Some colleges have told students they should keep wearing face masks in classes, despite the government lifting its recommendation to do so.
Guidance for face masks in classrooms was brought back in January this year, with face coverings being recommended in communal areas since last November.
On Wednesday, Boris Johnson told MPs that Plan B regulations put in place to tackle the Omicron variant of Covid are to end.
This includes face masks in classrooms, which would no longer be required (with effect from yesterday), and rules requiring coverings in indoor communal areas would no longer apply from January 27.
While most colleges have announced policies in line with this new government guidance, some are still urging, and in one case forcing, students to keep covered up.
“Following yesterday’s announcement of the phased removal of Plan B measures, we are continuing to require all staff and students to wear a face mask in all corridors, circulation spaces, communal spaces and classrooms,” the City of Stoke-on-Trent Sixth Form College said in a tweet.
“Students without a mask will not be permitted to enter the college and are asked to return with a mask before entering the building. The usual exemptions apply. We will continue to assess these measures and communicate to explain any changes and when they will take effect.”
ℹ Following yesterday's announcement of the phased removal of Plan B measures, we are continuing to require all staff and students to wear a face mask in all corridors, circulation spaces, communal spaces and classrooms.
— The City of Stoke-on-Trent Sixth Form College (@SOT6FC) January 20, 2022
FE Week contacted the college but did not receive a reply by the time of publication. Other colleges took a less hardline approach, but still encouraged to students to wear masks.
Wakefield College advised students to keep wearing face coverings while Covid-19 cases remained high.
A spokesperson from Nottingham College told FE Week that as well as taking national guidance into account, they closely monitor what is happening locally, so they can implement measures to keep their students, staff and wider community safe.
“Taking all things into consideration we will continue to recommend the use of face coverings when out and about on our campuses, reflecting the excellent work we’ve done to keep cases to a minimum across the college,” the spokesperson said.
“This will not be a mandatory requirement but part of our ongoing cautious approach that has helped us keep all our onsite provision open and available to students during this period.”
One college, Oldham College in Greater Manchester, took a completely different approach and told students they did not have to wear masks anywhere on campus.
This was despite government guidance saying masks should be used in indoor communal areas for another week.
“We have informed learners they don’t need to wear face coverings in classrooms and have also stressed that anyone who wishes to do so, in any area, will be fully supported in their choice,” an Oldham College spokesperson said.
“Our campus is a series of many separate buildings with a wide mix of indoor and outdoor spaces, and with good ventilation. “That is why we are not mandating the wearing of face coverings in other areas and have made it optional for a period of just five learning days before January 27.”
General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, Geoff Barton, said Boris Johnson’s decision around the wearing of face masks in classrooms will be welcomed, if it is supported by sound public health and scientific advice.
Geoff Barton
“However, the situation in schools and colleges remains extremely challenging, with significant levels of pupil and staff absence because of Covid-19 as well as difficulties in obtaining supply cover because of high demand.
“We continue to be very concerned about the ongoing disruption to education and the lack of sufficient support from the government for testing, ventilation, and the costs of supply cover. This really does need to be addressed.”
One college on an awareness drive around labour exploitation was amazed at how many learners were being mistreated. Jess Staufenberg reports
“It was coming up to Christmas time and my work just stopped and I really needed money. Then one morning, he came and knocked on my door. He said, ‘I can give you good money, and good accommodation, don’t worry. Everything will be alright.’”
Raitis Darzins, who is 35, came to England to pick strawberries. He has a skills background in construction and mechanics, and while staying in Birmingham he found himself offered roofing work. “For me, it was like gold stars in my eyes. Big mistake.”
The man took Darzins to an isolated caravan. There was only a cold shower, no safety equipment to carry out the roof work, and Darzins got just £20 a day to work from 8am until 6pm.
“Every day I am hungry, hungry, hungry,” he tells me. “But I can’t say anything because I am thinking, he’s British and I’m an immigrant.”
In 2020, 10,600 referrals for modern slavery were made to the government. Of these, referrals of adults accounted for 48 per cent, with the rest – unbelievably – referrals for potential child victims.
The scandal was increasingly raised during Theresa May’s stint as home secretary, first through the Modern Slavery Act in 2015 and then when, as prime minister, May called it “the great human rights issue of our time”. Since the act, referrals have shot up, regularly increasing by a third or more year-on-year.
Workers with English as a second language are particularly at risk, with Albanian and Vietnamese nationals the second and third most likely to be referred. But UK citizens make up the largest nationality group for referrals, at 34 per cent.
“One night I escaped,” continues Darzins. “I lived in a tent in Birmingham for three or four months. It was better to be a homeless man than to be trafficked.” The man who exploited Darzins was never prosecuted, as far as he is aware.
It was better to be a homeless man than to be trafficked
Now experts on the frontline of tackling modern slavery, and other forms of labour exploitation, have turned their sights to further education as a crucial battleground against abusive practices.
Alison Gardner, who is associate director at the Rights Lab at the University of Nottingham and is leading the world’s biggest team of modern slavery researchers, explains why the sector is fundamental to enabling long-term change.
“Many of the students served by the FE sector tend to be those who are going into riskier professions, where there can be less regulation, wages are already low, and a lack of unionisation.”
Risk sectors include construction, personal and social care, health and beauty, agriculture, catering, tourism, factory work and events. Car washes and garment factories, as seen in Leicester, have also been exposed as hotbeds for exploitation.
Car wash
But the type of work matters more than the sector – low paid, low skill, high demand and short term – meaning agencies and temporary work are a key concern. Gardner has seen an uptick in workers employed by agencies, who are not always passed their full wage.
“There may be deductions from pay packets, unreasonable payments for travel and expenses, or for accommodation.”
Such labour exploitation could be modern slavery – defined by government as the “recruitment, movement, harbouring or receiving of children, women or men through the use of force, coercion, abuse of vulnerability, deception or other means for the purpose of exploitation” – or could include “poor and illegal practices” that don’t clearly meet the threshold for modern slavery, explains Gardner.
This includes deducting pay, not paying into a pension or national insurance, not putting employees on the right contract or no contract at all. The area is particularly grey where someone is on an exploitative zero-hours contract but is ‘choosing’ to take on that work.
The employer may even be doing everything right, but the worker is under the control of someone else, or another agency – which is why employers checking their supply chains is so important.
“There’s not a clear dividing line on modern slavery,” says Gardner. “But FE students and the courses they’re pursuing can be much more vulnerable to it.”
There’s not a clear dividing line on modern slavery
The hard-to-spot nature of labour exploitation makes it all the more important that colleges know the signs.
Frank Hanson is a former equality and diversity manager at Boston College in Lincolnshire, who is now head of prevention and partnerships at the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA), the government’s investigative agency for labour exploitation.
He contacted his old college, whose community includes many migrant workers, to propose a pilot in labour exploitation awareness last year. “Colleges know their local economy really well, which can help build community resilience,” he says.
Boston College, where a fifth of learners have English as a second language, agreed to deliver training on labour exploitation to 200 staff.
Kaley Boothby, teaching and learning coach, said staff were “quite surprised” by what they learnt. “They weren’t really aware. It wasn’t at the forefront of their minds at all.”
More alarming was when the college went on to pilot a new qualification with learners, from January last year – a level 1 in workers’ rights and labour exploitation, developed with the GLAA by awarding organisation Skills & Education Group.
In classes of about 15 learners (across plumbing, hairdressing and health and social care) on average four students would report experiencing exploitative practices or knowing someone who had done so, says Boothby.
“Learners quite frequently weren’t getting paid properly, were paid under the minimum wage or weren’t being treated well,” says Boothby.
Nail technician
The college delivered the ten-hour course in tutorials (nationwide it was piloted to 351 learners). Zac Lumley, a 17-year-old level 2 plumbing student, says he would rather labour exploitation was taught in college than left to students to find out about it.
“When you come from school, you don’t really know anything. You might need to get a part-time job, but you might get taken advantage of.”
He also learned to spot warning signs. “It told us about how people might be quiet and not mix with others if they’re exposed to things like that. It opens your eyes that people might need your help or support.”
According to an impact assessment of the qualification by Gardner’s team at Nottingham University, the percentage of learners who said they “knew a lot” about recognising labour exploitation rose from 15 per cent to 47 per cent following the course.
In one case, a student took the learning materials home to show his father, because he was worried he was being exploited, according to Kaye Jackson, head of relationship management at Skills and Education Group.
Students and staff from Boston College visit parliament to raise awareness about labour exploitation
Another FE provider taking it seriously is Route2Work College for learners with special educational needs in south Tyneside. Last year staff delivered lessons around workers’ rights and labour exploitation in employability sessions on Tuesdays.
“We did it because we know these learners can be more at risk and more vulnerable to labour exploitation,” says Georgia Smith, learning and standards project officer, who created a booklet for learners. Students can at first be “uncomfortable” about the tough message. “It’s just about being clear that it does go on.”
Smith is right to do so: learners with learning disabilities particularly worry Gardner, back at the Rights Lab. They are especially at risk of financial exploitation, but “currently there’s almost no consistent reporting of cognitive impairments among those people found to be exploited”.
Her team has now run a study with Nottingham City Council, due to be published soon, which found individuals with a cognitive diagnosis such as a learning disability, autism, memory loss or poor mental health, make up one-third of previously exploited people.
FE providers and employers should also check their own supply chains, urges Louise Gore, manager of the Equiano project, which supports survivors of modern slavery through Birmingham-based charity Jericho.
The charity runs a series of real businesses, and so rescues modern slavery survivors and gives them legitimate work instead.
“It’s really important organisations do everything in their power to eradicate modern slavery from their supply chains,” she says. “We know agencies who use agencies who use agencies, and the further down the line it gets, the harder it is to spot.”
Fruit pickers
If providers are concerned about something in their supply chain, or even a job advert, they can report it to the GLAA.
One employer taking the issue seriously is Kier Group, according to Gore. The construction and infrastructure firm, which has 12,000 employees – not including its supply chains – decided to train its 350 volunteer mental health ‘first aiders’ in modern slavery, so they could spot tell-tale signs while on worksites.
Doing an audit of suppliers from afar without being on the ground is not enough, says Sheryl Moore, social sustainability manager.
“It is a kind of abuse, these are people under duress, so the signs of struggling with mental health could be similar,” says Moore. “So that’s why it’s so good to train up the mental health first aiders in this. They can ask, are you alright? Are you really alright?”
All in all, it seems extraordinary that only a handful of colleges are switched on to the topic: FE Week reached out to five other colleges in areas with high-profile stories of modern slavery, but was told that no one led on the issue.
The Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner’s office, set up with the 2015 act and led by Dame Sara Thornton, sees FE as a key player.
“Access to education can be a crucial part of a survivor’s recovery journey,” Thornton writes in this year’s annual report. But “survivors continue to face significant barriers to accessing […] further education courses”, with Brexit having the “potential to exacerbate these issues further”.
Thankfully, Darzins now has settled status. I ask him what he would like to do next. “I want to go back to college. My certificate is not English and I want to fix cars. I want to go to college.”
Trying to do the best by your child, and your class, often come into conflict with one another, writes Charlotte Marshall
One of the most rewarding jobs you will ever have is being a teacher.
One of the most rewarding jobs you will ever have is being a parent.
What happens when you have two great jobs but they don’t complement one another?
I absolutely love my job. I can talk about my subject, the books we are reading, the lively discussion; I can talk about the classroom; the posters I’ve put up, the artwork learners have produced; I can talk about my colleagues, their foibles, their funny stories.
I can talk about my wonderful job all day. It’s a great job and it is extraordinarily rewarding.
And I also absolutely love my child. I adore them and I can’t wait to get home to them. I could talk about them ̶ but I don’t. Notice the difference there? The present tense ‘can’, the future conditional ‘could’, the definitive ‘don’t’.
I can talk about my job and the things we do openly. You’ve probably worked out I’m an English teacher in a lively FE department.
From the second paragraph you wouldn’t be able to tell the age, gender or interests of my offspring. I can talk about work but I cannot talk about my child. It’s not possible because I worry about what that could lead to.
I cannot talk about my child
What we have learned as teachers recently is that you absolutely must keep your private life private. If you don’t, just wait for the memes about aspects of your private life to be created.
Wait for the TikTok videos to become viral or simply the student comments to appear in lesson. I even heard a student say they had found a picture of a member of staff’s daughter online, and thought her skirt was too short.
As much as I shout from every social media platform about being an FE teacher, people will often be surprised when they learn in a conversation that I am also a parent.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could celebrate openly both our passions?
But we live in a kind of fear about revealing our home lives, and especially our most precious aspect of our private lives, our children, because students can choose to be unkind on the internet.
Another inner conflict you experience is around sick days. If you yourself are unwell, chances are you take some medicine and plough through.
But there is nothing that breaks your heart more than when your little one is unwell. Yet you feel torn, because who is going to look after the other 20-plus young people under your wing?
Who will make sure they get the attention they deserve?
There might be a cover teacher, but they aren’t you. Mum guilt vs teacher guilt. Somehow you’re destined to feel rotten!
Teachers are missing out on key milestones with their own children, writes Marshall
And here’s another way the two great loves of our lives come into conflict: holidays. I live on a county line, so my child attends a school across the border, meaning our holidays don’t align.
It’s hard enough being in FE where you don’t get all of the holidays in the ways that schools do, but it’s even tougher when you’re having to ask friends and family to watch your children while you work.
And it’s worse working through the half-term break, knowing that next week you’ll be missing out on the fun of the holidays. It’s rubbish!
One of the reasons that many people find themselves within the education sector is that it works for family life. But we need to talk about the ways in which the FE sector could do more to support parents.
We need more flexible working patterns, and we need to give staff time to attend nativities, first days at school and sports days. We also need to seriously tackle the problems with student behaviour online.
We are teachers, we are passionate about our jobs. We are also parents, we are passionate about our families. It is a match made in heaven when passion marries compassion.
Accepting students with T Levels is more complicated than it looks, writes Nick Hillman
There is just one objective of university admissions: getting the best match between applicants and places. Delivering this single goal can be difficult.
In pre-pandemic times, the job of university admissions officers was sometimes compared to landing a jumbo jet on a postage stamp. It is even harder now, due to soar-away grade inflation and record application rates.
One challenge is the multitude of level 3 qualifications, such as A-levels, BTECs and dozens of qualifications taken by international students. Nor is it a static picture, as shown by the current phasing out of the pre-U qualification and the rise and fall of Labour’s flagship level 3 diploma.
Now, the government wants level 3 BTECs, which are taken by around a quarter of a million students each year, to be largely replaced by T Levels.
In late 2021, ministers asked universities “to accept T Levels for entry to, at a minimum, all courses of study for which you currently accept other technical qualifications”.
But as FE Week revealed last week, not all universities have responded positively to this edict. This newspaper reported that less than half of all UK universities have confirmed they will accept T Levels for entry this year, with most Russell Group universities opting out. This is causing huge frustration for students and staff.
I share this frustration. Young people typically do not lack aspiration but they often lack knowledge on how to turn their aspirations into reality. So when some institutions are unclear if the new T Levels are an acceptable entry qualification, it is no wonder there is disquiet.
I have urged universities to ensure that they understand T Levels, and to consider these applications fairly. And when it seems T Levels will not provide effective preparation for a specific course, I have urged them to make this really clear too.
But despite the need for some institutions to do more, universities have been stuck between a rock and a hard place on T Levels.
Accepting T Levels now might look fair to applicants, but the situation is more complicated than that for at least three reasons.
1. The U-turn on maths and English
The rollout of T Levels has been far from smooth. In November education secretary Nadhim Zahawi abolished the requirement for T Level students to achieve GCSE-level English and maths by the end of their course.
This U-turn makes T Levels less effective preparation for higher-level study than was expected.
2. Possible drop-out rates
Universities will be rightly criticised if they let in more people who then drop out.
In the past, universities have been so flexible with regard to vocational qualifications that around one-quarter of students now arrive with BTECs. Yet BTEC students are twice as likely to drop out in their first year, according to research published last week by the Nuffield Foundation.
So it is not unreasonable for some higher education institutions to be wary about letting in students holding an untested vocational qualification.
3. Universities are autonomous
We have the best universities in Europe, because we have the most autonomous universities in Europe. That autonomy is reflected in primary legislation on admissions.
No one ̶ not even the education secretary or the new director for fair access and participation at the Office for Students ̶ can tell universities exactly who to admit. So policymakers would be better off using carrots rather than sticks.
Policymakers should use carrots rather than sticks
Ministers should discuss with universities whether there are enough resources to ensure applicants with T Levels will thrive on degree courses. In return, universities should, wherever possible, give the benefit of the doubt to those applicants who are T Level guinea pigs.
But in the meantime, it would be wholly premature to start shutting down the proven BTEC route.
Historically, education policy tends to go wrong when it is reduced to simple binary divisions, as with grammar schools and secondary moderns, or polytechnics and universities.
The idea that providing only two main educational routes for most young people – A-levels and T Levels – is a sensible response to the complexity of the modern world makes similarly little sense.
The HE sector needs to engage with the Department for Education and FE providers quickly, writes Mary Curnock Cook
New qualifications are always a challenge for university admissions practitioners, and it seems that the higher education sector has still to get its head around T Levels.
T Levels have been designed for a very specific purpose – they are aligned to occupational standards and aim to qualify holders for a range of job roles.
The policy objective was to develop technical skills for the economy and to encourage students to progress directly into skilled employment or to higher technical qualifications (HTQs) at level 4 and level 5.
T Levels are designed at level 3, which should also mean that they pre-qualify students to progress to degree level study (level 6) on appropriate courses.
However, given that they are large qualifications (equivalent in size to three A-levels) in a single occupational area, they will always have narrower potential to support entry to HE than the traditional three A-level subjects. Or even the broader BTEC and applied general qualifications.
And at a time when universities are under pressure from the government and the Office for Students to ensure that students should succeed on their chosen course, universities are being cautious before embracing T Levels in their entry requirements.
Nevertheless, last week’s FE Week story that only 80 out of approximately 140 mainstream universities had confirmed that they would accept T Levels is not a good look for the higher education sector, because it has confused and disappointed staff and students alike.
But it did not come as a surprise to me. Some universities will not have courses that fit progression from the first wave T Levels in construction, digital and education/childcare. However, they might be able to accept T Levels from the subsequent waves.
Some may judge that this technical qualification, which includes specialist skills and knowledge for specified occupations, is better designed for progression pathways other than degrees.
Others may want to work with FE colleges to design a level 6 top-up after students have completed higher technical qualifications.
And others – around 80 it seems – have clearly already signed up to recruit T Level candidates on to their programmes.
But while I understand why the list of universities and courses accepting T Levels is limited at this stage, there is clearly a lot more that universities could do.
The government must be much clearer about who and what T Levels are for
First, they should make things clear to T Level students – many of whom might have expected a wealth of HE course opportunities on the back of the fanfare about UCAS points being awarded.
Even while there are good reasons for some universities to exclude T Level candidates for the time being, there’s nothing to stop the higher education sector articulating its position.
This means students making their post-16 choices know which doors are open, which are closed, and why.
Second, if universities have doubts about the suitability of T Levels, they should engage with the DfE to ensure that future waves of T Level development take those concerns into account.
If T Levels successfully attract a significant proportion of level 3 learners in future years, universities surely don’t want to be excluded from recruiting these students where the progression pathway makes sense.
Thirdly, universities would do well to engage closely with FE colleges and other providers of first wave T Levels to get a thorough understanding of the curriculum, in the same way they did when BTEC Nationals started to become an important pathway to higher education.
This is vital to ensuring students not only get into higher education courses but also get on and succeed.
Finally, all of this would be easier for universities, T Level providers and students if government were clearer about exactly what and whom T Levels are for.
A qualification highly specified against occupational standards and clearly tilted towards specific job roles might never do well in supporting pathways to higher education.
Positioning T Levels as all things to all pathways is unfair to students when the choices they make at 16 are so critical to their future working lives.
This next white paper is critically important. Ministers must focus on the right measures, writes Naomi Clayton
The long-awaited levelling-up white paper is due to be published this month. Michael Gove, leading on the levelling-up agenda, has called it the “defining mission of this government”.
But with few details, many are struggling to understand what levelling up means, or to have confidence in it.
What do we know so far? There are four objectives: empowering local leaders and communities, growing the private sector and boosting living standards, spreading opportunity and improving public services, and restoring local pride.
A leaked draft paper outlines plans to deliver this through a “new devolution framework for England”.
So what would progress look like? We say that employment and skills must be a measure of success. The government should aim for tangible improvements in five key areas:
What would progress look like? Employment and skills must be a measure of success
1. Work
Employment rates vary from 90 per cent in East Cambridgeshire to 61 per cent in Gosport, Hampshire.
Geographic inequalities can be persistent: several of the high unemployment areas targeted by the 1934 Special Areas Act still have some of the lowest employment rates today.
2. Earnings
Average hourly earnings are partly a reflection of the types of jobs accessible in different parts of the country, and are one measure of the quality of work. Workers living in Blackpool earn less than half average earnings in Kensington and Chelsea.
3. Skills
Less than 60 per cent of people in Sandwell in the West Midlands are qualified to at least level 2 (equivalent of five good GCSEs), compared to over 90 per cent in Brentwood, Essex.
Regional disparities have widened over the past decade, with a 15 percentage point increase in residents in London qualified to at least level 2, compared with just ten percentage points in the north east.
4. Opportunity
Access to higher education can increase young people’s employment and earnings opportunities.
Only about a quarter of young people from state schools in Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria go on to higher education by the age of 19 (including that delivered with further education providers), whereas closer to three-quarters from state schools in Harrow, Middlesex, do.
5. Child poverty
More than half of children in Tower Hamlets in London are estimated to be living in poverty, compared to one in eight in parts of Surrey.
Rates of child poverty are also high in other big cities, including Birmingham, Manchester and Newcastle.
Combining these measures gives a picture of the neediest areas for levelling up (see the main image).
The areas that stand out in dark blue are noticeably coastal and traditional industrial areas.
Hull, a city that has struggled with the decline of its maritime and fishing industries, has one of the lowest overall scores, and many other northern areas sit in the bottom 25 per cent.
But there is no clear north-south, inland-coastal or urban-rural divide: London has some of the highest rates of child poverty.
The government needs to go much further than the partial reversal of cuts in the spending review.
How that money is spent matters too. Local leaders are best placed to align policies and integrate services. We’ve previously argued for “local labour market agreements”, which could be used as the basis for devolution deals.
Meanwhile, the constant reinvention of policies around local economic growth, regional and local governance, and further education have created instability and fragmentation.
The government must develop a clear framework for devolution, showing what powers it is willing to devolve and compelling reasons for those excluded.
It needs to establish longer-term funding settlements for local government, moving away from resource-intensive competitive bidding rounds that make planning around local priorities difficult.
Improving opportunities and living standards for people in places like Blackpool and Hull requires a strategy built on greater institutional capacity that creates genuine, long-lasting, transformational change.
The boss of an awarding body that fell victim to a high-profile case of qualifications fraud is threatening to take Ofqual to court unless it repays a £115,000 fine.
Industry Qualifications (IQ) Ltd’s board dropped an appeal following an investigation from the qualifications regulator in 2019 due to spiralling legal costs that led to the firm paying the six-figure sum.
But the decision was made without the blessing of IQ’s owner, Raymond Clarke, who suffered two strokes in 2017 because, he claims, of the stress of Ofqual’s pursuit. This left him paralysed and unable to work.
Clarke has now reignited the case after recovering to a stage where he feels fit enough to challenge the regulator again. He claims Ofqual’s investigation was carried out despite conflict of interest concerns and alleges there was “manufactured evidence” against his firm.
He also claims to have a stronger case now because IQ was censured for offering free appeals to students caught up in the scandal – an approach that Ofqual adopted during the recent A-level fiasco.
Clarke wrote to the regulator last month demanding repayment of the £115,000 by March 30, and warns that he will also set out a case for damages to his health and the fact that IQ went bust as a result of Ofqual’s investigation.
A spokesperson for Ofqual refused to comment on Clarke’s claims but told FE Week IQ was fined for breaching the regulator’s rules and that it took regulatory action to “protect learners”.
Case sparked by undercover sting operation
Ofqual’s inquiry into IQ began in March 2016, a year after one of the training provider’s it awarded – Ashley Commerce College, in Ilford – was subject to an undercover BBC investigation that alleged staff were prepared to sit exams for students training to work as security guards.
IQ revoked 251 level two and three door-supervision and CCTV surveillance qualifications it certificated in 2015 following the BBC’s exposé.
Ofqual’s report said that IQ had failed to “identify the potential for conflicts of interest to arise” or to manage any such conflicts when it approved the college to deliver its qualifications.
The head of the college was also an assessor and moderator for IQ qualifications and had a financial interest in the provider “such that it was in his interest for learners to pass assessments”, the report said.
The awarding organisation’s monitoring of the college was deemed “defective” as IQ had “failed to recognise” the proportion of learner work reviewed by its external verifier was “substantially less” than was required by IQ’s policy, the report added.
Ofqual accused of institutional corruption
Clarke, in his new letter to Ofqual, claims the regulator was “institutionally corrupt” in its pursuit of enforcement action against IQ.
Among a list of complaints, he alleges the “vengeful” regulator failed to manage conflicts of interest because the person responsible for leading the investigation had been the subject of a previous complaint by his awarding body.
He claims the investigation team also planned to use “false” allegations made by a whistleblower in the case, which showed IQ exam papers were being distributed online before they were sat by students. Clarke said Ofqual was going to use this as evidence of an organisation which “was not learning and is consistently failing”.
Clarke also takes issue with Ofqual’s annual report from 2017 which cited the enforcement action being taken against IQ prior to the conclusion of the case, which he says was “unfair and prejudicial”.
His main new complaint is that IQ was “heavily censured” by the enforcement team for offering free appeals to “manage any potential adverse effects” for students who had their certificates withdrawn following the BBC investigation.
Ofqual allegedly stated at the time that this breached the conditions of approval but then went on to adopt “an identical approach during the recent A-level fiasco, evidencing double standards and a lack of clarity in the conditions of approval”, Clarke said.
He told FE Week: “If Ofqual doesn’t repay the fine, I will go to the Civil Service Commission, and the parliamentary ombudsman. We’ll then look to court if we need to.”
The government still needs a national strategy but there are positive signs, writes David Hughes
A year on from the publication of the Skills For jobs white paper is a good time to reflect on any progress made since.
At the time, I was one of many who welcomed the white paper because it affirmed the central place that skills and colleges had achieved in the government’s plans for recovery from the Covid pandemic and for the long-term success of the nation.
A year later, with the pandemic still having a major impact on life and work and with a new education secretary, it is heartening to see that central place maintained, and indeed built upon over the year.
The skills bill has been a key focus for parliamentarians over the course of the year, with many more senior MPs and peers now informed advocates for the sector.
The chancellor’s autumn spending review also gave skills a prominent place – strongly in the rhetoric, perhaps less so in the substance for adults, but very much so for young people. This was one of the key ‘wins’.
The white paper specifically set out to achieve three things.
First, a new system of lifelong learning, which works for everyone. Second, a more empowered and collaborative skills system, freed up to meet needs, not controlled from Whitehall. And third, a more strategic relationship between providers and employers.
Unsurprisingly, it is too early to judge whether these will be fully achieved. But there are positive signs.
Colleges are working together in many areas of the country, with government funding, to agree higher level skills priorities. They are collaborating on stimulating demand and helping create a more joined-up offer to communities and to employers.
Meanwhile, employer organisations are developing the first local skills improvement plans (LSIPs) in partnership with colleges, working hard to engage employers and assess needs.
Put together, these changes could lead to a clear, strategic and pivotal role for colleges in local economic development, business innovation and skills delivery.
I say “could” because it is early days and there are risks. It would be a disaster, for instance, if an LSIP was simply presented to colleges as a wish list of skills and qualifications demanded by employers – we know that will not work.
The promise of a simpler system for funding and accountability is a critical element of this reform but perhaps the most difficult to achieve in a complex sector.
Other major challenges include getting the balance right between immediate skills issues and the longer term, and recruitment difficulties about pay and conditions versus those driven by skills shortages.
There are, of course, gaps in the reforms that we have been highlighting all year, not least through parliamentary debates on the skills bill.
We want to see an overarching national strategy for skills. This would help set the framework for policy, including LSIPs. We also want to see funding which supports national priorities, and which holds the government to account for its skills policies.
A second key gap is how we ensure that education and training is a realistic option for everyone. That means better student maintenance at lower levels and more freedom for people on universal credit to access courses.
I remain optimistic about the direction of travel
The third and most worrying gap, though, is that the white paper has focused mostly on level 3 and above, at the expense of the rest of the system, overlooking people who need basic literary, numeracy, ESOL and digital skills as well as levels 1 and 2.
We have seen the funding for this plummet over the past decade.
I remain optimistic about the direction of travel and have witnessed across the year how Department for Education officials as well as ministers have endeavoured to involve college leaders in the reform discussions. Long may it last.
But more than anything, we need to use our moment in the spotlight to keep winning over more advocates and supporters.
The government has refused to share evidence that it alleges will prove there will be enough T Level industry placements as the programme grows to tens of thousands of students.
Releasing that information would, in their words, “intrude” on the policymaking “safe space” which should be “sheltered from external distractions”.
Officials are also concerned that releasing the modelling would lead to the setting of a public target for the number of T Level students in each year of the rollout, something they are adamant they will not do.
A former adviser to multiple skills ministers criticised the secrecy, especially as the government continues with its plans to remove funding for most competing qualifications at level 3, such as BTECs, on the basis that T Levels will be a success.
But another ex-top DfE civil servant has backed the department, saying the reasoning is “understandable”.
Education secretary Nadhim Zahawi told FE Week in November he had seen evidence that shows enough employers will offer substantial 45-day work placements to tens of thousands of students each year when T Levels are fully rolled out.
His claim came amid concern from some college leaders who are delivering the first T Levels that they can’t find enough placements now for their small number of learners.
After an initial refusal from the DfE to share the modelling, the department has now rejected a freedom of information request from FE Week.
In its response, the DfE admitted there was a “general” public interest in being able to see if ministers are being “briefed effectively on the key areas of policy the department is taking forward”.
However, it deemed it more in the public interest to withhold the information to ensure the “formulation of government policy and decision-making can proceed in a self-contained, ‘safe space’ to ensure it is done well, sheltered from external interference or distractions.
“Without protecting the thinking space and the ability for ministers and senior officials to receive free and frank advice, there is likely to be a corrosive effect on the conduct of good government, with a risk that decision- and policy-making will become poorer as a result,” the DfE said.
Ed Reza Schwitzer, who worked in the DfE for six years in a variety of senior roles before becoming an associate director at public policy think tank Public First, defended the department’s refusal. “Whilst it is frustrating when ministers cite evidence that their departments are then unwilling to provide, it is understandable that officials have made this judgement,” he told FE Week.
“After all, it is vital that officials are able to advise ministers on deliverability of government policy honestly – and this would not be possible if such advice was made public.”
But Tom Richmond, a former adviser to two skills ministers, criticised the secrecy. “If the government removes funding for other level 3 qualifications, only for T Levels to stumble because they cannot secure enough placements, then the stability of the whole 16-to-19 system will be put at risk,” he said.
“On that basis, civil servants should be trying to reassure the sector with their supposedly robust evidence on the viability of compulsory work placements instead of keeping everyone in the dark.”
The DfE is also concerned that the release of industry placement modelling would “undoubtedly have the effect of setting a public target for the number of T Level students in each year of rollout”.
Such a target “would be likely to lead to both providers and government prioritising T Level student numbers above other factors, for example, the quality of courses being offered, which would be to the detriment of students studying these qualifications”.
The DfE has previously been criticised for shying away from setting T Level targets, including by Conservative MP and former skills minister John Hayes.
Jon Yates, who advised then education secretary Damian Hinds when he was developing T Level policy, questioned the reliability of any industry placement modelling. “In this case you’re asking people if they might take part in something they haven’t thought about, heard of, or know anyone who’s done it,” he said.
“It’s responsible to survey people here, but it’s probably about as reliable as asking people in February 2020, ‘would you support a national lockdown if there was a coronavirus?’”
T Levels began to roll out in 2020 and to date almost 7,000 students have enrolled.
