“Teachers are the foundation of the education system – there are no great schools without great teachers.
“Teachers deserve high quality support throughout their careers, particularly in those first years of teaching when the learning curve is steepest.”
Bear that in mind, while we turn to the situation in FE.
Every year, around 10,000 FE teachers work towards a level 5 or above in an initial teacher training qualification .
Many FE providers offer robust professional development to support their new teachers. However, training for the mentors themselves seems to be less of a priority.
Evidence suggests that without appropriate conditions and expectations for mentors, the impact of mentoring is likely to be ineffectual, or even harmful to mentees.
In schools, school-based ITT and the subsequent early career framework has received a recent boost in funding. So it’s especially concerning that FE providers are given free rein when it comes to the early careers of their teachers.
There is no minimum entitlement, no consistency across providers, and insufficient time given to support new teachers to the sector.
In one recent ITT provider inspection in FE, inspectors noted that “it is often left to workforce mentors to use their professional judgement to determine what knowledge trainees need to learn [and this] slows trainees’ learning and development further”.
This shows us that there is now a greater emphasis from Ofsted on subject specialist mentors being able to support their mentee to apply their learning specifically from the ITT curriculum.
Another issue is that mentoring in colleges can vary significantly. We know that university ITT providers often pay institutions to host trainee teachers upwards of £600 per trainee, per year.
However, this only accounts for around half of those on ITT programmes.
A significant number of trainee teachers complete their training in-service through partnership colleges or awarding organisation providers.
Here, the mentoring largely relies on good will.
The mentoring largely relies on good will
Seldom is there remission for mentors and even more uncommon is any form of payment for this important role.
That’s despite the fact that we know institutions that provide the time for their mentors and their teaching staff through remitted timetables afford the opportunity for both to develop.
However, time alone is not enough. Evidence shows that successful mentors require sociability, openness and the ability to develop relationships built on shared control (as opposed to dominance).
None of this can be learnt simply through remission, or indeed payment. Instead, it relies on a willingness from mentors to develop their skillsets.
Steve is one of the University of Derby’s FE ITT mentors. In a recent interview, he highlighted that the mentor role isn’t just about giving time to the mentee, but also that the mentor should model positivity and how to handle the stresses of the teaching role.
They should encourage the mentee to develop their own authentic style.
Steve views the role as an honour and a pleasure, which is at odds with some mentors’ perspectives, who see the role in a more transactional way, whilst others find it burdensome.
So how do we ensure that our trainees are being supported by mentors like Steve?
First, university ITT providers need to invest in their mentors, offering specific training, not just an HR-prescribed list of actions.
Second, institutions need to engage with the new Education and Training Foundation mentor framework which has comprehensive resources to support leaders, mentors and mentees.
(At the University of Derby, aspects of this framework are integrated into a ‘mentor journey’, which provides clear milestones for mentors and optional development opportunities to support trainees as they move from novice to expert teachers).
And finally, providers must identify the right candidate for the mentoring role.
Is this individual committed to supporting the development of a mentee? Do they possess the skillset to encourage without dominating, to support without leading?
The successful mentor starts with the individual. But that mentor needs to be better invested in, and valued, in the first place.
This is understandable given current driver shortages across England, which have been linked to the fuel crisis.
Ministers wanted to act quickly on a driver shortage so introduced a skills measure and a three-month visa.
What is interesting is that the Department for Education used the National Skills Fund rather than the bigger apprenticeship budget to help a sector with workforce supply.
Perhaps this is obvious. No one starting an apprenticeship now would be finished by Christmas.
But, even if they did, government gave away most of its apprenticeship levers to employers and the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education in 2017.
So when DfE needs to act quickly, it has to do something else. Apprenticeships don’t help in the short term.
What about the long term?
There are standards in place and the post-2017 system puts employers in charge of the money.
Large firms have two years to spend the levy they pay or they can transfer funds down the supply chain. Smaller firms can access apprenticeship funds, albeit with certain obstacles like co-funding.
So, is the apprenticeship system part of the solution? I don’t know. What’s worse, I’m not sure the industry or policymakers know either.
A core feature of the current apprenticeship system is secrecy.
A core feature of the current apprenticeship system is secrecy
Because employers pay their levy to HMRC, their details, how much they pay and what they spend on apprenticeships are kept secret.
Taxpayer confidentiality is a core principle but it results in an absence of data about spending.
Employers in the retail, transport and distribution sectors have paid hundreds of millions of pounds in levy since 2017 yet very little of this is being spent on directly relevant apprenticeships.
It is easy to speculate why transport apprenticeship numbers are low but, without any data on what transport employers are doing with their levy funds, I’m not sure anyone knows which reason is relevant.
HMRC rules reduce scrutiny of actual employer spending and contribute to a situation in which Treasury had to find £10 million in a crisis.
Another factor may be the way employer decision-making is individualised in the English apprenticeship system.
Employers are given an apprenticeship account, some of which they can transfer, but there is no mechanism to pool funds.
This may be fine for some parts of the economy but it’s different from most levy systems in other countries or those that operated in UK the 1970s.
The Construction Industry Training Board and a few other sectors still operate a pooled levy. Perhaps this approach needs a review.
And then there’s the question about migration and skills.
There is some controversy about whether Brexit is a direct cause of the immediate HGV driver shortage but there should be no disagreement on the fact that this is a long-term issue.
The 2021 migration rules exclude jobs at level 2 from skilled worker visas and this has been clear policy since 2018.
Transport, food and care have been clearly identified as sectors affected by this change, but only in Home Office documents. Where’s the policymaking to work through the implications?
The post-Brexit migration rules were a hefty government intervention in the jobs market but our current approach to skills relies wholly on employers to work out a response individually. This just doesn’t work.
We know that leaving everything to the market in education often doesn’t work. Adults under-invest in themselves and are reluctant to borrow for training. Employers focus on short-term needs.
If UK migration policy cuts inflow of people to some sectors, skills policy needs to react.
Workforce planning is difficult and often fails, but sometimes it might be better to have a go.
DfE is moving forward with local skills planning arrangements with the intention that these should guide the single skills fund. Perhaps they need to be a tad more ambitious.
So they should think about planning apprenticeships and definitely publish more information.
Finally, they must use the forthcoming spending review to allocate a bigger budget, and set some national objectives.
The law will change to give “equality” to technical education in careers advice in schools and religious sixth form colleges will finally be able to academise under government plans announced today.
Ministers are also moving to criminalise the use of unscrupulous “essay mills” – where cheat essays are provided to students for money.
All three measures will feature as government amendments in the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill which is currently making its way through the House of Lords.
The 2017 legislation says a school “must ensure that there is an opportunity for a range of education and training providers to access pupils for the purpose of informing them about approved technical education qualifications or apprenticeships”.
And careers advice guidance already states that “schools and colleges must explain technical education routes alongside academic routes and should not attempt to promote HE as a better or more favourable route than FE or apprenticeships”.
Lord Baker, the architect behind the Baker Clause, previously told FE Week he was seeking to amend the Skills Bill to put the clause on a statutory footing. He said he wanted to make this a “legal duty” on schools, which could be taken to court if they fail to comply.
He complained the 2017 act has been “largely disregarded” by schools up until now.
A Department for Education press release about today’s announcement only said: “The law will be changed to give equality to technical education in careers advice in schools, so all pupils understand the wide range of career routes and training available to them, such as apprenticeships, T Levels or traineeships, not just a traditional academic route.”
A DfE spokesperson later clarified the department is “seeking to strengthen the provider access legislation to make it clearer what the requirement to allow access to providers of technical education or apprenticeships should mean in practice”.
They added that the process for monitoring compliance and enforcement will be “covered in the updated statutory guidance which will be published at least one term before the strengthened legislation comes into force”.
Religious SFCs able to academise after years of campaigning
Nearly all sixth form colleges have been able to convert to academy status, and in doing so enjoy the luxury of not paying VAT, since former chancellor George Osborne changed the rules in November 2015.
But a group of 14 SFCs which are Catholic-run have been prevented from doing so due to their religious character, which would not be maintained under current government rules. If they converted, they would lose protections in areas of curriculum, acts of worship and governance.
The DfE has finally found a solution to safeguard religious character. Today’s announcement said: “Additional measures being introduced to the Bill include enabling sixth form colleges with a religious faith designation to become a 16 to 19 academy, boosting diversity in 16 to 19 academies and allowing more faith school providers to open 16 to 19 academies with a religious character.”
James Kewin, deputy chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges’ Association, said he was “delighted” with the news.
“To date, 28 (SFCs) have converted, but our 14 Catholic sixth form colleges have been unable to do so while also retaining their religious character.
“The Skills Bill will make academisation an option for these institutions and we expect all of the Catholic sixth form colleges to now explore this option in more detail.”
Essay mills ‘completely unethical’
Essay mills are services offering to provide students with essays for money – an issue that is usually found in universities but also sometimes in colleges with higher education provision.
The government said today it “intends to make it a criminal offence to provide, arrange or advertise these cheating services for financial gain to students taking a qualification at any institution in England providing post-16 education, including universities”.
This is hoped to help “safeguard the academic integrity and standards of post-16 and higher education in England and protect students from falling prey to the deceptive marketing techniques of contract cheating services”.
New skills minister Alex Burghart said: “Essay mills are completely unethical and profit by undermining the hard work most students do. We are taking steps to ban these cheating services.
“We have also announced a new measure to make sure all young people receive broader careers guidance so everyone can get the advice that’s right for them.”
The Skills Bill enters its report stage in the House of Lord on 12 October.
Chambers of commerce are in the spotlight. Meet Louise Bennett, chief executive of the Coventry and Warwickshire chamber of commerce – a businesswoman, trained psychotherapist and foster parent
You could say chambers of commerce are at a pivotal moment in their history. If all goes to plan, they could become a deeply ingrained part of the further education landscape. If all goes to plan.
A structure to more closely link education and employers has come in the guise of various plans over the years: we’ve had training and enterprise councils (now gone), sector skills councils (some still knocking around), regional development agencies (axed), local enterprise partnerships (relatively recent), all tasked, in some form, with connecting business need and skills training.
In the chambers’ favour, at least, is that they’re unlikely to fade away any time soon. There are 53 of them, each private companies with a chief executive, funded on membership or patron fees from local businesses; IT firms, manufacturers, local authorities, accountants and so on – anyone involved in the local economy. They also bid to win public money to provide free advisors, and can charge commercially for services, such as, say, courses in non-executive director training.
As Louise Bennett, chief executive of the Coventry and Warwickshire chamber of commerce, tells me, chambers have been around for over a hundred years. “This one is nearly 120 years old,” she beams. “I don’t say that like we’re ancient and isn’t that fabulous. More that chambers deserve some credit for constantly morphing, changing, responding and being relevant.”
And morph again they must. At the moment, chambers do a variety of things to support business, says Bennett. “If you want to start a business, you come to us, and we deliver all the start-up support. If you want to grow the business, you can come to us – we have free advisors. If you want to export, you come to us. We do the checks to make sure you’re exporting what you say you are.”
Bennett hosting the annual Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce Chancellor’s Budget lunch
Colleges are already tightly involved, continues Bennett, as patrons (who pay between £150 and £6,000 a year to belong to the chamber, depending on their size and requirements). For instance, Warwickshire College Group, which Bennett praises as “very employer facing”, works with her chamber to find employers, speak at its conferences and so on.
But now the government wants to significantly expand the role of chambers of commerce. It is their moment in the sun. Last year, FE Week reported that ministers had chosen the chambers to help deliver its skills plans after the 38 local enterprise partnerships (which aim to “forge an alliance between local business and the public sector”) failed to impress.
Ministers had themselves lost a body to advise them on skills policy with the closure of the UK Commission for Employment and Skills in 2017 ̶ perhaps the British Chambers of Commerce could fill the gap.
So with the support of Baroness Alison Wolf, who advises the prime minister on skills, chambers were asked to step into the breach. As a result, all eight “local skills improvement plan” (LSIP) trailblazers were given to chambers of commerce as the lead “employer representative body”.
Of course, the task is not without controversy. First off, there are the employers, who are now expected to work closely with their local chamber (membership of chambers, unlike in Germany, is not compulsory here). But in March, the director of one firm said he “didn’t think chambers are close enough to what industry needs”.
Bennett is a tour de force in repudiating this. “Whether you love us or you’re not so sure, we’re the only network across the country that has a local base.” She points out other business groups such as the Federation of Small Businesses and the Institute of Directors are “all fabulous” but “have no national infrastructure”.
The British Chambers of Commerce is also international, which seems useful post-Brexit: it runs an accredited network of chambers across the globe. “We’re local, national and international. We’re unique.” They’ve also been established longer than LEPs, which were set up in 2011, and so are less likely to get abolished or renamed. She does seem to have a point.
However, LSIPs could also put the chambers in the slightly uncomfortable position of having more say over provider courses than providers themselves. Again, Bennett is firm: “Colleges want us to be collaborators. They want to see us as a positive influencer on policy, not us in the press saying ‘colleges are useless’. It’s about us being a true collaborator.”
LSIPs are also “not trying to duplicate what colleges are already doing. They’re either trying to plug gaps, or be innovative.” So for instance, a local business might need to “reshore” its suppliers, which means no longer using suppliers in, say, China or India and find them locally instead.
“So then it’s, let’s do a trailblazer around that, and work collaboratively with the college to make that work.” It’s not about changing everything a provider does, but looking at what might be missing, she explains.
Bennett when appointed High Sheriff of the County of the West Midlands
With these tricky balances to manage, perhaps the ultimate success of the chambers’ expanded role will depend on the personalities of chief executives like Bennett. In another world, one can imagine Bennett as a college principal: she is interested in learning, education and mental health, and is a trained psychotherapist.
“I’m a Black Country girl from a working-class background, and I was the first person in my family, as many people are now, to go to university. I love learning, I love listening, I love having creative conversations like this one now.”
She attended the University of Wolverhampton business school, did a masters in business at the University of Derby, began in retail and then moved into HR, becoming qualified with the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. She has worked for the NHS and in the private sector.
Then Bennett became head of policy at the Birmingham Chambers of Commerce, and has been with the chambers since. She laughs, self-deprecating: “Why would you be a political lobbyist with a Black Country accent? It sounds really bad on TV.”
Eighteen years ago she was appointed one of the youngest female chief executives of a chamber of commerce, and hasn’t looked back.
Bennett hosting visitors meeting businesses across Coventry and Warwickshire
Perhaps more unusually, Bennett is also a foster parent. Her own mum brought her up with adoptive siblings, and she and her husband began fostering eight years ago. “The girl we have now has been with us for four years, and it’s the longest placement of her life so far, bless her. You do try and give them your values and beliefs. You try to influence them to take learning seriously and to take aspiration seriously.”
As such, Bennett wants to see more young people leave college with the skills to set themselves up as self-employed.
“It’s a shame more of our young people don’t see self-employment as on a par with employment – it would be nice to see more young people who see entrepreneurship as an opportunity.” She recalls with pride one girl the chamber supported to design a make-up line that became very successful in Asian markets.
However, I then wonder whether “local skills improvement plans” should really be so local. What if a talented designer in Coventry has a much bigger overseas market than a local one?
“I think you’ve come up with a real dilemma there,” admits Bennett thoughtfully. “Colleges do have to respond to employer demand. So it’s a real dilemma marrying up between the needs of business, college delivery, and the passions and desires of young people.”
This looks set to become more, rather than less, of a pressing issue: she says that since the pandemic, more people are approaching the chamber with creative and arts-related start-up ideas, many of which will have their main markets in London or overseas.
At the same time, a lack of jobs due to the pandemic is also pushing a “trend towards forced self-employment” in the area. It makes it all the more important that colleges ensure their students leave with an understanding of cash flow, financial planning and intellectual property, she says.
But it also means the idea of a ‘local’ skills improvement plan seems a little odd in a world that has become – particularly around buying and selling – increasingly virtual, and it’s good to see Bennett openly acknowledge that. If anything, it makes the international export links of her chamber even more important. Perhaps, ironically, the chamber will be a much-needed antidote to the LSIPs themselves.
Bennett with Andy Street, mayor of the West Midlands
Her other insight into the world of FE is that the chamber runs an independent training provider, Coventry and Warwickshire Chamber of Commerce Training Ltd, as a subsidiary company. It has about 1,400 learners a year, 550 of whom are apprentices, and got a grade 2 in 2016. “That helps to develop our understanding of the challenges colleges face in getting young people into apprenticeship vacancies,” says Bennett.
She says she also sympathises with those training providers “going to the wall” because of the new barriers to entering the market being erected by the government; but she points out they’re also encouraging smaller providers to collaborate and merge more.
Her chamber’s ITP, for instance, has taken on a “tiny independent training provider” focused on engineering. However, running an ITP sounds rare among chambers: Bennett thinks only one other chamber does it.
She does seem to straddle the multiple worlds the government needs her to straddle. But success will depend on FE providers feeling that the chambers of commerce are “true collaborators” ̶ not directors of fortune.
Can the chambers morph again, and make a success of it?
New skills minister Alex Burghart has promised that people who need level 2 qualifications to “step up” into apprenticeships and the level 3 entitlement “won’t be forgotten”.
Burghart, who joined the Department for Education – his first ministerial job – in the cabinet reshuffle two and a half weeks ago, spoke today at the Conservative Party Conference in his first panel discussion in the role.
He used some opening remarks to the panel, which discussed green jobs, to set out his priorities, including helping people without level 2 qualifications achieve them so they can move on to levels 3 and beyond.
‘Big part’ of Burghart’s work will be on level 2
While the government is “stacking a whole series of green initiatives” into the apprenticeships programme, he said: “We have about 20 per cent of people in their twenties who lack basic qualifications.”
Burghart said “a big part” of his work will be “making sure that that part of society isn’t forgotten”.
He wants the Department for Education to help those people “step up” so they can take advantage of the government’s new entitlement to a first, full, free level 3 qualification as well as technical apprenticeships.
Also, so they can take money from their lifelong loan entitlement, which the government is rolling out in 2025, to do “much needed” level 4 and 5 skills “to push forward productivity in the economy”.
The Learning and Work Institute published a report in July 2021, warning that if the level 3 entitlement “comes at the expense of basic skills and level 2, it risks limiting opportunity”.
DfE is ‘greasing axles of change,’ says minister
Burghart described the DfE’s role in the government’s aim to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 as “greasing the axles of this change”.
This would entail having a workforce trained and ready to step in once new, green industries come online.
To achieve this, the minister said the department is focusing on apprenticeships in areas like solar power and wind power.
It is also looking to create “opportunities for young people but also people who want to change their career, to get technical know-how in a specific area, to become the next generations of workers in very specific high skilled jobs”.
Burghart dodged the question, saying: “What we’re trying to do is build a whole system that is much more responsive to the needs of local businesses and the national economy.
“So, thinking about how is it that we can make sure training providers of whatever colour are offering young people and older learners the skills that local and national industry is going to need.
“So, that’s really where my priorities are focused and then there’ll be plenty of initiatives to hang on that.”
Ultimately, Burghart said the department is “trying to create a much closer relationship between the desires of the individual for work, with the desires and needs of industry, and the capabilities of training providers”.
“Tying” those ideas together will create a “much more responsive system,” capable of identifying skills which will be needed in three to five years’ time so the training can be available “either in FE, or as bootcamps, or as apprenticeships”.
This is so “you know we have an economy that is ready and able to generate the skills it needs for the jobs it needs”.
The awarding organisations that will develop, deliver and award T Levels in the fourth wave of their rollout in 2023 have been announced.
City & Guilds, which already won contracts to develop the new flagship qualifications for rollout in 2021 and 2022, will develop and award the new animal care and management pathway, plus the agriculture, land management and production courses.
NCFE, which developed qualifications for the first wave of T Levels last year as well as for the wave starting delivery last September, will develop the craft and design; media, broadcast and production; and hair, beauty and aesthetics programmes. The latter of the three will be developed in partnership with awarding body VTCT.
Awarding body Highfield Qualifications will make its T Level debut by developing a catering qualification.
Alex Burghart
The new minister for skills Alex Burghart, appointed in last month’s cabinet reshuffle, called it “excellent” the new contracts had been signed as it means “even more students can benefit from world-class training, unlocking exciting new pathways in areas such as media, design and agriculture”.
T Levels are level 3 courses, equivalent to thee A-levels, which last two years and combine classroom learning with a minimum 315-hour industry placement.
The first three T Levels, developed by City & Guilds and Pearson, started being delivered in September 2020, with seven additional qualifications created by City & Guilds and NCFE rolling out last month.
A further six created by Pearson and City & Guilds will start next year.
Awarding body ‘can’t overstate’ what winning T Level contract means
City & Guilds’ managing director David Phillips said they are “delighted” to be awarded the contract, as it: “Gives us the opportunity to help the next generation of young people develop the vital land-based skills they and employers need.”
NCFE chief executive David Gallagher said they are “looking forward” to collaborating with experts “to help us to raise the standards and expectations of skills within their industries, shaping the future workforce and nurturing a new generation of talent”.
VTCT chief executive Alan Woods said the partnership with NCFE “combines their tried and tested experience in delivering T Levels with our unrivalled hair, beauty and aesthetics sector knowledge and expertise”.
Highfield Qualifications chief executive Jason Sprenger said it had been “well noted” T Levels were “one of the most significant developments in hospitality education within the last decade”.
So his organisation “really can’t overstate what this accomplishment means to us or how seriously we take this responsibility”.
The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, which ran this procurement, has been asked how much each of the three will be paid to develop the T Levels.
The chancellor Rishi Sunak has extended cash incentives for hiring new apprentices as well as his flagship Kickstart scheme as part of a £500 million jobs support package.
Bonuses of £3,000 for every apprentice a business hires ended in September, but Sunak has prolonged the scheme by four months until the end of January.
And Kickstart – which subsidises job placements for young people on universal credit – was due to end in December but will now be extended by three months to March 2022.
In his speech for the Conservative Party Conference today, Sunak said he is “ready to double-down” on his promise to “do whatever it takes” to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The job is not done yet and I want to make sure our economy is fit for the future and that means providing the support and skills people need to get into work and get on in life.”
The extensions to his Plan for Jobs schemes, first announced in July 2020, comes shortly after figures revealed how they have struggled to reach the numbers first hoped.
A progress report for the Plan for Jobs was published last month and revealed that “more than 85,000 apprentices have been newly hired under our new incentive payments”.
Funding for around 100,000 new starts was set aside in the Plan for Jobs.
The cash incentives were first introduced by Sunak in August 2020 and offered firms £2,000 to take on apprentices aged 16 to 24, while those that employ new apprentices aged 25 and over are paid £1,500. They were increased to £3,000 for all apprentices in February.
And only 76,900 young people have actually started Kickstart jobs, according to latest figures, with 196,300 roles in total made available to date.
The scheme launched in September last year with £2 billion set aside to create 250,000 jobs by the end of 2021.
An FE Week investigation, published on Friday, revealed how businesses had found the scheme overly “complex, bureaucratic and slow” to use.
The government said as part of its Kickstart extension, it will continue to accept applications from employers and gateway providers until 17 December 2021.
Specific funding for each measure extended by the chancellor today will be confirmed at the Spending Review on 27 October.
There are some logistical challenges to an international placements scheme during the pandemic, but they’re solveable, writes Sam Parrett
With Brexit spelling the end of the successful Erasmus scheme for the UK, the launch of the Turing Scheme as a replacement was positive news.
Under the scheme, the government funds international placements between two weeks and 12 months long. FE applicants receive up to £1,360 for travel costs and up to £109 per day for living costs.
Unlike Erasmus, the funding is available to go anywhere in the world that a college can set up a partnership. There is no funding available for a return trip from students in the host country to come to the UK: they must secure that funding from their own governments.
However, for us the Turing Scheme is set to be a really important part of our mission to help our students develop a range of employability, communication and social skills. We did not previously belong to Erasmus, so this is our first move into international placements.
But with a global pandemic, we’ve had to find a way to get the programme up and running.
We also know that uptake in FE has varied. In August the Department for Education revealed 110 further providers had won £22 million of funding. But £35 million had been allocated to FE, meaning not all the money was dished out.
The DfE also anticipated 10,000 FE students would be involved. However, colleges applied for funding to cover only 6,000 students.
Here’s how we overcame some challenges, so you can too.
We have initially focused on establishing our programme within Europe; utilising country contacts we already have, with partners we can trust. This will ensure high quality placements in Dublin in Ireland, Seville and Valencia in Spain, Lisbon in Portugal and Larnaca in Cyprus. We plan to develop further partnerships outside of Europe over the course of this year.
Six groups of 20 students (120 in total) will participate in the first year. Placements will happen between February and July 2022, with each one lasting two weeks, plus a six-week placement in the summer.
These students will undertake placements in vocational skills sectors, including cybersecurity, digital marketing, healthcare and early years.
Our students were identified for placements via their vocational area, and their profiles shared with relevant employers in the target countries. Over the next three months a member of our college placement team will visit the employers in each country.
This will help us to ensure their safety and agree on working practices.
The benefits to every student will be immense – albeit not quite on the ambitious global scale we would have aimed for pre-Covid. But that will come.
And by building our programme in a realistic way during extraordinary times, we are giving ourselves the scope to expand.
Positively, 57 per cent of the 120 learners going on placements this year are from disadvantaged groups, of which 10 per cent are from SEND groups. This is higher than the government expectation of 48 per cent of disadvantaged students.
In terms of logistics, managing a multi-country placement programme requires local, specialist knowledge and high levels of quality assurance. Each of our partners has a track record of working with UK VET organisations.
Our head of student placements manages the relationships with partners. With their team, they will accompany the trips physically “in country” as well as coordinate arrangements.
It is a shame that not more colleges are currently taking part
We are keen to establish links further afield in time and hope to work with the Association of Colleges to develop these once we have scoped out this early work.
It is a shame that not more colleges are currently taking part. It is perhaps due in part to the concerns over travel in the current climate.
So although the full scope of the scheme can’t currently be maximised, with careful planning colleges can still hugely broaden our students’ horizons.
At a time when young people have missed out on so many important experiences, educators must now work harder than ever to help fill gaps wherever possible.
Here is a 16-19 manifesto in nine words. Follow it, and ministers can’t go wrong, writes James Kewin
It is important for membership bodies to talk to their members, but it is much more important to listen to them.
And even over the din created by Covid and exams, concerns about three issues have been heard loud and clear.
The first is the future of applied general qualifications. A two-year phoney war ended in July when the Department for Education revealed that it would ignore the views of most respondents to its consultation and press ahead with plans to remove funding for the vast majority of BTECs.
A levels or T Levels will become the level 3 “qualifications of choice” for 16-19 year olds. Virtually nobody outside of Sanctuary Buildings believes this is either achievable or desirable. But that’s the plan and that’s what everyone in 16-19 education must prepare for, unless of course we can convince ministers to chart a different course.
To that end, SFCA is co-ordinating the Protect Student Choice campaign, now backed by 18 organisations, and we are delighted to include FE Week in that number.
Don’t scrap BTECs is the simple message (we use BTEC as shorthand for all applied general qualifications) and it is one we hope the new ministerial team will listen to and act on.
The second issue is funding.
Again, there is a simple message (the base rate of 16-19 funding is insufficient and must be increased) and a co-ordinated campaign (Raise the Rate).
The campaign had a degree of success in 2019 when the funding rate was increased from £4,000 per full time student to £4,188 (although third year students are still inexplicably funded at a lower rate).
But since then, investment has once again been limited to small uplifts in funding linked to particular subjects or initiatives. These modest interventions can look good on a government press release, but they have no impact on the vast majority of students.
The mundane reality is that raising the rate is the only way to ensure 16-19 funding is sufficientand made available in a way that institutions can tailor to the individual needs of their students.
Covid has strengthened the case for boosting core funding. Education recovery cannot be micro-managed from Whitehall, and colleges are best placed to ensure funding is targeted at the right students, in the right way.
The third issue is one that has proved to be the final straw for many colleges desperately trying to hold things together during the Covid maelstrom. Audit.
It is important that public money is spent correctly, and no institution should be above scrutiny.
But any regime that spends weeks challenging an institution on how it has made free college meal and bursary payments to students during a pandemic has surely lost its way.
New requirements are added to the regulatory and accountability system each year, but it is rare for existing requirements to be withdrawn.
The theme that runs through all three of these issues is trust, or more specifically, a fundamental lack of trust. Government knows best.
Replace these popular and well-respected qualifications with our preferred suite of very different qualifications.
Let’s hope the new ministerial team is listening
Like a well-meaning but distant relative, we’ll provide you with the post-16 equivalent of gift vouchers to ensure funding is spent on the ‘right’ things.
And we’ll keep looking over your shoulder to ensure you comply with every aspect of the terms and conditions!
There is another way. Trust the experts. Give institutions the tools to do the job and let them get on with it.
Sometimes governments can do more by doing less: don’t scrap BTECs, raise the rate, leave us alone.
Boring and unfashionable perhaps, but these three ideas would do more to improve the prospects of 16-19 year olds than every well-intended initiative combined over the past 10 years.
