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ESFA rules out college pleas to soften funding clawback following Treasury intervention

Colleges will not be allowed to submit a business case to avoid adult education funding being clawed back, the government has announced.

Sector experts had hoped grant-funded providers would be able to put forward reasons why they should cling on to the money if they did not reach the controversial 90 per cent threshold.

But in an update published this morning, the Education and Skills Funding Agency said there “will not be a business case process,” and the 90 per cent threshold will be “the final position for the 2020/21 academic year and will not be subject to change”.

Association of Colleges deputy chief executive Julian Gravatt said it seems “self-defeating” to have a “blanket line and not consider the context in which colleges got to the point where they under-delivered, especially when it’s evident that it was largely out of their control”.

“This does not help colleges, it does not help the government deliver its commitments, and it does not help our communities and businesses.”

Situation ‘still difficult’ for providers

FE Week exclusively revealed last week the threshold, much less generous than the 68 per cent allowed for 2019/20 allocations, was demanded by the Treasury.

This is after officials successfully argued colleges have had enough time to reorientate provision and run courses online, where needed, during the Covid-19 pandemic.

College leaders, and allegedly senior ESFA officials, were shocked by the decision, with many leaders saying they did not believe they could make the 90 per cent bar.

Leicester College said it forecasts using just 53 per cent of its allocation this year – and would lose more than £4 million to the clawback.

It is forecasting the clawback will set their finances back five years, and principal Verity Hancock said the college has already suffered consequences, having had to back out of a capital funding bid for T Levels. These are qualifications the provider is due to start delivering from September 2021. The bid was worth £6.6 million and would have involved the college match funding £3.8 million, which, Hancock says, “we can no longer afford”.

Leicester College, along with the rest of the city, has been in continual lockdown since March 2020.

So on the ESFA’s decision to rule out business cases, Hancock, a former Skills Funding Agency executive director herself, said she doesn’t “understand the basis for a decision that refuses to recognise the very exceptional position that Leicester College is in, given that it was the worst affected city in the country from continuous lockdowns, and has the largest AEB offer in the country, focused on those furthest from the labour market, who for very, very legitimate reasons have not been able to learn at Leicester College this year.”

Derby College Group has predicted it will use 65 per cent and lose nearly £1.8 million, and called the government’s decision “tremendously disappointing”.

The Association of Colleges has forecast most of its members will deliver between 75 to 85 per cent of their allocations, which would mean a total clawback of between £22 million and £62 million.

The ESFA said, when the threshold was announced, it was a “fair representation of grant-funded providers’ average delivery” in 2020/21.

Though they admit “the situation is still difficult for providers”.

Department hopes to recover money next financial year

Today’s update said the agency is “announcing this change now to help providers better plan their provision for the remainder of the 2020 to 2021 academic year”.

“Our primary aim is to support providers to continue to deliver as much quality provision as possible, including above the 90 per cent threshold.”

This provision can be face-to-face, online, or otherwise remotely, including through subcontracting in the case of AEB-funded provision.

The agency made clear that where providers deliver less than 90 per cent, they will recover the difference between their actual delivery and 90 per cent. For example, delivery of 85 per cent would result in a recovery of 5 per cent of the allocation.

Recovering funding will be scheduled from this December, and the agency will “preferably” recover money in full in the 2021/22 financial year.

It has promised to “work with providers that would like to request a phased recovery plan,” of up to four months.

“Where this would cause financial difficulties, we will consider cases beyond this with your ESFA territorial team.”

Also included in today’s update was confirmation the Covid-19 skills offer will have a 97 per cent threshold for 2020/21 – which is the usual adult education budget threshold.

The ringfenced offer includes funding for the new level 3 entitlement, which is rolling out with the National Skills Fund next month.

Gateshead College turns to Scottish accountant to take the helm after rocky period

A college that has faced dire financial straits in recent years has appointed a qualified accountant as its new permanent principal.

David Alexander, currently vice principal at West College Scotland, has been named the new boss of Gateshead College.

He said the college’s “clear purpose to give students the employment edge is something I’m passionate about.

“And with such strong progress made towards its financial recovery, I’m looking forward to working with the board, colleagues and partners to develop an ambitious plan for the future.”

Gateshead College has been subject to FE Commissioner intervention, and recently escaped having to merge with neighbouring colleges, after discovering in October 2019 it had a £6 million hole in its 2018/19 accounts.

Forensic auditors were called in and the commissioner, Richard Atkins, set up a structure and prospects appraisal of the college.

Atkins and his team found Gateshead had been in deficit for years, but this had been disguised by a misstatement of certain bills. The college subsequently received more than £5 million in government bailout funding.

Then-principal Judith Doyle, once the highest-paid principal in the country, resigned in January 2020 shortly before the chair, John McCabe.

The college is currently being run by experienced principal Andy Cole on an interim basis. The college’s 2019/20 accounts are yet to be published.

Chair Sarah Stewart said of Alexander’s appointment: “We have a financial recovery plan that is well on track and, having been through a rigorous process which confirmed we will remain a standalone college, I am delighted we now have our new principal to lead us on the next stage of our journey.”

As well as being a chartered accountant, the new principal has held board positions for the Scottish Funding Council, Victim Support Scotland, and the General Teaching Council for Scotland.

Race commission shines spotlight on apprenticeship ‘disparities’

The government’s commission on racial disparities has called for a new apprenticeship recruitment campaign “highly-targeted” at young people “facing discrimination or disadvantage”.

A report published today by the commission claimed ethnic minority families have a mixture of “ignorance and prejudice” about apprenticeships.

That contrasts with white families, who show “a mixture of stronger traditions of understanding and respecting the apprenticeship system”.

‘Evident’ race and age disparities in apprenticeships

In their report, the commissioners expressed concern about “evident disparities in the take-up of apprenticeships across age and ethnicity”.

They analysed data which showed young ethnic minority people “are under-represented in the apprenticeship system, including both school leavers and those who take up apprenticeships in their early 20s”.

The commission adds that in London, before the levy was introduced in 2017, those from the black ethnic group were “well represented in apprenticeships overall – however, they were also more likely to be clustered in lower level and lower paid apprenticeships”.

It quotes a survey by Youth Employment UK which earlier this year found that 33 per cent of black respondents had never had apprenticeships discussed with them, compared with 13 per cent of white respondents.

Exclusive analysis published by FE Week in October found that ethnic minority 16- to 18-year-old apprentices made up just 7.7 per cent of starts in the first three-quarters of 2019/20, a finding that sector leaders branded it a “national disgrace”.

The race commission, which was ordered by prime minister Boris Johnson and has been chaired by former schoolteacher Tony Sewell, recommends a new recruitment campaign to tackle this issue.

‘Highly targeted’ recruitment campaign for young apprentices

Its report says the campaign should be designed partly by the Department for Education and the Department for Work and Pensions and delivered through colleges, Jobcentre Plus, and school career hubs.

It would use role models, employer testimonies, and data on potential earnings and progression, and would explore the factors which influence a young person’s career choices.

This includes parental engagement, peer influence, access to information, and employer links to students.

The campaign, the commission recommends, would be split into a pilot phase in “left behind” areas of England.

Followed by a national roll-out with a “well-evidenced, highly targeted” campaign, focused on getting young people into jobs in “growth sectors” as part of an apprenticeship.

There should also be “rewards” for providers for “successfully achieving this”.

DfE working to make role models ‘visible’ in campaigns

FE Week has reported over a number of years on the problems around, and the government’s efforts to rectify, the poor representation by ethnic minorities in apprenticeships.

The Department for Education’s public attempts to redress low ethnic minority take-up goes back to when Justine Greening was education secretary under Theresa May.

Greening was accused of being “all talk” after telling the Education Select Committee the government had a “big focus” on encouraging “a higher proportion of BAME [black, Asian and minority ethnic] young people going into apprenticeships”.

This was after FE Week found at the time just eight per cent of England’s young apprentices were BAME.

Since then, the DfE says it has “ensured that young BAME role models are visible in campaigns such as ‘Fire It Up’, and that we are hearing the voices of young apprentices (including BAME) through apprentice networks such as the Young Apprentice Ambassador Network, and the Apprentice Panel”.

And last month, the government has appointed former college lecturer and Grimsby MP Lia Nici as chair of the Apprenticeship Diversity Champions Network.

The Department for Education and Government Equalities Office, which is leading on the report, was approached for comment.

Colleges for learners or employers? Governance adviser to government warns of legal tension

The government’s drive for colleges to focus on helping the economy goes against their “lawful purpose” of meeting the needs of learners, a governance expert has warned.

Fiona Chalk, national head of governance development for The Education and Training Foundation, told an FE Week webcast this morning there is an “inherent tension” between the two goals.

“It is colleges’ lawful purpose to meet the needs of students first and foremost,” Chalk said, and “you could argue that it is not a lawful activity for college corporations to have, as their primary purpose, meeting the needs of employers or indeed the local or national economy.

“Any benefit to employers or the economy has to come as an indirect outcome of corporations’ activity around meeting the needs of its students.”

Chalk, alongside the Association of Colleges’ governance adviser Kurt Hall, and lawyer Mark Taylor from Eversheds Sutherland, was speaking on the fourth chapter of the Skills for Jobs white paper.

The chapter sets out reforms intended to “strengthen” college governance, within the paper’s overall objective of “placing employers at the heart of defining local skills needs”.

Colleges operate as exempt charities, so for instance, do not have to submit accounts to the Charity Commission, but do have to apply to them if they wish to remunerate governors.

Under the white paper’s plans, employer bodies such as Chambers of Commerce are set to head Local Skills Improvement Plans, which will “shape technical skills provision so that it meets local labour market skills needs”.

Chalk, whose employer the ETF is one of government’s most trusted delivery partners in the FE sector, said she expected there to be “some synergies” between helping students and employers, but warned: “There’s a real, inherent tension here.”

A number of chairs, including for colleges focusing on sport, or which are “heavily involved” in creative industries, or which have “huge” adult learning provision have already been in touch with her, she said.

They are worried that “although they may be meeting the needs of their students under charity law, what happens if they’re not sufficiently fulfilling the local skills improvement plans?

“Does that mean they’re going to be under intervention?”

The Department for Education’s director of post-16 strategy Keith Smith confirmed during an FE Week webcast earlier this month an upcoming Skills Bill, based on the white paper, will enable the education secretary to intervene where colleges refuse to deliver courses decided through the plans.

But, Chalk questioned: “Which duty trumps which duty? Which voice in the boardroom is going to be louder, that of students or that of employers?”

She was backed up by Taylor, who said the government “is giving colleges a different mission, so how does that fit with that existing charity and its duties?”

“It’s even more complicated than that though,” he advised, as although governors “have an obligation to further the objects of the college, nobody tells them what those objects are.

“You actually have to look at what the statutory powers of a college are, and guess what their charitable objects are, which isn’t ideal at the moment, but this could make things even more complicated.”

The Lowered Threshold: Our Support to You

After a challenging year for Colleges and providers, as everyone is now aware the ESFA announced that the Adult Education Budget threshold for colleges has been lowered to 90% rather than the normal threshold of at least 97% of their allocation. The reduction to 68% last year, owing to the impact of Covid-19, led to the expectation for many that a similar threshold might have been set for the current academic year however this was not the case (source FE Week).

Easter is rapidly coming upon us with many staff already on their knees and needing a well deserved break, after what has been an exhausting 12 months for everyone in the sector. For many the thought of having to find the learners and arrange the delivery to reach this threshold creates even more pressure. 4 months left and a mountain to climb is what we are hearing from across the sector.

Every college and provider is likely to be a different position – maybe with the staff to deliver but can’t reach the learners, or learners that can’t or won’t come to a physical location, or a desire to deliver online but without the resources to support, or just not having the capacity needed to deliver the volume of learning required.

The Skills Network work with hundreds of colleges and providers and offer a range of services to support in AEB delivery (as well as support for full time learners, traineeships, apprenticeships and corporate learning). Conversations over the past week have varied significantly depending on the individual circumstances faced.

Yes, we have the capacity to add to our sub-contracted provision, and that is an option, but time is running out to get learners through a programme so decisions need to be made quickly. For some an alternative might be a contract with The Skills Network that crosses over two funding years starting enough learners this year to reach that magical 90% and completing them the following financial year during the summer months. Our success rates are consistently over 90% with amazing learner and employer feedback with a growing number of colleges and providers returning each year as TSN become a core part of their quality offer.

But for many colleges, including those that subcontract, there are a range of services that we can provide to assist in their own delivery and support their own staff in delivering high quality online learning.

Here’s what we can do…

We are able to offer you a tailored package of products and services that are right for your organisation with unlimited advice throughout. Over the past year we have found ourselves in the fortunate position of having the resource, and more importantly the experience of 8 years of online delivery, to deliver ourselves and support others. Many of the challenges our partners have had to face, TSN has had to work through, often painfully, but with the benefit of time to resolve issues and refine the model, and of course not dealing with a pandemic and having to flip the model overnight.

So, what can TSN offer to you?

Learner Management System

EQUAL is a cloud-based, award-winning learning platform that enhances online learning delivery and training management. EQUAL brings together course management features, engaging online experiences and streamlined administration tools to help you achieve your online or blended learning needs. Your learners can access self-paced learning anywhere and at any time, and faculty staff are able to effortlessly track and manage their journeys. There are numerous ways your organisation can benefit from EQUAL, whether it is creating your own training programme, utilising our readily available nationally recognised and accredited qualifications, or implementing the tracking and reporting system as well as a powerful diagnostic tool and other functions. We have put a lot of effort into assuring that learners that use our system have a great experience, and that the evidence is their when Ofsted come a knocking with the Education Inspection Framework under their arm.

Learning Resources

The Skills Network provides high quality learning resources, both paper based and online, in a wide range of subject areas to support the delivery of a range of qualifications. Designed in-house by industry experts, our learning resources are currently being used by over 200 Colleges, numerous private training providers and corporate organisations to assist with the delivery of learning, via our award-winning online learning platform EQUAL.

CPD Short Courses

We have 50 CPD Certified courses available to upskill and enhance your learner’s knowledge.

Tutor Services

Although many colleges have a strong workforce ready to support their learners, some may feel that they need extra support in their delivery. Especially for new programmes such as Warehousing, where the expertise might not be immediately available. We pride ourselves on our innovative delivery model which includes learner support, quality tutor feedback and personal choice of learning method.

Subcontracting Services

We ensure that our learner find in strategic and in line with your organisations aims. If you have a delivery team ready to go and just need us to find learners, we can tailor your package cater for this. Our unique learner find technology means your hardworking staff can focus on that high quality delivery.

Mark Dawe, CEO at The Skills Network:

“Since the announcement, we have been talking to many of our College partners in very open conversations and we completely understand the challenge many of them face reaching even the reduced threshold of 90% just set by the ESFA, given the year we have been through so far. At The Skills Network we work with hundreds of providers and colleges providing learning resources and other services to assist in the online delivery of AEB and other learning and skills, as well as a range of sub-contracting of delivery to students in their local area. As much as this will be a distressing time for some providers, we are here to offer reassurance that we can provide a trusted solution to your funding queries.”

We can provide help and support on how to maximise your budget in efforts to make up that remaining allocation in the final weeks. We are a trusted provider with a unique offer. If you need help or advice on how to support the delivery of your AEB funding or any other aspect of online learning please contact us:

Email: mark.dawe@theskillsnetwork.com

Telephone: 01757 210522

Facebook: The Skills Network

Can the government fix the ‘confusing’ careers landscape?

The skills white paper sets the lofty ambition of a “clear, all-age careers system”. Will a former academic be the man to deliver it? Jess Staufenberg reports

In 2013 Michael Gove had something of an outburst in an education select committee hearing. He’d just axed Connexions, the national careers advice service for young people aged 13 to 19, and retorted in the face of criticism there was “a lot of garbage talked about careers”.

Poor career opportunities for students, the then education secretary thundered, “comes down to our failure to ensure that they are literate, numerate and confident in subjects like science – not that we have had an insufficient number of well-paid careers advisers.”

Wind forward to 2021 and it would be tempting to say the government is now eating those words. In the recent Skills for Jobs white paper, the Department for Education admits “there is no single place you can go to get government-backed, comprehensive careers information”, adding the careers landscape can be “confusing, fragmented and unclear”.

It would seem to suggest the National Careers Service, set up by Gove the year he axed Connexions, might not be working as a single source of support as intended, and that perhaps the DfE’s careers strategy, published after much delay in 2017 as an “ambitious plan”, is struggling too.

It’s all something of a vindication for Robert Halfon, the education select committee chair, who has claimed “careers support is still far too fragmented” with a “confused mish-mash of offerings” and “wasteful spending and duplication” of services.

‘Challenges to alignment’

Now the skills paper sets the lofty ambition of a “clear, all-age careers system”. A sentence outlines the main strategy towards this: “We will improve both local and national alignment between The Careers & Enterprise Company (CEC) and the National Careers Service (NCS)”.

Set up by Nicky Morgan in 2015, and with a new chief executive Oli de Botton at the helm since February, the CEC deploys volunteer “enterprise advisers” (often local employers) and helps “careers hubs” of schools and colleges support each other. On the other hand, the National Careers Service (NCS) works through subcontractors, who target specific cohorts of adults that worry the government – such as the long-term unemployed – while providing only phone and web services to those aged 13 to 19. Matching the two up sounds a daunting task.

The man appointed to crack it is Professor Sir John Holman, a chemist at the University of York and now an “independent strategic adviser on careers guidance” to Gavin Williamson. Holman himself came up with the eight Gatsby benchmarks for good careers guidance that the Careers & Enterprise Company encourages schools and colleges to meet. But can he do it?

“They’re trying to line up two things that are completely separate and different,” says Jan Ellis, the chief executive of the Career Development Institute, a professional body for careers educators. “The Careers & Enterprise Company is an arms-length company of the government, there to help manage careers guidance. The National Careers Service is completely different, it’s a contracted-out organisation. Managing contractors is expensive, so it’s really difficult to say how you would join these up.”

Her words are echoed by Janet Colledge, a careers education consultant on the Quality in Careers Standards Board. “It’s going to be interesting to see how Holman sees the CEC and NCS working together, because until now the NCS has basically been trying to get people into jobs. It has a very limited remit with young people”.

Holman does give some hints as to what might be in store, expanding on the white paper’s mysterious claim that the DfE has developed “four principles for increasing alignment”. FE Week can reveal these are completing the national rollout of the careers infrastructure; developing an enhanced national careers service website; better collaboration at an area level; and complementary personal guidance for young people.

His first hint relates to the almost 50 career hubs in the country, which are meant to share best practice and develop local careers strategy. About half of FE colleges (155) and 45 per cent of secondary schools (2,090) are in a careers hub, according to the CEC. “The NCS has area contractors, and the CEC has a growing network of careers hubs, and I’m quite sure we can look at how we can get collaboration happening systematically between those two,” Holman says. It’s not absolutely clear what this means, but it looks like career hub leads in schools and colleges might play a part in linking up with the National Careers Service.

Data should also be shared, he says. “Labour market information, which is all those statistics about different jobs, vacancy rates, opportunities – if we could use that consistently across the two organisations, that would be a big win.” It sounds sensible, but can the DfE easily gather that data from its NCS subcontractors?

When FE Week asked the DfE for the numbers of young people who use the NCS each year, it responded that such information was not published and was not something the department could easily access or provide. More worryingly, the same response was given when asked how much funding the NCS has had since it was formed. Aligning data across both bodies sounds an easier task than finding it in the first place.

If you’re starting off, you really need that one-to-one support

Holman would also like a “single source of government-assured information used consistently across schools and colleges […] so schools, colleges and the NCS are all speaking the same language”. If the NCS website proves highly inspiring to students, that sounds sensible too. Given there’s no available data on whether young people find it useful or not, it might be a good idea to get feedback on its design first. A schools expert has previously called the site “as dull as dishwater”. It has to be said, the civil service-format homepage isn’t exactly engaging.

But as Halfon says, it’s a start. “This is a step forward and it’s a pretty big nod.” Yet he adds that “we need to radically reform careers advice”. He’s with the experts on that.

‘Lack of personal, professional advice’

Olly Newton, the executive director at the education research charity the Edge Foundation, similarly welcomes the “alignment”, but is clear the current ambition is too limited. “My worry about the connection between the services is making sure it focuses enough on face-to-face guidance. Lots of evidence suggests that telephones, the internet and self-help are OK for adults changing jobs. But if you’re starting off or thinking about a future career, you really need that one-to-one support”.

Here we arrive back at Gove’s original distaste for careers advisers. Deirdre Hughes, a careers policy adviser, points out that although Gatsby benchmark 8 says schools and colleges must make sure every student has “guidance interviews with a qualified careers adviser”, they have to buy this in themselves as qualified careers professionals have not been funded for schools since 2012. One helpful alignment would be for the NCS to offer its qualified advisers to students via schools and colleges, she says. At present “the model is to expect teachers to do more”.

It all puts the DfE under pressure to deliver. Worrying statistics are lining up: this week a survey of 10,000 primary school pupils by Education and Employers, a UK-based charity that “connects volunteers from the world of work with schools”, found the career aspirations of seven year-olds were “relatively unchanged” by age 18. UCAS has similarly found that 20 per cent of students said they couldn’t take the course that interested them because they didn’t have the relevant A-levels.

Clare Marchant, the chief executive at UCAS, says “the more we can do, earlier on, the better”, including year 6. Yet primary schools, and special needs schools and colleges, are not mentioned in the white paper.

All the while, select committees will keep their eagle eyes on the funding spent on the current model: £29 million for CEC last year, up from £19 million the year before (despite Morgan pledging it would be self-funding long term) and undisclosed sums on the NCS. It’s less than the £230 million spent on Connexions, Hughes says, but it’s creeping up – while funded, professional careers advisers in schools and colleges remain nowhere in sight.

In a last sentence, the skills white paper almost seems to guess a more wholescale approach might be needed. The “alignment” will take place over the next 18 months, it says – “as we work towards a longer-term review of the delivery system”. Will that “insufficient number of well-paid careers advisers” come to matter after all?

Ofqual VTQ consultation – what does this mean for the future of assessment?

Ofqual VTQ consultation – what does this mean for the future of assessment?

Stewart Foster, Chief Operating Officer and Responsible Officer at NCFE

The past 12 months have certainly brought about their fair share of challenges, and from an education point of view, especially as an awarding organisation, the challenge of how to adapt teaching and assessment has been the biggest by far.

Education firmly in the spotlight

Earlier in the year, Oqual launched a consultation on alternative arrangements for assessing and awarding vocational and technical qualifications (VTQs) which received a staggering number of responses. The volume of interest in the consultation drives home the importance of getting the assessment model right, both for this academic year and for years to come. People are realising the economic and societal impact of the pandemic and the huge part that education will play in building back our economy and closing vital skills gaps.

In anticipating the outcomes of the consultation, we knew how incredibly important it was to ensure that we were ready for whichever scenario unfolded. Having the knowledge of how quickly the sector had to adapt last year gave us insight into how both centres and learners needed to be guided through the process. Centres look to us to provide the support and guidance they need to get through times such as these so being ready to implement the changes to assessment models was incredibly important, and communicating those changes and adaptations as clearly as possible to our customers was and is paramount.

Embracing change and collaborative working

The changes which have been brought about by the pandemic have meant that as a sector, we’ve had to work together more than ever. We’ve been working with sector bodies, awarding organisations, centres, employers and government to ensure that our offer is aligned and the validity and robustness of assessment is at the forefront of all decision-making. It’s been a time of unification and collaboration that we should embrace and continue to nurture.

What we now need to look at is how learners progress through not only this year but also the years to come, having missed out on significant milestones and experiences. There will not only be motivational and engagement barriers to learning, but also significant mental health issues that we cannot afford to overlook. As a sector, and as a society, we need to do all we can to support our young people in emerging from what has been an incredibly unsettling and stressful year for so many.

Using technology to transform teaching and assessment

One significant leap forward in the sector is the amount we have had to embrace and embed technology as part of teaching and assessment. The flexibility of things like remote invigilation and online learning have revolutionised how we operate and provided a whole new way of working with learners and teachers. This is something that we need to further develop, keeping assessment aligned with technological advancements to create more streamlined and agile processes. More flexibility with assessment also means more inclusivity, ensuring that learners can undertake their assessments where and when they’re ready.

VTQs are practical for a reason

Assessing VTQs is completely different from assessing traditional academic subjects. In adapting assessment practices, we need to ensure not only that knowledge is assessed, but that capability to undertake the practical skills required for the job/field of work are accurately observed, especially when a learner is preparing for a role where they would handle or be responsible for tasks where safety is at stake. Standards for VTQs are very closely linked to jobs and real-life experience so the assessment also needs to reflect this.

Final thoughts

I think we need to take a long hard look at how we work to shape the system moving forward; it’s clear that we need to appreciate the scale of this and change can’t happen overnight but we have proved that we can make huge strides when we work together. It’s up to us to keep this momentum going.

Ultimately what we want and need for the future of education is a system built on success and progression, and that is fundamentally what we are trying to achieve.

For more information on NCFE’s response to the alternative arrangements for awarding in 2020-21, please visit our Covid response hub.

Ofsted summer inspection plans revealed

Full graded inspections of new providers, and monitoring visits to those rated grades three or four will resume in the summer term, Ofsted has announced.

The watchdog revealed earlier this month that full graded inspections to all education settings would not return until September, but they would bring in a “next step” as part of a phased approach.

Today, it was revealed for FE and skills providers specifically, the inspectorate would resume face-to-face monitoring visits for those rated ‘requires improvement’ or ‘inadequate’ from May 4.

Furthermore, full inspections of providers which have had a new provider monitoring visits will pick up again in the summer term.

It has already been announced new provider monitoring visits would resume from March 15.

All of this activity is being planned to take place face-to-face.

Ofsted has said it will continue to “conduct emergency monitoring visits or full inspections of providers where serious concerns are identified”.

A spokesperson said they are “committed to returning to carrying out face-to-face inspections of FE providers this summer.

“Our inspections have an important role to play: they look at the progress made in establishing high quality new provision, the quality of education and training provided to learners, and provide information to learners, employers, parents, and the government.

“Our feedback and reporting helps providers improve by identifying strengths and weaknesses in provision.”

The watchdog also announced today it will be making “lighter touch” on-site visits to schools in the summer term, to see how students are being educated and kept safe.

These inspections, which came about after “extensive” discussions with government and sector leaders, will not result in a grade.

A press release issued by the watchdog said schools could receive a full graded inspections if, during one of these light-touch visits, their current grade is no longer considered a fair reflection of its work. The full inspection could take immediately or later in the term.

FE Week has confirmed with Ofsted this will not apply for colleges and FE providers.

Inspection methods are also set for limited changes, to take account of the challenges caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

An updated set of inspection handbooks with the full set of changes will be published after the Easter break, Ofsted has said. And it is working “closely” with education recovery commissioner Sir Kevan Collins on how its work “can support the longer-term education recovery”.

Ofsted had halted all inspection activity at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, but introduced interim visits to providers of all grades in the autumn term, and progress monitoring visits to poorly-graded providers this term – though these were cancelled earlier this month.

We must tackle the worrying trend in digital skills and qualifications

Our latest report reinforces findings that the digital skills gap is gendered and has regional biases, writes Emma Roberts

Essential, and in demand. This is the stark message from employers about the absolute necessity of high-quality digital skills. Yet a worrying trend is emerging. While employer demand for digital skills is set to continue to grow, participation in digital skills training has declined.

The number of young people taking IT subjects at GCSE has fallen by 40 per cent since 2015, with the number taking A-levels, further education courses and apprenticeships all declining.

We partnered with the Learning and Work Institute and engineering sector support body Enginuity to better understand the supply and demand issues around the digital skills gap, from the point of view of young people and employers.

Our research report, Disconnected: Exploring the Digital Skills Gap, shows three key findings.

‘Work to do’

Firstly, there is a mismatch between supply and demand, with 60 per cent of employers interviewed stating that digital skills will become even more important to their business in the next five years.

However, analysis shows that the number of students training in digital skills is on a downward trend and only 18 per cent are very confident that they have the advanced digital skills that employers are looking for.

Secondly, the digital skills gap has a strong regional bias, with career opportunities overly concentrated in London. Yet analysis of our training programmes shows there are hotspots of digital skills being developed in South Wales, Glasgow, Manchester and many other places across the UK.

Thirdly, and even more worryingly, there is a significant gender gap, with young women reporting they are both less confident and less interested in digital careers compared to young men.

The findings are even more important when you look at how the UK compares to other countries.

We know from research from consultancy firm EY that when international investors are looking at where to invest, skills are one of the most important factors they consider.

Our international benchmarking also shows that we have some work to do. At the last three international WorldSkills events, the UK ranked ninth across the digital competitions out of 38 countries, with Singapore, China and Russia all ahead of us.

This shows that we need to go further to ensure more young women and men are motivated to take up digital careers and that they can access world-class training.

‘Showcase these in-demand skills’

Now we want to act on the outcomes of this research, and are committed to three key actions.

Our careers advocacy programmes will engage 50,000 young people from all backgrounds, over the next 12 months.

We will also introduce peer role models who use digital skills in their careers, ensuring at least half are female, in our social media campaigns.

Additionally, through a strategic review of our national competitions programme, we will identify how digital skills should be developed ahead of the 2022 competitions cycle.

Calling for digital skills to be embedded in the next global review of WorldSkills standards will help ensure that they are expected alongside exceptional technical and mindset skills.

Lastly, we will continue showcasing the most in-demand digital skills within our competition portfolio, nationally and internationally.

By striving to achieve ever-higher standards in areas such as cyber security, building information modelling and 3D game art, we will aim for a top five place in the global finals of the digital skills competitions in WorldSkills Lyon in 2024.

We also expect significant progress to be made towards that target at WorldSkills Shanghai in 2022.

We want to reverse the downward trend in digital education and training, by working with our partners to show that digital careers are for everyone and driving up standards in digital training.

We want to inspire more young people to take up digital skills courses at college and digital apprenticeships as routes to real success in work and life. This can help young women and men prosper and ensure employers access the high-quality employees they need.