An experienced principal has been mysteriously replaced following an FE Commissioner check-up.
Andy Forbes (pictured top) left City of Bristol College days before the start of the new academic year and has since revealed he was diagnosed with type-2 diabetes last year, but stressed this had not stopped him working.
Deputy principal Richard Harris has replaced him on an interim basis, with the college remaining tight-lipped over the exact circumstances of Forbes’ departure.
City of Bristol College’s South Bristol Skills Academy
“Andy Forbes has left City of Bristol College. Rich Harris is the chief executive/acting principal,” was all a spokesperson would say in response to FE Week’s questions about Forbes leaving.
They confirmed the college had received a diagnostic assessment follow-up visit in June 2021. When asked if Forbes’ departure was related to this, the spokesperson referred back to the same statement and said the college would not comment any further.
Forbes ‘proud’ of achievements at college
During a diagnostic assessment, members of the FE Commissioner team work with a college to look at its improvement plans and whether they are fit for purpose.
Their plans are then either endorsed, or commissioners suggest how they can be improved. Occasionally a college may undertake a structure and prospects review following a diagnostic assessment, or on rare occasions they may lead to formal FE Commissioner intervention.
Reports from these largely-supportive diagnostic assessments, which can be requested by colleges, are not shared publicly and do not typically lead to a change in leadership.
Announcing his departure in a swiftly deleted LinkedIn post, Forbes said: “I’ve left City of Bristol College ‘by mutual agreement’.
“I’m proud of what we’ve achieved over the past couple of years throughout the extraordinary challenges of the pandemic.”
Forbes posted again on his LinkedIn page on Monday to say he has been coping with type-2 diabetes since last March and had been classed as “clinically vulnerable” during the pandemic.
But he had managed to continue working “with remarkably little problem” through flexible hours and video conferencing and is now feeling “fighting fit,” having pushed the condition into remission.
He noted how the education sector and “enlightened employers” were now “so much better” at adjusting work patterns and methods so disabled people can “thrive” at work.
“My personal experience has made me much more appreciative of what needs to be done to help people overcome health and disability barriers,” he added.
College had been making ‘reasonable progress’ with principal
Before taking the reins in Bristol, Forbes led City and Islington College, College of Haringey, Enfield, and North East London, and Hertford Regional College. He also co-founded the BAME Principals Group.
Forbes was named principal of Bristol in November 2019 after Harris led it on an interim basis. Harris stepped in after college leader Palvinder Singh pulled out of the role before his start date.
Forbes left his role last month, a matter of weeks before his two-year anniversary.
Despite facing financial problems, including breaching loan agreements with the ESFA and their bank, City of Bristol looked to be recovering after Forbes took over.
An Ofsted monitoring visit in March 2021 found it making ‘reasonable progress’, with a report crediting governors and leaders for “having initiated a number of changes to improve the quality of education for students and apprentices”.
The college’s latest financial statements record how “continued improvement” in the quality of its delivery and students results, including an uptick in classroom-based qualification results, has been “led by Andy Forbes since his appointment”.
Unusually, neither the statement received by FE Week, the college’s news page nor communications announcing Forbes’ departure to local stakeholders seen by FE Week thank Forbes for his work while serving as principal.
A DfE spokesperson confirmed the college is no longer in formal intervention, after its financial health notice was lifted in April 2020.
The college’s board minutes reference numerous visits by the commissioner since then, including one in October 2020 where the college had made “good progress”.
Half of the 88 training providers to win funding in the government’s national adult education budget (AEB) tender did not hold a procured AEB contract last year, FE Week analysis has found.
A total of 208 independent providers previously held procured AEB contracts with the agency, but this number has been slashed by almost 60 per cent to just 88.
They are sharing a £73.9 million pot.
FE Week analysis of this latest procurement result and the ESFA’s allocations spreadsheet for last year shows that 44 of the 88 the winning bidders did not previously hold a procured allocation.
And two of the winners are colleges which already receive grant funding for AEB from the agency.
The contracts awarded in this latest procurement are for the 2021/22 academic year. The list of winners was first published by Carley Consult earlier today.
Outcomes were originally supposed to be communicated on June 24. The ESFA then said they could not meet that deadline and bidders were told the outcomes would be ready for June 28, only for this date to be further pushed back. Results were finally communicated two weeks before the contract start date.
Read the next edition of FE Week for further analysis of the results of this procurement, which will be published on September 10.
The list of AEB tender winners and their allocation:
Ofsted and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons are launching a review into the “very poor state” of prison education.
Chief inspector Amanda Spielman and her opposite number at the prisons inspectorate Charlie Taylor have published a joint commentary on the impact of Covid-19 on inmate learning.
This is based on 25 remote visits to adult prisons in early 2021 and 10 monitoring visits Ofsted undertook between May and July this year, which “paint a stark picture” of prison remote education.
The findings highlight the quality of provision in prisons was “already poor and had seen little improvement in recent years”.
Ofsted and HMIP find prison learners ‘frustrated and demotivated’
Due to lockdowns, there was no classroom provision for at least five months and it remains limited even now.
In most cases, the visits found, education was limited to giving prisoners in-cell work packs with little face-to-face teaching or feedback, which “proved a frustrating and demotivating experience for many prisoners”.
One prisoner had to communicate with teachers through letter, the commentary reports.
The packs were often not suited to prisoners’ specific education needs, as many inmates have difficulty reading and need closer support.
The commentary talks of one prisoner with dyslexia who had “simply been told he could not learn English or mathematics until face-to-face teaching resumed”.
Vocational education has also been hit, with prison workshops and training spaces being forced to close so learners were unable to complete practical elements of the curriculum.
While there is some evidence the number of prisoners learning English and maths increased, the commentary says: “This was mainly due to a lack of preferable alternatives.”
Work experience has also been gutted as businesses which would usually employ prisoners face increased financial insecurity.
Information, advice and guidance (IAG) services for prisoners have also been disrupted, leading to “significant backlogs” in prisoner inductions so leaders do not know the educational starting points for many inmates.
Review will start by looking at reading
Ahead of the year-long review launching this term, the commentary makes a number of recommendations, including making prison leaders and providers ensure “assessments are used to identify gaps in learning and to support learners back into the classroom as quickly as possible”.
They must also act to open up as many vocational training opportunities and places as is practical, while maintaining social distancing.
Prison leaders must work with IAG services to clear induction backlogs “as a priority,” with all prisoners receiving a “timely and effective” induction to education, skills and work when they are placed in a prison.
Amanda Spielman
The review will start with research visits to prisons over the autumn term to examine reading, which will investigate how prisons assess reading ability on arrival and throughout prisoners’ time there.
The visits will also look at how the prison works together to improve inmates’ reading and what this means for their educational progress and well-being.
While the commentary states “the standard of prison education needs to improve,” it also stresses: “We are grateful to the hard-working prison and education staff who have supported prisoners and kept them safe throughout the pandemic,” considering the risk of Covid-19 transmission was “especially high in prison environments compared with the wider community.
“Yet, we must ask, both of prison leaders and of government, whether the wider risk to prisoners’ chances of resettlement has been sufficiently weighed.”
Review is an opportunity to ‘take stock’
Prisoners’ Education Trust chief executive Jon Collins says Ofsted and HMIP are “right,” as “despite the hard work of prison teachers and staff, prison education is still not nearly good enough”.
He called the review a “welcome opportunity to take stock of the current situation and identify how we can improve the education that is offered to people in prison.
“Access to good quality education is vital in supporting people in prison to turn their lives around. If we want to reduce reoffending, we therefore must improve the quality of prison education.
“This review can help to ensure that as prisons recover from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, real attention is given to making significant and long-overdue improvements to prison education,” he said.
Colleges will be able to claim back money to help disadvantaged students absent due to Covid get online in the new academic year under a new “connectivity support grant” scheme, the government has announced.
But the Department for Education has warned it may reject claims for funding if disruption reported by colleges does not match up to its own data.
The new programme was unveiled this morning and is open to both schools and colleges.
In order to help provide internet connectivity for the most disadvantaged learners, the DfE announced it would make funding available of “up to £75” per student to provide mobile dongles or broadband routers between September and December.
Guidance has now been published on how the scheme will work. Here’s what you need to know.
1. ‘No limit’ to claims, but DfE ‘expects’ to pay up to £75
The DfE initially said the grant would be “up to £75” per pupil.
Today’s guidance states there is “no set limit for the amount that can be claimed” by schools and colleges, but the DfE expects claims to be “up to the equivalent of £75 per pupil or student”.
The DfE also expects claims to be “related to connectivity support needed by disadvantaged pupils and students”, and expects this will “correspond with the number of pupils or students eligible for, as applicable, free school meals or free meals”.
If a school or college does not have this information, it is “expected to correspond with estimated data or using free meals eligibility data”.
Higher costs than the £75 stipulated “may be approved where reasonable supporting information is provided”.
2. Colleges have to stump up the cash first…
Under the grant, schools and colleges will be able to claim back for connectivity support purchased between September 1 and December 31 for students who “do not otherwise have access to adequate internet connectivity at home when Coronavirus related disruption to face to face education has taken place”.
Settings will be able to apply for funding retrospectively in January 2022. The DfE said it anticipated making one-off payments at the end of March to eligible settings.
3. …and must keep their receipts
The guidance states schools and colleges must keep receipt records of any connectivity solution purchased during the period, and these must be kept available to attach to the grant claim and for any inspection “either as part of a spot check on connectivity expenditure or as part of an audit”.
Any invoices relevant to the connectivity costs must be paid by the school, college or local authority. The guidance adds that payment “must not be delayed solely in the expectation of the grant claim being approved”.
4. Colleges must report Covid disruption to the DfE…
To be eligible to claim back the money, schools and colleges must have experienced disruption to face-to-face education between September and December and have reported it to the DfE “where appropriate”, for example through the education setting status form.
Schools and colleges must also have confirmed with the students’ parents or guardians that they are not able to afford their own internet access.
This includes consideration of “affordable/social tariffs suitable for supporting digital remote education”, the guidance states.
5. …or risk claim being rejected
The government “may review claims against data available to DfE about disruption affecting the institution to which the claim relates”.
If the data does not confirm the reported levels of disruption, the DfE may “limit the claim amount or reject the entire claim”.
6. ‘Value for money’ must be sought
The guidance states that when purchasing connectivity solutions for disadvantaged students, schools and colleges “must seek to achieve best value for money”.
It adds the solutions must be in line with “guidance for their institution type regarding financial governance and procurement good practise”.
7. DfE may evaluate use of money and ‘adjust’ allocations
The DfE said that if claims are approved, schools, colleges and local authorities will have to agree to respond to requests to evaluate the use and impact of the grant.
Guidance added that the DfE reserves the right to check each providers ESSF return and it may “adjust an institution’s allocation if the recorded number of pupils absent or eligible for free school meals or free meals exceeds the setting’s allocation”.
8. Private providers not eligible for cash
A wide variety of institution types are eligible for the grant funding, including colleges, special post-16 institutions, local authorities, academy trusts, special schools, PRUs, AP providers and mainstream academies.
However, independent institutions are not. The DfE does not provide a reason for this decision.
Black, Asian and minority ethnic students were “alarmingly” under-represented in the first year of T Levels, FE Week can reveal.
But some colleges report a rising uptake among non-white learners starting the second wave of the flagship qualifications this month.
The Department for Education (DfE) told FE Week in answer to a freedom of information request that 14.2 per cent, or 193, of the 1,363-strong overall cohort for 2020/21 were from a black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) background.
Eighty-four per cent of students, or 1,145, were from a white background, while the ethnicity of 1.8 per cent was “not provided or unknown”.
Of the three qualifications introduced last year – education, digital and construction –the latter had the lowest proportion of ethnic minority learners, at 10.2 per cent.
The digital T Level performed the best with 22 per cent of its students from a BAME background while 11 per cent of education and childcare learners were non-white learners. See the full table of results below.
Low minority participation on T Levels ‘should ring alarm bells’
Black Training and Enterprise Group chief executive Jeremy Crook said FE Week’s findings showed “low levels of ethnic minority participation” which “should ring alarm bells for the government”.
Jeremy Crook
While the mandatory industry placement, which must run for a minimum of 315 hours, in a T Level was “positive,” Crook warned that this was “where racial discrimination can occur, especially in sectors with historical low levels of ethnic minority representation, such as construction and engineering”.
According to Education and Skills Funding Agency data updated in June, 22.8 per cent of participants in FE overall were from BAME backgrounds in 2018/19.
An impact assessment report the DfE published in its response to the level 3 qualifications review showed 25 per cent of 16 to 19-year-old enrolments on level 3 qualifications were BAME in 2019/20.
Colleges ‘pleased’ student recruitment increasing
Providers began to deliver the second wave of T Levels, with seven additional qualifications on offer, this month. To get a picture of what was happening, FE Week contacted providers that had successfully recruited for the first wave last year.
Havant and South Downs College (HSDC) reported that 11.9 per cent, or five, of its 42 T Level students in the first year were from a BAME background.
Of its 207 T Level students recruited up to now, 12.6 per cent, or 26, are from a BAME background. This is higher than the proportion of BAME students across the whole college – 9.4 per cent, or 588 of 6,268.
Vice principal Suki Dhesi said HSDC was “pleased that not only is our T Level BAME student recruitment on an upwards trajectory, it also exceeds the college student percentage”.
We have been doing a lot of digital and print marketing to highlight BAME positive role models
Dudley College of Technology had an average of 31.25 per cent of BAME learners across its three T Levels last year. This compares with 33.5 per cent this year, although it did not provide total student numbers.
Of Derby College’s 32 T Level learners from 2020, three (9 per cent) were BAME. But 38 per cent of its total of 192 T Level students now recruited are from a background other than white, the college said.
A spokesperson explained that the college had been “doing a lot of digital and print marketing across the whole FE and HE offer to highlight BAME-positive role model students and staff – particularly those who have now progressed onto good careers – and our work with secondary schools, particularly in the inner city, has continued throughout the pandemic”.
Sector ‘needs to work together’ to encourage T Level diversity
The DfE has promised to work “to ensure the qualifications represent the country as a whole” as more students can take the qualification.
A spokesperson stressed that the rollout has “always been gradual,” starting as it did with three qualifications at 44 providers. “This means that the first year’s cohort is not necessarily representative of the students that will take T Levels in future.”
Pearson, the awarding body for the construction and digital T Levels introduced last year, launched race and ethnicity guidelines in March to help qualification authors, reviews and editors represent minorities and challenge racial stereotypes and prejudices.
A Pearson spokesperson said the sector and wider society “needs to work together to encourage and support a diverse cohort of learners to take up these pathways”.
NCFE, which awarded the education T Level for the first wave and is offering five others for the second wave, said the qualifications had been “designed to be a viable and accessible option for students from all backgrounds and ethnicities”.
Independent providers are outraged after the government barred them from a scheme to tackle Covid infections in education settings.
After originally announcing last week “all” state-funded education settings would receive carbon dioxide monitors to improve ventilation, the Department for Education has now told FE Week that private providers will be excluded.
Colleges, students of which will be the same age and perhaps on the same course as their counterparts at independent providers, will receive one monitor per two classrooms and staff rooms from next month.
Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief executive Jane Hickie called this “yet another pandemic-related example of the DfE adopting a misguided and very disappointing attitude towards ITPs”.
Independent providers were previously made to wait until the end of last March to apply for Covid-19 testing kits.
This was despite the government ordering providers to reopen on March 8 following the third national lockdown and despite colleges receiving their tests ahead of the reopening date.
The Department for Education was also forced into expanding its scheme delivering laptops and tablets to disadvantaged young people to include those at independent providers in January.
Skills minister Gillian Keegan had provoked a backlash a couple of days earlier when she told an FE Week webcast employers were responsible for buying the equipment for their trainees.
Jane Hickie
Hickie said: “In similar vein to the later corrected position on lateral flow tests, the government needs to remember that it should not be discriminating against the health and well-being of certain groups of learners simply because of the learner’s choice of provider.”
The DfE has also clarified that specialist colleges will be prioritised for receiving CO2 monitors, the same as specialist schools and alternative provision.
After four years in the job, Jonathan Slater was unceremoniously sacked as permanent secretary of the Department for Education. Now he’s calling for better accountability within the civil service
Jonathan Slater, former permanent secretary at the Department for Education, is on the phone to one of his daughters. He and his family have just moved house to south London, he tells me, and his 13-year-old is now braving the local bus route. On both the occasions we chat it’s around hometime, and Slater picks up with lightning speed whenever she rings.
“It’s the first time she’s done it, it’s no big deal,” he says, airily, checking again whether she needs a lift, before adding with a sheepish grin, “I’m probably overdoing it.”
It’s been quite a time for Slater. In late August last year, after a chaotic year of late-in-the-day government communications during the pandemic, and following the public outcry over the grading fiasco, he lost his job.
Boris Johnson said the DfE needed “fresh official leadership” (although Slater was not blamed personally) and Slater was gone. He’s said he only learned of his possible imminent departure because of a Times journalist’s enquiry.
Since then, however, Slater has been careful to remain sanguine in public, saying, “When you become permanent secretary, part of that is the risk that you might be asked to step down.” He’d lasted for four years of his five-year term, and had lost his job alongside several other permanent secretaries.
None too impressed, one civil service union boss accused the government of being “prepared to throw civil service leaders under the bus without a moment’s hesitation”.
But Slater, as in all of our interview, is determinedly politer about his former bosses, adding only, eyes twinkling: “One of the advantages of the prime minister having had enough of me is I have more time with the family.”
When we speak he’s returned from visiting his mum, a former children’s social worker, and later this month his family are celebrating the life of his dad, who passed away last February and was himself a teacher across schools, further education and university. Both his parents were Guardian readers and life-long public servants, says Slater.
Jonathan Slater, former permanent secretary at the DfE, at Charles Dickens primary school, part of the Charter Schools Educational Trust in south London, where he is a trustee
“I felt very proud of dad my whole life. It did mean when I went into the department, I was always thinking, I wonder what dad makes of what I’m doing.”
Since leaving, however, Slater continues to be bugged by what the public – including teachers like his dad – think about government decisions and how they are impacted by them. He says a key question he used to ask new civil service recruits is what teachers and students would miss if the DfE disappeared tomorrow.
“Half a billion pounds would be saved. Would schools and colleges rejoice, or regret the fact there wasn’t a central organisation to disseminate best practice? The point is we have to to be the latter.”
Slater believes there’s an issue facing civil servants and ministers, which can cause decisions not necessarily matched to what’s needed on the ground. On this, he is refreshingly blunt: “Civil servants spend too much time in a room in meetings with each other and ministers and not enough time with families, teachers, parents.”
Was this a big problem during the pandemic, I ask? After all, many colleges and schools were largely infuriated with the government’s last-minute communication of decisions. There was even one explosive report from the Institute for Government, where Slater sits on the board, that said the government’s decision not to make any contingency plans for college and school closures in the event of another lockdown has been its “single biggest failure”.
Does Slater agree? He will not be drawn on pointing the finger. “I don’t want to comment on whether ministers made the right decisions, contingency plans or anything else,” he says. “I have my own views but they are views I want to hold onto.”
I have my own views, but they are views I want to hold onto
But, he says, “if you look back at the pandemic, what you find is an insufficient focus on what the public at large will find acceptable and will work for them”.
Take for instance, he says, the DfE’s decision only to allow certain groups of learners into colleges and schools during lockdown. “A different approach” would have been to let parents and carers decide whether to send students in, having told them only half of the usual placements in colleges and schools were available.
“There are some students for whom it’s more important to go in than others, and it may depend on circumstance.” It would have been an alternative way of approaching the issue that might have worked better for the public, he says.
Similarly, the government told leaders they didn’t need to close their college or school for a day to clean after a student had Covid, in line with scientific evidence. “But that’s us looking at it from a theoretical point of view. In practice what leaders were doing was working out how to ensure parents were confident.”
OK, I say. But the DfE can’t pretend it wasn’t sometimes warned what the public reaction to a policy might be. What about the warnings from staff months ahead of results day about the grading algorithm for A-levels?
Slater answers slowly. “So I would say […] these are difficult decisions, that ministers should be allowed to make. The lesson is that at the DfE and more generally across government, we should be more mindful at looking at things from the perspective of those on the ground.”
There does seem to be a contradiction here: knowing a policy will be more effective if stakeholders are more deeply consulted, but also holding onto the civil-service idea that a politician has every right to come up with a different, technically sound argument if they wish to.
To Slater’s credit, however, he’s calling for an increase in civil servant accountability around decisions like this. This partly arises from his experience as a director of education at Islington council, where he says he felt more accountable than when he was in Whitehall.
“At the council, my job was to go to a public meeting and have to explain directly why we had to close this school. Contrast that with the civil service model, where […] I work for the minister, and it’s my job to explain what the minister thinks. In local government I had to explain what I think.”
Meanwhile in central government, one of the very few ways in which the permanent secretary is publicly held accountable is through a “direction”, Slater continues – a public letter written to a minister when they have rejected civil service advice that a policy is not good value for money or lacks feasibility.
“It’s to make sure I feel properly accountable, and it works both ways.”
The ‘feasibility’ category of a written direction was only introduced a decade ago, says Slater, and he soon discovered he was the first permanent secretary ever to use it.
In 2018, then-prime minister Theresa May and former education secretary Damian Hinds both wanted T Levels to be ready from 2020. Slater’s written direction to Hinds reads “it will clearly be very challenging to ensure that the first three T-levels are ready…to a consistently high standard”.
Slater’s unprecedented written direction to Damian Hinds in 2018
“That’s one of the most difficult things I did,” says Slater, explaining he had asked the Treasury for previous examples of feasibility directions and was told there were no precedents. “It felt hard, going against the prime minister and secretary of state.”
It felt hard, going against the prime minister and secretary of state
Slater did allow himself “a moment of humour” later on, when former skills minister Anne Milton also publically criticised the unrealistic timeframe, just as he had.
One consequence of civil servants rarely being on public record giving advice must be that it’s quite easy for ministers to ignore that advice, I ponder. How often do ministers listen? I ask (after all, T Levels still rolled ahead on the original schedule).
Rather than abandoning a policy or its timeframe, says Slater, “they might change the language around it”. Using a schools policy as an example, he describes Hinds’s goal to halve the vocabulary gap among five-year-olds by 2030, because of the evidence this determines so many later life outcomes. But Slater’s team challenged the proposal on feasibility terms. So Hinds called it a ‘moonshot ambition’ instead.
“That’s a minister not making a cast-iron commitment. That’s the sort of thing that would happen,” he says.
Now Slater has taken up a new role as a visiting professor at King’s College London, where he will look into this very issue: “civil service accountability” or as he puts it to me, “why the civil service is not as accountable as it should be”. A lecture on his findings is due in November.
His solution for now is that government should be using “more qualitative rather than quantitative information” before making decisions and measuring impact. One of the policies he’s proudest of is Opportunity Areas, and he doesn’t believe their impact should be measured against hard targets.
“It’s a relatively recent phenomenon, this idea that you judge the success of something on a numerical target. That’s a modern new public management invention.” The advantage is that ministers can say “tick, it’s done, but the disadvantage is it might not relate to reality and how people are actually finding it on the ground.”
Slater in front of the public accounts committee in March 2020
In some ways, it’s surprising Slater lasted so long at the Department. He praises ministers for listening with respect – including schools minister Nick Gibb, who he says was the “most determined” minister he worked with, with “strong views”.
But with his public service parents and values, it would be easy to see him as a bit “proggy”. He was his department’s diversity and LGBT champion, having himself proudly supported one of his stepdaughters through transition in her 20s. He also made efforts to increase minority ethnic representation in the DfE. Did his careful challenges cause him to fall out of favour with No 10?
Again Slater won’t be drawn, but he does say later, “certainly No 10 has a strong influence on all the government departments at the moment”.
One of his last acts was to meet with the prime minister and advise that if the government wished to take ‘levelling up’ seriously, it might consider evidence that “the attainment gap is the same whether you are an ‘outstanding’ or ‘inadequate’ graded institution.”
“Clearly you can imagine a system in which you can’t be outstanding if that is the case,” explains Slater. He didn’t hear back on the proposal, before he was fired.
It turns out Slater’s daughter does need picking up, and, like any doting parent, he must go. He’s determined to stay involved in education, he says, but now, like his parents before him, at the grassroots level.
He leaves me with a parting shot about the system he has left. “My concern about the civil service is it’s spending too much time in meetings with itself – and not enough time on the frontline.”
Colleges have been invited to bid for a share of a £2 million fund to develop new short higher education courses in “important” subject areas.
The Department for Education has today announced 20 colleges and universities will be chosen to develop level 4 to 6 courses between six weeks and a year in STEM, healthcare, digital innovation, education, and supporting net zero.
The government hopes the ‘Higher Education Short Course Challenge’, being run through the Office for Students, will “put an end to the perception that traditional three- and four-year degree courses are the only route for those who want to pursue post-16 education”.
Short courses will let people ‘learn at a pace right for them’
Colleges and universities have until September 28 to put in bids for this next step in the roll-out of the government’s lifelong learning entitlement, which is being introduced through the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill currently going through parliament.
The short courses will be used to trial “flexible” student loan arrangements which will support students for the duration of the programme.
Michelle Donelan
Universities minister Michelle Donelan said trialling these courses, backed up by the new flexible loans will “give people the chance to learn at a pace that is right for them”.
The competition to find colleges and universities is “a critical step in creating courses which meet the needs of learners, employers and our wider economy,” she added.
Training will have to benefit learners and employers
The Office for Students has released guidance on entering the bidding.
Colleges and universities will have to demonstrate how the courses will benefit learners and the value the training will have for employers.
Winning bidders will be announced in November, with courses expected to start in September 2022.
More than 400 students and apprentices will take part in 64 skills competitions around the country for the WorldSkills UK national finals in November.
After a year without competitions, the finalists will be competing for gold, silver and bronze medals between November 9 and 18.
In contrast to previous years, where the finals have been held in Birmingham, this year the finals are going on the road to 25 venues. The industrial robotics final will take place in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, while the heavy engineering competition will be held in Cardiff.
Dudley, Weston, Kaplan among hosts
Weston College in Somerset will host the web design competition and health and social care will take place at Shipley, in West Yorkshire.
Dudley College’s institute of technology will hold both the automation and mechatronics contests, while Moreton Morrell College in Warwickshire has been given the floristry contest.
Myerscough College in Lancashire will hold part of the landscaping contest, with North Warwickshire and South Leicestershire College getting digital media production and visual merchandising. Meanwhile Reaseheath College in Cheshire will host the butchery finals.
Sector skills body Skills for Security based in Worcester will be hosting the electronic security systems tournament while Manchester training provider Kaplan will help to host the partly online accountancy technician event.
The finalists for the foundation skills tournaments for special educational needs and disabilities, additional learning needs or who require additional support will not be announced until October.
WorldSkills hopes finals will ‘inspire young people’
Ben Blackledge
WorldSkills UK deputy chief executive Ben Blackledge said he was “really excited” that this year’s finals will be hosted by colleges, training providers and employers across the UK.
He added: “We hope seeing the finals will inspire young people at those venues to keep developing their technical and employability skills and recognise what can be achieved by developing excellence through skills.”
He congratulated all those who took part in the finals programme this year “after a year without competitions due to the pandemic”. The fact that 3,000 people applied in April and May to take part was “really encouraging”, he said.
The winners will be announced at ceremony hosted by Steph McGovern on the set of her Channel 4 show Packed Lunch on November 26.
WorldSkills competitions will enhance practical skills
The competitions have been designed by industry experts. WorldSkills UK says they are intended to enhance the practical skills and knowledge taught on training courses through assessment of an individual’s employability attributes against criteria in a competitive, timed environment.
The last national finals were held at Birmingham’s NEC in November 2019. The winners got the chance to be selected for the squad that will become Team UK and compete at WorldSkills Shanghai in 2022.
The 2019 finals were, as with previous years, combined with WorldSkills UK LIVE, a major careers and skills event.
