Minimum eligibility requirements are being applied in a generic way, writes Marius S. Ostrowski
A flagship item in the government’s recent Skills and Post-16 Education Bill is the lifelong loan entitlement. This is a system of financial support that allows people to take up to four years of additional courses to retrain and upskill.
But to realise this vision the government will need to become far more sensitive to the actual situation of potential lifelong learners. By adopting a one-size-fits-all approach to skills development, the current regime unfortunately fails to capture the full range of forms that lifelong learning can take.
Take someone who learns a language or an artisan skill in evening or weekend classes while holding a full-time job. Or someone who takes on-the-job accountancy, management, or computer training sponsored by their firm.
Or indeed someone who dips in and out of an eclectic roster of interests by tuning into “massive open online courses” in sociology or astrophysics.
And what about those who take law or veterinary “conversion courses” after a degree, or those who return to full-time study during a career break?
Unfortunately, the more “non-traditional” forms of post-18 learning are often overlooked by policymakers, whose choices have tended to make lifelong learning easier for some and arbitrarily more difficult for others.
One such choice is the byzantine system of exemptions surrounding minimum eligibility requirements to access the lifelong loan entitlement.
There is a byzantine system of exemptions
These include learners over 25, part-time learners, learners with a level 4 or 5 award, a foundation year, or an access to HE qualification (but only to undertake level 6 study).
Why only from 25? This means that, if someone leaves school at 16 or 18, they will have to work for the best part of a decade before becoming eligible for financial support. At the very least, cutting this to 21 would make financial support more accessible.
Another innovation could be to integrate “in-work” skills development into existing accreditation frameworks. This would give learners a “fast track” to lifelong loan entitlement eligibility regardless of age, if they can show that they have already reached a skills level equivalent to the entry requirements of the qualifications they wish to pursue.
At the same time, minimum eligibility requirements cannot be applied to every qualification in a generic way. Certainly, some standards of literacy, numeracy, or vocational competence should be universal.
But learners should not be disqualified from accessing funding if they have not met a minimum standard in areas irrelevant to their next qualification.
Instead, minimum eligibility requirements need to be tailored to a system of vocation-specific lifelong learning pathways. These should be a joined-up series of courses from sixth form to higher degree study, provided by a learning ecosystem of schools, FE colleges and HE institutions.
The exit requirements for each course level should dovetail seamlessly with the entry requirements for the next level up.
This would eradicate learners’ concerns about not “making the grade” to access further funding. It would also make it easier to “step on and off” this lifelong pathway as and when works best for them.
To make the lifelong loan entitlement truly lifelong, the government must also replace the four-year limit on funding availability. Courses can deliver skills improvements over very variable stretches of time ̶ compare a year of night classes to a week of training days, or a term of college study.
Instead, the government should set a limit on the total number of course credits it will fund ̶ say, 600 credits, equivalent to five years’ worth of full-time degree study.
Then learners can see how much of their entitlement they have “left”, and it becomes easier to attach funding precisely to courses on a per-module basis.
This relies on a transparent, overarching accreditation framework for technical, academic and integrated qualifications. Scotland has already led the way on this, and Wales is close behind. It is time for the rest of the UK to follow suit.
The government has created a space for a genuinely radical transformation of lifelong learning.
It now has to ensure it creates the system that works best for learners, no matter who they are or what situation they are in.
With the government’s final climate change strategy due next month, Tim Oates says sound policy is needed for FE to shape the green economy
The global pandemic has prompted a discussion in England about schools and “the future of assessment”. But there are bigger, global questions around the future of education that we need to debate too. One that simply cannot be avoided is the impact climate change is having on economies, industries and individuals.
The essential carbon reduction targets that are being adopted by nations around the world are moving us to radically different economic equilibria. New jobs are being created in the green economy, but these advances will come at a cost to abandoned technologies.
Financial analysts are already growing nervous at the extent of stranded assets in industries affected by these tectonic shifts.
With stranded assets there also will be stranded workers. These will not be young people – they will tend to be older, specialist workers, with families, mortgages and purchasing habits that drive our economy.
Hundreds of thousands of UK workers are likely to be affected directly. Finding themselves and their skills redundant will be both a shock to them and a shock to society. They will need support and retraining.
We must start to think now about their education and training needs ̶ just as much as young people.
Our thinking here in England should start with the best of what we already have – and that means further education.
We ignore FE at our peril
Hilary Steedman, one of the most informed international comparative researchers, constantly compared the German vocational education and training system with the system in England. By 2010, Steedman felt that the FE sector in England was both performing a vital function and providing a higher quality than continental counterparts.
Most recently, FE institutions have proven themselves to be inventive, adaptive and highly responsive during the pandemic, both for young people and adults.
My discussions with FE principals have highlighted the high load that came in September 2021 from students who had certificated in GCSE maths and English, but whose material performance was far lower than expected once on the course.
This required sensitive yet intensive action – just the kind of adaptive and supportive provision at which our FE service has excelled. That this did not result in a slew of press stories is testament to the dedication of staff and the application of the students.
It also reflects our lack of recognition of what the FE service does within the education system.
I have no doubt that FE will be more fundamental to our social and economic future than most realise.
The government rightly is considering all measures that can be adopted to “green” the school curriculum. But policy cannot stop at the school gate.
The development of apprenticeship provision in the past decade has been steady and effective. But we know from the continental experience that specific effort will be needed by both government and employers to sustain apprenticeship provision during this time of dramatic industrial and economic restructuring.
The skills bill currently going through parliament includes changes to FE governance, accountability, labour force, the renewal of estate and learner funding. These are welcome, since we know from the past that qualifications reform can be a necessary but not sufficient policy measure to support growth in vocationally focused provision.
We should also consider what more may be needed. This could include institutional development (buildings, staff and more), curriculum development (new programmes oriented to different groups and new industrial areas), and professional development (particularly in the new knowledge and skills required by industrial restructuring).
FE already provides a vital and highly effective bridge into work and into higher education that we should better recognise and celebrate.
Sound policy action can now support FE to become even more fundamental to our effort to shape a world-leading green economy and an equitable society. The government’s final climate change strategy is due very soon, in April.
It is my view that we ignore FE at our peril. A heroic shift in FE outcomes should be considered as worthy a target for political ambition, as improvements in school standards.
A pilot for a longer learning period after GCSEs is worth considering post-Covid, writes Joe Hallgarten
When it comes to post-16 learning, it’s two that’s a crowd, not three. I’m talking about the two-year 16-to-19 phase. In reality it is about 20 months long.
A couple of weeks after their GCSE results, most students are in new institutions, making rapid decisions about, and rapid adjustments to, new types of courses, teaching and learning.
Less than two years later, here the next step comes, ready or not.
For those on a semi-cushioned, near-inevitable track to university, this rushed period might just about makes sense. Good enough GCSEs leads to a fairly straightforward set of A-level choices, which then leads to a university place (with maybe a gap year thrown in).
For the majority of students, it’s a more complex journey.
There are, of course, smooth routes into professions via technical qualifications. But many young people are much less sure about where their GCSEs should take them. Their career advice did not prepare them for the choices they need to make. They may not yet be developmentally ready for the independent maturity that most post-16 study requires.
With a manic September start, there is no time to “try before you choose”, and the need for many to retake English and maths GCSEs adds to this complexity.
They may start level 3 qualifications such as A-levels without understanding the extent of jump-up required, and many quit after a wasted year 12. Even if their A-level courses run smoother, they are also unclear about whether university is really for them.
At their best, post-16 institutions (and FE colleges in particular) handle this excess of choice, uncertainty and complexity brilliantly. They help their students navigate the best possible way into further work or study through both pedagogical and pastoral care. However, they do so in a time period that feels irrationally short.
Why the hurry? Lots of possibilities, most with big price tags, are currently being considered to aid “catch-up”. The tutoring programme is already rolling out. Officials are considering options to extend the school day and reduce summer holidays.
How about we extend our post-GCSE education period from two years to three? What could this look like? Here’s one way it could work.
In the autumn term of year one, students would be given a variety of experiences and advice to make sure they are choosing the right pathway for them and the right school or college to support this.
Some students would retake key GCSEs and consolidate other aspects of learning that will enable success in their chosen pathway.
In addition, each student would be assigned a mentor, ideally linked to a possible career choice. Where possible, each would also be allocated a year 7 child to mentor.
Each student would be assigned a mentor
Students would also begin a personal development project, as suggested in the proposed 14-19 national baccalaureate.
From January of year one, the next six terms would be similar to the current two-year period. Each young person would start a selected qualification pathway, with space for personal projects and mentoring.
Two years later by the end of February of year three, students would complete courses and examinations, with results announced by the end of April.
This would leave a few months’ space to complete personal development projects, and a civic national caring service programme ̶ a placement of approximately two months that gives them experience of caring within a nursery or school, care home or day centre, hospital or hospice.
No college or school could achieve an effective three-year extension alone. It needs the types of long-term civic partnerships with local employers, universities, voluntary and community organisations that FE colleges already foster.
This is a less than half-formed idea, which would have a financial cost. If you’re thinking “what about…?” then you aren’t the only one.
But the Centre for Education and Youth would love to create a coalition of partners who can help us interrogate this idea further, perhaps through an actual pilot.
If we believe that Covid recovery requires radical solutions, one more year of compulsory education may well be worth considering.
For the very first time we’re making our competition assessment modules available to educators, free of charge. We’ve done this so that students and apprentices can compare their performance with the average scores from last year’s competitors in our highly-respected national skills competitions. Participants can benchmark their performance against some of the best students across the country and instantly recognise how they can improve their skills, knowledge and competencies through self-reflection against set criteria. Taking part will inspire students and apprentices to learn in a fun environment that engages and enthuses them and drives up aspirations to achieve higher standards in their work.
This benchmarking also gives educators a valuable opportunity to provide constructive feedback on strengths and areas for improvement and to support curriculum development, so students and apprentices are learning the skills that are reflective of what professional sectors need, now and in the future.
The programme is aimed at all students at level two and three (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) or level five and six (Scotland SVQ2 and SVQ 3) even if they have taken part in regional or national competition activity in previous years.
A powerful tool, skills competitions have been proven to drive up standards and improve the teaching and learning experience of teachers and students and raise aspirations for both. They are an ideal way of enriching the curriculum and re-engaging learners and enabling them to address lost learning that may have resulted from the last two years of the Covid pandemic. They are also valuable in helping students and apprentices to develop the employability skills that employers value so highly, helping young people to become more well-rounded and high-performance ready individuals.
Colleagues in many FE colleges are finding our national competitions useful in supporting curricula with 58% colleges in England registering competitors in 2021 resulting in over 3,000 registrations. The competitions have a nationwide appeal with substantial representation of competitors coming from Wales, the North-West, Scotland, West Midlands and Northern Ireland. This is encouraging in terms of supporting the Government’s levelling up agenda and highlights WorldSkills UK’s specific focus on opening up career opportunities to young people from all backgrounds, especially those who may traditionally have been denied them.
Over eight in ten national competition participants surveyed said that competing made them feel more ambitious in pursuing their career.
97% of previous entrants say they improved their technical Skills
93% said they improved their personal and employability skills
90% said they could apply the skills they developed
“My knowledge of some skills has improved and are more in-depth now than I ever would have had before. Currently I just want to keep working and improving my skills through participating in more competitions to build upon my skills in the workshop.” (Billie-Jo, automotive technology student and WorldSkills UK competitor, South West College, N Ireland).
The modules of our competition-development programme are designed to be incorporated into lessons of up to one hour so they can be easily integrated into timetables, or for students and apprentices to undertake in their own time. Each activity is relevant to the individual skill area and will address potential skill and knowledge gaps. Some of these will be ongoing skills development gaps in the curriculum but will also include areas for development that have been established through the National Finals. For example, in some practical skills it is evident that students have experienced challenges using basic tools and equipment.
We cover a wide range of skill areas in our competition-development programme at levels two and three (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) or level five and six (Scotland SVQ2 and SVQ 3):
Accounting Technician
Aeronautical Engineering
Automation
Automotive Body Repair
Automotive Refinishing
Automotive Technology
Construction Metalwork
Fine Jewellery Making
Health & Social Care
Heavy Vehicle Technology
IT Software Solutions for Business
IT Support Technician
Landscape Gardening
Mechatronics
Network Infrastructure Technician
Network Systems Administrator
Welding
All our training materials have been designed by industry experts for relevance and assess an individual’s knowledge and practical skills, together with employability attributes such as resilience, communication, time management and teamwork.
Designed to be engaging and flexible, during class or in their own time, students simply visit the website page and look for the relevant skill area and click ‘start assessment’. The programme not only gives them a realistic reflection of ability against their counterparts from across the UK, but also encourages them to strive for excellence raising their aspirations and encouraging them to take more responsibility for their own learning and development.
By weaving skills competitions into the core curriculum, vocational education providers can develop learners more creatively using competitions as a means of assessment. Through encouraging different teaching and learning practices, in line with employers’ needs, colleges can help drive up the quality and profile of vocational education providing valuable evidence against a range of criteria within the Ofsted Inspection Framework.
Give your students the opportunity to stretch and challenge themselves by taking part. They will benefit from the experience which for many is life-changing and they can include their competition results in their personal portfolio, supporting their CV when engaging with employers and educators. Getting your students and apprentices to participate is also a good way of addressing Gatsby Benchmark four: Linking curriculum learning to careers.
“The best thing I have learned is more about myself. The competitions bring so many qualities out of you that sometimes you don’t realise you have. You find out a lot about yourself through these competitions.” (Harry Funnell, Former student at Myserscough College Lancs, and former apprentice, award-winning Frogheath Landscapes).
Having competition activity within the curriculum and its delivery doesn’t necessarily mean additional work, it’s about enhancing what’s already in place through different ways of learning. The concept can be introduced gradually into the classroom to enable students to get comfortable with the idea competing, as a way of building their skills and confidence.
The competition-development programme can also be used as an introduction to select competitors for the 2022 WorldSkills UK national competition cycle which is now open for registration and closes on 1 April. Each year over 3,000 competitors enter. They take part in National Qualifiers and those that succeed go on to the National Finals held in November throughout the country when they compete against their peers for coveted Gold, Silver and Bronze Medals and the chance to join Squad UK. After this, they also have the unique opportunity of being selected for Team UK and the chance to represent their country on the international stage. The next EuroSkills competition will be held in 2023 and the next WorldSkills event in Lyon, France in 2024.
“Apply for it and see where it takes you! It’s a great opportunity to show off your skills and if you do make it to the National Finals, it’s really fun and hands-on, you get to have a play around with technology that you wouldn’t normally.” (Toby IT support technician apprentice).
Regardless of what stage competitors reach in the national and international competitions, all of them have the chance to stretch and challenge themselves and return to their college or employer with a renewed energy and newfound skills to contribute and act as a role model to colleagues.
For educators, embedding both the competition-development programme or national cycle competition activity into the curriculum offers greater scope for creativity in teaching, training and learning techniques. It’s a valuable way of continuing professional development, extending pedagogical skills and knowledge and opportunities for more involvement with skills competitions. Our judges, coaches and experts are dedicated to helping the next generation of young professionals hone their talents, leading the way to a skills-led economy.
The eighth biennial EuroSkills event was originally scheduled to take place in St Petersburg in August 2023.
WorldSkills Europe approached the three member countries that had previously expressed intentions to bid to host the EuroSkills Competition 2027 – Germany, Luxembourg and Poland.
“After extensive discussions it was agreed by all parties that WorldSkills Poland should take up the enormous challenge of organising the EuroSkills Competition 2023 at such short notice,” a spokesperson for WorldSkills Europe said.
The spokesperson added that WorldSkills Germany and WorldSkills Luxembourg have expressed their “utmost support for WorldSkills Poland’s new bid” and have confirmed that they remain committed to plans for a joint bid to host the EuroSkills Competition 2027.
“WorldSkills Europe wishes to express its sincere gratitude to WorldSkills Poland for its support and commitment to have Europe’s biggest vocational education and skills excellence event relocated to Poland,” the spokesperson added.
WorldSkills Poland’s application to host the EuroSkills Competition 2023 will be ratified by the WorldSkills Europe General Assembly at its annual meeting in June 2022.
The exact dates and a city of the relocated EuroSkills Competition 2023 are still to be confirmed. Further details will be released when available.
Following the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, WorldSkills swiftly condemned the Russian government’s actions and cancelled WorldSkills Russia’s participation in WorldSkills Shanghai 2022.
“WorldSkills is politically and denominationally neutral. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia is a clear and enormous breach of our Code of Ethics and Conduct. Belarus, by its active support of Russia’s invasion, has also breached our Code of Ethics and Conduct,” they said in a statement.
“The Russian government has made choices that forfeit its access to participate in events and activities organised by WorldSkills and its Members.”
Nottingham College has announced Janet Smith as its new permanent chief executive.
The appointment comes after the college’s previous leader John van de Laarschot had to step down because of a “serious heart attack”.
Smith joins the college from Inspire Education Group, where she is currently chief executive and principal of the merged New College Stamford and Peterborough Regional College.
She is set to join the college before the end of this academic year.
“I am very much looking forward to joining Nottingham College, and working within a city with such high aspirations for its residents and its young people,” Smith said.
“The college has achieved much, but there is more to do and I’m thrilled to be joining at such an exciting time.”
Smith’s career spans seven different FE colleges, where she has delivered curriculum and quality improvement as a senior manager in three of these institutions.
She oversaw the merger of New College Stamford and Peterborough Regional College in 2020, to form Inspire Education Group.
In the group’s latest Ofsted monitoring visit report from just over six months ago, the group was seen to be making significant progress in all areas listed.
Chair of Nottingham College, Carole Thorogood, announced the appointment.
“I’m delighted to be welcoming Janet,” she said.
“Her fantastic track record in the sector, coupled with her knowledge of our college and our city, makes her an exceptional appointment and I am very much looking forward to working with her.”
Martin Sim, who has been the college’s interim chief executive office and principal since May 2021, will continue to remain with the college for the next couple of months, providing “leadership stability”.
Smith’s appointment comes after former chief executive, John van de Laarschot, ended his five-year tenure at the college last year to “focus on regaining fitness and resilience” following a heart attack.
The college had gone through a troublesome period since being created from a merger of New College Nottingham and Central College Nottingham in 2017.
It was subject to 15 days of strikes in 2019, during which University and College Union members dealt a vote of no confidence to the leadership. Months later, the college was downgraded by Ofsted from ‘good’ to ‘requires improvement’.
In 2020 it was subject to FE Commissioner intervention after hitting “serious cashflow pressures”, which arose after the college completed a major £58.5 million build and following the Covid-19 pandemic.
Ukrainian students will be relieved this week after the Home Office confirmed they will not have to return home if their visas run out.
An official told FE Week that government concessions mean Ukrainian students will have their visas temporarily extended, or will be able to switch on to different visa routes in light of the invasion by Russia.
However, Mike Hopkins, principal of South and City College Birmingham, whose college has five Ukrainian students, said students would need support with the process.
“Very often [visas] extend to the end of the calendar year. What we would be doing, if that is the case, is talking with the students and where necessary working with them and the Home Office, or any other service, to make sure that they are supported.”
The exact number of Ukrainian students in UK FE is currently unclear. FE Week requested data from the Home Office and the Department for Education, but both refused to share it.
Data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency showed that there were 870 Ukrainian students at UK HE institutions in the 2020/21 academic year.
In the year ending September 2021, government data shows that most sponsored study visas were for higher education (91 per cent). By comparison, the number of visas for FE was three per cent.
Government guidance says that if a student is 18 or over and their course is at degree level, they can usually stay in the UK for up to five years. If it’s below degree level, they can usually stay in the UK for up to two years
Financial support is needed
Hopkins told FE Week that in cases where students have extended their stays, they may come under additional financial pressure.
“The other thing is that they have to have a certain amount of resources to pay for their stay etc, which comes either from themselves or their family,” he said
“That is the other thing we’ll need to follow up on. As if they don’t have that, what we would then do, because it is an exceptional circumstance – and we’ve had this in a previous conflict – we would go back [to government] and ask, ‘What support is there for these students?’
“I suspect at the moment, there is likely to be a level of support… Although I don’t think the government has quite got its act together yet, but I think it probably will do, certainly in the short term anyway.”
The DfE confirmed to FE Week that Ukrainian students who extend their study visas in the UK will be able to access several sources of funding.
They said that institutions have an allocation from the 16-to-19 bursary fund to help disadvantaged people in that age range with costs, such as travel, books, equipment and trips.
The adult education budget funds colleges and providers to help adult learners to overcome barriers that prevent them from taking part in learning, including learner support to support learners aged 19 and over with a specific financial hardship.
The DfE also said that providers have discretion to help learners meet costs such as transport, accommodation, books, equipment and childcare.
A spokesperson added that in areas where the AEB is devolved, mayoral combined authorities and the Greater London Authority are responsible for their learner support policies.
Colleges step up to support students
Several colleges have confirmed to FE Week that they have Ukrainian nationals studying with them and spoke about the ways they are trying to support these students.
A spokesperson for Luminate Education Group, a group that runs colleges based in the Leeds City Region, said that they currently have 13 Ukrainian students.
“In terms of support, our students’ union has started a campaign called Us Against War. The aim of the campaign is to show solidarity among our college community against war,” a spokesperson said.
“Next Tuesday the student union will be fundraising for UNICEF, with several activities planned, such as selling iced coffee at Harrogate College. There are still ongoing plans to make the fundraising activities available across all our colleges.”
The spokesperson said that members of staff have put some of the Ukrainian students in touch with each other – especially those who are being taught online.
In terms of hardship funds, the spokesperson said that discussions are taking place around how to support students, but nothing has yet been confirmed.
Bath College confirmed to FE Week that they had fewer than ten Ukrainian students and that they were being supported by their student welfare team and being offered “coping mechanisms”.
“We are lucky enough to have a very diverse student body at Bath College, and have reached out to our Ukrainian and Russian international foundation year learners, who are young people living far from their home and families, to offer additional support,” the spokesperson for the college said.
We are currently identifying any other learners who may be impacted by the current crisis and will also reach out to them.”
NCG also told FE Week that they have identified a small number of Ukrainian students across their group, all of whom are under 18.
“Our colleges are working locally to ensure they’re supported,” a spokesperson said.
Colleges have defended themselves after a Twitter bot called them out for celebrating International Women’s Day despite having significant gender pay gaps.
Organisations across the UK came under fire on Tuesday after the Gender Pay Gap Bot retweeted their posts honouring the day along with their figures on women’s median hourly pay compared to men’s.
Numerous colleges fell victim, with some commentators accusing them of hypocrisy online. Some colleges deleted their initial posts.
However, colleges have said there are important contextualising factors that need to be considered.
Leeds College of Building posted a tweet saying that to mark International Women’s Day they were celebrating female staff at the college to break the bias about careers in construction.
This tweet was then retweeted by the bot, with figures showing that at the college, women’s median hourly pay was 30.5 per cent lower than men’s.
In this organisation, women's median hourly pay is 30.5% lower than men's. https://t.co/mnfLS7VkpM
Derek Whitehead, principal of Leeds College of Building, told FE Week that their latest figures show that this gap has decreased to 24.7 per cent.
“We would highlight that we are a specialist construction college working in a traditionally male-dominated sector,” he said.
“Currently, women only make up around 14 per cent of construction industry professionals in the UK. This is an industry-wide issue reflected in staff ratios across most construction-related fields, making recruitment of female lecturers in construction crafts and trade skills challenging.”
Whitehead noted that the number of female apprentices studying at Leeds College of Building has grown from 44 in 2014 to 207 at present, a 370 per cent increase.
The Fawcett Society campaigns to close the gender pay gap – saying that the issue reflects “inequalities and discrimination in the labour market that mostly affect women”.
One reason the society gives for the gap is a divided labour market, where women are still more likely to be in low-paid and low-skills jobs.
Furness College in Cumbria, where women’s median hourly pay is 32.4 per cent lower than men’s, told FE Week that their gap was affected by this, saying that a large number of female staff are in lower-skilled jobs.
In this organisation, women's median hourly pay is 32.4% lower than men's. https://t.co/kAu1UkqWhC
“At Furness College all male and female staff are on the same pay bands for the same job. The cause of our gender pay gap is not a result of fewer females in higher paid roles,” the spokesperson said.
“Of our upper quartile (highest-paid 25 per cent of staff) currently, 57 per cent are female. Our lowest quartile is primarily made up of cleaning and catering staff, roles which many organisations outsource and therefore do not include in their gender pay gap reporting,” the spokesperson said.
Currently, 84 per cent of females fulfil these roles at Furness College – something the college says is primarily the reason for their gender pay gap which the spokesperson said they are “working hard to address”.
What causes the gender pay gap?
Joanne Moseley, professional support lawyer at Irwin Mitchell, told FE Week there are “many reasons” why most employers still have a gender pay gap.
“For example, an employer whose senior leaders are predominantly men (perhaps because they’ve struggled to attract women to the sector) will have a high gender pay gap.”
She explained that women tend to do more part-time work than men, and most part-time work is less well paid than full-time work, which results in the disparity.
“What’s more interesting is looking at what steps organisations are taking to reduce their gender pay gap and to see if these strategies are working by comparing data year on year.”
FE Week analysed available data for 112 colleges between 2018 and 2021. Across these colleges, the difference in hourly rate between women and men (median) in 2018/19 was 15.7 per cent.
This figure rose to 16.3 per cent in 2019/20 and then went down again to 15.5 per cent in 2020/21.
“Last year, the ONS put the overall gender pay gap in the UK in 2021 at a median of 15.4 per cent and many of the organisations who’ve been identified by the bot have gaps that are similar to this,” Moseley said.
The Association of Colleges said there is “still work to do on the gender pay gap in colleges”, with women making up a significant proportion of those carrying out lower-paid support roles and men often working in teaching roles attracting market supplements from male-dominated industries.
“However, as a sector, further education has done better than other areas of education in supporting women to leadership positions – 61 per cent of staff and 48 per cent of principals and chief executives in colleges are women,” the spokesperson added.
Colleges deleting tweets
Some colleges deleted their initial tweets celebrating International Women’s Day after they were retweeted by the Gender Pay Gap Bot. These included Blackburn College and Fareham College.
After Blackburn College deleted their original tweet, one Twitter-user commented: “Deleting the tweet is evading responsibility and demonstrating an astounding inability to reflect and be accountable to this shocking gender pay gap. Do better.”
FE Week reached out to both institutions but did not receive a reply by the time of publication.
Moseley told FE Week that it was surprising that some organisations have deleted their original tweets.
“It’s possible to celebrate the good work that women are doing in your workplace even if you have a gender pay gap (which most organisations do unless they don’t employ any men).
“Having a gender pay gap doesn’t mean that an employer is paying a woman less than she pays a man doing the same or similar work, which is unlawful,” she said.
Despite a lack of funds and interest from above, research in FE is being kept alive by grassroots groups of lecturers and dedicated academics. Jess Staufenberg meets the movers and shakers to find out if it’s enough
“If there is anyone out there”, continued Augar, in his talk seen by FE Week, “interested in talking to me about setting up a Further Education Policy Institute,” then could they please be in touch?
On one level, this caused some surprise. Stephen Evans, chief executive of the prolific Learning and Work Institute, tweeted there are “loads of organisations working on policy and practice in FE” (being too modest to say, not least of all his own).
But David Hughes, chief executive at the Association of Colleges, said Augar likely wanted the FE voice “to be stronger and more influential in Whitehall”.
This touches on an interesting set of questions for FE. Who is carrying out research and generating evidence-backed ideas, and how much of this is going on?
And is this research making it back to practitioners, and policymakers in the Department for Education? Perhaps Augar’s lack of awareness of the LWI reveals that problems with the status of FE research run right to the top.
First off, it’s worth looking at what the DfE has funded in schools. In 2011, the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) was set up with a £125 million founding grant to share evidence around attainment. But it’s only for students in schools, not FE.
Then in 2016, the DfE funded the Research Schools Network, with each school getting £200,000 over three years. The next year the DfE gave £5 million to the Chartered College of Teaching, to engage teachers with the latest research.
Again, it’s only for staff in schools, not colleges (and meanwhile, FE lost its think tank dedicated to staff-led research with the closure last year of the Further Education Trust for Leadership).
Despite this, however, scratch the surface and there is lots of research going on in further education.
Kevin Orr, professor of work and learning at the University of Huddersfield, says, “there is a very committed network of researchers who work closely with practitioners.”
I soon find their names across multiple papers: Matt O’Leary at Birmingham City University, Alison Fuller and Lorna Unwin at UCL, Maggie Gregson at the University of Sunderland, Liz Atkins at the University of Derby, Jim Hordern at the University of Bath, Susan James Relly at Oxford University (taking over from Ewart Keep, a long-standing FE researcher, now retired) – and, of course, Alison Wolf at King’s College – to mention a few.
Outside universities, other organisations alongside the LWI include the Gatsby Foundation and Edge Foundation, both of which fund FE research, and EDSK think tank.
Gary Husband, visiting professor of education at the University of Sunderland, asserts, “there isn’t a lack of research in FE, there just isn’t anywhere near as much research as on compulsory education. Meanwhile, HE is really good at running research on itself!”
But Orr and Husband agree that finding big funding for FE research, and then ensuring it has impact, is a real issue.
The main government funding body for large-scale projects is the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), explains Orr.
“That gives very substantial grants, but they haven’t funded much FE research, and that would be really good to see more of,” he tells me. “Just given how mainstream FE is, it should be getting more mainstream funding.”
As a case in point, one of the biggest research projects in FE that is repeatedly mentioned to me dates from 20 years ago. Transforming Learning Cultures was published in 2007 by co-author David James, now a professor of sociology of education at Cardiff University, and is admiringly cited by researchers across the board for its insights into classroom and staffroom practices and how these relate to inspection and funding frameworks.
It was a large-scale project involving four universities and 16 colleges, funded by the ESRC on its £30 million Teaching and Learning Research Programme, which ran from 1999. But the TLRP was scrapped in 2009.
“There is research going on now, but there isn’t that large-scale programmatic funding for independent research, like there was with the TLRP,” James tells me.
In response, an ESRC spokesperson said it had invested £8.6 million in the Centre of Research on Learning and Life Chances for lifelong learning since 2008, and was currently funding a five-year research study, worth £2.2 million, into England’s vocational education and training around school-to-work transitions.
But even where big research does turn up important findings, it can then be difficult to translate these into a change in practice or policy, continues James. He points me to research he published in September on ‘Processes and practices of governing in colleges’.
“Our project supplies a detailed picture of what’s happening in governing boards on the ground, and comes to all sorts of recommendations, but I’m yet to meet a government minister or senior policymaker in England who’s interested,” says James.
I’ve yet to meet a government minister who’s interested
Given that the DfE regularly ignores recommendations from its own commissioned research, such as the Ney Review published in 2020, that’s little wonder, he adds.
Suzanne Straw and Lisa Morrison Coulthard, research directors at the National Foundation for Educational Research, explain that another challenge facing researchers is getting hold of the necessary datasets.
The pair are currently working on a five-year research project funded by the Nuffield Foundation examining the labour market in 2035.
“The dataset that relates to FE is the individualised learner record (ILR), but less research has been done using the ILR than the school equivalent, the national pupil database, because it’s quite complex and difficult to navigate,” explains Straw.
Another key information source is the ‘longitudinal educational outcomes’, or LEO, which shows destinations data over the course of a learner’s education career.
Coulthard warns: “It’s a very useful resource, but the level of information provided isn’t as granular as it could be.”
Olly Newton, executive director, Edge Foundation, confirms that it took his team almost five years to access LEO data for a project.
“You have to get specific access from the DfE and obviously the data security needs to be 100 per cent. It would be reasonable for it to take a couple of months, but not years and years.”
Another issue his team faces is accessing information for international comparisons, as post-Brexit the UK is no longer part of CEDEFOP (the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training).
That’s partly why more research comparing the four home nations should be a priority, says Newton, because “it’s a natural policy laboratory”. The Edge Foundation is currently comparing inspection systems in FE across the home nations with Birmingham University, with a report out later this year.
But the government needs to clearly state it is interested in research on the FE sector, for universities and other funders to fund it properly, says Newton.
“Until that signal is there, I can understand why there wouldn’t be a push for that,” he says, adding: “It would be good to bring back calls for a ‘What Works in FE Centre’.”
It would be good to bring back calls for a ‘What Works in FE Centre’
He’s referring to when the Social Mobility Commission urged government in 2020 to create a “what works” centre for FE, with £20 million over the next five years to “translate the best available evidence” for improving outcomes for poorer students. It sounds like the FE sector’s answer to the EEF.
But when FE Week checked with the DfE, a spokesperson said: “We have no plans to create an FE What Works Centre.”
So with no formal support from government, and difficulties in getting hold of large-scale funding, the sector has been left to get on with the job of research itself.
Multiple organisations have initiatives to support practitioners in classrooms to run research.
For instance in 2014 the Edge Foundation set up an ‘early career researcher network’ to support the next generation of FE-focused PhD and other research students, with 40 on its support programme so far.
Finally, the ETF runs it “practitioner research programme” with about 300 practitioners achieving a masters level qualification through the programme, according to Catherine Manning, national head of mentoring and practitioner research.
It’s a strong example of how to link up academic researchers and FE practitioners, with participants getting tutorials on research methodology and being invited to attend residentials. The ETF disseminates the findings through its publication, Intuition.
But FE Week can exclusively reveal the DfE grant for the practitioner research projects will not be available in 2022-23.
An ETF spokesperson said it is “currently exploring options for these programmes and seeking alternative funding”. FE Week approached the DfE for a response.
It means grassroots research practitioners – and grassroots research colleges – are more important than ever.
As far back as 1997, former FE practitioner Andrew Morris co-founded the Learning and Skills Research Network, which links up university researchers and FE practitioners, and is still going to this day.
The entirely voluntary organisation’s national planning group is now chaired by Jo Fletcher-Saxon, assistant principal at Ashton Sixth Form College in Greater Manchester.
“This is about shining a torchlight quite specifically on an area of your practice, that an academic paper might not be able to,” says Fletcher-Saxon.
“We’ve got everything from people looking at the type of pastoral support to offer students transitioning on to T Levels, to the best teaching techniques for students experiencing social anxiety!”
It sounds brilliant. Morris tells me this kind of initiative has especially gained traction with social media.
Nevertheless, “dissemination is an issue,” continues Fletcher-Saxon. She is currently pursuing a PhD on the “disrupted pipeline” between “research getting churned out” and “being embedded in the culture of colleges”.
To tackle this, she is also now involved with the Research College Group, set up and chaired by FE teacher educator Sam Jones, and which involves staff from nine colleges and sixth forms.
So there is clearly great practice going on in research in FE, which just needs more weighty support. In the leveling-up white paper the DfE has pledged a Unit for Future Skills to “improve the quality and accessibility of data and intelligence on skills and jobs”. Whether it is the kind of WonkFE Augar thinks is needed is yet to be seen.
“It would be marvellous,” concludes Morris, “for the DfE to support research colleges in the same way the EEF supports research schools. That would great.”
