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.”
Colleges are being “thrown to the wolves” by the government’s decision to publish performance league tables this year, the president of the Association of School and College Leaders will warn today.
Pepe Di’Iasio will urge the Department for Education to rethink the decision at ASCL’s annual conference – insisting that schools and colleges will be unfairly criticised publicly by newspapers.
“How can it be right to compare the performance of one school or college with another when they have been so differently affected by the pandemic over the last two years?” he is expected to say.
Unlike last year, the DfE has ruled that results from GCSEs and post-16 qualifications, such as A-levels, will be used in performance tables.
In its guidance, the department says: “We recognise the uneven impact on schools and colleges of the pandemic and will ensure clear messages are placed on the performance tables to advise caution when drawing conclusions from the 2021 to 2022 data.”
Last year’s GCSE, A-levels and other academic-focused level 3 qualifications were decided by teacher-assessed grades due to the pandemic rather by than traditional exams, which return this summer for the first time in two years.
Adaptations have been made to this summer’s exams to try to make them fairer for students following the disruption caused by Covid, such as advance information on some of the exam content to help them focus their revision.
But an ASCL survey of 13,300 school and college leaders found that about 80 per cent are against the move to publish performance tables based on qualifications being sat by students this summer after two years of upheaval caused by the pandemic.
Backing his president, ASCL general secretary Geoff Barton said: “That’s not because we’re against accountability. It’s because we’re against phony accountability, based on evidence which is not going to allow parents and other people to make fair judgments.”
During his speech Di’Iasio will say: “The government’s answer is to say that it will place a health warning on performance tables and advise caution when considering the data.
“Surely, if the data is unreliable, the obvious answer is not to publish it in the first place.
“This is not a small matter. Careers and reputations are affected by performance tables. Newspapers publish them.
“It feels as though we are being thrown to the wolves by the government’s insistence on going ahead with this misguided and counter-productive policy. That is a pretty terrible way to treat a profession which surely deserves more respect after the last two years.”
The government is on the hunt for a chair to steer the first skills taskforce for the UK’s shipbuilding industry.
A refreshed cross-government National Shipping Strategy was launched on Thursday and includes a commitment for the Department for Education to develop a skills strategy for the sector, which currently support 42,600 jobs.
The taskforce will last for 18 months and aims to build a picture of the industry’s skills needs and provide solutions to skills shortages – particularly those related to new and emerging technologies and zero-emissions shipping.
There are currently 16 apprenticeships available for the maritime industry. There are also a number of level 3 qualifications for the sector, as well as traineeships.
The taskforce will explore what other courses are needed to supplement the existing offer.
Skills minister Alex Burghart said: “We are looking for a chair and members for our new taskforce that will supercharge the shipbuilding industry, bringing together experts who will work together to develop a plan to plug skills gaps and get more people into rewarding jobs.”
The taskforce will work with the Ministry of Defence, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Department for Transport to “optimise the available skills funding and opportunities for shipbuilding”, a DfE spokesperson said.
Applications for a chair and members of the taskforce with experience in shipbuilding opened on March 10 and close on April 17.
The chair would be expected to commit three days per month to taskforce activities, and members up to two days per month. The roles are unpaid.
Colleges face “severe financial penalties” if they exit gas contracts with Russian-firm Gazprom, with warnings they face “jumping out of the frying pan into the fire” as energy prices soar.
At least one college and several academy trusts began seeking urgent legal advice this week on whether they can cut ties with the energy firm following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
One council leader said it was “immoral” for public bodies to financially support the Russian “war machine”.
But sector experts warn backing out of contracts is “difficult”. Even if they do, schools and colleges face potentially taking millions of pounds away from education to pay for new deals at much higher prices.
Unions are urging the Department for Education to make “emergency funding” available to cover cancelled contract costs.
Gary Smith, GMB general secretary, said: “Gazprom contracts are morally indefensible. Every pound spent on heating classrooms could end up fuelling Putin’s war machine.”
Colleges face Russian gas moral dilemma
At least one college is attempting to navigate legal quagmires over cutting ties with Gazprom.
The college confirmed it is in the process of reviewing its contractual obligations in light of the war in Ukraine.
But a financial penalty for leaving the contract early is one “potential issue” which is being weighed up, a spokesperson told FE Week.
Graham Burns, education partner at law firm Stone King, said the “current situation in Ukraine would not be a lawful reason to terminate contracts”.
Organisations would have to “consider carefully the terms of their contract and any breakage costs which would apply”.
Tim Golding, head of strategic partnerships at Zenergi, which supports 3,000 schools and 25 colleges to find energy deals, said there are particular problems for those on fixed-term contracts.
“In most cases, it is not possible to come out of given the contractual obligations that were agreed at the point the contract was secured.”
Termination charges would run into the thousands, he added. Organisations on flexible contracts have a “higher chance” of being able to cut ties without huge fees.
Golding estimates that around 20 per cent of colleges in England use Gazprom as their energy supplier.
Julian Gravatt, deputy chief executive at the Association of Colleges, said colleges spend 2 per cent of their budgets on energy “so this just adds to a financial problem”.
“But obviously the war in Ukraine and Russian sanctions are at a higher level of seriousness,” he added.
‘Frying pan into the fire’
Chris Felgate, director at Ginger Energy, said cancelling gas contracts in the current market “is like jumping from the frying pan into the fire”.
As well as termination penalties, the price of gas is now “multiple times higher than it was even this time last year” – enough to have a “seriously detrimental financial impacts on any institution”.
Academy trust United Learning told FE Week’s sister publication Schools Week it secured all of its energy for 2021-22 and 50 per cent for 2022-23 and 2023-24 when prices were “vastly lower than they are now”.
The trust said the remainder of this year’s gas contract will likely be £500,000. However, if repurchased at yesterday’s price, it would cost £4.7 million.
“This money would therefore no longer be spent on educationally valuable activity but would instead go back to the oil and gas industry,” a spokesperson said.
“More money would be returned to the Russian state, since the gas we are securing now at a low price would be sold at a much higher price.”
Gazprom supplies 20.8 per cent of non-domestic gas in Great Britain. Golding said they have historical been “very competitive”.
‘Give schools and colleges emergency funding’
Hayley Dunn, business leadership specialist at the Association of Schools and Colleges said, education providers may feel they are “stuck between a rock and a hard place”.
“It is very hard to see how schools and colleges can address this problematic situation on their own and the government needs to step in with sanctions and practical guidance or assistance as soon as possible.”
Gazprom has been banned from raising debt in the UK and accessing its capital markets – but the firm said “nothing has changed” for its customers.
Russian natural gas makes up less than four per cent of the UK’s supply. But business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said he is “exploring options to end this altogether”.
Last week, health secretary Sajid Javid said the NHS in England must stop using energy supplied by Gazprom, PA Media reported.
Students are still much more likely to get good quality careers guidance and advice on going to university than they are about apprenticeships according to the Sutton Trust.
In a new report on the state of careers guidance in secondary schools, the social mobility charity has found that only 10 per cent of 17 and 18 year olds surveyed had received a “large amount” of information about apprenticeships, compared to 46 per cent who said they had received the same amount about university routes.
Published today, ‘Paving the Way’ compiles a survey of 3,140 secondary school teachers and 1,083 pupils and students aged between 11 and 18 from schools and colleges.
Researchers were able to compare results received from state and private schools. They found that 39 per cent of pupils in state secondary schools said that they were not confident in their next steps in education and training compared to 29 per cent of pupils in private schools.
This isn’t the Sutton Trust’s first venture in to researching the effectiveness of careers information, advice and guidance in schools and colleges.
Back in 2014, the trust highlighted how there were significant differences in the quality of careers provision that pupils had access to across the country. The report from eight years ago recommended a stronger national strategy and more effective incentives and statutory duties on schools and colleges to provide high quality guidance on vocational education options as well as university routes.
Today’s report makes depressingly similar recommendations but recognises some of the shifts in spending and policy priorities that have, albeit with questionable success, attempted to improve the careers information offer to young people.
For example, researchers found a positive correlation between engagement with the Gatsby Foundation’s careers quality benchmarks and measures around a student’s career readiness.
On the other hand, the report notes that the Department for Education’s attempts at statutory guidance in 2015 and 2021, the Baker Clause and the work of the National Careers Service and Careers and Enterprise Company still leaves major gaps and variations across different types of schools.
Almost a third (32 per cent) of teachers in state schools said that they don’t have enough funding to deliver good quality careers education and guidance, compared to just 6 per cent in private schools. Whereas around half (51 per cent) of teachers in state schools think there isn’t enough staff time to do so, compared to just over a third (34 per cent) in private schools.
The Sutton Trust’s chief executive, James Turner, is using today’s report to argue for a more differentiated approach which recognises the differences in access to good quality advice and guidance found in state compared to private secondary schools:
“As the government looks to make further changes to the qualifications and funding landscape, it is more important than ever that young people have the information, advice and guidance that they need to feel confident in their next steps.
“The government must urgently develop a new national strategy on careers education and all schools, especially those serving the poorest communities, should be supported to offer the highest-quality provision” he said.
As well as differences in the quality of careers advice and guidance on offer, researchers also found that less than a third of sixth form age students – specifically 17 and 18 year olds – had completed work experience activities.
Further, students in private were more likely than students in state schools to have received careers information in their usual curriculum, dedicated careers conversations with teachers and sessions with a careers adviser. Private school pupils were slightly less likely though to have received advice on local job or career opportunities.
Responding to today’s reports, the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) makes the case for career advice as a specialist service undermined by more than a decade of unsuccessful reform and pressures on funding.
ASCL’s general secretary, Geoff Barton, said:
“The main reason that there is variation in careers advice is that the government dismantled the national provision about a decade ago and transferred the responsibility to schools while also squeezing their funding. Since then it has endeavoured to make up for lost ground with only partial success.
“This report draws attention to the need for more information on apprenticeship options, for example, which would certainly be helpful. However, the apprenticeships landscape is complex and difficult to navigate and is a case in point where extensive knowledge of a variety of workplaces and apprenticeship vacancies is needed to deliver this sort of guidance.”
A 60-year-old specialist construction college has appointed its first-ever woman principal.
Nikki Davis was today announced as the next leader of Leeds College of Building, taking the reins from Derek Whitehead at the end of the current academic year.
Peter Norris, Leeds College of Building’s chair of governors, said: “The college is passionately committed to inclusivity in construction and promoting diversity in the workforce, and so we look forward to Nikki commencing her role as principal and chief executive.
“Not only will her appointment ensure seamless continuity, but she also has outstanding knowledge of leadership in the further education sector.”
Davis is currently the college’s vice principal for teaching, learning and quality. She was previously a vice principal at York College, head of department at Kirklees College, and programme manager at Leeds City College.
“I’m delighted to be appointed to the role of principal and chief executive at Leeds College of Building and to build on its previous successes and first-rate tradition of delivering exceptional training to learners from across the UK,” she said.
Leeds College of Building, established in 1960, currently has around 5,500 students and offers more than 200 courses related to construction and the built environment. Over half of the learners are on apprenticeships. In 2019, the college was graded ‘good’ by Ofsted.
Whitehead will be retiring after 37 years of working in FE and skills training. He has worked at Leeds College of Building since 2004 and became principal in January 2019.
He said: “I have genuinely enjoyed all 18 years spent at Leeds College of Building. I’m very proud of what we’ve achieved and being involved in leading such a great team of talented, agile, and responsive staff, together with stakeholder and governor support. I’m delighted to be leaving the college in such good shape at the end of a very rewarding career in further education.”
With more pressures on college costs and teacher starting salaries set to rise to £30k in schools, the gulf between staff pay in schools and colleges will only get wider without DfE intervention, writes David Hughes.
Last week we published a report on the unprecedented challenges facing colleges in recruiting and retaining staff. We did that because college leaders have been telling us that this is their top challenge, hindering their capacity to meet learner needs and to develop their offerings on government priorities such as higher technical qualifications, T Levels, apprenticeships and the lifetime skills guarantee.
Our report highlighted the pay gap between school teachers and college lecturers of over £9,000 as well as the wider gaps in some sectors with industry pay – digital, construction, engineering and health are particularly difficult. The report also set out how student support and other college staff roles are now central to the challenge, with many people leaving good college jobs for higher pay in other sectors such as retail and warehousing.
With inflation now over 5 per cent and pay in some sectors exceeding that, we were concerned that the challenges would get even tougher this year and next.
That was before we started to hear about the eye-watering increases in energy costs that colleges are facing – one college is looking at a threefold increase in gas costs from £106k to over £330k this coming year.
With costs soaring, it is sobering to reflect that college income is likely to modestly increase from August. The spending review last autumn did increase 16 to 18 funding rates by around 8 per cent, but that needs to pay for a 7 per cent increase in hours.
Around half of college income; for adults, HE and apprenticeships, has no funding rate increase at all.
All of that puts colleges once again between a rock and hard place. They know that pay needs to increase, but they also know that the government has not invested enough and at the same time is hawkish on college financial viability. It is a brave college leader who sets a deficit budget, even in such trying times.
That all summarises where our thinking was when we pressed the button to launch our report last week.
Then we saw the DfE’s own submission to the School Teacher’s Review Body (STRB) and we realised that the challenge was even bigger than we had envisaged. In a very detailed and evidenced report, the DfE has asked the STRB to set a new starting salary for school teachers of £30,000, honouring the Conservative Party election manifesto commitment from 2019.
To do that, it expects the STRB to increase pay for new entrants to teaching by 8.9% in 2022/23, followed by a further 7.1% increase in 2023/24 to reach £30,000 within two years. Those sorts of increases are far out of reach for colleges, where starting salaries already are way behind the totemic £30,000 figure.
I’ve written to the Secretary of State asking for a similar analysis of college pay and for a discussion with him to set a similarly ambitious path for college staff. I’ve said that the absence of a mirroring ambition for colleges will hinder the deliver of the Government’s ambitions on skills and levelling up. I’ve also made it clear that it will be increasingly difficult to show college staff that they are valued as much as their counterparts in schools.
None of this is rocket science. The DfE’s own submission to the STRB puts it succinctly: “….targeting pay awards at early career teachers through the £30,000 starting salary commitment therefore remains the best opportunity for supporting recruitment and retention overall.”
I couldn’t agree more; and what is good for schools and school staff surely has to be good for colleges and their staff?
