The coronavirus pandemic may have increased the value adults place on learning, for work and their wider lives, writes Emily Jones

This week is Lifelong Learning Week, a chance to celebrate the difference that learning can make to people’s lives. And there may have never been a more important time for adults to engage in learning.

Faced with unprecedented economic and technological change, many adults will need to upskill or retrain to find new work; others will need to develop their skills and adapt to new ways of working within existing roles. But learning is about much more than just work. Evidence on the wider benefits of learning is clear: adult learning has an important role to play in supporting health and wellbeing, in addressing inequalities and ‘levelling up’, and in connecting people and tackling social isolation.

Every year, Learning and Work Institute runs the Adult Participation in Learning Survey, providing a unique and rich evidence base on patterns and trends in adult learning across the UK. The survey adopts a broad definition of learning, that’s not limited to courses, but includes learning at home or at work. 5,000 adults – who are representative of the population as a whole – are asked whether they are currently learning or have done so in the last three years.

This year, the pandemic has had a huge impact on our lives. Following the government’s lockdown in March, many millions of people worked from home or were furloughed, and parents home-schooled their children. Adult learning providers suspended in-person teaching, and where possible, learning was delivered online instead. We therefore wanted to use the 2020 survey to understand whether people used this time at home for learning, and explore the motivations for and barriers to learning.

Many adults (43 per cent) embraced this opportunity to learn through lockdown. This probably reflects reduced barriers to learning associated with time pressures and the convenience of online learning. But the pandemic may have also increased the value adults place on learning, for work and their wider lives. Could this be an indication that lockdown learning may lead to longer-term shifts?

The survey does however highlight stark inequalities in who engaged with learning during lockdown. Younger adults, full-time workers, those in higher socio-economic grades and those who stayed on in initial education until an older age were all more likely to be learning. Among full time employees, those who continued to work during lockdown were more likely to learn than those who were furloughed.

These deep inequalities in participation in learning are of serious cause for concern given the unequal impact of the pandemic on the labour market. We know that workers with fewer qualifications and those in lower skilled or lower paid roles were more likely to have been furloughed or to have lost their jobs. Despite facing a greater need to upskill and retrain to find work in the post-covid economy, these workers are least likely to be accessing learning opportunities.

The government has recently announced a ‘lifelong learning guarantee’ to support people to retrain and upskill, including an entitlement for adults to their first level 3 qualification. While the survey suggests that many adults are ready to engage in learning, it also emphasises the need to ensure these opportunities are targeted at those who are most likely to need to retrain and upskill – but who currently are least likely to take part. Doing so will be vital if we are to ensure that nobody is left behind in the post-covid economy.

We also know that learning is addictive; once adults start learning, they are more likely to continue. Indeed two in three of those who took part in online learning said they were very likely to continue doing so in the future. As we return to ‘normal’, we need to make sure that adults who had a go at the learning during lockdown are supported to continue, helping them to secure rewarding and fulfilling work, and maintain their health and wellbeing.

Bootcamps are a step in the right direction – but lessons need to be learned from pilots like ours, writes Clare Hatton

The prime minister’s recent funding announcement for digital skills “bootcamps”, which will deliver short IT courses to boost employability, forms part of the government’s commitment to improve the UK’s digital capabilities and to “build back better” from coronavirus.

These bootcamps are being built on pilot programmes run in my combined authority, which represents 12 local authorities and three local enterprise partnerships, as well as in Greater Manchester and other established providers.

But there are lessons that should be learned from our “Beat the Bots” programme in the West Midlands Combined Authority, especially around responding to regional demands.

Introduced in 2019, Beat the Bots was designed for two groups: unemployed people in need of skills and training, and employed people in low-wage markets and at risk of automation.

We have worked with 20 providers, including colleges, training providers and new organisations such as School of Code and refugee help organisation ACH.

Through full- and part-time bootcamps we covered everything from coding, software development, data engineering, web design and infrastructure with learners.

The first bootcamps have engaged 800 residents, of whom about half were unemployed when they came to us. The majority are still in training, with the aim of getting 70 per cent into jobs upon completion.

So far we have supported 100 of the 107 previously unemployed people who finished the bootcamps into meaningful employment and directed more women and people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds into the sector.

We have supported 100 out of 107 previously unemployed people into meaningful work

We are now considering how to use the additional £1.5 million funding to expand our offer and hopefully share what we have learnt.

For those authorities introducing bootcamps, here are some words of wisdom:

1. Work with diverse organisations to attract different groups of people. This will enable you to engage more people with special educational needs, BAME communities, refugees, older people and women.

2. Develop an employer-based approach. Employer-led projects and masterclasses allowed us to look beyond qualifications to develop the training to deliver the skills employers actually need. The result is a programme that employers can reliably recruit from.

3. Focus on your region. Co-designed programmes aren’t feasible if you use a national one-size-fits-all approach. Working with local employers provides a clearer route to employment and reflects regional nuances.

4. Warm the market. Leverage existing relationships by involving both training providers and employers in conversations about the programme’s development to create a more cohesive offering. But also take care to avoid conflicts of interest, given the competitive procurement landscape.

5. Attract expertise. Trainers must be experts in their field and have up-to-date market experience. The additional money to hire these trainers may pose a challenge for some colleges.

More broadly, we would also recommend undertaking reviews of contracting models used. Because we were in a pilot phase, we were able to experiment with smaller grants rather than contract for service and sub-contracting models, in order to minimise and share delivery risk.

But the recently announced funding is limited to using a more standard contracting model, so it would be worthwhile considering joint ventures to provide a degree of flexibility for providers.

At the WMCA, meanwhile, we need to roll the bootcamp into our education budget, to ensure these bootcamps don’t end with the pilot.

Finally, these bootcamps can only be successful through a regional and skills-based approach – and that’s why we are calling for the devolution of the National Skills Fund.

Rather than funding being distributed nationally through the DfE, we believe it needs to go directly to combined authorities in the same way as the adult education budget.

The digital bootcamps are a step in the right direction, but the bootcamps must be managed and funded at a regional level. Then they can really help create a talent pipeline for the 21st century.

FE has some of the most diverse classrooms around and should be setting an example when it comes to representation, writes Teresa Carroll

Teaching and learning at its best should reflect the diversity of our learners’ worlds.

Covid-19 has brought into focus the disparity in learners’ experiences from a social and economic perspective. Meanwhile, movements such as Black Lives Matter have highlighted that systems in Britain (sometimes unintentionally) can default to a white, middle-class, heterosexual, ableist norm that fails to acknowledge the full range of our society.

We want learners in FE to see themselves in the curriculum and in the workforce too. Learning is about enriching lives so that learners can become the people they want to be. A learning experience underpinned by “if you can see it, you can be it” makes this much more likely.

That means that we want our learners to be taught more often by people who look and sound like them. But our most recent staff individualised record report, which brought together findings from 186 FE providers, outlines that the 84 per cent of the staff workforce identify as white British; 81 per cent report having no disability and 81 per cent identify as heterosexual.

Meanwhile, the workforce is predominantly female, at 64 per cent, and the average age is 46 years old.

That’s before we even consider FE staff who experience intersectionality of identities, such as being both black and disabled.

Only by fully acknowledging and embracing diversity in all its forms can the FE sector go some way to narrowing the achievement gap in the classroom.

FE is especially well placed to do this, as many colleges have some of the most diverse classrooms in the education system – across age, socio-economic background and ethnicity.

According to the Association of Colleges, 16 per cent of 16- to 18-year-olds claimed free school meals at age 15 last year, compared with just eight per cent in maintained school and academy sixth forms.

An inclusive learning experience is one that is emotionally nurturing

Meanwhile, about 17 per cent of college learners have a learning difficulty, disability or difference, compared with about 15 per cent in schools.

We also know that more than 30 per cent of people who enter the prison system have a learning disability or difficulty. This isn’t good enough.

Much more needs to be done. For instance, in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM), there is evidence that inequity begins early and becomes more pronounced along the educational journey. Male learners outnumber female learners in STEM apprenticeships by 9:1.

Meanwhile, around 27 per cent of young carers experience educational difficulties, including disrupted school or college attendance ̶ a figure that rises to 40 per cent where children care for a relative with drug or alcohol problems.

At the other end of the age spectrum, 99,000 college students are aged 60 and over and we want to make sure that there are opportunities to harness their skills. What are we doing to support them in their next career move?

Finally, almost one-third of adults in FE colleges are from an ethnic minority background, and about a quarter of students aged 16 to 18 are.

So serious work still needs to be done to help teachers challenge stereotypes and avoid reinforcing inequity.

An inclusive learning experience is one that is emotionally nurturing, where learners feel they belong and are valued for who they are, including through the way we listen to them.

We want teaching and learning to be a truly positive experience where learners and staff recognise that learning is about so much more than qualification attainment.

A curriculum that reflects the diversity of modern Britain, and particularly draws on theory and practice from a diverse range of academics, will go some way to engage learners with content that is relevant to their lives.

And remember, it’s important to remember that every learner is different and learns differently. Get to know your learners ̶ if we take the time to listen we have so much to learn from them.

These are three steps the government could take to ensure no other college has to endure the protracted process we have, writes Sarah Stannard

As you may expect of the principal of a college on the road to merger for five years now, I have strong views about mergers.

You may suppose that after such prolonged uncertainty I would think mergers are a bad thing ̶ but that’s not the case.

I have worked in colleges (and companies) during and after mergers. Although there are challenges to doing the process well and making the new organisation effective, I think mergers are a positive way to resolve many issues.

That’s particularly true when policy and funding changes mean colleges become too small to exist as individual institutions. Mergers can allow further education colleges to respond to changing circumstances and continue to meet the needs of the communities we serve.

In Southampton and the surrounding area, it has been clear for a long time that the existing further education eco-system is unsustainable.

When I took up my post in 2013, it was in the knowledge that there were a lot of small and medium-size colleges competing in the same area. In fact, there are eight colleges within 15 miles of the city centre.

Local stakeholders agree there are too many colleges close together

Local stakeholders (governors, MPs, the city council and the local enterprise partnership) all agree that so many colleges close together have an overall negative effect – with destructive competition resulting in too many financially weak institutions.

Totton College was the first institution to need significant intervention and since then, City College Southampton and others have needed financial support or FE commissioner intervention.

So the case for City College’s merger within this local ecosystem is understood and supported by stakeholders, the ESFA and the FE commissioner.

Why, then, after five years has it not happened? And how could the situation be improved, so that no other college has to suffer such a protracted process as we have?

To summarise, we have undergone three separate merger proposals. First was a proposal from Solent University, which was refused by the Department for Education because of concerns about the suggested governance model and not being value for money. Second came a proposal from Eastleigh College which was refused as also not being value for money. Most recently a proposal from Itchen College was refused due to concern that it would not create a financially viable college.

A major issue for us has been the very slow pace of the proposal process and decision-making. It was 18 months from the local area review’s recommendation for the first merger to the DfE’s final refusal, eight months from the second and 12 months from the third.

This has resulted in years of uncertainty for staff and students. Will they be here next year, they wonder? Governors, leaders and staff have been astonishingly resilient and in a recent survey, 97 per cent said they are proud to work at the college. But it must not be assumed that this precariousness hasn’t had an impact on us.

Clearly, deciding about merger proposals is complex, but here is what I would do to improve the situation:

1. Ensure strong project management of merger proposals through them being owned by a single DfE team that would be accountable for progress and bringing processes to a timely conclusion.

2. Second a DfE expert full-time (perhaps from the FE commissioner’s team) to the merging colleges to work with them on the proposal. This would ensure the DfE’s success criteria are fully understood by all parties and that there should be no nasty late surprises. More capacity and merger expertise would also be available to the bidding colleges, which they may not otherwise have.

3. Set a clear timeline for the proposal’s submission, with deadlines along the way so all concerned know what progress has been made and can address issues as they arise, not at the last minute.

In the meantime… I look forward to our next merger being swift and positive.