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Focus feature: National Union of Students and FE

Despite an impressive history of wins for FE students, is it now time for a radical shake-up of the NUS in FE? From 1922 to 2022, Jess Staufenberg looks at where the NUS might go next

The NUS is no stranger to crises, lack of resources and restructures. Its latest crisis – accusations of anti-semitism – is one in a series of storms the students’ union has faced.

As Mike Day, veteran NUS historian, tells me: “The NUS will always represent the students of the day, and so it is always changing. And it can only really thrive when there is a government that listens to it. If there isn’t, there’s not much it can do.”

So far, so expected. Student activism is no easy arena to organise and get right.

But is NUS at a turning point in its relationship with FE? When the government announced last month it was ‘cutting ties’ with NUS over the concerning anti-semitism allegations, the question was not whether FE students’ unions would survive the blow. Instead, FE Week asked, would FE even notice?

To see whether NUS remains relevant in FE, and what to do if not, let’s take a whistlestop tour down memory lane.

A brief history

The NUS starts out as a respectable, establishment-aligned organisation, it seems. The founder was a Scot studying in London called Ivison Macadam, whose focus was less on influencing policy than on producing solid graduates to serve their country overseas. All the leaders of the political parties of the day were honorary presidents, and the Prince of Wales held a fundraising dinner (just imagine!).

But in the 1930s, NUS shifts to the left, as many university students look to the Soviet Union, and at the 1940 Leeds Congress, NUS votes against war with Germany ̶ to the distaste of its former establishment supporters.

These pro-communist and pacifist leanings threaten to leave the union out in the cold, and after the war NUS “moves more towards the centre, and makes a serious attempt at getting around the table again”, according to Day. Engagement from FE learners has been building slowly since the late 1930s, until in 1945-51, Stanley Jenkins is elected president – a learner at Cardiff Technical College. Although he’s an HE student, it’s a first step.

Then in 1947, FE students get more involved by inputting on the NUS ‘student charter’ calling for better student grants. And in the 1950s, a college in the south-east tries to shut down its students’ union, causing the NUS, led by Fred Jarvis (later a teacher trade union leader), to leap in. “This action makes other colleges think: the NUS is bothered about us!” says Day.

The 1960s and 1970s involve vibrant student activism, and by 1970 the Department for Education and Science is advising colleges to ensure student representation in their institutions, bolstering students’ unions further. (Not every principal is delighted, given the 1968 student protests around the world.)

By 1986, the NUS takes the important step of appointing a full-time officer for FE. Then in 1988, an education bill threatens to ban anyone under 18 from being on an FE governing body, and again the NUS fights this. By 1994 an education act is passed requiring FE colleges (but not other FE providers) to have some mechanism for representing student voice, setting the requirement in law.

However, by 2005 the union finds its finances are almost £700,000 in the red. It launches the NUS ‘extra’ student union card for an additional income stream, and pulls through this financial crisis. With FE funding fairly strong under New Labour, “lots of colleges commit to a paid student leader” in the 2000s and early 2010s, says Katie Shaw (she was a students’ union assistant at City College Plymouth in 2009, and worked in the NUS FE team from 2010 to 2017).

At the same time, LSIS (a predecessor to the Education and Training Foundation) was providing funding for learner voice and other enrichment activities, until it closed in 2013.

But hit by crisis once more, in 2018 the NUS finds it has a £3 million deficit and is facing bankruptcy. A major reform and downsizing process took place, and the NUS split into three, explains Peter Robertson, director of NUS UK. NUS UK oversees the union’s policy and lobbying work (raising around £2 million a year from membership fees); NUS charity supports and develops students’ unions (raising about half a million pounds a year); and its commercial arm, NUS services, is a purchasing company (raising around £1.5 million).

Meanwhile in colleges, “budgets became more and more squeezed, and student voice in colleges began to feel like a nice extra,” concludes Shaw.

What happens on the ground?

The majority (about 64 per cent) of students’ unions in the NUS’s membership are in FE providers. But their voices are getting quieter, say former NUS insiders.

Steve Coole, now director of a company working with students’ unions across the UK and Ireland, worked for the NUS for 12 years from 2006, and was NUS Wales director in 2015.

He says that despite the 1994 act – and a 2005 FE bill which also promoted learner voice – there was “never any real fallback on colleges for non-compliance with the act”. Instead, the success of FE students’ unions has always rested “a lot on personality ̶ of both the college principal and the FE student leader”.

So the most effective SUs had colleges that paid for several student support liaison officers ̶ members of staff that acted as a kind of “civil service” to the student leader, helping them get to grips with the role, says Graeme Kirkpatrick, a former NUS vice president for Scotland.

This support is especially important for FE students, who are often younger than HE students too, he continues.

“The elephant in the room is college students are just as talented as HE students, if not more, but they often have more going on in their lives, such as caring responsibilities, and they may not be used to that level of formality of a governor board meeting,” says Kirkpatrick.

“So college student officers may need way more support than HE ones, but historically it’s university officers who have got way more staff support.” Without paid staff support in FE, he adds, “when the president quits at the end of the year, the student union will almost die with them”.

The need for staffing resources explains why austerity in colleges – even as HE fees increased – were particularly devastating for FE students’ unions. “With the funding for FE reduced year-on-year, we’ve gradually seen an erosion of a lot of the work that we did,” Coole says.

Some students’ unions were so well-established they survived the cuts, he adds, picking out SUs in Cornwall, Bradford and Derby colleges, but these are exceptions.

The government’s area reviews of FE from 2015 to 2017 were also a “missed opportunity” to restate the importance of student voice and students’ unions, he adds, with that topic virtually unmentioned in the resulting recommendations.

It means that prioritisation of students’ unions has plummeted, agrees Ben Kinross, who currently works in the NUS charitable branch leading its National Society of Apprentices (more on that soon).

One college he knows used to provide £15,000 a year to its students’ union, plus pay for a part-time member of staff – but now only has one apprentice as support.

Others used to fund £5,000 a year, but now offer their SU just £500 a year, adds Kinross. “Really you’re just covering some pizzas at a student event.”

The nature of youth political activism has also changed, points out Shaw, who worked in the NUS FE team until 2017.

“The idea of collective action and mobilising through your union has been on the downturn for a long time,” she says.

Instead, recent youth movements have focused on ‘small p political issues’ such as racism and other equality movements, rather than ‘big P’ political issues involving governance.

“Youth movements, like the Black Lives Matter movement, is being driven outside students’ unions.” By contrast, “so much of the stuff we did at NUS was so policy focused, it didn’t lend itself to mass mobilisation in the same way”.

Meanwhile, the sheer number of policy issues NUS had to respond to during the austerity era also resulted in “movement fatigue”, Shaw adds.

A worthy legacy

It isn’t all bleak: the NUS has done great work for FE, points out Larissa Kennedy, the current president, who is stepping down at the end of this month.

A 2015 research report on apprentices called ‘Forget Me Not’ began the debate on apprentice pay far ahead of the current heated debate.

And another, in 2017, made the case for paid work experience, “which really changed the tone of how work experience is perceived,” she nods.

Other instances of great collaboration between FE and HE students also followed. “The level of organising around protests to EMA cuts in 2010 set a really powerful precedent for the strength of FE students in NUS,” continues Kennedy (even though EMA was eventually scrapped).

Similar FE student protests around the 2020 A-level marking algorithm were also well supported by the students’ union.

Meanwhile, Shane Chowen (now FE Week’s editor) paved the way for FE students by running for NUS president as an FE student representative in 2011, and later Toni Pearce and Shakira Martin became presidents from FE, raising the profile of the sector within the union.

Shane Chowen, former VP for FE at the NUS and now FE Week editor

Perhaps most impressive of all, the NUS supported the establishment of the National Society of Apprentices, led by Kinross, in 2010. He says it speaks face-to-face with 2,000 apprentices each year and reaches 10,000 more, bringing their voices and feedback to policymakers.

But since the 2018 restructure, the NUS is just not the same organisation it once was. There are now just seven people on the national executive team: Kennedy, her vice president, a VP for FE, VP for HE and three officers for the nations, plus a small staff team.

Prior to austerity, there were eight people on the FE team alone, points out Kinross.

Looking to the future

So how can FE students be re-engaged on a national scale?

A new model is needed to better suit FE student leaders, says Kirkpatrick, the former NUS vice president for Scotland. The one year “sabbatical” model for student leaders was meant for HE, he says.

“Most university students know they are going to be there for three or four years, but for college students it could just be a year, and they are looking for a job afterwards. It makes less sense to take a year out.

“I would be keener on a part-time student leader model, with full-time staff, and perhaps embedded into an apprenticeship.”

Former NUS president Zamzam Ibrahim at a rally

Jim Dickinson, who worked with NUS from 1999 to 2013, says the issue goes even deeper. Ultimately, the FE section of NUS should become its own organisation, focused on vocational student representation, he recommends.

“The problem now is the NUS is broadly on its knees, and it’s not in a position where it can be creative. I would separate the two, and have a separate organisation.”

Kirkpatrick strongly agrees. “I think that would be a tremendous idea, if you could sort out the funding. At the moment, it’s just not working.”

Others call for much closer collaboration with other sector organisations such as the AoC, UCU, Learning and Work Institute, WEA and AELP to build a united political front on issues to government. They also ask college principals to strongly consider how much they support student voice.

“Being in a students’ union teaches you to be a citizen,” concludes Coole. “You’ll be dealing with multi-million-pound budgets and it’s about thinking about society, not being individualistic. It can be genuinely transformational. It transformed my life.”

DfE unveils plans for a new T Level in marketing

Plans to develop a new T Level in marketing have been announced.

The Department for Education is aiming to have the qualification up and running from 2025. It would become the 24th available T Level.

A pre-market engagement opportunity will be launched by the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education before procuring an awarding body to develop and deliver the content of the course.

The DfE said it has chosen to develop a T Level in marketing because the profession is “a very popular profession for young people” and marketing companies are “crying out for experienced talent”.

Patricia Seabright, director of a marketing consultancy firm called Archimedes Consulting Ltd, said the introduction of a T Level in this area will be a “huge step forward in both building awareness of these great career options for young people at 16 to 18 years old, and for developing the skills and capabilities that industry needs”.

Skills minister Alex Burghart added: “Marketing is a burgeoning sector that is set to offer huge job opportunities in the future. The development of this new T Level for the marketing sector is the next exciting step in the roll out of our reforms to technical education.”

T Levels are the government’s new flagship qualifications for young people. They are designed to be the technical equivalent to A-levels.

The first three T Levels – in digital, construction and education and childcare, were rolled out in September 2020.

A further seven became available from September 2021 in subjects such as health and science, while a further 13 subjects including engineering and manufacturing, finance, creative and design and legal will be introduced from 2022 and 2023.

More college capacity projects get the go-ahead

A share of £8.6 million has been awarded to eight FE and sixth form colleges to make space for rising numbers of 16 to 19-year-olds.

This funding comes from the Department for Education’s post-16 capacity fund, which had already allocated £83 million for 2021-22 to help colleges handle a demographic boom.

The department says that it secured a small amount of additional funding for this year and so has selected the next eight highest scoring bids.

The DfE published the names of the additional eight colleges this morning. The list includes general further education colleges in Bath and Plymouth alongside sixth form colleges in Newham, Stockton-on-Tees and Worcester.

The department wouldn’t say how much each college would receive, or even an outline of what projects colleges were planning to spend the money on “due to commercial sensitivity reasons”.

The post-16 capacity fund was announced in the November 2020 spending review to build more teaching spaces to accommodate projected increases in the population of 16 to 19 year-olds. Thirty-nine post-16 providers won a share of £83 million from the fund for projects this year.

Wolverhampton College used funding from the first round of the capacity fund to build a £1.9 million construction training extension to one of its campuses.

The fund was only available to sixth form colleges, 16 to 19 academies, 16 to 19 free schools such as university technical colleges, and general FE colleges.

Today’s announcement brings the total spending from the fund to nearly £90 million across 47 institutions.

The department has said there will be details of a further bidding process in due course.

The names of the providers awarded a share of the £8.6 million for 2022-23 are:

Bath College
BePART Educational Trust (Birkenhead Sixth Form College)
City College Plymouth
Education Training Collective Bede Sixth Form College
NCG
New City College – Redbridge Campus
Newham Sixth Form College
Worcester Sixth Form College

Provide apprenticeship careers talks or face legal action, schools told

Schools will be ordered to provide pupils with six “encounters” with further education and apprenticeship providers, or risk being hit with a legal direction from government.

The Department for Education has published a consultation, setting out more detail on how new legal careers advice requirements will be enforced.

The skills and post-16 education act 2022, which passed into law in April, creates a new legal duty for schools to provide pupils with “at least six encounters with a provider of approved technical education qualifications or apprenticeships”.

The law change beefs up the so-called Baker clause, an amendment to the law in 2018 by former education secretary Lord Baker which required schools to give training providers access to their pupils.

But the new legislation goes further, stipulating when and how often schools must provide these encounters.

The new law states two of these must be in school years 8 or 9, with another two in years 10 or 11. A further two must be offered in years 12 or 13. However, unlike the earlier encounters, sixth formers will not have to attend by law.

It follows criticism of the lack of enforcement of the current rules, with a 2019 study by IPPR finding that two-thirds of secondary schools were still flouting the Baker clause a year after it was introduced.

In new draft guidance, the DfE said although “progress has been made”, there is “still more to do to ensure all pupils hear about the benefits of technical education qualifications and apprenticeships”.

‘Ladder’ of intervention

Schools that fail to meet the new requirements, which come into effect next year, will be subject to a “ladder of support and intervention”, with a legal direction serving as the most severe form of punishment.

First, non-compliant schools will be given “targeted support and guidance”, then asked to review their careers provision. Such reviews could also be carried out by a careers hub or another school, depending on a school’s “situation”.

At this stage, schools will also be “subject to further monitoring in the current and following academic year to ensure they have the right support going forward”.

Schools still not compliant will be “strongly encouraged” to have an expert review or “independent quality assurance” of their careers provision, and will be supported to develop an improvement plan.

If a school still doesn’t meet the requirements, a DfE official or minister will write to them reminding them of their duties and setting a date by which the school must comply to avoid “moving to formal intervention”.

They will also order school leaders and governors to take part in “careers leader training”, which, “depending on circumstance”, may have to be funded out of the school’s own budget.

If schools are still non-compliant after all this, the education secretary can use his power to issue a legal direction, requiring “appropriate remedial action to be taken”. Such directions are enforceable by a court order.

Schools may also lose out on government careers funding if they are non-compliant, the DfE said.

Prepare for 2023 change

The new law comes into effect next January, but schools will have until September to put their plans in place.

The “encounters” for year 9, 11 and 13 pupils will have to take place between September 1 and February 28 in each academic year.

The encounters for pupils in year 11 and below are mandatory for schools to offer and for pupils to attend. The sessions for sixth formers will be mandatory for schools, but pupils will not have to attend by law.

The DfE first announced plans to toughen up the Baker clause last January, following criticism, including from Lord Baker himself, over a lack of action to tackle non-compliance.

Other than ministers issuing warning letters, little action has been taken so far on schools flouting the rules. However, in 2020, Ofsted rapped the first school for flouting the rule.

Chief inspector Amanda Spielman pledged last year that the watchdog would “always” report where a school fails to comply with the Baker clause, adding that it would be “unlikely” a school could be graded ‘outstanding’ if it was found to be non-compliant.

College staff do two days unpaid work every week, new workload survey finds

College staff are doing the equivalent of at least two days unpaid work every week, according to new research by the University and College Union.

The report is based on the responses of more than 13,000 workers in universities, colleges, prison and adult and community education.

Key findings included 93 per cent of the almost 2,500 college staff respondents saying their workload had increased over the past three years with more than three quarters (77 per cent) saying it has increased significantly.

More than four in 10 (41.6 per cent) college staff say their workload is unmanageable.

UCU said, in England, the workload crisis risks undermining the government’s levelling up agenda, saying that ministers and employers are setting “the sector up to fail”.

“This report lays bare the shocking reality for education staff in colleges and universities across the UK who are forced to work the equivalent of two days for free each week,” said UCU general secretary Jo Grady.

“Employers are knowingly dining off the goodwill and dedication of staff and breaching vital safeguards, which if not addressed could result in investigations from the health and safety executive.

“To treat staff in this way, all whilst holding down pay and attacking terms and conditions, shows the extent to which grotesque levels of exploitation have become commonplace in education.”

The aim of this survey was to investigate members’ workloads in further education and higher education, updating the findings of the 2016 UCU workload survey.

It was conducted in November and December 2021. The answers to the number of extra hours staff work per week are based on a standard contractual 35-hour working week.

The union found that staff in FE colleges are working on average 49 hours per week FTE.

This figure is slightly lower than in 2016, but the report said this doesn’t represent any meaningful change – staff are still working the equivalent of an additional two days unpaid each week.

FE respondents were also asked: “Thinking about the pace or intensity you currently work at, do you think this has changed over the last three years?”

More than 90 per cent said pace or intensity had increased (either slightly or significantly).

David Hughes, AoC chief executive, told FE Week: “Staff in colleges showed their commitment to students in the Covid-19 pandemic going above and beyond in their efforts to support them.

“Colleges are now facing enormous pressures caused by the tightest labour market in memory and the soaring cost of living. We have called on the education secretary to seek emergency funding from Treasury to support colleges with staff pay because it lags behind schools and industry and is making it difficult to retain and recruit top teaching talent.

“We continue to press DfE to reduce the burdensome bureaucracy faced by colleges, and to offer more flexibilities for colleges.”

Staff in prison education are working an average of 42.5 FTE hours per week, according to today’s report. This is slightly lower than the 2016 figure (45.8 FTE hours per week), but staff are still working more than a day unpaid every week.

As part of the research respondents were asked: “Thinking about the pace or intensity you currently work at, do you think this has changed over the last three years?”.

Almost 90 per cent of respondents said pace or intensity had increased, and more than three in four respondents stated that the pace or intensity of work has increased significantly.

Workers across colleges and universities cited more administrative work as a significant reason for workload increases.

In colleges, 88 per cent of staff said that admin work had increased over the past three years.

Covid was also a factor in workloads increasing. College staff ranked both increases in the use of technology for marking, communication and admin and increases in online working within the top five reasons for additional workloads.

Here are three ways the government can make LSIPs a success

The government must encourage employers to invest, not just benefit from, the skills system, writes David Phoenix

We currently have a higher education bill, a levelling-up and regeneration bill. A key plank in delivering on these linked agendas will be skills delivery. Yet we still lack explicit details about the further rolling out of local skills improvement plans (LSIPs).

The idea of asking employer representative bodies to work with colleges and universities to develop plans for making technical training more responsive to local skills needs was first set out in the skills for jobs white paper. Since then, the government has been running trailblazer pilots in eight areas across England.

As CEO of an education group with a university, two colleges and two academies, and which works with more than 1,500 employers, I’ve been watching the pilots’ development closely.

While I support promoting collaboration between local employers and education providers, I’m concerned we, too, often treat businesses as customers rather than partners within our skills system.

So I am worried that the current proposals for LSIPs, coupled to changes to the loan system, could reinforce this behaviour and create a ‘welfare state’ for business-led courses.

I’m worried we too often treat businesses as customers

With this in mind, I hosted a roundtable on LSIPs with representatives from the Department for Education, mayoral combined authorities, employer bodies, think-tanks and professional bodies.

There were three main takeaways from the discussion.

1. SMEs need help assessing their skills needs

Certain employers struggle to articulate their actual skills needs. This is particularly true of small businesses lacking established HR departments, businesses working in emerging sectors and non-chartered professions.

Given that SMEs make up 99 per cent of UK businesses and cover the entire country, their involvement is crucial in supporting levelling-up.

Therefore, successful LSIPs will require investment to help SMEs understand the skills they need to grow, and require leadership (not just responsiveness) from colleges and universities.

2. Employers need to invest more in training

Once employers have articulated their skills requirements, they must contribute to meeting them.

Otherwise LSIPs will become nothing more than ineffective ‘shopping lists’ of qualifications. In particular, employers will need to spend more on training rather than relying solely on employees to self-fund using loans.

Employer investment in training has fallen 28 per cent in real terms since 2005. If employers are to be partners rather than customers in our skills system, then they have to invest as well as benefit. The government could encourage this by providing a tax incentive for those companies that invest in training needs identified in LSIPs.

3. People with few or no qualifications cannot be left behind

Finally, it is crucial that those with low or no qualifications are not excluded from opportunities LSIPs could create. Individuals with degree-level qualifications are already three times more likely to receive employer training than those without.

In supporting level 4 and 5 delivery, LSIPs need to recognise both the individual, employer and societal benefit of helping educational progression for the 17 per cent of individuals qualified to level 2; or indeed many of the 54 per cent of the population qualified to level 3 but lacking requisite English and maths qualifications.

There is no one obvious solution to tackling the low-skills crisis. Suggestions from the roundtable included:

greater use of accreditation of prior experiential learning;
ensuring there are ‘gateway’ institutions within local areas;
and using the new lifelong learning entitlement to help create ‘stackable’ credit-based qualifications that can be built up over time.

The government must recognise that colleges, universities and employers need to work together as genuine partners to share the cost of skills delivery.

There’s no question that we already place many demands on businesses. But if we expect them to be one of the main beneficiaries of the skills system, it has to be reasonable to suggest that what they can get out of it directly reflects what they put into it.

FE still needs better links from classroom to career

Completing a qualification, however successfully, is inadequate preparation for students entering the world of work, writes Fredericka McFarlane

We all know the economy and employment landscape are changing rapidly, and that this is hugely relevant to what we teach to our students.

Yet a clear disconnect exists between the curriculum and the real-world application of this knowledge.

Despite FE providers’ best efforts, the scope of career opportunities is not always fully explored within FE. The line of sight from classroom to career is often unclear. Students will often ask the question: “But how will this help me in the future?”

The general lack of high-quality careers guidance means young people will often opt for a route that may feel obvious, rather than one that could offer exciting and plentiful opportunities.

To put it bluntly, qualifications alone are rarely enough to secure fulfilling careers. We need to do more to point our learners in exciting and ambitious directions.

This is particularly true for those from deprived and challenging backgrounds. In my experience as a tutor at BMet College, we have students, including refugees, who have no family support and no access to the working world.

Yet these are the very people who arrived particularly hungry for knowledge and opportunity.

To do this, our learners need practical help and to make contacts within industry. FE colleges are well-placed to facilitate this.

But staff like myself need the space and encouragement from senior leadership teams to invest the extra time to help student access employment. And this is where employer-led projects are crucial.

We have been running the Amazon Web Services (AWS) digital project for the past six years. Working in teams, students are set a real-life challenge, to which they must come up with a technology solution over a 12-week period.

We have regular meetings (as a class), while the students also set up their own meetings to manage the project, as would be the case in ‘the real world’.

Students have been tasked with developing solutions to problems such as mental health, knife crime and social media using technology.

These have ranged from websites and mobile phone apps, and creative solutions such as installing booths at railway stations and direct telephone helplines for individuals who may be in crisis.

They are judged on their teamwork, final solution and presentation before judges, both at college level and then at the AWS offices in London. Each team has a ten- to 15-minute slot to present, followed by a further five to ten minutes of ‘personal reflection’ to the panel of judges.

Working on an industry-set brief is invaluable in terms of skills development

Students involved in this project have gained work experience opportunities, internships and apprenticeships with AWS and the other employer partners.

All our level 3 and level 4 digital technology and media students are invited to participate every year. Over six years, more than 7,500 have been involved.

Working on an industry-set brief is invaluable in terms of skills development. It goes way beyond what we can teach in the classroom and builds confidence in a way that can only come from ‘on the ground’ experience.

Our SLT has now gone a step further by launching a pioneering ‘CyberHub’. In partnership with the CyberHub Trust, sponsored by AWS and advised by the National Crime Agency and the National Cyber Security Centre, the new ‘Security Operations Centre’ is a real-life, working cyber-security facility.

We have many extremely bright students who are able to carry out potentially negative ‘hacking’ type activity. Yet this initiative will enable them to hone their skills in a positive way and open up a world of highly lucrative and much in-demand job opportunities.

It is no longer enough for colleges to send students away at the end of their course with just a piece of paper, or qualification.

The ability to talk confidently, good timekeeping and being able to meet a deadline are skills that only come from real-life experience and exposure to employers. Tutors just need the time, space and support to deliver it.

London college group threatened with strikes over pay and ‘fire and rehire’ tactics

New City College is being threatened with strike action over a pay and workload dispute, as well as alleged plans to “fire and rehire” staff.

The University and College Union said their members will not “have a gun put to their head by their employer” after claiming that NCC is using fire and rehire tactics to threaten staff with compulsory dismissal by October if they do not accept changes to their contracts around sick leave.

UCU told FE Week that the group’s Hackney campus has various different aspects to the sick leave policy to the other campuses under the NCC umbrella. Management wants to standardise sick leave policies but to do this they are threatening staff with redundancy if they don’t sign up to the new contracts.

NCC declined to comment.

This is the second college in London to face strikes over fire rehire tactics in recent weeks, following Richmond upon Thames College.

As well as being balloted for strike action, UCU members at NCC are also voting on whether to take action short of a strike by working strictly to contract and not performing additional voluntary duties.

“Fire and rehire is a sickening tactic used by some of the UK’s worst employers and has no place in education,” UCU regional official Adam Lincoln said.

“We call on New City College management to rethink its approach, lift the threat of compulsory dismissals and treat staff with the respect they deserve. Staff have made it clear that they will not have a gun put to their head by their employer.”

“Our members are united behind our pay and conditions claim and will move forward by balloting for strike action and action short of a strike,” he added.

UCU members at NCC are also being balloted for industrial action from today over “failures” to agree pay rises, level up holiday leave and agree action to reduce workload.

This ballot will run from June 17 until July 15. UCU said it could pave the wave for strike action at campuses across East London.

The union is calling on the college to implement a pay rise of 10 per cent across all campuses, as well as London weighting at its Epping Forest campus where staff are paid less than at the other campus sites.

UCU also wants the college to agree measures to reduce workload, level up holidays and summer leave periods by five days and reach an agreement in relation to the Hackney College sickness absence policy.

Lincoln said that strike action is a last resort for UCU members but that they would not “stand by and see their pay held down while workload continues to increase”.

“New City College must ensure a fair pay rise for staff, and commit to genuine measures to tackle unmanageable workload,” Lincoln added.

He called on the group to ensure a fair pay rise for staff, and commit to “genuine measures” to tackle staff workload.

Strike ballots at 33 other colleges also opened this week.

Donelan hints at more employer incentives for T Level placements

Cash incentives for employers offering industry placements for T Level students could be back on the cards, according to a senior education minister.

The house of commons education committee met on Wednesday to quiz the further and higher education minister Michelle Donelan.

Topics ranged from a shortage of vets, social mobility and student loans in a hearing which somehow lasted for nearly 100 minutes despite only four of the 11 members of the committee showing up. Only one was not a Conservative.

The committee’s questioning around FE and skills included T Levels and the Treasury-led review of the apprenticeship levy.

Here are FE Week’s highlights from the session:

Placement flexibility would be ‘damaging’ for T Levels…

Concerns raised by South Essex College prompted their local MP, education committee member Anna Firth, to ask the minister if there could be more flexibilities around the 45-day industry placement element of T Levels.

Delivering placements at volume is “very, very difficult, particularly for small employers to cope with”, Firth said in her call for more give from the government.

“I think that will be quite damaging,” Donelan told the committee. “One of the key USPs of T Levels is the 45-day placement… I think it’s really important that we protect those 45 days,” she said.

…but more to come on financial incentives for employers

Firth wanted to know how the government was going to help remove the financial barriers preventing businesses, particularly SMEs, from offering industry placements for T Level students.

Employers of T Level students with placements taking place between May 27, 2021 and July 31, 2022 can claim a £1,000 payment for their troubles. “No extension will be made to this date”, government guidance states.

However the minister appeared to suggest that an extension or successor scheme to the current employer incentives would soon be announced.

“We’ve had a financial award of £1,000 for employers that take T Level students,” Donelan said, “and the future of that we will be announcing shortly.”

“I can’t say any more at this stage, but it is important that we don’t price employers out of having T Level students”.

Donelan dodges questions on Treasury-led levy review

Back in March, the government announced that the apprenticeship levy was being looked at by the Treasury. The chancellor said at the time that he wanted to make sure the levy was “doing enough to incentivise businesses to invest in the right kinds of training”.

However, faced with strong opposition from officials at the Department for Education, according to FE Week sources, the Treasury denied there was a “formal” review of the levy, despite the chancellor’s statement just days before.

There’s been very little said in public about the review-that’s-not-a-review since then.

At Wednesday’s committee session, chair Robert Halfon broke the silence and pressed Donelan to reveal her thoughts on how the levy could be improved.

The levy should, Halfon asserted, be reformed to boost higher apprenticeships, opportunities for young people and people from disadvantaged groups.

“Do you have any views?” Halfon pressed.

“I don’t really want to pre-empt the review,” Donelan dodged, only saying that the outcome of the Treasury’s review shouldn’t damage “the great progress that we’ve made on apprenticeships.”

The review is expected to conclude in time for the government’s budget statement this autumn.

Committee chair Robert Halfon presses Donelan for her views on levy reform

Halfon: force universities to offer degree apprenticeships

Committee chair, Robert Halfon, well known for his passion for apprenticeships, managed to catch the otherwise well-rehearsed minister off-guard by asking for the number of people on degree apprenticeships who are from disadvantaged backgrounds.

“I can write to you with that figure. It’s not good enough,” Donelan replied.

Halfon went on to make the case for a new government target for universities to recruit 50 per cent of new students on to degree apprenticeships in the next ten years. The proposal was intensely resisted.

“I think the state needs to stop telling people what’s in their best interests,” Donelan exclaimed. But “the state tells universities to do loads of things, like on access plans,” Halfon countered, keen to agitate on this further.

“That’s very different from interfering in their curriculum” Donelan bit back, defending institutional autonomy.