Disruption during the pandemic has forced colleges to postpone industry placements required by 16- and 17-year-olds to complete their T Level, FE Week can reveal.

Early years educator qualifications, including the T Level specialism, require 750 hours or more on an industry placement, far higher than the 315 hours minimum for other T Levels.

A spokesperson for NCFE, who certificate the early years educator T Level, said they “understand the current restrictions bring with them increased challenges for providers in delivering the industry placement element”.

In response, a ‘flexibility’ has been introduced by the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education to reduce this to 415 hours for the current cohort, which the DfE has confirmed to FE Week will be applied to all level 3 early years educator qualifications.

Our students will be disappointed, as they had been looking forward to their placements

Learning outcomes of the course must still be met and the flexibility will be reviewed for the next academic year.

One of the college’s that has had to delay placements is Chichester College, located in skills minister Gillian Keegan’s own constituency, where a spokesperson said all 74 of their education and childcare T Level students had been due to start placements at nurseries, early years providers and schools this week.

But due to Covid-19, “we have sadly taken the decision to pause some of our planned industry placements until after February half-term”.

“This is to ensure the safety and wellbeing of our students, as well as that of the employers’ staff members and the children attending these settings,” the spokesperson continued.

It is hoped Chichester students will instead attend online lessons towards their T Level qualification, with the placement hours being made up later in 2021, “hopefully” after the February half-term, depending on government advice.

Chichester’s spokesperson said: “Understandably our students will be disappointed, as they had been looking forward to their placements.

“However, the employers have signalled that they are still keen to welcome students once it is safe for everyone.”

Winchester-based Peter Symonds College confirmed to FE Week it has also had to postpone placements. It has 16 students on the education and childcare course – the only T Level it delivers – but said: “Given it is a two-year course, we are not yet concerned that this will jeopardise our students’ ability to complete their qualification.”

The two-year T Levels are the government’s flagship technical qualification, and launched in September 2020 with an initial offer of three pathways: digital, construction, and education and childcare.

The T Level industry placements are mandatory and need to be completed in full in order for the student to pass the qualification.

In recently updated guidance that explains how FE providers should operate during lockdown, the DfE said it was “closely monitoring” the impact of Covid-19 on T Level industry placements.

A spokesperson added that the first cohort of T Levels is “relatively small and most placements will take place in 2021/22”.

The HCUC college group in London told FE Week its placements had been “significantly impacted,” by Covid-19, due to the “knock-on effect of the many pressures on employers”.

A spokesperson for the group said it is facing a problem that Derby College Group has also raised with FE Week: the DfE’s T Level guidance states “placements cannot be delivered virtually or remotely”.

Derby College, which has 15 students on the education and childcare T Level, says students have only been able “sporadically” to go into nurseries and schools so far this year.

Instead, they have been meeting with employers virtually. However, this will not count towards their placement hours.

The DfE spokesperson said: “T Level placements cannot take place virtually and therefore can’t count towards the required placement hours – that’s because we want students to have a genuine experience of being in a physical workplace to give them a high-quality experience”.

Thousands of adult education courses across England and funded from the new National Skills Fund will not be inspected by Ofsted, the government has admitted.

FE Week can reveal that Department for Education sees no need for Ofsted inspections for skills bootcamps – a £38 million programme of courses targeting 25,000 unemployed and employed adults, being rolled out later this year.

Instead, a spokesperson said it would be up to providers bidding for the scheme to provide “evidence” that training will be high quality, that it meets in-demand skill needs, and that they have their own “strong” quality assurance and continuous improvement processes in place – all of which “will be key to bids being successful”.

“Potential suppliers can provide that reassurance through qualifications which are already subject to external regulation by Ofqual, programmes of learning assessed using RARPA (Recognising and Recording Progress and Achievement), SFIA (Skills Framework for the Information Age) or other recognised quality assurance process, or are based on industry and/or apprenticeship standards,” they added.

A day prior to the DfE’s response, Ofsted told FE Week its role in quality assuring skills bootcamps was “subject to ongoing discussions” with the Department for Education – so it appears the watchdog has now been snubbed.

The DfE claimed that it was not uncommon for new schemes to not be part of Ofsted oversight at the start but can “come on stream further down the line”.

During previous trials of bootcamps, which are funded by the taxpayer, provision has been delivered by commercial firms that are not subject to any other Ofsted oversight, as well as publicly funded private providers and colleges.

Having colleges and independent training providers inspected for some provision, for instance, apprenticeships, while allowing them to evade it for the bootcamps, could lead to a situation similar to the one in which Ofsted was not allowed to inspect apprenticeships at levels 6 and 7.

Chief inspector Amanda Spielman explained this to FE Week in March 2019, saying that because inspectors were not allowed to inspect higher apprenticeships and the Office for Students could only review apprenticeships if they had a degree element, some providers were going “completely unscrutinised”.

It also meant that when inspectors called at a large accountancy firm, which allegedly had “repackaged” a graduate training scheme as apprenticeships at level 4 and level 7, inspectors could “look at only one piece of this graduate traineeship programme”, the level 4 courses, “which made for an extraordinarily artificial conversation”.

After Phillip Augar’s landmark review of post-18 education recommended Ofsted be allowed to inspect all apprenticeships, the government confirmed last September that the responsibility would be handed to the watchdog from this coming April.

The national bootcamps tender, launched last week, has been split into two lots, each worth £18 million and for delivery from the summer when the National Skills Fund is due to roll out.

The first lot is for digital skills bootcamps in the nine geographical regions of England to “meet the skills shortage vacancy needs of local areas”, starting this April.

The second will award “a number” of contracts for bootcamps in sectors such as electro-technical, nuclear or green energy, but also for digital skills, at a local or national level, based on “evidenced demand”.

Payments to supplier will be on a per-learner basis and drawn out across a number of milestones: when a learner starts the bootcamp; when the learner achieves a required standard; and whether the learner progresses into a new job in six months, a new role if they are employed already, or a new opportunity if they are self-employed.

Both will last for one year, with the possibility of a one-year extension for lot one and two one-year extensions for lot two.

The DfE is aiming for 25,000 people to take part in the bootcamps over the next year, which are open to people aged 19 and over seeking work, looking to change careers, or already in work looking to retrain. Each programme offers “sector-specific skills”, can last up to 16 weeks and include a guaranteed job interview for those seeking employment.

The department said it anticipates that at least 75 per cent of all trainees will “move into a new job or role within six months of completing training”.

Potential suppliers have until February 12 to submit tender bids.

The government has been accused of “losing their way” when it comes to England’s apprenticeships, as the number of standards on offer nears the 600 mark.

Demands have been growing in recent years for the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education to “take stock” and focus on quality rather than quantity, but the pace of standard approvals has doubled since the quango launched its ‘faster and better’ programme of work in 2017.

The number on offer has risen from 300 at that point to 598 as of today. This is twice as many standards approved for delivery compared to Switzerland and Germany – two countries that are often referred to having world-class technical education systems.

A further 83 standards are also officially in development, while proposals for six further standards are also being worked up.

Tom Bewick, chief executive of the Federation of Awarding Bodies, said that from a policy point of view, “English apprenticeships have lost their way” compared to the “much clearer” ambition set out in the Richard Review of Apprenticeships back in 2012.

“The plethora of English apprenticeships standards are in contradiction to what the government says about the number of regulated qualifications allegedly causing confusion for employers,” he added, referring to the current level 3 and below review which plans to cut thousands of applied general qualifications that overlap with A-levels and T Levels.

“The institute appears to have gone down the wrong track of allowing anything to be badged as an apprenticeship, provided a group of employers or universities come forward with an occupational role.”

A report by an independent panel on technical education, led by Lord Sainsbury, was published in 2016 and called for a review of “all existing apprenticeship standards” at “the earliest opportunity”.

The peer made clear he was concerned about standards that overlapped, were too job-specific, or lacked enough technical content to justify 20 per cent off-the-job training.

The IfATE finally launched its first content review of apprenticeship standards in September 2018 – focussing on programmes in the digital “route”. It concluded eight months later and resulted in 12 standards being reduced to nine.

Five other route reviews have since been launched but none of those has finished partly due to the reviews being suspended during the Covid-19 outbreak. They restarted again in September 2020.

Only 43 apprenticeship standards have been “withdrawn” by the institute since its launch, while a further 13 have been “retired”.

Tom Richmond, a former adviser to education ministers and now director of think tank EDSK, published a report last year which claimed £1.2 billion was being wasted on “fake apprenticeships”.

He wasn’t the first person to flag these issues: Ofsted chief inspector Amanda Spielman warned in 2018 that existing graduate schemes were being “rebadged as apprenticeships”, and the National Audit Office reported a year later that “some employers use apprenticeships as a substitute for training and development that they would offer without public funding”.

After hearing that the number of approved standards is almost at 600, Richmond said Lord Sainsbury’s request for low-quality standards and duplicated content to be revised or withdrawn is “plainly not happening on the scale required”.

“Instead of patting themselves on the back for approving a seemingly endless number of standards, the institute should be spending its time sorting out the standards it has already waved through.”

Bewick argued that in “world-class” systems like Germany, the emphasis of standards development is at the industry level, as opposed to the occupational level as we find in England.

For example, English apprenticeships for the hospitality sector include 11 standards: senior culinary chef; production chef; maritime caterer; hospitality manager; baker; chef de partie; hospitality supervisor; senior production chef; commis chef; hospitality team member; and visitor experience and economy leader. There was also a standard for a head barista, which has now been withdrawn.

But in Germany there are five hospitality apprenticeships: specialist in the hospitality services industry; restaurant specialist; specialist in the hotel business; hotel clerk; and professional caterer.

Bewick said the IfATE “needs to go back to basics and decide who apprenticeships are for, what they are for and how industry is best galvanised and incentivised to deliver them”.

Jennifer Coupland, chief executive of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, defended the number of standards, saying that the employer-led approach to developing new apprenticeships has “driven up quality and is delivering on England’s skills needs”.

She said: “We would like to thank the thousands of employers who have identified training requirements for hundreds of occupations right across the economy, following an all-age and cross-level approach that provides a huge variety of opportunities for people from all backgrounds.

“We are always open to ideas on how we can improve our work but firmly believe that this is the right approach.”

Coupland added: “The cross-sector route review process is also supported by our system of revisions for individual apprenticeships, where an urgent need for an update is identified. We’ve made an active decision with employers to slow the pace of route reviews because of the Covid-19 pandemic. While work is continuing, we are all too aware of the unprecedented challenges that employers involved are facing, so are carefully managing what we ask of them.”

The Department for Education did not respond to requests for comment at the time of going to press.

 

A government consultation that asks for views on plans to remove funding for applied general qualifications, such as BTECs, that compete with T Levels and A-levels has been extended.

The deadline for responding to the second stage of the level 3 qualifications review was set for tomorrow, but will now remain open until 31 January.

The DfE claims there is currently a “confusing landscape” of over 12,000 courses on offer to young people at level 3 and below, with multiple qualifications in the same subject areas available – many of which are “poor quality and offer little value to students or employers”.

The consultation was launched in October and set out detailed measures that the education secretary Gavin Williamson plans to take to tackle this, including removing funding for the “majority” of qualifications that “overlap” with A-levels and T Levels by autumn 2023.

It also includes plans to open T Levels up to adults from 2023.

More details on the plans can be found here, and the consultation can be accessed here.

Pearson, the awarding body that runs BTECs, launched a campaign in December to encourage students to respond to the consultation, insisting that “offering learners a choice in what qualification suits their career aspirations best is the right way to support them and the UK economy – both now and in the future”.

A separate call for evidence for qualifications at level 2 and below has also had its deadline extended, this time from 31 January to 14 February.

Members of parliament fighting to save a land-based college have escalated the issue to prime minister Boris Johnson, after the FE Commissioner rejected multiple rescue bids.

Six Conservative MPs – including former Scottish secretary David Mundell – and former Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron have called for the prime minister to support their efforts to save Newton Rigg College in Penrith, Cumbria.

The college has been edging towards closure after FE Commissioner Richard Atkins was asked to review its provision by Newton Rigg’s parent college, Askham Bryan, which has run the site since 2011.

The review concluded in May 2020 the site was no longer financially viable, and it was announced Newton Rigg would shut this coming July, with the potential loss of 117 jobs.

This triggered action by the MPs, who have now written to Johnson: “We must secure a viable future for this educational institution,” they said in a letter, seen by FE Week.

“We would kindly ask you support us in ensuring Askham Bryan facilitate a smooth transition to a new provider and are not allowed to close the doors of Newton Rigg and leave Cumbria without an agricultural college.”

According to the letter, Newton Rigg has operated from its current site for 124 years and runs a dairy farm and a hill farm.

Students educated at Newton Rigg, the letter reads, “will be the farmers and land managers of the future”.

“This pandemic has thrown into sharp relief the importance of food security and a college such as this will be pivotal in supporting that moving forward.”

Following the commissioner’s review, the government announced in June there would be a strategic review of proposals to take over the site, again led by the FE Commissioner.

However, Atkins found neither of the bids put forward – by an organisation called the Hadrian Group and a company formed by the college’s supporters, Newton Rigg Ltd – were compliant with the criteria for the review. Askham Bryan was told to proceed with closing the site.

Newton Rigg Ltd said at the time the decision made them “deeply disappointed and frustrated the review team have rejected our proposals for the future of the college”.

Speaking after the letter to the prime minister was sent, co-author and MP for Penrith and the Border Neil Hudson said he too was “deeply saddened” by the outcome of the strategic review.

Yet the letter reveals bidders have been given a short window has been given to bidders to make their bids compliant before resubmitting them.

Hudson told FE Week this window will only last for a “matter of weeks,” and the two bidders are looking at possibly collaborating.

Newton Rigg is certainly not short of support to continue its education provision: Kendal College has said it will give advice and guidance to the parties looking to keep Newton Rigg open.

But it will not play any more part in a formal rescue package, as it has had to focus on its core provision due to local circumstances, including the impact of Covid-19.

The letter to the prime minister has been signed by Hudson, Mundell, MP for Barrow and Furness Simon Fell, MP for Westmoreland and Lonsdale Tim Farron, MP for Carlisle John Stevenson, MP for Workington Mark Jenkinson, and MP for Bishop Auckland Dehenna Davison.

They are part of a string of MPs who have criticised, and in some cases organised against, the closure of FE colleges in their constituencies.

After Cornwall College Group announced plans to close its Saltash campus, its local Conservative MP Sheryll Murray wrote to education secretary Gavin Williamson in January last year, calling for an investigation “to see if anything can be done to keep this facility available for further education provision”.

The Conservative MP for Rother Valley Alexander Stafford met with FE Commissioner Richard Atkins in February 2020 to discuss the “incredibly disappointing” decision by RNN Group to close its Dinnington campus. The college group later confirmed it would push ahead with the plans.

“Shocked” was how Conservative MP for West Worcestershire, Harriet Baldwin, described her reaction in November to the news Warwickshire College Group will shut Malvern Hills College by August of this year.

A DfE spokesperson said: “Colleges are independent to government. Any decision on Newton Rigg is for the college governing body to make.

“The Further Education Commissioner and Education and Skills Funding Agency continue to work closely with the local authorities, and other stakeholders to try and find a solution for retaining some education provision at Newton Rigg.”

A Downing Street spokesperson said they have received the letter and will be responding in due course.

Pictured: Neil Hudson MP at Newton Rigg College

The government has extended its free digital devices scheme to independent training providers, just days after the skills minister said they would not be included.

A Department for Education spokesperson confirmed today that private providers would soon be able to benefit from ‘Get Help with Technology’ for students aged 16 to 19 on study programmes, including traineeships, and in receipt of free meals.

Those aged 19 or over with education, health and care plans, who also receive free meals, will also be eligible.

The department is looking to invite “the majority” of eligible FE providers to order devices by before the end of January; but can only commit to inviting all eligible providers by the end of February.

Allocations will be based on the estimated number of free meals at a provider and estimates of the number of devices providers already own.

It marks an apparent reversal of policy: minister Gillian Keegan controversially told an FE Week webcast on Monday independent providers would not be included in the scheme, partly owing to how many of their students are on part-time, rather than full-time courses.

Apprentices will not be included in this expansion, it has been confirmed today, after Keegan said: “Their employers are responsible for their technology.”

The ‘Get Help with Technology’ programme includes a £400 million government investment in delivering laptops and tablets to disadvantaged young people who are learning remotely.

The DfE announced in December that 16 to 19 students at schools and colleges would soon be included in the distribution of devices.

Commenting on the expansion to ITPs, Association of Employment and Learning Providers managing director Jane Hickie called it a “very welcome development after the minister’s comments on Monday”.

Hickie had criticised Keegan’s remarks as “passing the buck to the employer,” but she said today that inviting independent providers would be especially welcomed by those disadvantaged students.

“The government’s response should be geared to meeting the needs of all disadvantaged young learners and definitely not according to the type of provider who is offering the learning or the type of learning,” she added.

Written BTEC and other vocational exams planned for February and March should not go ahead, the education secretary has said.

But students taking competency-based assessment including apprenticeships can continue with “protective measures put in place”.

Gavin Williamson outlined the plans in a letter to Ofqual’s interim chief regulator Simon Lebus this morning before justifying the action during a hearing with the education select committee.

It follows a chaotic start to the spring term which saw the closure of schools and colleges to most students, the government insisting that all January vocational and technical qualification (VTQ) exams should still go ahead before backtracking and placing the decision in the hands of college leaders.

Williamson’s letter explained that given the disruption, it is “no longer viable” for written VTQ exams scheduled in February and March to go ahead.

However, where these assessments enable a student to “demonstrate the proficiency required to enter directly into employment, are needed  to  complete  an  apprenticeship, or assessments are available ‘on-demand’ such as functional skills or English as a Second Language (ESOL)”, they should “continue to proceed with protective measures put in place to ensure they are conducted in line with PHE measures”.

“This is to ensure these students can continue to progress fairly with their studies or into employment  and  employers  are assured that students have reached the necessary level of occupational skill,” the letter added.

MPs on the education select committee this morning questioned why the DfE allowed all VTQ exams to go ahead in January but not in February and March.

Williamson did not give a clear answer regarding written exams, but said: “With a lot of technical and vocational qualifications there is almost a license to practice that many youngsters have to have. If they are not able to gain and demonstrate that competency level in the area they are working in it can often create a barrier for them to enter the place of work.

“We took the decision that it would be best to have a permissive approach where we were able to let colleges make those decisions that they know their students best.”

He added that “about a third of colleges” chose to continue with VTQ exams in January.

The Department for Education’s permanent secretary Susan Acland-Hood then stepped in to explain the reason for allowing written exams to go ahead in January but not over the next two months.

“The reason for that was because got quite strong views, not all pointing in the same direction, from the sector themselves,” she said.

“Some were saying the children are ready to sit the exams and we want to enable them to do that and others saying they should be cancelled.

“The permissive approach allowed those who wanted to sit them to go ahead and others not to.

“I think it is different when you look forward to February and March where you have got the ability to plan and you do not have the same situation of children literally being on the point of taking a qualification as the decision was taken.”

Ofqual’s upcoming consultation on summer exam replacements is expected to put forward proposals for awarding grades to VTQ learners unable to sit their assessments.

Association of Colleges chief executive David Hughes said: “The decision to cancel written exams in February and March is a good one, but so is the priority given to ensuring that assessments can go ahead when safe for students taking competency-based assessment including apprenticeships.

“The letters helpfully highlight the challenge of completing college-based programmes in areas key to economic recovery such as construction and where students need to to practise their skills before taking assessment.

“Those students will need to return to college at the earliest opportunity, once it is safe to do so, to complete their training and be ready for the assessment which unlocks job opportunities.”

Toby Perkins, Labour’s shadow apprenticeships and lifelong learning minister, said: “Labour has called for BTEC and other vocational exams to be cancelled, so it’s welcome that the government finally has bowed to the inevitable and cancelled February and March assessments.

“Sadly, Gavin Williamson’s U-turn has come too late for thousands of worried learners, alongside school and college staff who were placed in an incredibly difficult situation over whether to go ahead with January exams.

“The government’s indecision has now created a divide between those students who did January exams and others, creating further confusion for students and colleges. Gavin Williamson must urgently set out how these qualifications will be awarded and stop treating BTEC and vocational students as an afterthought.”

Trade unions and sector representative bodies have combined forces to call on the government to prioritise education staff in the second phase of Covid-19 vaccinations.

The organisations, including the Association of Colleges, the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, Sixth Form Colleges Association and the University and College Union, have today co-signed a letter to health secretary Matt Hancock, education secretary Gavin Williamson and vaccinations minister Nadhim Zahawi.

It comes after FE Week reported a growing opinion among college leaders that further education staff ought to be prioritised for the jab in order to fully reopen safely.

The letter asks ministers to “urgently consider raising the priority level for all staff in early years, school, college, adult education, and independent training provider settings to receive the Covid-19 vaccination”.

It goes on to outline the case for prioritising education staff in the second phase of vaccinations, which will start once care home residents, frontline health and social care workers, extremely clinically vulnerable people, and all those aged over 70 are vaccinated by around the spring.

“Fully reopening education settings is a national priority, the moment it is safe to do so,” the letter highlights, adding that learning often takes place indoors, in close contact, with large numbers of students in multiple groups, which puts staff “at high risk of both catching and transmitting the virus”.

Prioritising them for vaccination, combined with mass testing, “would be a sure way to reduce transmissions, remove any further disruption to the education of our young people and to support the resumption of economic activity by reducing the burden of home schooling on working parents”.

The letter further suggests a sub-group of education staff – those working in early years, specialist settings and those whose role involves elements of health care and very close contact – should be the first of their number to be vaccinated.

Association of Colleges chief executive David Hughes said: “The strength of feeling from all voices within the education sector on vaccinating teachers and education staff could not be clearer.

“Today’s letter is a sign that prioritising vaccinations for teachers and staff who work in education is the best way to support the national effort to reopen all education settings as soon as it is safe to do so.”

University and College Union general secretary Jo Grady said: “The government was right to belatedly move teaching online at colleges last week as part of the new lockdown.

“But college staff and students have too often been treated as an afterthought during the Covid pandemic.

“Any safe return to in-person teaching in colleges must include a commitment to prioritise offering the vaccine to college staff.”

The letter has been signed by the AoC, ASCL, AELP, HOLEX, Landex, Natspec, SFCA, Early Years Alliance and GMB UCU, Unison, Unite and NEU.