The January vocational exam series descended into chaos at the start of the week as the government passed the buck to colleges to decide whether they go ahead, while telling the rest of the nation to “stay at home” as the new variant of Covid-19 causes cases to spiral.

In a live TV broadcast on Monday, prime minister Boris Johnson announced a third national lockdown and that schools, colleges and training providers in England will now be closed to most students until at least mid-February, with this summer’s exams also cancelled.

But in a move that caused outrage across the FE sector, the Department for Education swiftly confirmed that BTEC and other vocational exams planned for the next three weeks and which involve around 135,000 students would still go ahead.

While college leaders scrambled to try and make sense of the decision, membership and awarding bodies were lobbying behind the scenes for ministers to cancel the exams altogether amid safety fears.

But they were only met with further confusion on Tuesday night when the DfE backtracked and said that schools and colleges can now cancel the assessments, but left it up to leaders to decide.

“In light of the evolving public health measures, schools and colleges can continue with the vocational and technical exams that are due to take place in January, where they judge it right to do so,” was the official line.

While the education secretary Gavin Williamson was slammed in parliament for the move, with MPs accusing him of “failing to show leadership”, college bosses were left with decisions to make in the most difficult of circumstances.

After speaking with many of them, FE Week has found that leaders have taken a variety of decisions: cancel all exams; cancel some but not all; continue with all exams as planned, with some offering students the choice. The majority cancelled, and some even had students sitting exams on Tuesday before scrapping the rest following the DfE’s halft U-turn that night.

Here are some examples of colleges in each of the categories and their reasons for the decision they made.

 

All exams cancelled

The Sheffield College made the decision to postpone all of its January exams on Monday, ahead of the DfE’s backtrack, insisting that this was “not a decision we have made lightly, but student and staff safety must come first”.

Around 950 students were due to sit exams at the college over the next two weeks in curriculum areas such as animal care, aviation, science, carpentry, hairdressing, health and social care, information technology, motor vehicle, and painting and decorating.

Principal Angela Foulkes said that in stopping the assessments during this national lockdown she is calling for them to be “postponed and rescheduled to a later date which would be safer for our students and staff”, rather than being scrapped altogether.

Loughborough College made the same call, explaining that with a surge in local infection rates and due to the volume of learners who “travel from outside our area to sit exams”, postponing is the “safest option”.

Capital City College Group, which has campuses scattered across the Covid-19 hotspot of London, said that it also took this decision as cases in the capital worsen.

“To continue with these exams would disadvantage students who, for whatever reason, can’t come to college to sit an exam, and would place those students who do come in – and the members of our staff who must be present at exams – at a greater risk of infection,” a spokesperson said.

“We know that our students have worked so hard to prepare for their exams. We are very sorry for the distress and annoyance caused by cancelling them at short notice.”

A spokesperson for Harlow College, meanwhile, said Covid-19 case rates in young people and adults in its area are “high” and, given the prime minister’s instruction to “stay at home as much as possible”, they “felt it was only safe and fair, to both our students and staff, to cancel the exams in order to protect our community’s health and safety”.

NCG chief executive Liz Bromley, who runs seven colleges across England, added that while her group “recognises that there are many benefits to continuing with exams” they “do not feel it is right to ask students to travel to attend exams” in light of the “national lockdown, a new strain of Covid-19 and high transmission rates across the localities of our colleges”.

All of those that have cancelled the exams have promised that students will not be disadvantaged, and they will work with Ofqual and the relevant awarding bodies to implement “fair” solutions.

 

Some but not all exams cancelled

Central Bedfordshire College has decided to cancel the majority of its exams but to go ahead with some where it would be “advantageous” for students.

Principal Ali Hadawi said his team “considered in detail whether it is possible to run these exams safely for students, invigilators and teachers and whether any student or a group of students would be disadvantaged by not completing them”.

“The guiding principle for the college is that students must not be disadvantaged, including the considerable additional emotional and mental pressure as well as the safety of students and staff,” he added.

Exams that will not go ahead include, for example, BTECs in engineering, where students missed a chunk of learning last month owing to either student or staff self-isolation and still had some way to go to complete the course.

But BTECs in IT, for example, will go ahead in “enhanced safety arrangements” as learners had already completed some modules and needed to sit this month’s exams to complete. All exams offered by exam board AAT will also go ahead.

Dudley College is taking a similar approach. A spokesperson said they have cancelled “any BTEC exams in favour of delivering these later in the year once the awarding body confirms arrangements” but they will continue to offer “other exams, such as AAT and electrical”.

The assessments continuing to be on offer involve those that need to be sat because they lead to immediate career options.

“The college has safe arrangements in place and is therefore happy to offer exams in January, but will focus these on priority areas where it supports students due to achieve,” a spokesperson said.

They added that the college does however “recognise that some students may be unable or unwilling to attend at this stage due to issues with travel, concerns about Covid-19 or family vulnerabilities”.

So anyone who does not attend exams in January will be “entered for a future date as soon as we are advised of these by the awarding body”.

 

All exams continue (but giving students the choice)

East Kent College Group said it has already supported around 500 students to sit their exams this week after receiving “overwhelming feedback” from students who were keen to attend.

They told their students it was up to them if they attended and have achieved an average turnout of around 80 per cent so far this week.

For those who choose not to sit the exams, the college has pledged to do “everything to ensure that future opportunities for sitting the examination are made available” and that “alternatively, the government may offer alternative forms of assessment”.

A spokesperson said it was important to allow students, who have been preparing for the exams for years in some cases, the opportunity to sit them in order to progress.

London South East Colleges, which has campuses across the capital and is also in a Covid-19 hotspot area, has made the same decision. Deputy chief executive David Lambert told FE Week the college group had a 50 to 60 per cent turnout on Thursday – its first day of exams. Around 800 exams are scheduled to take place over the coming weeks.

In a letter to students, the college said: “After very detailed consideration, we have decided to let our students have a choice.

“We know how hard so many of you have worked for these exams, that you will be disappointed not to take them and that you would like the exams to take place.”

Weston College, based in Weston-super-Mare, has taken a similar approach. “We appreciate that some learners are reliant on completing exams to secure licence-to-practice status or a professional status that is important to their career or advancement in work. Where our learners are able and want to take the exam they have prepared for, we will allow them the opportunity to do so. The college will therefore continue with the agreed timetable of exams in January,” a spokesperson said.

FE Week asked the college what the turnout had been like for the exams that had already taken place this week, but the college did not respond at the time of going to press.

Additionally, Telford College has around 20 different vocational exams taking place over the next fortnight. Construction exams went ahead on Wednesday and saw nearly 90 per cent attendance, while music assessments ran on Thursday and had a 100 per cent turnout, according to a spokesperson.

Principal Graham Guest said: “We recognise that it is going to be particularly important to press ahead where we can with exams for vocational training qualifications which can only be fulfilled through practical assessment.”

 

Another flagship national college is set to dissolve after facing insolvency and requiring government bailouts to stay afloat.

The National College for Advanced Transport and Infrastructure (NCATI), formerly known as the National College of High Speed Rail, is consulting on plans to dissolve its FE corporation and reform as a subsidiary company of the University of Birmingham.

The college’s two campuses, in Birmingham and Doncaster, will transfer if the greenlight is given to the proposal. This is being led by the university but supported by partner organisations, including City & Guilds, Trafford College Group and railway training overseers the National Skills Academy for Rail.

A consultation document published on the college’s website says this new model is “expected to enable financial sustainability to be achieved in order to meet the future needs for the rail, transport and infrastructure sectors”.

It would be the second of the five national colleges to dissolve, following the National College Creative Industries.

NCATI needed £4.55 million from the Department for Education to sign off its 2017-18 accounts and was placed in formal intervention in December 2019.

An FE Commissioner report published last February told how NCATI’s board had been advised on how to operate while facing a “potential insolvency” and that “radical change” was “urgently required”.

The college, the report said, needed a commitment of 12 months of continued emergency funding for the board to sign off their 2018-19 financial statements as a going concern.

The college’s 2018-19 accounts are yet to be published. A spokesperson told FE Week this week that the financial statements are currently with the auditors.

When the FE Commissioner’s report was published, DfE ministers placed NCATI in supervised status and a structure and prospects appraisal was launched to find organisations to partner with NCATI, which led to the proposal to become part of the University of Birmingham.

The consultation document also confirms NCATI has lost its place on the register of apprenticeship training providers (RoATP), meaning it cannot start any new apprentices.

An Ofsted inspection in November 2019 rated the college as ‘inadequate’ and slapped the same grade on its apprenticeship provision. According to Education and Skills Funding Agency rules this usually means that a provider is removed from the register.

This has had an impact on the college’s attempts to improve its finances, with the consultation document admitting the removal from RoATP was one of the reasons “it has been unable to secure the growth in income that it needed to be sustainable”.

NCATI is planning to resume recruiting apprentices by regaining its position of RoATP but says it will be able to do so “in the meantime via the university’s registration”.

NCATI has had a torrid time since being opened by then-education secretary Justine Greening in 2017 (pictured, left) as the National College for High Speed Rail. It has struggled to recruit learners due to delays in announcing contractors for the High Speed 2 railway project, which meant employers were unable to commit to the apprentice volumes they had originally anticipated.

FE Week exclusively revealed in February 2020 that NCATI had taken Ofsted to court over the grade four report, blowing £73,000 on the legal challenge, which it eventually abandoned.

What is now being proposed by NCATI and the university, whose bid was announced in August as the preferred one for taking over the college, is very similar to what happened to the National College Creative Industries.

The college dissolved having only made it through 2017-18 as a going concern thanks to a £600,000 bailout from the DfE.

After dissolving, the National College Creative Industries reformed last year as a limited company, NCCI Ltd, which licensed provision to Access Creative College and South Essex College.

This process was overseen by NCCI’s interim principal, Sue Dare – who now works as interim principal of NCATI.

A spokesperson for NCATI told FE Week any potential job losses will not be decided until at least mid-February, after the public consultation has ended and NCATI’s board has approved its outcome.

The consultation is running until 5pm on Friday January 29, and more information is available at www.nchsr.ac.uk/consultation

The Labour Party has called for the wages of 85,000 young apprentices to be subsidised this year, by using the £330 million apprenticeship budget underspend handed to the Treasury in 2019.

The opposition party has put forward the policy in order to boost apprenticeship starts, following a drop of a quarter over the past decade, and the rise of competing skills initiatives.

It is hoped paying the wages of apprentices will “incentivise employers to create new opportunities despite the impacts of the pandemic”.

We need a level playing field and the government should seriously consider what Labour is proposing today

Under the proposal, subsidy would operate on a sliding scale, so employers would receive a full wage grant for employing a new apprentice aged 16 to 24 for the first three months.

The subsidy would then drop to 50 per cent for the next six months, then 25 per cent for the final three months.

Money would be dealt out on a first come, first served basis, and Labour estimates it would save each employer around £3,500 per apprentice hired.

The scheme would be funded through the underspend of the Department for Education’s apprenticeship budget in 2019-20, which, as FE Week revealed last July, totalled £330 million and was quietly handed back to the Treasury.

Toby Perkins, Labour’s shadow apprenticeships and lifelong learning minister, told FE Week the 85,000 figure is based on the number of starts by 16- to 24-year-olds in 2018-19, of which there were around 210,000, according to official government statistics. It takes into account a decrease in starts owing to the pandemic, then taking half of the annual number as the proposal will cover recruitment over six months.

“Our initial proposal is based on a six-month incentive, which would need to be reviewed based on the developing health situation and its impact on employment numbers.”

He said the wage subsidy should be in addition to the long-standing £1,000 incentive that employers receive when they take on a new 16-to-18 apprentice, but not in addition to the other bonus incentives announced in chancellor Rishi Sunak’s Plan For Jobs which end in March so as not to blow the underspend pot.

Perkins added that the wage subsidy would also mean employers look more in favour of hiring apprentices, rather than using the new Kickstart incentive, by which businesses can receive grants of around £6,500 but which do not lead to a qualification.

“Apprenticeships offer longer term employment, have a far greater learning input than the alternatives, last longer, offer a recognised qualification at the end of it and have more established delivery networks,” Perkins argued.

Association of Employment and Learning Providers managing director Jane Hickie said providers have been calling for wage subsidies since the start of the first lockdown, so her organisation has “no hesitation” in supporting Labour’s proposal.

She said apprenticeships offer skills for sustainable employment, but are being displaced by the Kickstart scheme, which does not require any training. 

“We need a level playing field and the government should seriously consider what Labour is proposing today.”

Jon, Graham, chief executive of training provider JTL, supports Labour’s proposal, as he believes “action is needed now” to reverse the decline in apprenticeship starts, as the “thousands” of apprentices his company trains across the country are “vital for supporting a long-term economic recovery”.

A Department for Education spokesperson did not directly respond to the call for wage subsidies but said: “Apprenticeships will continue to play a vital role in growing our economy and as we build back better after the pandemic. In recognition of the benefits apprentices bring to businesses across the country, we’re offering payments of up to £2,000 to employers who hire new apprentices.

“More than 10,000 employers have already taken up this offer, which has now been extended until March 2021, giving more people the chance to get ahead in a range of exciting industries, from cyber security to accounting.”

Under rules for the apprenticeship levy, businesses with a payroll of £3 million or more pay each month into the pot and have a rolling 24-month deadline to spend the funds.

The levy was designed so large employers would not spend all of their funds, and unspent money could be made available to small, non-levy-paying businesses to train apprentices.

Unspent funds also provide a ten per cent top-up to levy funds, and they pay for English and maths teaching for relevant apprentices, among other things.

Yet FE Week reported in July that the Department for Education had handed back £330 million from the apprenticeship budget to the Treasury, to allow it to be “used for other government priorities”.

Perkins said the subsidy proposal is a “specific approach” to the issue of the drop-off in starts, but would look at the situation nearer to the next general election to see if it should be brought in as a permanent policy by a Labour government.

The Education and Training Foundation and the Association of Colleges have appointed a joint director of diversity to “drive plans to increase diversity within the further education workforce”.

Jeff Greenidge, whom the ETF call an experienced teacher, coach and leadership mentor who also chairs Learning and Work Institute Wales, will start working next Monday for both of the organisations.

On top of increasing diversity in FE, “particularly at senior levels,” and the ETF say the job will involve a “specific strand of work on race equality and anti-racism, engaging with the government, the sector and expert groups such as the Black FE Leadership Group”.

The BFELG is an alliance of BAME college leaders which has called for changes in education curricula to cover the impact of Britain’s colonial history, and for teacher training to include anti-racist pedagogy.

Greenidge said he “firmly believes” education has the potential to be an even greater force for positive change in our society.

But for that to happen, “our leadership must be willing to recognise and eliminate those things that we do that exclude, marginalise or devalue others.

“I am looking forward to working with our senior leaders to face these challenges.”

Having started out as a teacher of languages and physical education, Greenidge went on to help start Learndirect, the first UK national network of learning online centres, while working at the forerunner to the advocates for digital technology in vocational education, Ufi VocTech Trust.

He will have a full inbox when he starts his new job: FE Week revealed in July 2019 the number of colleges led by a non-white principal had fallen to a low of seven per cent.

Apprenticeships in particular are proving to be a particularly problem when it comes to increasing diversity: analysis we carried out last October found the proportion of BAME 16- to 18-year-old apprentices made up just 7.7 per cent of starts in the first three-quarters of 2019/20, compared to over 20 per cent for other further education courses.

The director of diversity role was advertised last October and is being funded with 60 per cent of the cash coming from the ETF and 40 per cent coming from the Association of Colleges, as the ETF has a wider remit than the AoC for workforce development across all parts of FE, not just colleges.

Chief executive of the ETF David Russell said they are “very pleased” to welcome Jeff, who will play an “important role in ensuring the ETF is aligned with the challenges and experiences of those working in FE”.

Deputy chief executive of the AoC Kirsti Lord said they are “delighted” to announce Jeff is taking the job, which will be “central in our continued effort towards increasing the diversity of leadership and governance and creating an inclusive, open and diverse culture which supports students and staff in further education”.

Last year, the association set up an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion steering group, chaired by NCG group deputy principal Palvinder Singh, to develop an “action plan” to tackle discrimination across the further education sector.

 

Temporary flexibilities that help apprentices complete their end-point assessment during the pandemic will be extended until at least August 2021.

The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education has made the announcement following the new national lockdown restrictions.

Chief executive Jennifer Coupland said: “We are all too aware that the escalation of Covid-19 and resulting lockdown restrictions are hugely distressing for our sector and beyond.

“It is also hugely important that we do all we can to help apprentices continue their training and complete wherever possible.”

She added that there are now flexibilities in place for over 130 apprenticeships and it would be “wrong to disrupt them at this time. That is why we have made the decision to extend.”

Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief policy officer Simon Ashworth said this is an “extremely positive development and has demonstrated an ability of a key sector regulator to respond quickly in the light of the latest lockdown announcement”.

This is the third extension of the flexibilities (set to end in March 2021) since they were launched in March 2020.

The flexibilities vary for each standard but can include using technology to conduct observations or professional discussions remotely and reordering assessment methods so that written tests or professional discussions can be taken now and the observation delivered later.

The institute said it will not consider the withdrawal of any flexibilities before May 1 and will provide at least three months’ notice of any decision to terminate.

Coupland added: “As we’ve said before, our aim with the extension of these special measures is to provide everyone involved with much-needed stability.

“We continue to be open to requests to new or revised flexibilities and are monitoring closely the overall performance of standards to identify where new flexibilities might be required.”

Like schools and colleges, training providers should only offer onsite training to vulnerable learners and the children of key workers.

The Department for Education said that face-to-face assessment “can continue – either in colleges and training providers’ premises, or in employers’ Covid-secure settings – for vulnerable younger apprentices, those who need access to specialist equipment, and those whose learning cannot be delivered remotely”.

The department added that where they are able to do so in line with line with Covid-19 guidance, apprentices can “continue to make use of the existing flexibilities and discretions approved through the process set out by the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education to undertake their end-point assessment”.

But the use of technology for remote assessment is “encouraged where it is appropriate”.

Following the government’s decision to let providers decide whether to cancel exams this month, awarding bodies have been outlining how they plan to award grades for vocational qualifications if any exams do not go ahead.

All of the media attention has unsurprisingly been on what will happen with BTECs, so FE Week has spoken with a number
of other leading exam bodies to create this one-stop shop for what we know so far.

Pearson

The awarding body for BTECs has said it will award a grade for any student who is unable to take this month’s exams and has “enough evidence to receive a certificate that they need for progression”.

Those unable to take their assessment this month may also “be able to” take it at a later date. “If that is not possible, we will put in place arrangements to ensure you are not disadvantaged,” Pearson said.

A statement from the company added: “We are working closely with the DfE and Ofqual on all of this and we willshare more detail with you in the coming days.”

OCR

In addition to BTECs, exams for Cambridge Nationals and Cambridge Technicals are also running this month.

The qualifications’ awarding body, OCR, has said there may be an opportunity for students to take their assessment in the future if their exams are cancelled.

But if this is not possible, depending on the arrangements the government makes for the summer exam series, OCR has promised: “We will work with the Department for Education and Ofqual to make sure students are treated fairly.”

However, if a student was going to earn their certificate this month, and if there is enough evidence, OCR will award the learner a grade “to help them progress”.

There has also been an extension to the deadline for submitting Cambridge National coursework for moderation.

OCR has said the original date of January 10 has now been moved by two weeks, to January 24.

This means the results day in spring will be impacted, and OCR says it will be providing an updated timetable as soon as it can.

The awarding body has urged colleges to submit coursework as soon as possible “so we have evidence of your students’ work”.

VTCT

VTCT has said the January series of exams will go ahead as planned, but it has set up an additional assessment series in March for its technical award and applied general qualifications if a centre decides that learners will not take examinations in this month.

The additional dates for both qualifications’ exams will be between March 8 and March 12.

This will not change the existing dates in March for assessments for VTCT’s technical qualifications and technical level qualifications.

AAT

The Association of Accounting Technicians has not announced extra measures for students due to sit their qualifications in January, instead telling students who are due to sit assessments in the near future to contact their training provider.

They have encouraged providers to contact students as soon as possible about their “intentions and plans” and guidance has been put together for assessment centres to become Covid-secure.

While AAT is pressing ahead with exams in January, the awarding body said: “This is an ongoing situation, and we will continue to review our approach regularly as it evolves, along with providing updated information and guidance.”

City & Guilds

The number of students sitting the January exam series for City & Guilds and ILM is “very small”, according to managing director David Phillips.

He added that they have already been in touch with each centre with learners registered for an exam, to discuss options if they decide not to proceed; but decisions for what would happen in such a situation have not yet been made.

As for spring and summer exams, Phillips said: “We are working with our regulators and government departments on how to proceed and will communicate with all of our centres and customers as soon as possible.”

A college in Kent has already supported around 500 students to sit their exams this week after receiving “overwhelming feedback” from students who were keen to attend.

The government said on Monday that all BTEC and other technical exams would still go ahead this month despite the new national lockdown restriction, before backtracking a day later and placing the onus on colleges to decide whether or not they run.

East Kent College (EKC) Group told their students it was up to them if they attended and achieved an average turnout of around 80 per cent so far this week.

Education secretary Gavin Williamson said he chose to give leaders the flexibility to continue with the assessments as there are “a lot of young people who will need to complete their professional competency qualifications in order to take up work and job opportunities” and it was important to “keep that door open”.

But many colleges across England have since cancelled the exams amid safety fears.

EKC Group, which is in one of the worst hit areas of the country in terms of coronavirus cases, said that they “believe that we are able to offer these examinations safely and the overwhelming feedback from students is that they would like the opportunity to sit their examinations”.

“Therefore, we will continue to offer the examinations as planned. It will be an individual students choice as to whether they wish to sit the examination,” a statement from the college continue.

For those who choose not to sit the exams, the college has pledged to do “everything to ensure that future opportunities for sitting the examination are made available” and that “alternatively, the government may offer alternative forms of assessment”.

A spokesperson echoed Williamson’s view that it was important to allow students, who have been preparing for the exams for years in some cases, the opportunity to sit them to progress.

London South East Colleges, which has campuses across the capital and is also in a Covid-19 hotspot area, has made the same decision. Deputy chief executive David Lambert told FE Week the college group has had a 50 to 60 per cent turnout today – its first day of exams. Around 800 exams are scheduled to take place over the coming weeks.

In a letter to students, the college said: “After very detailed consideration, we have decided to let our students have a choice.

“We know how hard so many of you have worked for these exams, that you will be disappointed not to take them and that you would like the exams to take place.”

The letter continued: “We also know that many of you may feel anxious about attending on campus at this time.

“We know that some of you have vulnerable family members whom you want to protect, and others have had interrupted learning through needing to self-isolate in the past term.

“Therefore, to meet the needs of as many students as possible, we have decided that we will allow the exams to go ahead for those students who would like the opportunity to take them.”

Weston College, based in Weston-Super-Mare, has taken a similar approach.

“As a college we recognise that learners have worked really hard to prepare for their exams and will be anxious about this situation and the late change in guidance from the government,” a spokesperson said.

“We also appreciate that some learners are reliant on completing exams to secure licence to practice status or a professional status that is important to their career or advancement in work. Where our learners are able and want to take the exam they have prepared for, we will allow them the opportunity to do so. The college will therefore continue with the agreed timetable of exams in January.”

The college added that each learner will “know best their own individual situations, and will know how they personally feel about sitting their exam” so if any student “does not feel able to come into college, the college will support this decision and ensure that they are supported to complete the assessment at an alternative time or through any adaptive assessment protocols that may be put in place by the Ofqual and the awarding bodies in response to the pandemic”.

FE Week asked the college what the turnout had been like for the exams that had already taken place this week, but the college did not respond at the time of going to press.

A former top skills civil servant has criticised the launch of a government-funded campaign to promote free online education content at a time when the third national lockdown shuts the doors to adult education providers.

‘An Hour to Skill’ was launched on Thursday and aims to “inspire people to set aside just one hour a week for online learning” by taking a free online course through the ‘Skills Toolkit’.

The toolkit is a “platform” which offers more than 70 “high-quality” courses, according to officials, and was created by the Department for Education in April 2019 to help teach out-of-work people new skills during the first lockdown.

It consists of a web page on the National Careers Service with short course descriptions and links to the external websites for organisations such as Amazon, Microsoft, Google and the Open University. A previous FE Week investigation found that many of the courses are simply short video tutorials or PDF documents that people can stop and start, with no tuition and no external quality assurance from the likes of Ofqual and Ofsted.

The new campaign will involve the “one-hour” message being promoted through businesses’ channels as well as social media, and “demonstrates that making the time for online learning can feel simple and achievable, overcoming some of the key psychological barriers faced by the people we need to reach”. The DfE is also partnering with well-known psychologist Honey Langcaster-James to elevate the message.

The campaign has been set up as the government urges the public to “stay at home” during the national lockdown, which is due to run until at least mid-February and includes the closure of FE providers to all but vulnerable students and the children of key workers.

Sue Pember, a former director of FE funding in the DfE who is now the policy director of adult education network HOLEX, said the move was “disappointing”.

“I really can’t believe how insensitive this is,” she told FE Week. “Adult education providers and colleges were told to shut by the DfE and then the DfE starts and pays for a national advertising campaign for a set of commercial competitor providers.”

She added that the providers “are all private sector and I am not clear why they are giving them a business advantage over the providers they fund. Where is the national advertising for their provision?”

Pember also questioned the DfE’s claim that the courses on the Skills Toolkit are “high quality, as not one of them has been inspected by Ofsted”.

In response to Pember’s criticism, a spokesperson for the DfE said: “The campaign is backed by all the providers on The Skills Toolkit, including FutureLearn, Institute of Coding, University of Leeds and The Open University, to offer a range of high quality courses.

“The competition was open to all providers and those who applied were subject to a competitive and rigorous quality assurance process in order to have their courses featured on the platform.

“An Hour to Skill is designed to signpost people to these courses to help them develop their skills and to change attitudes to lifelong learning that will benefit all providers.”

In a statement accompanying the campaign’s launch, skills minister Gillian Keegan said the courses can “help boost the nation’s skills and job prospects at such an important time for our economy” and that she is “confident that learning through the Skills Toolkit can give you the skills employers are looking for”.

This follows an FE Week investigation last month in which the government was urged to withdraw claims about the take-up of courses on the toolkit.

This publication found that significant over-counting had already led to revised estimates, and that “course start” and “registration” claims in official statistics will continue to include web hits.

The DfE claims there have been more than 130,000 “registrations” for courses on the platform to date but admits these are “experimental statistics and rely on website analytics submitted by providers”.

More than £1 million had been spent to develop and promote the Skills Toolkit at the time of FE Week’s investigation. The DfE did not say how much extra funding is going towards the ‘An Hour to Skill’ campaign at the time of going to press.