Burghart sets ‘ambitious’ apprentice achievement rate target and announces feedback tool drop-outs

The skills minister has set a new “ambitious” target for an overall 67 per cent achievement rate on apprenticeship standards by 2025 – a 15 percentage point increase on the current rate.

He has also announced a new exit feedback tool for drop-outs to better understand why half of apprentices withdraw.

Alex Burghart told today’s Association of Employment and Learning Providers national conference that government will provide a package of support to address the issues, including workforce development and “continued targeted support for employers”.

He has outlined further details in a letter to the sector.

The achievement rate on standards is a big issue for ministers and was named as one of the top concerns for Amanda Spielman at Ofsted and Jennifer Coupland at the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education during their speeches at AELP’s conference earlier today.

New-style apprenticeship standards only achieved 51.8 per cent achievement rate in 2020/21, a slight improvement on the achievement rate of 45.2 per cent in 2019/20.

Meanwhile, old-style frameworks, which are being phased out, hit a 68.1 per cent achievement rate in 2019/20 and 68.9 per cent achievement rate in 2020/21.

Only one of the 11 subject sector areas – science and mathematics – had an overall achievement rate of above 67 per cent on standards in 2020/21.

Announcing the 67 per cent target, Burghart said: “I know this is not an easy task, I know it is made harder by the impact of the pandemic and the associated challenges that you, employers and apprentices themselves have faced.

“It will require a combined effort from everyone, and we want to work with you on it.

“I am confident that by prioritising quality, we can make progress towards this point in the coming years.”

But AELP chief executive Jane Hickie fears the target will be unachievable.

She told FE Week: “While this new target is certainly very ambitious, there is a danger that we are trying to compare frameworks to standards when they are not like for like.

“AELP feels the target will unfortunately be unachievable until the DfE iron out unhelpful nuances in the current qualification achievement rate methodology – updating and reflecting the new climate that we’re all working in. Without revisions, there is a real risk of undermined confidence in apprenticeships.”

Government data shows that only 53 per cent of apprentices on standards stayed on their programme until their end-point assessment in 2020/21 – meaning that 47 per cent dropped out.  

The drop-out rate for frameworks was 17 percentage points lower than standards in 2020/21.

By comparison, latest Department for Education data shows the drop-out rate for A-levels in 2019 was less than one in ten (8.7 per cent).

Burghart said the DfE is looking at “kickstarting” the feedback tool in the department, and it is the DfE’s intention to collate the data rather than providers or employers. The DfE is aiming to have the tool up and running this autumn.

A DfE apprentice survey published last month found that personal or domestic factors such as a better job offer, mental health issues or caring responsibilities were among the key reasons for apprentices dropping out in 2019/20.

And when it comes to apprenticeship-related factors for withdrawals, the most common reasons were that apprentices felt they did not have enough time for training, poor quality training and badly run programmes.

Here are the moving stories we heard from people who really want to skill up

People with caring responsibilities and disabilities must be properly understood if they are to access the lifelong loan entitlement, write Ed Reza Schwitzer and Patrick Thomson

In our last piece in FE Week we highlighted that the core challenge for the lifelong loan entitlement (LLE) is behavioural – to have impact, individuals, providers and employers must make different decisions to the ones they make currently.

We also looked at some of the particular challenges faced by those in mid to late career, recognising that four-fifths of the rise in economic inactivity since the pandemic has been among the over-50s.

But we also know that only 53.5 per cent of disabled people aged 16 to 64 were in employment between July and September 2021, compared with 81.6 per cent of non-disabled people.

And in addition, research by Ipsos shows that one in five women (19 per cent) have left a job because of difficulties balancing work with caring responsibilities, and that women account for 85 per cent of sole carers for children, and 65 per cent of sole carers for older adults.

So as well as our existing focus on mid- to late-career workers, we can see that individuals with disabilities and caring responsibilities are also disproportionately excluded from the workforce.

Therefore they could gain substantially from support to train or retrain. However, both groups experience significant barriers to accessing that training.

To test this in more depth we ran two focus groups with participants over the age of 45 and without university degrees, who had either/both an acute caring responsibility, or a physical or mental health condition.

A number of participants across both groups were also unemployed.

We found strong support for training and retraining

We were genuinely moved by the extent to which our participants were motivated to learn and work despite in some cases struggling with day-to-day tasks.

In one particularly harrowing case, a woman had been attacked at work, suffering life-changing injuries, and said she “locked [herself] in the house and didn’t leave for nearly two years”. She regretted not attending university at a younger age, describing that she “fell in love and left my future to be with him”.

They don’t want to sit in a classroom with teenagers and 20-somethings

In another case a woman cared for her partner who had Parkinson’s but she managed to take real joy from doing short courses on cookery at her local FE college.

Indeed, many of our participants described learning as a way not to feel useless again, with one participant referring to people like her as “the zombies of our age group” – marching through life without any support to do something new.

One of the most positive accounts we heard was from a woman who had benefitted from a higher level apprenticeship with her existing employer – which had given her a new direction and sense of purpose.

adult education

But training must take account of people’s individual circumstances and experience

Our groups were unanimous in their view that training or retraining for them could not mean “starting at the bottom rung of salaries again”.

They wanted new job opportunities which paid decent wages, taking into account the experience they already had. And they wanted training that was flexible around their needs, for example, at times to suit those with caring responsibilities.

Our participants also did not want to sit in a classroom with teenagers or those in their 20s and be made to feel “like a dumbo”.

One of our participants who suffered from acute anxiety and depression was particularly strong on this point – she wanted to be in classes with other people her age.

People want to feel like someone cares about them

The strongest sense we got from our participants was that they wanted a positive vision in which they were included.

It was quite obvious that participants in these two groups did not feel as though people were interested in helping them.

Whether it was being turned down for training opportunities or passed up for jobs in favour of younger people, there was a strong consensus that they were battling to get any support.

We cannot put it any better than one of our participants who said, “They want us to work until we’re 67 years old but they don’t want to train us after 40”.

It will take a combined effort of employers, government and training providers to change that perception.

This is how digital tech can improve interviewing skills

We beat NASA to win a top technology award because of our innovative software for learners, writes Matt Jarvis

The idea of “skill” dates back to the 13th century, when the word usually referred to physical co-ordination and denoted learnt rather than innate abilities.

The idea was radical in an era when abilities were generally considered gifts from God. In many ways the notion of teachable and learnable skills remains the liberation theology that underpins modern ideas like social mobility.

The term “soft skills” is believed to have originated in the US military in the 1970s. It has been used in various contexts to mean personal qualities such as emotional intelligence, pro-social values and resilience, cognitive skills such as problem-solving and decision-making, social and communication skills and employment-specific attributes like professionalism and leadership.

It isn’t hard to see how soft skills are relevant to success in the workplace.

Many disadvantaged learners lack soft skills, and this is one of the barriers standing between them and the workplace.

So developing soft skills in our learners is a very important part of our role as FE providers.

What excites me is the chance to deploy innovative technologies in ways that create learning opportunities that would be difficult to achieve otherwise – especially where they can impact hard-to-reach learners.

We’ve collaborated on a project around soft skills development that has brought together cutting-edge technology with a significant learner need.

We worked with a tech start-up that specialises in ethical applications of artificial intelligence, A-dapt, and together we won an Innovate UK grant, part of the government’s research and innovation funding agency.

The grant allowed us to develop and test a package that combines interactive video and AI facial expression analysis to teach interview skills including social micro-skills such as eye contact and expression management.

I wanted to focus on interview skills because, while all soft skills are important, some are higher level and must be learned in the workplace – so the first step is to enable learners to access the workplace by training them in some basics.

The interview coach software involves two stages. In the first, learners are shown a series of interview scenarios and asked to judge good and bad responses to questions.

Bad responses included shouting at a family member during a remote interview and asking for an Audi company car.

Our learner feedback on this section surprised and impressed me – I had worried that they might find this kind of stuff obvious and even patronising, but this was absolutely not the case and learners reported learning a lot from it.

This is a valuable reminder of how easy it is to make assumptions about learners’ implicit understandings of workplace norms.

It is easy to make assumptions about learners’ understandings of workplace norms

The second part of the experience involves answering interview questions asked on-screen by a recorded actor.

At this point the learner is on camera and their facial expression and position are monitored in real time by an artificial intelligence that feeds back in real time how positive and attentive they will appear to the interviewer.

If they look away or cease to smile this will show on the on-screen ‘positivity’ and ‘attention’ metres.

Our initial trial with our learners showed substantial improvements to the quality of interview answers following use of the package.

This spring we were humbled to win the science and education (remote and immersive) category of the Webby Awards, which are the ‘internet Oscars’. We beat NASA!

We were sitting alongside actress Drew Barrymore and National Geographic, who were winners of other categories.

This is why my job is so rewarding. Working at an ITP means I have the freedom to embrace innovative tech to help our learners learn and develop skills they might have missed out on.

I’m looking forward to keeping this AI work going to help more of our learners smash through the invisible soft skills barriers and get to where they want to be.

Let’s prioritise skills spending on level 4 to level 7

Suggestions that training spend should be limited to those with the lowest qualifications are misguided, writes Mandy Crawford-Lee

In the past couple of months, there has been some very useful analysis out from the Learning and Work Institute (LWI). This includes one of its most recent reports called ‘Raising the Bar’, on the lack of employer investment in skills.

This report is more balanced than the LWI’s previous report ‘Bridging the Gap: Next Steps for the Apprenticeship Levy’, where it proposed prioritising the apprenticeship levy pot by age or level. This proposal thankfully failed to gain traction.

The University Vocational Awards Council concurs with the excellent analysis in the ‘Raising the Bar’ report on the need to reverse the decline in employer investment in skills. We also sympathise with the view that action is needed to train low-paid and low-qualified employees who have missed out on training.

Points on the short-termism of skills policy in England are equally well made.

Crucially, LWI is also right that we need to focus on how to increase employer investment in skills.

However, with the skills gap and cost of living crisis making these issues more important than ever, we also want to raise the following points.

Allow training for older and more skilled employees too

If we’re really interested in raising productivity, employers should be allowed to invest in the development of the skills their organisations need to raise performance.

Unfortunately, the LWI does not seem to accept this argument and makes recommendations that undermine this approach.

These include proposals to restrict employer spend to train older employees or for higher-level skills programmes.

But it’s not market failure if employers spend their training budget on developing the skills needed to raise productivity.

It’s not market failure if employers spend their training budget on what’s needed

LWI’s contention that employers need to spend more on training those with the lowest qualifications will elicit sympathy. But I doubt anyone would object to more being spent on the initial and ongoing training and development of a nurse (level 6) than a retail role (level 2).

We believe LWI’s proposals to restrict employer apprenticeship spend for the over-25s and for higher-level programmes would undermine the social mobility it seeks to champion.

What is needed are more work-based opportunities and career pathways for individuals to progress to technical and professional level jobs.

[x-head] Prioritise training on level 4 to level 7

A tax credit to incentivise employer investment in training is worthy of exploration.

But focusing the tax credit on functional skills and limiting coverage up to and including level 3 is a puzzling suggestion. Surely the government, not employers, should pay for training that rectifies a failure of the school system?

If we want to develop as a high-skill, high-wage economy, spend should be prioritised on training at level 4 to level 7.

The government should invest

Three groups benefit from investment in skills: society, employers and individuals.

We’d suggest that government covers the cost of those skills that society would expect an individual to acquire through compulsory education alongside incentivising spend on training in areas of need.

It should also ensure the skills system works effectively by facilitating regulation, quality assurance and the operation of the apprenticeship and loans systems.

Meanwhile employers’ primary role should be to invest in skills to enhance performance and productivity and support progression to technical, managerial and professional level occupations.

Think carefully about an apprenticeship versus skills levy

The argument that the apprenticeship levy should be replaced by a skills levy may be superficially attractive.

But LWI may wish to explain why we should prioritise subsidising SMEs to pay the wages of restaurant staff and hairdressers, while restricting the ability of the NHS to use its apprenticeship programmes and levy payments to train nurses.

We appreciate LWI’s focus, but the skills debate is, however, far broader.

Proposals that support young people and those with lower-level qualifications, but which undermine investment in training to raise productivity, are not the way forward for the skills agenda.

Less generous adult education clawback threshold offered in most devolved areas

The Education and Skills Funding Agency’s threshold for funding adult education courses that are not delivered is more generous than most mayoral combined authorities this year, FE Week has found.   

Whitehall now controls less than half of the country’s AEB, with the rest administered by nine mayoral combined authorities and the Greater London Authority.   

Latest funding rules for each area show that most will claw back funds where grant-funded contracts handed to colleges and adult and community learning providers have not been spent in full.   

Here are the reconciliation thresholds for each area, according to their latest published funding rules: 

  

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough 

For grant-funded providers, the combined authority will apply a performance threshold of 100 per cent for 2021/22 and all unspent AEB funds will be recovered through profiled payments in January to March 2023.   

Over-performance of up to 105 per cent will be paid, however, “subject to the availability of budget”.   

Procured providers in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough will be paid on actual delivery and reconciled against proposed delivery plans on a monthly basis. Any over-delivery will not be funded. 

  

Greater Manchester 

The Greater Manchester Combined Authority conducts monitoring checks on grant and procured providers’ performance at four points throughout the year. At these monitoring points, where providers have identified actual or potential underspend within their current allocation, they will be given the opportunity to voluntarily reduce their allocation. Any underspend will be returned to the central pot to be redistributed within Greater Manchester.   

Should a provider continue to record an underspend year on year, the combined authority “reserve the right to review future allocations”, according to the funding rules.   

The GMCA said it will support all providers who over-deliver in 2021/22 by up to three per cent above their current core devolved AEB allocation. 

  

Greater London 

At the end of 2021/22 the Greater London Authority will apply a three per cent reconciliation tolerance for under-delivery. Where delivery of the overall AEB is less than 97 per cent of a provider’s block grant funding allocation, the authority will claw back funds.   

An over-delivery payment to all AEB grant providers who perform up to 103 per cent above their AEB allocations will be applied for the first time in London in 2021/22.   

Procured AEB contracts have separate contractual agreements that allow for reward of over-delivery, a GLA spokesperson said. Procured AEB providers may request an increase of up to ten per cent of their original lifetime contract value “subject to meeting a number of contractual criteria”. 

  

Liverpool City Region 

Liverpool will apply a 97 per cent tolerance to under-delivery for grant-funded providers.   

Procured providers will have their contract reduced at performance management points throughout the year if they are showing signs of potential underspend.   

No over-delivery will be paid for either grant or procured providers. 

  

Tees Valley 

There will be no tolerance for underspend for all Tees Valley providers. “TVCA reserve the right to recover any underspend below the full TVCA AEB 2021/22 allocation,” the combined authority said.   

Any over-delivery will also not be funded. 

  

West of England 

The West of England said it has a 97 per cent tolerance for under-delivery but it is unlikely to recover funds “as we would generally try to take this into consideration when calculating future allocations”.

A spokesperson said the combined authority also has a mitigation process that allows providers to submit a business case “regarding any underspend and potentially be awarded payment protection if they have made all efforts to deliver adult education in line with our strategy”.  

There will, however, be no payment for over-delivery. 

  

West Midlands 

The West Midlands Combined Authority’s latest funding rules does not show a tolerance for underspend in 2021/22. However, FE Week understands that a 97 per cent threshold is in place. 

But the rules do state that any over-delivery from grant and procured providers will not be funded, unless agreed in writing in-year with the WMCA. 

  

North of Tyne 

The North of Tyne Combined Authority said it reserves the right to recover any underspend, in full, below the provider’s 2021/22 AEB allocation. 

  

Sheffield City Region 

The threshold set by Sheffield City Region for 2021/22 will be that all providers must earn 100 per cent of their allocation, or hand back their unspent funds. 

  

West Yorkshire 

West Yorkshire will apply a three per cent reconciliation tolerance in 2021/22. 

Colleges fork out for taxis and b&bs to get students to exams during rail strikes

Bed and breakfast bookings, student sleepovers, extra minibuses and parents taking the day off work are among the measures families and colleges have taken to get learners to exams on time as a result of rail strikes this week.  

FE leaders have outlined the efforts students have made as thousands of services have been cancelled as part of national rail strikes on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday this week. 

Colleges have also had to foot the bill for any extra measures they have put on, such as minibuses or taxis, from their own budgets.  

The strikes, organised by the Rail, Maritime and Transport workers’ union (RMT) over pay and conditions, landed during exam season, leaving students who use the rail network having to get to college by other means. 

Official data for June 2022 A-level entries indicated nearly 90,000 students were sitting maths exams, one of which was held on Tuesday, with nearly 55,000 chemistry A-level entries on Thursday.  

Many hopped on to buses, or stayed with friends who live closer to their college. But others had to go to longer lengths. 

Phil Tranter, vice-principal at Hereford Sixth Form College, said: “Some are having to stay in B&Bs in Hereford. 

“It’s not just one night they have to spend, for some it is two nights,” he said, depending on how their exams fell or when the last trains home were running. 

“Lots of others are staying with friends,” he continued. “And if they cannot get in, we have had to put on taxis for some students. 

“Some parents are having to take the day off. I have had quite a few students getting in at 7am saying it’s the only way mum or dad could get them here in time.” 

The college moved to virtual teaching for some students who couldn’t make it in this week. 

“We have almost had to go back to Covid for students who couldn’t get to us,” Tranter said. 

He said for some students this week may be the first time they have sat an exam, meaning travel disruption has added additional pressure or stress at a time of already-heightened anxiety. 

John Laramy, Exeter College principal, said: “Since the announcement about the train strikes, our personal tutors and wellbeing team have worked with students to ensure that any students that would be impacted were able to access the college on the day of their exam.   

“This worked so well that, so far, Exeter College is not aware of any students at all who have missed an exam due to the rail strikes.  

“Clearly the timing of the strikes has given students who have not previously sat formal exams additional challenges to navigate, therefore our exams team are fully aware of the different special considerations that are available to reassure students.” 

Guy Francis, assistant principal at Brockenhurst College in Hampshire, said: “Students with lessons were advised to use our extensive bus network instead of the train. As a failsafe alternative, they could access quality learning online thanks to our blended learning contingency strategy. In exceptional cases, taxis and minibuses were arranged for students sitting exams.” 

Many colleges and sixth forms had used the time between the strikes being announced earlier in June and Tuesday’s first day of action to signpost students to bus routes or encourage car sharing. 

In many instances, students who thought they may struggle this week were asked to flag concerns early so arrangements could be made.   

In Oxfordshire, The Henley College recommended that students sitting exams leave at least two hours to get in, and moved some of its courses to online study for the week to minimise disruption. 

In a blog last week, the DfE said it “did not expect exams to be rescheduled because of the strike,” because “this would not be fair on students”. 

It added that it expected providers to “draw on existing contingency arrangements” – which included providers’ own budgets – where alternative arrangements needed to be made for students. 

The Joint Council for Qualifications in its guidance for this summer’s exams outlined some flexibility, which included the ability for centres to vary start times by 30 minutes and other measures around start times and invigilators.  

How the cost of living crisis is taking its toll on FE students

“We are struggling to make ends meet and even a coffee is a novelty. Students already are having it hard and now the future is very bleak.”   

That’s the assessment of one college student in the north-east of England, but one that students across the country recognise as the cost of living crisis continues. 

FE leaders spoke to FE Week about how they are having to go to further and further lengths beyond that of simply providing education, such as clothing students out of their own pockets, while the National Union of Students warns that students are being pushed to the brink, with some being forced to drop out of education.  

The combination of cost increases for food, petrol, energy and council tax precepts, among other things, means household budgets are being stretched considerably. 

The NUS is currently running a survey asking students to share their experiences. Responses from some of the FE learners already submitted have demonstrated it is having a big impact beyond just bank balances.   

“Cost of living is a definite strain in my family, social and academic life. I’m unable to buy books and resources, our family doesn’t really go out for food or travelling too much any more,” one student from the West Midlands, who wished to not be named, said. 

Another student, from Scotland, said: “It’s a crisis of food or fuel. Food is winning the now but come winter, I’m not so sure of how to cut back on food cost and increase fuel money when it’s cold.”   

In London, one student reported: “The price of food in my college has gone up, and the prices of food in shops around my college area have also gone up. It’s become difficult to buy food and to travel during the last few weeks.” 

This provides just a snapshot of the struggles students are facing, with many more flying under the radar.   

Salsabil Elmegri, NUS vice-president for further education, said the union would like to see a student cost of living payment created by the government. “We’re hearing from students who can’t even afford to go for a cup of coffee with their mates, let alone transport and study materials.   

“Students aren’t cash cows. We are at breaking point, and we’re desperate for something radically different,” Elmegri added.   

While colleges have been keen to ensure students can continue their studies and improve their future chances, some students say they have no choice but to find work instead.   

Katy Urwin, assistant principal at North Warwickshire and South Leicestershire College, said: “Anecdotally we have had more students leaving us part-way through the year.  Because of financial pressure, they weren’t able to complete their course.”   

Around 11 per cent of students who have withdrawn from their course in-year have done so because of financial problems, she said.   

Alison Purver, head of student engagement at Leeds City College, said: “We have to be creative with our timetables. They might have three longer days, to give them time to work [on the other two] because they need money.   

“It used to be students were working late at night and they were tired. If you allow more time for them to get part-time jobs, they are earning and learning.”   

How have providers responded?   

Common threads to emerge from college leaders have been an uptick in breakfast club demand and handing out clothes to some of the poorest students.   

Hartlepool College’s welfare officer Ronnie Bage said: “I have clothed somebody this week. Every week I clothe somebody. Sometimes I pay out of my own pocket. Staff bring in clothing from their teenagers that they don’t wear any more. It’s like a community thing – we are all in it, we are all supportive.”   

Cornwall College, meanwhile, has provided free smart-wear clothes specifically to help students when it comes to interviews.   

Rebecca Barrington, director of student experience at Cornwall College, said: “Students can be quite good at hiding it, and actually if a student has got the right clothes for an interview that’s going to help them get a job and help them with a future.”   

Breakfast clubs have become increasingly important. They provide a guaranteed means of ensuring students have had a meal. Urwin said the increase in demand for breakfast clubs at North Warwickshire and South Leicestershire College (demand now stands at more than one in ten learners) meant it has had to seek support from supermarkets to obtain food.   

“Sometimes we do collections twice a week,” she said. “We are making those relationships with supermarkets so we can be those additional services, but it is difficult because we are educators and spending time on other things.”   

She added: “We might joke about being hangry but we really recognise that term. If they haven’t had their breakfast or their lunch they are not able to regulate their behaviour. Knowing they have had food means they are much more ready to learn.”   

Another side-effect to the crisis reported by sector leaders has been demand for bursaries.   

Purver said around 7,000 students at Leeds City College receive bursary support, with a year-on-year increase of seven per cent. Around 30 per cent of learners at North Warwickshire and South Leicestershire get help through bursaries.   

Meanwhile at Hartlepool College, principal Darren Hankey said around 650 of the 1,200 students were receiving bursary support. Pre-pandemic it was around 40 per cent of the student body who were eligible; now it is pushing 60 per cent, he said.   

This has raised fears that some teenagers – particularly those who may be more vulnerable – may be drawn to county lines drug gangs. “It can be quite alluring, if someone is potentially lavishing you with a new phone or trainers, and some of the mechanisms they [the gangs] use are quite well established,” Hankey said.   

Mental health linked to poverty 

Bage said he greets students at Hartlepool at the front door every day to build up a rapport, to make sure they are OK and to spot any changes in mannerisms or behaviours. Poverty is now the biggest contributor to mental health concerns, he said.   

The NUS said that if students were not able to socialise because they couldn’t afford a coffee, there were inevitable mental health impacts from that too.   

Three dedicated hubs for wellbeing have been established at the three North Warwickshire and South Leicestershire campuses to ensure all students can access support. Colleges across the board have cited increasing demand on welfare or student support staff.   

Elsewhere, the lack of free school meals support during the holidays has been cited as a concern.   

Purver said that its programme to feed students during the six-week summer break is set to cost around £150,000 of the college’s own funds, but she said it was “the right thing to do”.   

For Cornwall College, which facilitates students from two education authority areas, the situation is more complex. Cornwall Council has not continued its free school meals provision in holidays, instead offering families the chance to apply for support, but Devon County Council has. This left the college finding additional sources of funding to ensure students in the Cornwall local authority area were not disadvantaged.   

Among the support college leaders have said they would like to see are free school meals provision being extended into the holidays, and ensuring families have suitable devices to prevent digital poverty, such as laptops, notepads and wifi connections.   

Independent training provider Nacro has campaigned for more support for the most disadvantaged students, including calls for a specific pot of funding given directly to providers to be used as a pupil premium plus.   

A spokesperson said: “This can be used by the provider to give additional help to the most at need students in the best way they see fit. It could be in an educational sense, such as extra tutoring or tools. But it could also be used to provide holistic support, such as providing transport, food, clothing and helping support learners with expenses.” 

FE badly needs empowered students to make its case to government

The NUS no longer has the resources to keep flogging the dead horse of FE student advocacy, writes Jim Dickinson

Following a spurious story about “woke” builders in the Daily Mail, how refreshing it was that trade union GMB spoke out about how ridiculous and patronising its story on mental health and skilled manual work was.

But when was the last time we saw that kind of student advocacy for colleges?

When I worked in students’ union development, I would regularly have to attend FE dinners and conferences where students from the local college would be invited to perform.

But the pride shown after four glasses of Chablis and a chicken dinner was rarely matched the following morning. Invariably, rather than indulging in backslapping saviour syndrome, I’d be arguing with principals and chairs about whether it was “possible” or “practical” for FE students to have some power over their curriculum or even their college.

I was reminded of this when I came across an academic paper on the role of the student governor and how the role is understood in colleges. A standout quote was:

“I’m not a major fan of student reps, if I were very, very honest. The whole concept of them, I’m not sure whether they add a lot of value… I think there’s a tendency for the student members especially to be strictly lip service, and I think that there should be far better ways of getting the learner voice to the board than through the student rep.”

Imagine being a college principal and having such little faith and confidence in your own college’s ability to develop students that you can’t ever imagine them being effective on your board.

And imagine thinking that “consultation” or “surveys” are a meaningful match for representation and agency.

In my time working at NUS, I met hundreds of student governors. I can count on one hand the number that weren’t able to do it.

Thousands more were never supported and enabled properly by the “great and good”, on the grounds that kind of thing “wouldn’t work in FE”.

When we really threw resource at it, that view was proved wrong.

With a Robin Hood-style redistribution of resources through the sale of NUS cards and affiliation fees from university students’ unions into the college sector, we were able to train student governors and support students’ union committees. We could also find the really talented ones to take part in national policy conversations.

Now and again, they’d get the cost of catering on campus down, intervene on public transport, change disciplinary policies and make the odd minister squirm.

Let’s have a national summit driven by FE students

In truth, proportionally too many of those we supported were doing A Levels and the level of effort and resource required to keep those plates spinning was often unsustainable.

And ironically, we were applying our own kind of benevolent paternalism ̶ imagining that just because some students in the UK get a students’ union whose origins are in ancient Oxbridge clubs, we should aspire for students in FE to have them too.

And it was always the case the most important thing that students in HE get from their students’ union (professional advocacy in the event of a complaint or appeal about the college or students/staff) was missing. It still is now, which is deeply worrying.

The truth is that NUS is successful in making student representation work in colleges in Scotland partly because there is both legislation and funding that supports it, and partly because a more “tertiary” sector involves colleges delivering more higher education.

It is unlikely to be a coincidence that NUS UK’s incoming vice president for FE, Bernie Savage, is from Scotland and recently completed an HND in business.

It is regrettable that she was elected by so few FE delegates to the NUS conference that it has refused to issue a ballot count sheet.

It is even more regrettable that NUS no longer has the resource to enable what amounts to an English dead horse to be further flogged.

There are models that might work. When the National Society of Apprentices was created (endorsed by a group of politicians who would struggle to engage with NUS now) democratic structures and funding arrangements were shaped by the apprentices in the room, not the romantic ambitions of those who’d been at university.

A national summit, driven by FE students and supported by those of us who believe in the agency and contribution of FE learners, ought to be enabled to answer the questions we never dared ask in the past.

With no disrespect to the Association of Colleges, the sector would probably be more persuasive if some of its own students were making the case to government for investment and change.

Just £9m of adult education and non-levy apprenticeship relief funding released

Training providers were handed less than £9 million as part of a relief scheme to support adult education courses and non-levy apprenticeships during the pandemic – a fraction of the £144 million first projected to be needed.   

Two rounds of supplier relief schemes were launched by the Department for Education in 2020 to retain provider capacity within the apprenticeships and adult education sector as Covid-19 and associated lockdowns put jobs and their financial viability in jeopardy.   

But as previously reported by FE Week, strict eligibility criteria and the onerous nature of what could be applied for put thousands off submitting bids, while other cash-strapped providers, such as Bradford College, which nearly went into administration in 2019, had their applications rejected. Apprenticeships funded by levy-payers were also excluded, which wiped out any potential bids from more than 1,000 providers.   

A National Audit Office “cost-tracker” for the pandemic showed the DfE had first projected a cost of £144 million for the adult education and non-levy apprenticeship relief scheme – but this dropped to £27 million by August 13, 2020.   

Final funding allocations for providers in 2019/20 and 2020/21 were published this week and revealed, for the first time, how much relief funding was distributed.   

FE Week analysis of the data shows that 94 providers received a combined total of £5.7 million in 2019/20. Allocations ranged from £362,789 for CT Skills Ltd to £138 for Bridgwater and Taunton College.   

The 10 highest overall relief allocations in 2019/20

And in 2020/21 there was 62 providers that shared £3.2 million from the relief scheme. CT Skills Ltd again received the most – £373,595 – while Maritime and Engineering College North West received the lowest – £223.   

The 10 highest overall relief allocations in 2020/21

Under the terms of the relief scheme, providers needed to demonstrate that they had a real “need” for the funding requested, including by evidencing low reserves, “in order to maintain capacity within their organisations to support learners and respond to the economic recovery”.   

Providers also had to be prepared to provide “all evidence of spend for future reconciliation and provide ‘open book’ access to accounting records”.   

Karen Woodward, the ESFA’s deputy director for employer relations, told a previous FE Week webinar that many providers failed in their bids because they struggled to “prove need” for the financial support and not many eligible providers applied because they did not feel “comfortable” in sharing the financial information that was being requested by the agency.   

But those that were successful in receiving a slice of the funding have spoken about how “incredibly helpful” the support was in retaining staff and continuing delivery of training.   

Dudley College of Technology was the college that received the most from the scheme – £248,661 in 2019/20 and £239,142 in 2020/21. Principal Neil Thomas told FE Week: “The funding allowed us to retain skilled specialist staff, who we may otherwise have had to make redundant, at a time when millions of apprentices across the country were placed on furlough, and businesses’ attention was focused on economic survival.”   

He added: “The funding was incredibly helpful. The college’s income fell dramatically during the pandemic period due to a drop-off in apprenticeship starts, commercial work, international and adult education – none of which was protected for us. The college had to undergo a round of efficiencies and reduce staff and provision in the areas most affected.   

“Support funding allowed us to protect some of the most critical apprenticeship provision in engineering and construction. Without it we would have had to make further efficiencies and reduce provision further. The funding allowed us to protect provision, so we could quickly gear back up when apprentices returned to the workplace and employers had the confidence to invest in training once again.”   

And a spokesperson for Total People, which received £224,202 in 2019/20 and £165,166 in 2020/21, said: “At a time when apprenticeships were disrupted during the height of the pandemic, the relief fund enabled us to continue delivery, providing additional specific support to learners with a focus on wellbeing and welfare, especially for learners who were furloughed for long periods of time.   

“It also meant that, as lockdown eased, Total People had the capacity to restart its provision as quickly as it could, enabling people to develop the skills they needed and supporting companies in upskilling their staff.”