There are some logistical challenges to an international placements scheme during the pandemic, but they’re solveable, writes Sam Parrett

With Brexit spelling the end of the successful Erasmus scheme for the UK, the launch of the Turing Scheme as a replacement was positive news.

Under the scheme, the government funds international placements between two weeks and 12 months long. FE applicants receive up to £1,360 for travel costs and up to £109 per day for living costs.

Unlike Erasmus, the funding is available to go anywhere in the world that a college can set up a partnership. There is no funding available for a return trip from students in the host country to come to the UK: they must secure that funding from their own governments.

However, for us the Turing Scheme is set to be a really important part of our mission to help our students develop a range of employability, communication and social skills. We did not previously belong to Erasmus, so this is our first move into international placements.

But with a global pandemic, we’ve had to find a way to get the programme up and running.

We also know that uptake in FE has varied. In August the Department for Education revealed 110 further providers had won £22 million of funding. But £35 million had been allocated to FE, meaning not all the money was dished out.

The DfE also anticipated 10,000 FE students would be involved. However, colleges applied for funding to cover only 6,000 students.

Here’s how we overcame some challenges, so you can too.

We have initially focused on establishing our programme within Europe; utilising country contacts we already have, with partners we can trust. This will ensure high quality placements in Dublin in Ireland, Seville and Valencia in Spain, Lisbon in Portugal and Larnaca in Cyprus. We plan to develop further partnerships outside of Europe over the course of this year.

Six groups of 20 students (120 in total) will participate in the first year. Placements will happen between February and July 2022, with each one lasting two weeks, plus a six-week placement in the summer.

These students will undertake placements in vocational skills sectors, including cybersecurity, digital marketing, healthcare and early years.

Our students were identified for placements via their vocational area, and their profiles shared with relevant employers in the target countries. Over the next three months a member of our college placement team will visit the employers in each country.

This will help us to ensure their safety and agree on working practices.

The benefits to every student will be immense – albeit not quite on the ambitious global scale we would have aimed for pre-Covid. But that will come.

And by building our programme in a realistic way during extraordinary times, we are giving ourselves the scope to expand.

Positively, 57 per cent of the 120 learners going on placements this year are from disadvantaged groups, of which 10 per cent are from SEND groups. This is higher than the government expectation of 48 per cent of disadvantaged students.

In terms of logistics, managing a multi-country placement programme requires local, specialist knowledge and high levels of quality assurance. Each of our partners has a track record of working with UK VET organisations.

Our head of student placements manages the relationships with partners. With their team, they will accompany the trips physically “in country” as well as coordinate arrangements.

It is a shame that not more colleges are currently taking part

We are keen to establish links further afield in time and hope to work with the Association of Colleges to develop these once we have scoped out this early work.

It is a shame that not more colleges are currently taking part. It is perhaps due in part to the concerns over travel in the current climate.

So although the full scope of the scheme can’t currently be maximised, with careful planning colleges can still hugely broaden our students’ horizons.

At a time when young people have missed out on so many important experiences, educators must now work harder than ever to help fill gaps wherever possible.

Here is a 16-19 manifesto in nine words. Follow it, and ministers can’t go wrong, writes James Kewin

It is important for membership bodies to talk to their members, but it is much more important to listen to them. 

And even over the din created by Covid and exams, concerns about three issues have been heard loud and clear.

The first is the future of applied general qualifications. A two-year phoney war ended in July when the Department for Education revealed that it would ignore the views of most respondents to its consultation and press ahead with plans to remove funding for the vast majority of BTECs. 

A levels or T Levels will become the level 3 “qualifications of choice” for 16-19 year olds. Virtually nobody outside of Sanctuary Buildings believes this is either achievable or desirable. But that’s the plan and that’s what everyone in 16-19 education must prepare for, unless of course we can convince ministers to chart a different course. 

To that end, SFCA is co-ordinating the Protect Student Choice campaign, now backed by 18 organisations, and we are delighted to include FE Week in that number. 

Don’t scrap BTECs is the simple message (we use BTEC as shorthand for all applied general qualifications) and it is one we hope the new ministerial team will listen to and act on. 

The second issue is funding. 

Again, there is a simple message (the base rate of 16-19 funding is insufficient and must be increased) and a co-ordinated campaign (Raise the Rate). 

The campaign had a degree of success in 2019 when the funding rate was increased from £4,000 per full time student to £4,188 (although third year students are still inexplicably funded at a lower rate). 

But since then, investment has once again been limited to small uplifts in funding linked to particular subjects or initiatives. These modest interventions can look good on a government press release, but they have no impact on the vast majority of students. 

The mundane reality is that raising the rate is the only way to ensure 16-19 funding is sufficientand made available in a way that institutions can tailor to the individual needs of their students. 

Covid has strengthened the case for boosting core funding. Education recovery cannot be micro-managed from Whitehall, and colleges are best placed to ensure funding is targeted at the right students, in the right way. 

The third issue is one that has proved to be the final straw for many colleges desperately trying to hold things together during the Covid maelstrom. Audit. 

It is important that public money is spent correctly, and no institution should be above scrutiny. 

But any regime that spends weeks challenging an institution on how it has made free college meal and bursary payments to students during a pandemic has surely lost its way. 

New requirements are added to the regulatory and accountability system each year, but it is rare for existing requirements to be withdrawn. 

The theme that runs through all three of these issues is trust, or more specifically, a fundamental lack of trust. Government knows best. 

Replace these popular and well-respected qualifications with our preferred suite of very different qualifications. 

Let’s hope the new ministerial team is listening

Like a well-meaning but distant relative, we’ll provide you with the post-16 equivalent of gift vouchers to ensure funding is spent on the ‘right’ things. 

And we’ll keep looking over your shoulder to ensure you comply with every aspect of the terms and conditions! 

There is another way. Trust the experts. Give institutions the tools to do the job and let them get on with it. 

Sometimes governments can do more by doing less: don’t scrap BTECs, raise the rate, leave us alone. 

Boring and unfashionable perhaps, but these three ideas would do more to improve the prospects of 16-19 year olds than every well-intended initiative combined over the past 10 years. 

Let’s hope the new ministerial team is listening.