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Chartered Institution for FE admits 6 new members

The Chartered Institution for Further Education has admitted its first new members since before the pandemic and has proffered fellowships to several sector leaders.

Six new members – including four colleges and two independent providers – will join the institution and receive chartered status today during a ceremony at Apothecaries’ Hall in London.

Institution chair Lord Lingfield said they are “delighted to be welcoming new members… Technical and professional education is paramount to the UK and world economies, so we are exceptionally pleased to be granting chartered status to those in the sector coming forward to demonstrate their commitment to excellence in this field,” he explained.

The new member providers are Bolton College, East Coast College, Kaplan Financial, Solihull College & University Centre, South Staffordshire College and The Skills Network.

Twenty providers now make up the membership of the institution, who pay an annual subscription fee of £5,000.

Skills minister Alex Burghart will be attending the event, as will Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Garden, business leader Jacqueline Shopland-Reed and the institution’s former chief executive, Daniel Wright.

The latter three will be made honorary fellows, alongside seven new fellows, including WCG (Warwickshire College Group) chief executive Angela Joyce, Hull College interim principal and chief executive Lowell Williams, and Bedford College Group chief executive and institution council member Ian Pryce.

Burton and South Derbyshire College chair Everton Burke, London South East Colleges group chair Stephen Howlett, and consultant Allan Schofield are among the other people being made fellows.

The institution was awarded chartered status, with the help of former skills minister John Hayes, in 2013.

Chartered bodies are concerned with technical excellence in their area of focus and chartered status demonstrates that person or organisation has achieved a certain degree of technical competence.

Lingfield has previously said he wanted the institution to become the “Russell group of FE”.

To be eligible for chartered status, institutions must have a direct contract with the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) and submit evidence in support of the institution’s nine mandatory declarations (see below).

It had been financially supported by the Department for Education, to the tune of £1.7 million. However, this support ended in 2019, when Wright quit as chief executive.

After a period adrift, the institution undertook a strategic review led by former college principal and council member for the institution Lesley Davies so it could continue on a self-sustaining basis.

It relaunched in April 2021 with a report on the importance of future skills for the construction industry, funded by building company St Modwen Homes.

The institution has previously mooted awarding associate fellowships and at Friday’s event, it will be launching a recognition and awards programme for sector individuals who demonstrate their ongoing commitment to maintain dual professionalism,” starting in the new year.

This, the institution says, will include awarding fellowships and licences.

CIFE’s nine mandatory declarations

“My organisation is regarded by its peer
organisations as a role model in the way
it delivers quality teaching and learning
and good outcomes for learners.”
“The learners in my organisation
believe the management listens to
and is responsive to their needs and
are satisfied or highly satisfied with
the degree of engagement by the
management of the organisation, the
relevance and quality of the service they
receive, and the support they offer to
learners in their career paths beyond
learning.”
“My organisation has worked with
other organisations in the sector for the
collective benefit of the sector”
“My organisation has a public and
published commitment to continuous
improvement.”
“My organisation can demonstrate
an exemplary record of corporate
governance”
“My organisation can demonstrate
satisfactory financial health and is well
placed to respond to future challenges.”
“My organisation can show a track
record of community-oriented
engagement in the FE sector which
goes wider than just the simple
satisfaction, by delivery through
a commercial transaction, of
contractually-stipulated training needs”
“Employers who employ learners from
my organisation see us as a model
training provider and an exemplar for
others in the area.“
“My organisation has a reputation
within the further education sector for
honesty, openness and transparency”

Do better: schools urged to up £4.30-an-hour apprentice TA wage

Many multi-academy trusts and local authority-maintained schools are paying teaching assistant apprentices the minimum legal amount – or about £7,000 a year. Freddie Whittaker reports

Schools are employing apprentice teaching assistants for as little as £4.30 an hour, prompting concerns that some could be “exploiting” the apprenticeships system for cheap labour.

An investigation by FE Week’s sister publication Schools Week has found that some of the country’s most prominent multi-academy trusts are among those advertising vacancies that pay the minimum legal amount to teaching assistant apprentices. However, the practice is widespread: dozens of local authority-maintained schools are also advertising roles at this rate.

The government said that while it was not responsible for pay, it “encourages employers to pay more when they can afford to do so”.

The apprentice minimum wage is £4.30 an hour for under-19s or older apprentices in their first year. It is due to rise to £4.81 next year. Over-19s not in their first year must be paid at least the national minimum wage for their age group.

‘It’s exploitative and needs ministerial attention’

It is legal to pay an apprentice the minimum rate. But unions fear the low pay – equivalent to just under £7,000 a year for someone working 40 hours a week on a term-time-only contract – risks becoming exploitative.

However, schools and trusts that employ apprentices have defended the programme, which they say can help those without the necessary skills and experience to become teaching assistants.

Analysis of 227 teaching assistant (TA) vacancies on the government’s Find an Apprenticeship platform found that 183, or about 80 per cent, offered the minimum rate.

The average hourly wage of all the vacancies analysed was £4.64, much less than apprentices more generally are paid.

The average hourly wage of level 2 and 3 apprentices nationally was £7.70 in 2018-19, the latest year for which data is available.

Jo Parry, a national officer at UNISON, said schools “shouldn’t be filling vacancies at such exploitative pay rates”, and warned that apprentices were “still learning and should be supported, not used as cheap labour”.

Avril Chambers, a national officer at the GMB union, said apprenticeships could be a valuable route into the profession, “but all too often teaching assistant apprenticeships are exploited as a form of cheap labour”.

She said the GMB was “even aware of cases where minimum wage TA apprenticeships have been advertised at trusts that have cut teaching assistant posts”.

‘A lot of time and support from staff’

At Great Ouseburn Primary School, a local authority-maintained school in York, younger apprentices start on £4.30.

But their wage goes up to £6.90 after six months, and to the national minimum wage rate after 12 months.

Nick Oswald, the school’s head, said the scheme was used either to offer young people still living at home the chance to study an alternative to A-levels, or to help career-changers join education without having to pay for a qualification.

He admitted the pay was “not mega bucks by any means, but I think the important thing is it is a training role”.

“We put a lot of time and effort into getting them trained up. If you just see it as a job, yes it’s appalling and no one should be paid that much. But they’re getting a lot of time and support and expertise from staff in school alongside that.”

Academy trusts seeking apprentice TAs for £4.30 an hour include the David Ross Education Trust (DRET), the Gorse Academies Trust and Ormiston. DRET and Ormiston have in recent years considered support staff redundancies, and Ormiston finished the last year with a surplus of £37.9 million.

The three trusts all operate mostly in the north of England, although dozens of schools in the south also advertised roles at the minimum rate.

Most apprentices get offered jobs

A spokesperson for DRET said the apprenticeship route was used to bring “those with no relevant work experience into the profession and to grow our own talent”.

“In the vast majority of cases, these apprentices become fully qualified teaching assistants with us who then move on to the regular payscales.”

According to the National Careers Service, the average starting salary for a new non apprentice TA is £12,621.

A Gorse spokesperson said the trust provided apprentices with “excellent training and offering permanent roles to the vast majority”.

They explained apprentices were “paid less than our non-apprentice teaching assistants, who all have previous experience, a qualification or both, and carry out their work without the need for supervision”.

Ormiston said the scheme gave learners “an opportunity to receive comprehensive training and obtain their qualification, while getting first-hand experience of working with young people”.

The trust also said it was “making an active effort as a trust to ensure our apprenticeship offer is as strong as possible, including having salaries that reflect the immense contribution of all our colleagues”.

Dr Mary Bousted, the joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said it “speaks to deep-rooted problems in recruitment and retention as well as long-standing funding challenges within the sector, that schools are now driven to using apprenticeships to fill vacancies”.

Apprentice schemes “have their place”, she said, but her union was “concerned that this does not tip into exploitation or fail to lead to permanent positions”.

There may be awkward questions for bigger academy trusts, whose chief executives tend to have larger salaries.

For example, Gorse chief executive Sir John Townsley’s pay rose to at least £220,000 last year after a £30,000 pay hike.

Ormiston’s highest-paid employee earns between £200,001 and £210,000.

Paying more ‘shows commitment to local community’

But some employers pay a lot more than the minimum for TA apprentices.

Ringwood School, in Hampshire, is advertising a role for £11.48 an hour. The school declined to comment.

Schools Week found other examples of schools offering more than the adult minimum wage.

Harris Academy Ockendon recently advertised a position that will pay £6.56 an hour for 18 to 20-year-olds, £8.36 for 21 and 22-year-olds and £8.91 to over-23s.

George McMillan, the school’s executive principal, said the apprenticeship programme allowed for the recruitment of school leavers and graduates “who don’t have the skills or confidence to become a TA but are attracted to the apprentice route as they get high-quality training and a qualification”.

He added that the pay was higher than government guidelines “and we hope that, as well as being fair, this will help attract the best quality candidates”.

The Tandridge Learning Trust recently advertised for an apprentice TA with a starting salary of £12,766.

Judith Standen, the trust’s HR manager, said that offering the option of earning a salary while training “makes joining us an attractive proposition for those who might otherwise not be able to access such training”.

“We sometimes find that apprenticeships attract colleagues who are changing career paths to accommodate personal circumstances or realise new ambitions. Providing a fair salary enables the realisation of these aims.”

She said that by offering more than the minimum wage, the trust demonstrated “our commitment to support our local community and to attract the best talent possible in the current employment market”.

The government said the apprentice minimum wage was “designed and set at a rate that acknowledges the particular costs for employers and benefits for young people involved in the provision of apprenticeships”.

Let T Level students study other quals at the same time, says new Ofqual chief

T Levels should be slimmed down so that students can study other qualifications, such as BTECs, alongside them, the new Ofqual boss has said.

Jo Saxton called for a “much more mixed offering” when it comes to post-16 qualifications during an interview with FE Week’s sister publication Schools Week.

She questioned a system that creates “division” between certain types of qualifications and welcomed the Department for Education’s new ministerial team’s recent reassurance that they do not want a binary choice of T Levels and A-levels when young people leave school.

“If I was in charge of T Level policy you would have a T Level that was equivalent to two A-levels so you could do a T Level and something else,” Saxton then said.

Her view is similar to that of education select committee chair Robert Halfon. His committee this week launched an inquiry into the “effectiveness” of post-16 qualifications such as A-levels, T Levels, BTECs and apprenticeships.

It will explore whether a new baccalaureate system that would “allow young people to study a greater blend of academic and vocational subjects” should be introduced in their place – an idea proposed by Halfon in 2019.

T Levels, which typically involve 1,800 teaching hours, including a 45-day work placement, are currently the equivalent to three A-levels. The government does not allow for other qualifications to be taken alongside them, whereas they do for A-levels.

The Department for Education is also in the midst of controversial reforms to level 3 qualifications, which are set to see the defunding of most BTECs and other applied general qualifications that overlap with T Levels and A-levels.

Ofqual regulates the technical qualification component of T Levels but overall policy design sits with the DfE and Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education.

Saxton admitted her regulator’s power over the make-up of T Levels is “quite limited” but said she would “definitely like to get more involved” in their development.

She added: “We want these high quality, innovative qualifications to be as accessible as possible to all learners. I’m thrilled to be leading Ofqual at a time when we will be regulating the technical qualification component of T Levels as they are introduced.”

A Department for Education spokesperson said there are “no plans to change T Levels” when asked if the DfE would consider Saxton’s proposal.

Saxton has taken over Ofqual at a time when regulation of vocational and technical qualifications is going through significant change.

One contentious reform is a proposal in the Skills Bill, which is currently making its way through parliament, to give the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education the ultimate sign-off power for the approval and regulation of technical qualifications in future.

Awarding bodies have claimed this is a “retrograde step” and would reverse the “gains” of independent regulation that parliament intended in 2009 when it set up Ofqual.

Unlike Ofqual, the institute is a non-departmental public body directly accountable to ministers, not parliament.

There is concern that IfATE’s new powers would therefore introduce a conflict of interest. Some also fear that having two regulators splitting responsibility for certain types of vocational and technical qualifications could also create a muddled and cumbersome two-tier system of regulation.

Saxton admitted the move is “slightly controversial” but believes it is “completely right” because IfATE has the expertise and time that Ofqual doesn’t to explore exactly what type of technical qualifications are needed by employers.

“The new powers mean IfATE gets to hold the kind of standard of what good technical qualification – in whatever discipline that is employer-related – looks like. We get to look at the assessment part of it.

“I think that separation is quite useful.”

She added: “I’ve heard already from a number of awarding organisations in vocational and technical sectors that they’re worried about this being the beginning of what they call ‘dual regulation’ and there are more hoops to jump through.

“But for me, I think it’s completely in the interests of learners. There is a legal requirement to keep an eye on regulatory burdens, and we’ve got to make sure that it doesn’t become inappropriate.”

Kickstart breaks down: NAO reports on massive underspend and ‘deadweight’ jobs

The country’s spending watchdog has found the government is oblivious to the quality, targeting and scale of “deadweight” Kickstart jobs.

A report by the National Audit Office has also revealed the flagship programme is set for a £650 million underspend, as officials now estimate they’ll only reach 168,000 starts compared to the 250,000 the chancellor Rishi Sunak was aiming for.

But at a cost of around £7,000 per participant, Kickstart has become the Department for Work and Pensions most expensive support scheme.

The department claimed its benefits to society will outweigh the costs by up to £1.65 for every £1 invested, but only if it is targeted “effectively at the right people and the jobs created would not have otherwise been funded by employers”.

The NAO found the DWP has “limited assurance” over this, because the department does not collect or monitor the necessary data.

Meg Hillier MP, chair of the public accounts committee, said the “jury is out” on whether Kickstart will end up being value for money and “whether it will actually help those groups of young people who truly need it”.

She expressed concern at the DWP’s “worryingly light-touch approach to setting targets or tracking performance”, considering the government pumped £1.9 billion into the scheme.

A government spokesperson said their officials acted “quickly and decisively to establish Kickstart at the start of the pandemic when it was feared unemployment levels would more than double – as this report acknowledges”.

Kickstart was launched in September 2020 in a bid to prevent a significant rise in youth unemployment in the face of Covid-19.

It offers six-month paid work placements to those aged 16 to 24 who are on Universal Credit and deemed to be at risk of long-term unemployment – with the government picking up their wage bill.

Employers were only supposed to benefit from the wage-subsidy if they could prove the jobs were “additional” and would not have existed without the funding provided.

Even before the scheme got under way, the DWP assumed that only 50 per cent of the economic output of Kickstart jobs would be additional, the NAO found.

The department calculated the figure could be as low as 30 per cent, but claimed the scheme would still have a positive social return if it “also has the intended employment impact”.

The NAO report states the DWP also “recognised the risk” that non-additionality could increase as the economy recovered and does not expect its evaluation, planned to be released in several years, to “achieve a robust estimate of Kickstart’s impact on the wider economy”.

Labour market conditions developed in unexpected ways that hampered the take-up and effectiveness of the scheme, according to the audit office.

It found the number of young people claiming Universal Credit and searching for work for more than a year has continued to increase, from 48,800 in February 2020 to 144,000 in September 2021 – a 195 per cent increase – despite Kickstart.

By summer 2021, the DWP acknowledged it was unrealistic to achieve its initial aim of 250,000 young people starting a Kickstart job by December 31, 2021 and is now planning on the basis of up to 168,000 starts by the end of March 2022, following the scheme’s extension.

Some 100,000 people have started jobs created by the scheme to date. DWP expects to spend £1.26 billion in total.

Wider issues with the scheme’s rollout are laid bare in today’s report.

As the DWP launched Kickstart at pace due to the pandemic, it experienced “a number of problems, leading to some criticism from stakeholders about unclear rules, a lack of published data on progress and short notice about changes”.

It has also “generally taken several months to fill the vacancies that have been filled”, with employers waiting an average of 62 days for the DWP to complete administrative checks on each application, according to the NAO.

This echoes the findings of a recent FE Week investigation, in which businesses slammed Kickstart as overly “complex, bureaucratic and slow”.

The NAO has told the DWP to start monitoring whether work coaches refer the right people to the scheme and assess why there are many people who, in principle, are eligible for the scheme but are not taking up the outstanding vacancies.

DWP should also “conduct routine inspections and monitoring of Kickstart employers to ensure that they are fulfilling the condition that these jobs are high quality and additional”.

Gareth Davies, the head of the NAO, said: “DWP has limited assurance that Kickstart is having the positive impact intended. It does not know whether the jobs created are of high quality or whether they would have existed without the scheme.

“It could also do more to ensure the scheme is targeted at those who need it the most.”

Lords committee urges levy spending focus on the young and on lower level courses

Employers should be forced to spend two-thirds of their apprenticeship levy funds on young people at the lower levels, according to a House of Lords committee.

The House of Lords Youth Unemployment Committee also recommends, in a new report called Skills for Every Young Person, scrapping public funding for degree apprenticeships to ensure the levy system does not go bust.

This comes as further and higher education minister Michelle Donelan told university bosses in a speech this week to set “ambitious, measurable targets to significantly increase” degree apprenticeships.

The chair of the cross-party committee, Liberal Democrat peer John Shipley, told FE Week the government “should not be prior prioritising degree apprenticeships over young people getting on to the apprenticeship ladder at a lower level”.

While he does not find the “binary” choice between supporting either degree or lower level apprenticeships “helpful”, Shipley called it “a question of prioritisation”.

The committee counts former chancellor of the exchequer Ken Clarke and education secretary turned UTC founder Kenneth Baker among its members.

With 21.8 per cent of 18-year-olds not in education, work or training as of the second quarter of 2021, the report calls for the government to make employers spend at least two-thirds of apprenticeship levy funding on people who begin courses at levels 2 or 3 before the age of 25.

“What we’re trying to get at is that there are large numbers of young people who are leaving school, who are not getting career development with the skills they need, and the country needs,” says Shipley.

Apprenticeship levy could be overspent without changes, says Shipley

A maximum salary ceiling should also be introduced for levy-funded apprenticeships, today’s report recommends, an idea previously floated by the former skills minister Anne Milton.

For years, there have been warnings from the likes of the National Audit Office and the Department for Education itself that the apprenticeship budget could be overspent.

The NAO reported in 2019 on the “clear risk” the apprenticeship programme was not financially sustainable, after the average cost of training hit double the sum the government predicted in 2015.

Asked whether the committee fears that without their measures the apprenticeship system could go bust, Shipley said: “Well, the funding system isn’t working well. So the answer to your question is yes.

“Clearly, reform is going to be needed,” and this would have to be decided by government and employers as: “The apprenticeship system is terribly important for young people and social mobility.”

Government ‘cannot ignore the harm’ levy is doing to young people

The 389-report, based on evidence from sector experts, providers, employers and officials, also recommends lowering the threshold for paying the apprenticeship levy, so some small-to-medium enterprises would contribute.

The committee did not say what the threshold for the levy, currently paid by employers with a £3 million payroll, should be lowered to.

Founder of think tank EDSK Tom Richmond said the government “cannot continue the ignore” the harm the “well-intentioned” levy is doing to young people.

The government’s employer-led apprenticeship system “should not come at the expense of ensuring there is enough funding available” for training “aimed specifically at younger people”, he added.

He called the report’s proposal for a maximum salary for levy-funded apprenticeships “a novel way of ensuring young people looking to get started in their chosen career are prioritised in future”.

‘Employers shouldn’t pay for school failures’

University Vocational Awards Council chief executive Mandy Crawford-Lee said the report’s recommendations “drive a coach and horses through the social mobility agenda”.

While the proposals are “well intended as a response to the pandemic, it runs counter to the policy imperative to level-up access to higher education”.

Donelan’s announcement this week “highlighted the need to move away from the idea higher education was primarily for 18-to-24-years-old,” which Crawford-Lee “strongly welcomed”.

“Put bluntly, employers shouldn’t be forced to pay for the failure of the schools system. If an employer believes spending on a level 7 senior leader apprenticeship will have a greater impact on productivity than spending on 16-to-18-year-old apprentices, not only should they do so, but the apprenticeship system should support their decision.”

A Department for Education spokesperson said the government has “committed to improving the working of the levy” and defended level 6 and degree apprenticeships, saying they give employers “the opportunity to strengthen the skills of their workforce and allow people of all ages and backgrounds the chance to earn while they learn”.

The spokesperson also pointed out the department has taken action in the past when they deem there to be an inappropriate use of levy funds.

“We’ve already decided to not fund the MBA part of the highly popular level 7 senior leader apprenticeship, or to fund any level 8 [PHD level] apprenticeships, as we do not believe this represents good value for money,” they said.

The Queen recognises five colleges’ excellence in her Anniversary Prizes

Five colleges in England have been recognised by the Queen for demonstrating excellence and innovation and benefitting the wider world.

Chichester College Group, Exeter College, Grimsby Institute of Higher and Further Education, The Manchester College, and Warwickshire College have all won Queen’s Anniversary Prizes for Higher and Further Education 2020/2022.

The awards are the highest national honour available to universities and FE colleges across the UK and this year includes the highest number of FE recipients since the scheme began in 1994.

Chichester College Group was awarded for being a recognised national and international leader in craft skills. Chief executive Andrew Green called the award an “incredible honour” of which they are “exceptionally proud”.

The Queen grants the awards every two years, but entries are assessed by the Royal Anniversary Trust charity and recommendations for winners are made on the prime minister’s advice.

Exeter College has been awarded for an “outstanding” track record in digital skills, with principal John Laramy calling the award “the result of a lot of hard work,” and he thanked “everyone that has contributed”.

Becoming a national leader in digital curriculum and learning innovation, as well as delivering skills in a region where jobs are at “special risk”, won Grimsby Institute its award.

Chief executive of parent college group TEC Partnership Gill Alton said: “This award is a wonderful tribute to our staff and the exceptional work taking place here.”

Manchester principal Lisa O’Loughlin said the college, part of the LTE Group, is “proud and honoured” to receive the prize for its “exceptional range of partnerships” delivering on a “mission to improve young people’s aspirations and support social mobility with career-oriented training”.

Warwickshire College won its prize for being a “leading provider of engineering apprenticeships in the Midlands,” with WCG (Warwickshire College Group) chief executive Angela Joyce calling this “very proud moment” the “culmination of more than 25 years of tireless work to establish WCG as a leader in the delivery of engineering training”.

Other award winners include 15 universities and South West College in Northern Ireland.

Royal Anniversary Trust chair Damon Buffini said the colleges and universities being honoured “are testament to the rich and impactful work being done at our educational institutions day in, day out”.

Digital functional skills: DfE backtrack after SEND exclusion warning

The Department for Education has backtracked on a proposal for new digital functional skills qualifications which could have excluded special educational needs learners.

Decisions on how the courses will be regulated, following a consultation which launched in 2019, have been published today alongside the launch of a new consultation covering awarding arrangements.

One of the department’s decisions is to not go ahead with prohibiting learners from taking their assessments on paper.

The DfE had argued making learners complete assessments on screen was necessary because access to paper copies could not be “effectively restricted”.

This proposal triggered a wave of protests from consultation respondents, with a majority disagreeing with prohibiting paper-based assessments.

This was because “a paper-based format may be required for some students with learning difficulties or disabilities who can’t use an on-screen assessment,” today’s decisions document reads.

Furthermore, not all centres would have reliable internet access or enough equipment, and students “would be discriminated against if this was the only way to access an on-demand assessment”.

On-demand assessments refer to those available for an extended time window.

Digital-based functional skills tests ‘risk making it difficult’ for students, DfE says

An equality impact assessment published earlier this month alongside subject content for the new qualifications revealed the DfE’s concerns the courses’ design and delivery would “negatively impact” learners with special educational needs.

Today, the department bowed to the pressure, with the decision document revealing: “In light of the feedback, we do not think that we should prohibit paper-based, on-demand assessments as it might risk making it difficult for some types of centres and students to access these qualifications.”

Students will still need to use digital devices to complete tasks and questions in the assessment and the department wants awarding organisations to explain how they will manage any risks from using paper assessments.

It will be expected that paper-based assessments will only be available in “limited circumstances,” the decision notice added.

Digital functional skills qualifications are set to roll out in 2023.

The consultation on arrangements including the weighting of marks and the number of assessments is running from today until 27 January 2022.

You can view and respond to it here.

Public sector apprenticeship target missed, and 4 other things we learned from today’s DfE data

The government’s public sector apprenticeship target has officially been missed, final year-end data for 2020/21 has revealed.

Figures published this morning by the Department for Education also show colleges accounted for only 18.5 per cent of apprenticeship starts last year, as well as the impact multiple lockdowns has had on adult education participation.

The department said “extra care” should be taken when comparing the stats to previous years because they cover the period affected by varying Covid-19 restrictions, which impacted on learning and provider reporting “behaviour”.

Here are five things we learned…

Apprenticeship starts stay stagnant

Overall apprenticeship starts were down by 0.3 per cent to 321,400, compared to 322,500 reported for the same period in 2019/20.

The proportion of starts for young people under the age of 19 dropped from 23.6 per cent to 20.3 per cent, while starts for over 25s grew from 46.8 per cent to 50.3 per cent.

At the same time, the proportion of starts on level 2 apprenticeships shrunk from 30.8 per cent to 26.2 per cent, while starts at level 4 and above shot up from 25.6 per cent to 30.7 per cent.

Colleges accounted for just 18.5% of apprenticeship starts

Out of the 321,400 starts in 2020/21, private providers had 64.4 per cent of the market.

Other public funded provider such as local authorities and higher education institutions accounted for 16.3 per cent, while schools, sixth form colleges and special colleges made up 0.8 per cent.

Concerningly for education secretary Nadhim Zahawi, general FE colleges only accounted for 18.5 per cent (59,500) starts.

The figures come a week after Zahawi issued a call to arms to college leaders to deliver more apprenticeships. Addressing the Association of Colleges conference, he said: “Currently around 30 per cent of apprenticeships are carried out in colleges, but if we really want to transform supply we will have to grow that number.

“I know colleges are more than capable of it.”

2.3% public sector target failure

Public sector bodies in England with 250 or more staff were set a target by government to employ an average of at least 2.3 per cent of their staff as new apprentice starts over the period 1 April 2017 to 31 March 2021.

Figures published for the first time today show an average of 1.7 per cent of employees started an apprenticeship over that period. This equated to a combined total of over 220,000 starts.

The armed forces performed the best, achieving an average of 7.9 per cent between 2017 and 2021, while schools were the worst at 1 per cent.

Tripling traineeships target tanks

Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s Plan for Jobs provided £111 million for up to 36,700 additional traineeships in 2020/21, including paying employers £1,000 for providing work placements for trainees.

This would triple the number of starts on the pre-employment programme after 14,900 were achieved in 2019/20.

Final year-end data published today shows only 17,400 starts were achieved in 2020/21 – 47 per cent of the target.

Plans to rapidly grow traineeship numbers were scuppered by various delays to tenders intended to expand the provider-base.

Adult participation takes another hit

Adult government-funded further education and skills participation decreased by 6 per cent to 1,640,300 compared to 1,745,800 in the same period in 2019/20.

Participation specifically for the adult education budget meanwhile dropped 11.2 per cent to 925,300 compared to 1,042,000.

And participation in community learning fell by 32 per cent to 243,700 in 2020/21, from 358,300.

The number of learners taking out an advance learner loan dropped to its lowest since 2014. Numbers in that year sat at 75,400 and grew to a peak of 119,000 in 2017. Loans participation in 2020/21 sat at 86,200.

New director to lead ‘reboot’ of HE access

The higher education regulator, the Office for Students (OfS), has today named John Blake as its new director for fair access and participation.

Blake, currently head of public affairs and engagement at Ark, the charity which operates multi academy trust Ark Schools will succeed Chris Millward whose four year term of office expires at the end of December 2021.

The director for fair access and participation is a statutory position, established in the Higher Education and Research Act 2017 which also established the Office for Students. The £130k a year post is one of two executive positions reporting directly to the OfS board appointed by the secretary of state. The other being the chief executive.

Under the Act, Blake assumes a range of powers to approve, monitor, and report on higher education providers’ performance against their access and participation plans. Colleges that deliver higher education, as well as universities, are required to develop and publish these plans.

This appointment comes at the same time as higher and further education minister Michelle Donelan will, in a speech today, announce a “change of focus” in higher education widening participation efforts “towards positive graduate outcomes” and pre-18 attainment.

As the new director for fair access and participation, Blake will be charged with leading on this new strategy.

“I am delighted to be appointed as director for fair access and participation. I look forward to working with universities and colleges to ensure that young people from all backgrounds are able to access the education that is right for their achievements and aspirations” John Blake said.

“I am especially keen to see further development of partnerships between higher education providers and groups of schools to improve attainment for disadvantaged young people throughout their schooling, providing them the knowledge, skills and experiences they need to access higher education.

“But attainment and access are only the first steps: they need to be matched by participation and success. It is crucial that students are able to study on high quality courses which meet their needs, and are then supported so they are ready to embark on rewarding lives and careers after graduating.”