Latest news from FE Week | FE Week

Labour shortages: logistics, retail and construction on what needs to happen next

FE Week has spoken to industries hard hit by Brexit and Covid to find out what they want from the FE and skills system.

Labour shortages across a number of sectors in roles such as heavy goods vehicle drivers led to fuel shortages and empty supermarket shelves in September.

The Recruitment and Employment Confederation has reported that 95 per cent of its recruitment company members say labour shortages are the single biggest issue across all sectors.

Speaking to the Commons Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Select Committee last month, the confederation’s chief executive, Neil Carberry, said logistics, for example, had shortages long before the EU referendum, after which the inflow of new workers was “cut off”.

Developed economies such as the UK, US and western Europe are also “trying to return to normal”, following the pandemic, Carberry added.

Following the disruption, FE Week has heard from the logistics, retail and construction sectors on what they want from the FE and skills system to help build their workforce and give their sector the necessary skills.

Logistics

Speaking alongside Carberry at the select committee was Duncan Buchanan, the Road Haulage Association’s director of policy for England and Wales. The association represents over 7,000 logistics companies.

He pressed upon MPs on the committee the importance of “looking at how we train people at level 2, because an awful lot of our training effort goes into people at level 3 and degree level.

“We need people trained well at level 2 to do a proper job, be those plumbers, lorry drivers or in refuse collection.”

The association’s skills policy manager, Sally Gilson, elaborated on this to FE Week, saying: “Our big frustration has been the lack of funding at that level 2.”

The National Skills Fund consultation, which ran from July to September 2021, was “centred around level 3 and up, which is so short sighted”, Gilson said.

Over 60 per cent of logistics jobs are at level 2, she said, yet apprenticeship figures for 2020/21 released last month show starts at level 4 and above increased by over a fifth on 2019/20.

On funding, Gilson complained a new level 2 urban driver apprenticeship currently under development and intended to train delivery drivers had been set a maximum funding band of
£4,500.

With driver salaries climbing up to heights of £70,000, providers were having to pay trainers more. As such, the RHA is asking for an extra £1,000 to be added to the standard’s funding.

The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education said: “We develop funding band recommendations using quotes from the trailblazer group based on the cost of training and assessment. Trailblazers can request a Procedural Review of our funding band recommendation in line with our published guidance.

“We remain absolutely focussed on recommending funding bands that support good quality and represent value for money.”

One of the tentpoles of the NSF is the skills bootcamps, and after the supply chain disruption, the government announced these would be extended to cover training for heavy goods vehicle drivers.

The Department for Education wants the bootcamps to have up to 5,000 drivers ready as early as next March, but Gilson said it would be a “struggle to get people ready that quickly”.

She said there needed to be a long-term plan for training up drivers, which could mean a “long-term skills bootcamp”.

Another big reform planned by the DfE to the skills system are flexi-job apprenticeships, which would involve new agencies employing apprentices and placing them with multiple employers, so the training meets the 12-month minimum duration.

Gilson expects, with “a lot” of drivers coming into the industry to work on short-term jobs for agencies, the “sector will be able to make use of” the scheme, once it rolls out.

Retail

The British Retail Consortium, which represents nearly 200 major retailers, wants to be able to use apprenticeship levy funds for pre-employment and pre-apprenticeship programmes, such as traineeships and sector-based work academies, which both involve work placements.

This is “particularly important”, the consortium says, as research by the Education and Employers Taskforce found 85 per cent of 14- to 19-year-olds who had four or more engagements with employers (such as work experience or careers advice) were five times less likely to be not in education, employment or training than those who had no engagements.

The Confederation of British Industry has also called for the levy to be flexed to allow employers to pay for pre-apprenticeship programmes and short, modular courses.

Levy funds should be available to pay for “high-quality shorter courses, including functional skills”, the consortium said, “where a full apprenticeship is not necessary”.

Apprentices currently have to take functional skills qualifications in English and maths if they have not achieved a grade four, equivalent to a C, at GCSE in those subjects. But that is integrated with their training.

Running the functional skills qualifications on their own could “quickly upskill learners” and be helpful for a “fast-paced and dynamic sector” such as retail, the consortium said.

Levy funds should be available to pay for high-quality shorter courses

To “promote productivity gains” the body also wants to cover a portion of apprenticeship costs incurred outside of training, such as paying employees to cover for apprentices who are on training.

Politicians such as Labour’s Toby Perkins and the Conservative chair of the Commons Education Select Committee Robert Halfon have called for levy funds to be used to pay apprentices’ wages.

Yet the British Retail Consortium believes using the levy to pay other employees for the time they spend covering for apprentices on study days would increase “the ability of employers to take on more apprentices”.

Construction

The Construction Industry Training Board, which oversees training in the building sector, says three out of every five of the around 100,000 construction learners in FE do not work in the industry shortly after their training.

This, they say, represents a “vast, untapped potential”, but employers need “better routes” into industry from further education that “provide the right level of work-readiness”, a spokesperson said.

CITB’s policy and government relations manager Ian Woodcroft called getting more FE learners into construction jobs a “big priority”, for which they were working on solutions with government.

This includes a new traineeship programme they are currently piloting, which will mean learners can move on to “accelerated apprenticeships that recognise prior learning in specific construction occupations”.

They are also following the development of Local Skills Improvement Plans, which eight different chambers of commerce are trailblazing until next March and will eventually be rolled out around the UK in the hope that FE provision is brought closer to local employer needs.

Woodcroft also highlighted the apprenticeship levy pledge function, which allows levy-payers to transfer up to a quarter of their levy funds each year to other businesses, to pay for their apprenticeship training and assessment.

“This is already proving to be successful and will allow more construction employers to access apprenticeship levy funds to train their future workforce,” he said.

Smiley face for emoji project, as ETF reports on success stories in functional skills teaching

A project that used emojis in teaching and improved learners’ confidence with English, and another that used horror film trailers to help with handwriting, have been recognised for improving teaching and learning at their providers.

The Education and Training Foundation, which commissions training programmes for sector staff, has collated 53 reports of projects aimed at improving learners’ English, maths and digital skills.

Teaching projects ‘highlight the value of FE becoming research active’

One of these, Emojis in English and ESOL, involved tutors at Kendal College and South Lakes Community Learning annotating text for learners to read with emojis where the language would trigger an emotional response, whether that be angry, bored or pleased.

Learners later annotated their own work with emojis where they use emotive language, with one student saying this approach “really helped me engage more in my writing because I already have a much better understanding of the task”.

The anthology reports another learner became more confident speaking to neighbours and friends and eventually secured employment, thanks to the project.

Emojis in English and ESOL involved ten staff across the two centres, but it is not known how many learners from the GCSE, functional skills, and English as a second or other language (ESOL) classes this approach was tested on.

The anthology, entitled Outstanding Teaching, Learning and Assessment (OTLA) Anthology of Practitioner Action Research Reports 2020-21, is the latest edition in a project that has been run by the ETF since 2015.

The foundation’s national head of mentoring and practitioner research, Dr Catherine Manning, said it was “widely recognised there is little published research about effective practice in FE”, compared to schools.

“Over and over again, this anthology highlights the value of practitioners becoming research active, engaging with existing evidence, and generating further understanding of how to teach and learn effectively in our diverse, challenging and life-changing sector,” Manning continued.

Horror films helped improve learners’ handwriting stamina

Cambridge Regional College is also featured in the anthology for its A Toolbox of Horror project, which involved around 18 level 1 plumbing students taking a GCSE language resit course, and 11 staff.

The aim was to improve the engagement, attendance and writing skills of learners by looking at horror film trailers, talking about the structure and features of a horror movie or script.

The genre was chosen as the majority of learners loved horror and the project also drew on a technique known as “slow writing”, which involves teaching students to write text sentence by sentence.

The project, which also involved a writing competition at Christmas, led to a “vast” improvement in learners’ stamina in handwriting.

Handwriting is an “important challenge for our vocational learner”, staff said, as the GCSE English language exam is one hour and 45 minutes long.

The OTLA project is funded by the Department for Education, and project teams received grant funding to pay for teachers to take time out of working in a classroom to take part in training for the research they carried out.

They received mentoring from a group of post-16 education and research specialists who as teachers, managers, teacher trainers and researchers.

NHS trust apologises as it exits the apprenticeship market

An NHS trust has left the apprenticeship provider market following a highly critical Ofsted report.

Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust (TEWV) was branded ‘inadequate’ in its first full inspection report published this week.

Inspectors found a litany of problems at the provider, which was training almost 200 apprentices, including poor subcontracting oversight, a failure to take account of prior learning and weak on- and off-the-job training integration.

Sarah Dexter-Smith, director of people and culture at the trust, confirmed they will now stop delivery and apologised for the disruption it will cause apprentices who need to find alternative providers.

The trust will, however, continue to employ apprentices and train them with partner colleges and universities.

Ofsted’s deputy director for further education, Paul Joyce, told the Association of Employment and Learning Providers autumn conference last week it was “really concerning” that a number of new providers are being found to be ‘inadequate’ at their first inspection, particularly having had the benefit of a new provider monitoring visit prior to that inspection.

According to the watchdog’s latest published data, there are 12 independent training providers that were rated ‘inadequate’ at their first full inspection.

Another private provider – Freshfield Training Associates Ltd – was also given
a grade four in its first full inspection this week.

TEWV provides support services for mental health, learning disabilities and eating disorders. It was founded in 2006 and began offering apprenticeships within the trust in 2017.

Ofsted did praise apprentices for being “well motivated and keen to learn”, while the trust’s leaders provide them with a “wide range of helpful information on how to keep themselves safe”.

However, inspectors found that all apprentices on each programme study the same content, regardless of what they already know and can do.

Leaders and managers do not ensure that apprentices follow a programme that covers all elements of the apprenticeship standard, the report said. They “focus too heavily on the completion of the diploma qualification element of the programme, and do not plan a suitably integrated programme of on- and off-the-job training for apprentices”.

“Too many” apprentices are also “not informed well enough” about the programme to which they sign up. Some business administration apprentices enrol on programmes based on the grade band of their job role rather than their individual development needs, for example.

TEWV subcontracts the teaching of English and maths functional skills to Hartlepool College, The Education and Training Collective, and York College.

Ofsted found that TEWV leaders and tutors are “over-reliant” on subcontractors for the supervision of apprentices. “Too often, TEWV tutors simply check that apprentices who need functional skills qualifications have enrolled on appropriate courses,” inspectors said.

Responding to the report, Dexter said: “Following the Ofsted rating our focus is on our inhouse learners who will need to change provider. We have already started organising this with our local education centres and we’re meeting with each apprentice and their manager to support them through the change as seamlessly as we can and to make sure their learning continues.

“We are really sorry for the disruption this is having on the apprentices affected by this.”

Centenary celebration of L&W sees Princess Royal back prison education reform

Princess Anne highlighted the importance of retraining and added her voice to calls for prison education reform in a speech at Learning and Work Institute’s 100th birthday party.

Her Royal Highness spoke in her capacity as the institute’s patron at its The Lifelong Learning Century event, which was held for an in-person audience at City Lit and also livestreamed.

This year marks 100 years since the formation of the LWI’s forerunner, the British Institute of Adult Education, and the event took place during Lifelong Learning Week, an annual celebration of adult learning.

“If we look at working lives today, you won’t be able to stay in the same job for your life, you will need to retrain. You’ll need to perhaps change your career altogether,” the princess said.

“Giving people the confidence that they can retrain is fundamentally important to those individuals and to the businesses they will continue to work with and want to be involved with.”

However, she believes preparing for careers should start early on in a student’s life, recalling a visit to a school where a teacher pointed out pupils “splashing paint around were becoming artists.

“The ones doing their figures were becoming mathematicians. And the other ones who were constructing and deconstructing with blocks in the corner were becoming engineers.

“She’s right. That is terminology which introduces you to the careers in life,” which the princess called “almost genius”.

Princess ‘despairs’ at how prisons removed career opportunities

The Queen’s daughter also used her address to speak out on prison education.

The quality of learning in the nation’s jails has come under the spotlight recently, with Ofsted launching a review with the chief inspector of prisons, while the education select committee has been carrying out its own inquiry into the matter.

“The justice system doesn’t encourage those on shorter sentences to actually get involved,” Princess Anne said.

She added: “I equally despair at the fact that areas of prison life which used to create the opportunities for careers were removed on the basis they weren’t seen to be relevant.” She did not disclose to which areas she was referring.

The princess finished her address with a rousing call to the attendees, saying of Covid: “If we truly believe in lifelong learning, then that is a hiccup which we as supporters of lifelong learning can help learners through, and put them on a path to do just as much good as they thought they could have done in the first place.”

‘Good quality’ careers education needed, says ex-SpAd

The centenary event also included a panel discussion, featuring City & Guilds Centenary celebration of LWI sees Princess Royal back prison education reform chief executive Kirstie Donnelly, Higher Education Policy Institute director Nick Hillman, and City Lit principal Mark Malcomson.

Hillman and Donnelly both talked up the importance of investing in “good-quality” careers guidance.

A former special adviser in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, Hillman said: “When I was working in Whitehall, we found you got more bang for your buck in terms of social mobility by spending on good-quality careers, information, advice and guidance than you did on almost anything else.

This, he said, was because it “stops people making poor decisions the first time around”.

education — The panel discussion at the LWI event

Donnelly told the audience the UK has “simply just got to invest in careers advice and guidance. Without it, we have a broken system.”

But the advice and guidance must be done “in a much more modern 21st century way,” which is mapped to local labour market opportunities.

This week, the institute has also published its annual adult participation in learning survey for 2021, which showed an increase in the proportion of adults who have taken part in education in the last three years, going from 33 per cent in 2019 to 44 per cent.

But it also showed disadvantaged adults are almost twice as likely to have not participated in learning since leaving full-time education as those from a higher socioeconomic background: 37 per cent to 18 per cent.

Lifelong Learning Week runs until Friday November 12, 2021.

Why Ofsted’s new inspection framework may see ‘outstanding’ providers marked down

Some ‘outstanding’ colleges which have improved since their last inspection may still be downgraded because the bar has been raised under the latest Ofsted inspection framework.

That’s according to Chris Russell, the watchdog’s national director of education, who has said if a previously grade one college receives a ‘good’ grade, it “doesn’t mean that the school [or college] has declined in recent years. In fact, the opposite can be the case.”

He said this was because the top grade is a “challenging and exacting judgment to achieve” under the new education inspection framework (EIF).

The comments follow Ofsted chief inspector Amanda Spielman saying a drop to around one in ten schools being ‘outstanding’, half the current rate, “might be a more realistic starting point for the system”.

There are currently 16 general FE colleges with a grade one, five of which have gone more than decade without inspection.

Asked whether the chief inspector expected a similar proportion of colleges as schools to drop from ‘outstanding’, an Ofsted spokesperson said: “We can’t know what the final picture will look like, and any judgments will, of course, be rooted in the evidence we find.

“Some providers may be found to be ‘outstanding’, but given the length of time that has passed, others may not.”

‘Outstanding’ education providers are being inspected this term for the first time since 2010, after an exemption was removed last year.

It will be the first time ‘outstanding’ providers are inspected under the EIF, which was introduced in 2019.

Russell, in a video posted this week, said there was “no doubt that under the current education inspection framework, ‘outstanding’ is a challenging and exacting judgment to achieve”.

“So it does mean, I think, that you need to be very careful, if, for example, a school [or college] that has been judged ‘outstanding’ a good many years ago is inspected again and judged to be ‘good’.

“That doesn’t mean that the school [or college] has declined in recent years. In fact, the opposite can be the case, so very important, I think, in those circumstances, to read the inspection report really carefully, to get a really good view of how good it is now and how well the school [or college] is doing.”

In a blog published on Wednesday morning he added that the drop in standards in some schools and colleges may have been several years ago, with schools and colleges now improving again. “So it’s important not to view the loss of an ‘outstanding’ grade too negatively,” he added.

Twenty-three reports relating to ‘outstanding’ schools were published yesterday. Of those, 19 were graded. Almost three in four, 17, lost their grade one.

Ofsted declined to comment on whether any ‘outstanding’ colleges have received an inspection so far this term.’

Levelling up will only happen if maths and English improve

The country is still not getting the basics right on literacy and numeracy, writes Fiona Aldridge

Getting the basics right is fundamental, but as recent research from the Learning and Work Institute shows, we are clearly not doing well enough.

An estimated nine million working-age adults in England have low basic skills in literacy or numeracy, and five million have low skills in both, the report reveals.

Yet participation in English and maths learning has plummeted, including across every mayoral combined authority.

Surely there can be no meaningful “levelling up” unless we make inroads into this.

Here in the West Midlands, the issue is particularly acute. About one in ten adults has no qualifications at all, and 28 per cent are qualified below level 2.

The government’s 2011 Skills for Life survey identified that about one in eight working-age adults in the region had poor literacy skills and one quarter had poor numeracy skills.

So it is of little comfort to the combined authority that participation in English and maths has fallen less dramatically than in other regions, or that most of this reduction took place pre-devolution.

About one in ten adults in West Midlands has no qualifications

Our ambition is to reverse this decline, and to extend opportunities to high-quality provision that will support more people to engage and to progress.

Before devolution, our English and maths was delivered by more than 400 providers, many of them based outside the region.

There was little connection to the labour market or other local delivery, resulting in low rates of progression into work or further study.

Although we’ve seen some further decline in participation during Covid, we are pleased that since 2019-20, more than half of our AEB enrolments have been for English, maths and ESOL provision. That’s up from about 40 per cent in previous years.

We have also focused on ensuring that provision is better aligned to regional economic need.

Before devolution, two-thirds of provision in the region was at level 1 or below, much of it generic, with little on offer for those in work.

Through regional systems leadership, we have been working with providers to allow better progression into employment and further learning.

This has involved bringing AEB and community learning providers together to work collaboratively in places with the greatest need, to deliver essential first-steps learning.

We’ve also worked with providers to offer “SWAPs plus”, delivering English, maths and next level vocational qualifications to learners as they move into work.

It’s important too that we recognise that AEB is only part of the picture.

Considerable support for basic skills has been delivered, for example, at grassroots level through European Social Fund projects.

The advent of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, which aims to replace EU structural funds, presents an opportunity for combined authorities to co-commission new provision aligned to AEB.

And in doing so, we must learn lessons about the importance of creating coherent progression pathways rather than funding standalone projects.

Finally, we should avoid the trap of assuming that “if we build it, they will come”.

Findings from the latest Adult Participation in Learning survey show that half of all adults are not aware they can access free courses to improve their English and maths skills.

Others do not know where to find information about courses or appreciate how learning can help them to achieve their goals (whether that’s finding work, understanding finances, or helping children with schoolwork).

To help address this, we will shortly be launching a new adult skills and training platform for the region to make opportunities more visible, accessible and attractive for potential adult learners.

We’re also working closely with JobcentrePlus to promote awareness and use of the platform by work coaches.

As the chancellor said in his recent budget speech: “Our future success depends not just on the schooling we give our children but the lifelong learning we offer to adults.”

Getting the basics right is a critical element of ensuring this success – and something we are committed to achieving for the West Midlands.

College forced to reveal secret A-level inquiry results

A college group’s secretive review of over 1,000 students’ A-level grades, undertaken following protests by parents and learners, led to three-fifths of results being changed.

FE Week has obtained the outcome of New City College’s review into this summer’s results, revealing the extent to which teachers’ grades were changed by senior leaders through moderation.

Staff have yet to be told the results of the review, a local union representative has said, but a local MP argued that so many grades being changed back shows there were “issues” with the original process.

New City College was told about ‘deep concern’ around A-level grades

New City College’s leadership changed a series of A-level grades which teachers had set to ensure they were “consistent, robust and in line with historic performance” from 2017, 2018 and 2019, in line with Ofqual rules.

Yet after many students received worse than expected results, they and their parents picketed Havering Sixth Form College, one of NCC’s A-level providers, questioning why their grades had been changed.

Romford MP Andrew Rosindell wrote to group chief executive Gerry McDonald about his “deep concern” that grades had been “significantly” changed from those teachers had set, while Hornchurch MP Julia Lopez met with the college to discuss the issue.

New City College then announced the review but has refused to reveal the overall results of it to students and staff at the college group’s two A-level centres – Havering and Attlee A-level Academy. McDonald said this was to protect their “competitive position”.

One A-level subject had 85 per cent of grades changed through review

Following a freedom of information request submitted by this publication, it has been revealed 1,168 students were affected by the senior leaders’ moderating grades and the review had led to 685 grades being changed – 59 per cent of the grades awarded.

FE Week has also asked for data on how many grades were upgraded or downgraded during the review, but a college spokesperson said they did not have this information.

The subject with the most changes was history, 74 revisions worth 85 per cent of the total; while the grades with the least changes, English, still had 24 per cent, or 18 results, revised. The full table of results is below.

In response to the review results, a spokesperson for Rosindell said that six in ten grades having been changed is a “clear acknowledgement from the college that there were issues in the original grading process”.

Rosindell “hopes as many of these grades as possible were changed upwards and that the anxiety many of the students feel has been eased,” the spokesperson added.

The National Education Union’s district secretary for Havering, John Delaney, criticised a “worrying lack of transparency” about the way in which the grading process has been managed, saying teachers had yet to receive any communication regarding final grades for students this year.

Staff found out on A-level results day in August that teacher-assessed grades for students, brought in after this year’s exams were cancelled, had been changed by senior leaders and are “puzzled” why only a portion of them have been changed through the review.

Staff are “concerned” by the group’s chief executive Gerry McDonald’s behaviour and his “ability to manage future assessments at the centre,” Delaney added.

College says 93 per cent of students secured first-choice university

In response to Delaney, a New City College spokesperson called his comments about transparency “very surprising, as senior managers have met with more than 100 teaching staff face to face to explain the process and answer any questions”.

McDonald and Havering’s principal, Janet Smith, met with 120 teachers to answer questions on how the review had been run once it was over, the college previously said.

With regards to the comments about McDonald, the spokesperson said: “No such concern has been expressed to us regarding the chief executive.”

New City College’s spokesperson said in response to Rosindell’s comments that over 93 per cent of students have secured places at their first-choice university.

We are at a critical juncture on lifelong learning

The lifelong education commission is calling for changes – including a rule that needs abolishing, writes David Latchman

You may not have thought it applies to you, in the relatively stable, professionalised career of teaching, but “lifelong learning” is something we will soon all have to think about.

The fourth industrial revolution, characterised by extraordinary and rapid technology advances, is fundamentally changing the ways we live, work, and interact with each other.

Covid-19 has also transformed normal ways of working for millions of people, opening up opportunities for some, while closing off vital sources of income for many others.

For those least adaptable to the gale force winds of economic change, such developments in the job market may spell disaster.

And if the UK is to remain globally competitive, it will need to redress this skills gap.

In the future, it is likely that workers will have to upskill and re-skill to remain employable.

A report published by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) and management consultants McKinsey in 2020 estimated that five million workers (one in six) are likely to go through a radical career change that requires new training.

Meanwhile 25.5 million will have to upskill as their role evolves and becomes more complex, said the report.

If the education system isn’t able to meet these demands, the UK could face a persistent and intractable wave of unemployment that will be difficult to halt.

Given the UK’s historic problem with adult participation in learning, ensuring it is achieved at scale will be no mean feat.

The statistics are bleak: the proportion of adults in learning has declined since 2015, with participation rates currently at their lowest levels.

Part-time study in higher education has fallen by 54 per cent over the last decade, with changes to student fees instigated in 2012 only speeding this decline.

In addition, only ten per cent of UK adults aged 18 to 65 hold a level 4 to 5 technical qualification (equivalent to the first year of university), compared to 20 per cent in Germany and 34 per cent in Canada.

This skills shortfall is starting to become more widely recognised in policy circles.

Spending on adult skills will increase by £3.8 billion by 2024-25, the chancellor announced last week.

This is in addition to proposed schemes such as the lifelong loan entitlement (LLE) – which, if passed, would provide every adult with a loan entitlement to the equivalent of four years of post-18 study.

The government wants to make the LLE a universal entitlement, enabling everyone to access the student loan system at any age, rather than acting as an addition to the existing system for mature learners.

We welcome support from the sector on this.

But policymakers will have to go much further in their efforts to future-proof the UK skills system.

Policymakers will have to go much further in their efforts

To do this, they will need fresh ideas accompanied by a clear and definitive roadmap to reform.

Luckily, the lifelong education commission – which includes member universities like Birkbeck, University of London – is leading the charge.

Its first report, The Pathway to Lifelong Education, calls for a flexible skills system that would allow individuals to build up educational credits.

This would mean learners could transfer credit between institutions, enabling them to complete their qualifications across a variety of learning pathways.

It also calls for the equivalent or lower qualification rule to be abolished. By denying people access to funding for qualifications that are at or lower than their existing qualification, this rule inhibits reskilling.

The report also highlights the role universities can play in facilitating the retraining and upskilling of the working population.

We have reached a critical juncture. The ongoing impact of Covid-19 and the reality of rapid technological change mean that skills and education reform has never been more vital.

We can either continue to just talk about lifelong education, or we can take the urgent action needed to tackle the fourth industrial revolution.

A tertiary future for Wales

Further, higher and adult education in Wales is set to be funded and regulated by a new statutory body with responsibility for all post-16 education and training, reigniting calls for a coherent tertiary system England.

The Commission for Tertiary Education and Research is a key plank of the Welsh government’s Tertiary Education and Research (Wales) Bill, which was introduced in the Senedd last Wednesday. It’ll be the first such combined further and higher education government agency in the UK that will include maintained school sixth forms.

Further education in Wales is currently funded directly by the Welsh government, with higher education funding being routed through the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW), which will be abolished.

Commission is ‘really good news’

The new commission will have wide-ranging powers, statutory duties and functions, ranging from instituting a register of tertiary education providers, establishing quality assurance frameworks as well as funding, either directly or through intermediaries like local authorities, post-16 education and training.

Yana Williams, chief executive of Coleg Cambria, told FE Week that the Welsh government’s plans for the new commission was “really good news” and would create “a much clearer system that would help learners make good choices and decisions”.

Colleges and universities in Scotland already share a funder, the Scottish Funding Council. However, that body does not fund post-16 provision in schools.

The English report of the Commission on the College of Future, which reported a year ago this month, recommended a “more networked college system” within a tertiary education structure to “develop a much more holistic and better coordinated approach”.

Collaboration between further and higher education providers in England has to date been delivered largely through government-led projects, such as Institutes of Technology and higher technical education reform. At the last reshuffle, the prime minister appointed two joint ministers for further and higher education in Alex Burghart and Michelle Donelan, leading to speculation of possible further convergence between FE and HE.

Ministers hope commission will grant ‘coherent system-wide view’

Establishing a “coherent” tertiary education authority in Wales was the cornerstone recommendation of an independent review of the oversight of post-compulsory education in Wales, led by Professor Ellen Hazelkorn in 2016.

Speaking to FE Week, Hazelkorn said she was “very excited to see that this had been taken on. The Welsh are seen as leaders in this space.”

Another key steer from the 2016 Hazelkorn Review was to introduce a “limited number of high-level strategic goals to guide the system which are sustainable over the longer term”.

Five years on, this recommendation also appears to have been adopted by Welsh ministers.

The new commission will have nine ‘broadly framed’ strategic duties, established in law, which, ministers say, will guide its work. These are:

Promoting lifelong learning
Promoting equality of opportunity
Encouraging participation in tertiary education
Promoting continuous improvement in tertiary education and research
Promoting collaboration and coherence in tertiary education and research
Contributing to a sustainable and innovative economy
Promoting tertiary education through the medium of Welsh
Promoting a civic mission
Promoting a global outlook

These objectives “reflect the government’s long-term vision for the sector”, according to the Welsh government.

Jeremy Miles, the Welsh government’s minister for education and Welsh language, told FE Week that the Commission “will enable us to take a coherent system-wide view for the first time.

“We’re going to be bringing together the funding, the oversight and the regulation of further education, higher education, apprenticeships, community learning, research and innovation, as well as schools’ sixth forms through local authorities,” Miles told us.

‘May be those who want to protect their patch’

The commission will be led by a board with ministers making appointments of the chair, deputy chair and chief executive. Additional members will then be appointed by the commission, including non-voting learner representatives. The board will use the nine statutory duties to inform its strategic plan and report on progress to Welsh ministers and the Senedd annually.

One of those strategic duties, to “promote collaboration and coherence in tertiary education”, will require a culture shift, college leaders have said.

Simon Pirotte, principal and chief executive of Bridgend College and deputy chair of ColegauCymru, welcomed the introduction of the commission because it “puts the needs of learners before the needs of institutions”.

But, he said, “There may be those who are concerned about their own turf and may want to protect their patch.”

Hazelkorn shares similar concerns.

“For a long time, colleges and universities have been in competition, and I don’t think that’s particularly healthy.” When asked about how those at the top of the new commission worked together in the spirit of the new legislation, Hazelkorn suggests that the board should be chosen based on their expertise, rather than the constituency within the tertiary sector they work in.

“The model has often been that boards are made up of representatives of particular sectors or particular agencies. But in this case, you should be looking for people with certain competencies based on their experience, not who they represent. I think that’s an important change. The people on the board, as well as those working for the commission, should embrace and be committed to a tertiary perspective.” Hazelkorn told FE Week.

Wales inspection body Estyn will remain

Policy documents on the new commission reveal that despite falling under one authority, further and higher education providers would still operate under separate quality assurance approaches. Estyn will still be responsible for the inspection of further education; and an appointed quality body, like the Quality Assurance Agency, would monitor standards for higher education.

“I’m comfortable with that,” Jeremy Miles told FE Week. “This is not about creating a homogenous sector – quite the opposite,” he said. “We want to recognise and reflect the diversity that already exists but to make it easier for the different providers to work together in the interests of learners.”

On how he would personally judge the success of the new tertiary commission, the minister told us he would “want to see that our various institutions in the post-16 space are able to collaborate seamlessly with a flexible funding mechanism, and see that learners seamlessly navigate their way between school and the FE and HE provision.”

“There’s an awful lot of work to do,” the minister concludes.