1, entry level, ESOL and PSE qualifications.

Qualifications that may not fit into the proposed landscape include “the smallest qualifications, where they are unlikely to be able to provide a student with the knowledge, skills and behaviours contained in a relevant employer-led standard, or to provide them with broad content relevant to an occupational route”, the impact assessment report said.

The DfE propose not to fund qualifications that are “too narrowly focused only on certain skills, such as plumbing or bricklaying, and do not provide a broad enough introduction to the occupational route, such as construction, to support progression to level 2”.

Qualifications that aim to provide entry into an occupation but where there is “no relevant employer-led standard at level 2″ will also be affected.

The DfE estimates that for seven awarding organisations, 80 per cent or more of their public funded enrolments at level 2 and below are likely to be affected by the withdrawal of funding approval.

Of these, five had more than 1,000 enrolments at these levels. This is out of more than 120 awarding bodies that are offering government-funded qualifications at level 2 and below.

Tom Bewick, chief executive of the Federation of Awarding Bodies, slammed the government for its plans.

“Only a top-down Whitehall technocratic exercise would come up with the idea that people can be fitted neatly into three boxes called qualification types,” he said.

“Of course, we’ve always recognised that some rationalisation would be necessary. No qualification is set in stone. But the government has simply got the scale and scope of this policy wrong. The reforms will deny opportunity to thousands of people – young and old.”

He added that the process of approving qualifications for funding and aligning them with “bureaucratic” standards that will apply in England only, is going to be “hugely cumbersome and costly for taxpayers” and FE providers.

Bewick predicts many providers will be forced to go out of business and student choice will be “adversely affected”.

Jane Hickie, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, also condemned the plans.

She said: “The proposals in the government’s consultation on level 2 and below will have a devastating impact on social mobility.

“As well as having a damaging impact on training providers, these plans will increase the adult skills gap and mean employers struggle to find the right people they need to fill employee vacancies. The proposals fly in the face of the government’s ambition to level up the country.”

But defending the reforms, skills minister Alex Burghart said: “We are delivering qualifications designed with employers that give students the skills the economy needs. The consultation we are launching today is the next step in making that change a reality. 

“We are already rolling out T Levels and reviewing thousands of technical qualifications to make sure they are fit for purpose. We want to make sure all qualifications are high-quality and help people progress in life and work.”

In a previous call for evidence the DfE consulted on proposals to remove post-16 funding from level 2 ICT user qualifications and level 2 ICT functional skills qualifications.

The department confirmed today that it would proceed with this proposal and will remove funding for new starters from August 2022. The full list of those being defunded can be found here.

A deadline of April 27 has been set for responses to the level 2 and below consultation.

Proposed level 2 qualifications landscape

Proposed level 1 qualifications landscape

Proposed entry level qualifications landscape