The Department for Education has announced today any provider delivering 16 to 19 study programmes will be able to run T Levels from 2024.
In an update to its ‘T Levels: next steps for providers’ document, the Education and Skills Funding Agency said: “By 2024 all T Levels will have been delivered for at least a year and we will be moving towards full national roll-out.
“Therefore from 2024, T Levels will be available to be delivered by all providers delivering 16 to 19 study programmes.”
This will affect colleges, school and independent sixth forms, and certain independent training providers, and will come after the remainder of the 25 T Level routes are intended to have been rolled-out in 2023.
The first three T Levels were made available this September, with another seven yet to be rolled out next year, followed by eight more in 2022.
It was announced in June the DfE had dropped the requirement for training providers to be rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted to deliver T-levels. But providers rated ‘requires improvement’ or ‘inadequate’ were only allowed to teach T Level routes introduced in 2020 and 2021.
Today’s change, allowing any and all to run the government’s flagship qualifications, comes after schools and colleges have struggled to attract learners to the brand-new programme.
FE Week analysis in September found the providers which launched T Levels had missed two-thirds of their enrolment targets.
Out of 44 colleges and schools starting T Levels this year, twelve colleges and four school sixth forms provided breakdowns of their 28 enrolment targets, showing 19 (or 68 per cent) were under target.
The post-Covid business recovery is going to rely on innovation as never before. And this is where FE colleges will prove crucial, says Marguerite Hogg.
Earlier this year during lockdown, the Association of Colleges ran the first home learning webinars, where colleges and technology providers shared advice and ideas about online teaching and learning.
What was apparent was not only how quickly the sector adapted to partial closure but how much excellent and innovative online practice was already in place. Colleges find ways to innovate every day. As
the UK continues to grapple with Covid-19, never has there been a more crucial time to cement the link between colleges, innovation and business.
During the summer the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) released the results of its UK Innovation Survey 2019. It is impossible to read the survey findings without thinking about how productivity, skills and the labour market run in parallel. The results showed an 11 percentage
point decrease in innovation activity within UK businesses, down to 38 per cent, and the perhaps unsurprising outcome that large businesses are more likely to have innovated than small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs). The average college works with hundreds of local SMEs and trains 1,300 apprentices. While the BEIS survey reported that there is some collaboration with higher education institutions, there is an untapped resource available in colleges.
We ran our own survey in the summer to gauge what colleges are doing to support innovation growth and development with SMEs and businesses in their local areas. Colleges are well-placed to help their network of local SMEs, who do not always have the connections or capacity to adopt and benefit from new technology and business practices in order to improve their own productivity. There are mutual
benefits of innovation activity with SMEs as shared knowledge can be brought into the curriculum to directly support and improve the employability skills of students and apprentices.
Currently, a lack of capital funding limits colleges from developing specific innovation spaces within colleges and a lack of financial support stops them from being able to fund business innovation account managers to work with SMEs along with time constraints.
If, in the FE Reform white paper, the government sets out a national remit for colleges to lead in this space, along with the provision of support in capital and revenue funding, this will be a significant leap forward.
We would also recommend that better collaboration between further education colleges in local areas should be encouraged in order to share best practice.
Equally important, colleges need to secure resources to enable time alleviation, giving college staff the time and space to engage in innovation development and research activities.
The BEIS report reveals that one of the success factors for those businesses that actively innovate is the higher number of employees who hold a degree or higher-level qualification in comparison to those non-innovating businesses.
In fact, according to the survey results, the ratio of higher skilled/qualified employees to lower skilled employees is slightly higher for SMEs than it is for large businesses. There’s huge opportunity to look at skills at levels 3 to 5 and how they may be equally useful, and the role colleges play in training at these levels and at higher levels.
Prior to the Covid-19 outbreak, the UK government was turning towards its ambitious “levelling-up” agenda. Colleges, as community hubs, play a central role in ensuring that no one is left behind. The AoC’s recently published bi-annual research shows that 68 per cent of SMEs have said that to both “thrive and survive”, skills must be a top priority.
We’ve already seen colleges innovating swiftly in response to Covid-19, for example, by producing 3D printed face shields for the NHS. Time and time again colleges prove themselves to be responsive, innovative and resilient. A national innovation remit for FE, appropriately resourced, won’t help the country just in times of crisis but in times of stability, growth and opportunity, enabling colleges to lead in this space to initiate a place-based business and skills innovation revolution.
Bids from two north-east colleges to merge with an embattled neighbour have been snubbed by the FE commissioner.
FE Week understands that Newcastle College and Tyne Coast College were both in the frame to amalgamate with Gateshead College, which has been undergoing a structure and prospects appraisal with the FE commissioner after a £6 million black hole was found in its books.
But the FE commissioner has now recommended to the government that a merger is taken off the table and the appraisal has instead concluded that Gateshead should remain standalone.
Following the news, NCG, which runs Newcastle College, said it wants to see Gateshead “go from strength to strength” and that it looks forward to “being able to work with Gateshead, both as a respected neighbour and as a community of excellent FE practitioners”.
Tyne Coast refused to comment.
A Department for Education spokesperson said the recommendation awaits ministerial sign-off and is subject to a series of conditions – which they would not disclose.
The Education and Skills Funding Agency and the FE commissioner, Richard Atkins, would “continue to work closely with the college to monitor progress and support a long-term sustainable solution to provide high-quality opportunities for learners,” the spokesperson added.
Gateshead said it was “delighted” with the recommendation, which “is not only good news for all our staff and students but also our regional partners, who wanted us to remain an independent college.
“Whilst we don’t underestimate the hard work that lies ahead, this shows confidence in our ability to deliver the recovery plan and recognises everyone’s efforts to maintain a high-quality teaching and learning experience for all of our students throughout this challenging time.”
Gateshead College had to call in forensic auditors after discovering in October 2019 that it would have a £6 million deficit in its 2018/19 financial statements.
The FE commissioner conducted an assessment of the college in December 2019 and found the underpinning cause of the shortfall was “a failure by the board and the senior leaders at the college to address the very significant reduction in income that was the result of the loss of the European Social Fund contract”.
Gateshead had, in fact, been in deficit for years, but this had been disguised by a misstatement of certain bills, reads the commissioner’s report.
The deficit had been worsened by “incorrect” budgeting of around 40 per cent for subcontracting costs, which was a “major” cause of the size of the deficit.
The DfE delayed the publication of FE commissioner report because of the Covid-19 pandemic, so the assessment of Gateshead was only published earlier this month.
In a letter accompanying Atkins’ report dated from July, skills minister Gillian Keegan said: “It is clear that significant failures in leadership and governance have allowed for the serious deterioration of the college’s financial position.”
Judith Doyle
Principal Judith Doyle, once the highest-paid in the country, resigned from the college in January, followed by the chair, John McCabe, that same month.
Atkins’ report shone a light on how remuneration for senior leaders and postholders had included an annual pay award “significantly” in excess of that paid to college staff, and that pay rises for senior management were given without regular performance review or appraisals.
Government efforts to increase apprenticeship take-up by black, Asian and minority ethnic young people have been slammed as a “national disgrace”.
New FE Week analysis shows that the proportion of BAME 16- to 18-year-old apprentices is falling and 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.
City of Bristol College principal Andy Forbes, who co-founded the former BAME Principals Group, said the under-representation of BAME apprentices at all levels and in most sectors is a “long-standing issue”.
“The fact that we have made so little progress in addressing it is a national disgrace,” he added.
Andy Forbes
Analysis of the government’s National Achievement Rate Tables shows the proportion of apprenticeship starts for BAME 16- to 18-yearolds was 7.8 per cent in 2018/19, down from 8.6 per cent in 2017/18.
This low and falling figure is in stark contrast to other FE courses, where BAME 16- to 18-yearolds have risen from 20.9 per cent in 2013/14 to 25.8 per cent per cent in 2018/19.
The analysis comes after the Department for Education claimed 12.5 per cent of all age apprentice starts were BAME in 2018/19, exceeding their target of 11.9 per cent.
One of the government’s leading initiatives to boost BAME participation, the Apprenticeship Diversity Champions Network, has not met since February, as meetings were paused by the pandemic.
Meanwhile, funding for the 5 Cities Project, which aimed to use local authorities to drive up BAME starts, ended this month with no renewal.
A DfE spokesperson confirmed that a new target for increasing BAME apprenticeships has not been set and was unable to point to any new initiatives to increase BAME apprenticeship participation.
On the lack of BAME apprentices, the spokesperson insisted the department is “very keen to increase awareness of apprenticeship opportunities” so they have been reviewing advice and guidance and using their Apprentice Support and Knowledge service to target schools in high BAME population areas.
“We have also ensured that young BAME role models are visible in campaigns such as ‘Fire It Up’, and that we are hearing the voices of young apprentices (including BAME) through apprentice networks such as the Young Apprentice Ambassador Network, and the Apprentice Panel.”
Forbes said that in his experience, most modern businesses are keen to recruit a more diverse workforce.
The problem is “simply that not enough is being done to talk to young people – and crucially to their parents – about the advantages and value of apprenticeships.
“This has to be done on the ground and face to face, not through glossy advertising campaigns.”
Forbes called for a “step change” from the Department for Education and the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, which was criticised last week for having no BAME representation on its board.
The IfATE’s indicators of a quality apprenticeship do not include improving diversity, but a spokesperson said they are “committed to playing a full part” in improving BAME participation in apprenticeships.
“Going forward, we will continue work on the manner in which apprenticeships and technical education qualifications are issued to ensure they are equally accessible to all communities and that we continue to promote wide participation by all groups in the work of the institute.”
Jeremy Crook, chief executive of the Black Training and Enterprise Group, a charity that runs courses on diversity in the workplace and compiles statistics on ethnic minority groups, said the lack of BAME apprentices “extremely concerning”.
Crook added that “progress on increasing BAME participation in apprenticeships has been disappointingly slow” and urged the DfE to create a “targeted plan to open pipelines to employers that still have opportunities”.
The network of 80 leaders from across different sectors of industry is intended to “champion apprenticeships and diversity amongst employers and encourages more people from under-represented groups to consider apprenticeships”.
One of the champions is Jill Whittaker, managing director of apprenticeship provider HIT Training, who told FE Week: “The key thing the network has been trying to do is generating ideas and sharing best practice.
“There are some very big employers who have done some really far-reaching programmes, so to be able to share that expertise is very valuable.”
One of the lessons learned led HIT to include a more diverse array of people in its marketing materials after an engineering degree apprentice told Whittaker: “You don’t see people like me doing that kind of job.”
She added that the government is looking to resume meetings of the network in the next few weeks.
BAME representative groups in the FE and skills sector independent of government have begun to regenerate after a number of them – including the BAME Principals Group – shut down several years ago.
These new groups include the Association of Colleges’ Equality, Diversity and Inclusion steering group, and the Black FE Leadership Group (BFELG).
In reply to a letter from BFELG last month, skills minister Gillian Keegan said it was their “ambition for our FE providers to offer an inclusive, welcoming environment for students, teachers and leaders from all backgrounds”.
She also spoke of how she was “committed to our new mandatory annual data collection in FE, which will uncover the full range of characteristics of the workforce, including ethnicity” from summer 2021.
Someone with intimate knowledge of what the DfE has done to improve BAME participation in apprenticeships is former skills minister Anne Milton (pictured).
She said when she was in office “we knew there was a problem”, and she has impressed upon her former department the importance of working quickly, saying: “This is urgent stuff.”
The 5 Cities Project was launched at the DfE while Milton was in office to try and improve BAME apprenticeship participation. A total of £20,000 was given to each of the Greater London Authority, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership, Leicester City Council, and Bristol City Council.
Its aim was to improve apprenticeship diversity in their area, and although latest figures from the five has shown the proportion of BAME apprentices has risen over the past few years, the authorities pointed out apprenticeship starts nationally have dropped, which has meant the number of people from BAME backgrounds starting apprenticeships has not necessarily risen.
In Manchester, for example, 11 per cent of starts in 2014/15 were by people from BAME backgrounds, equating to 3,240 people. In 2018/19, it was 15 per cent, but just 3,116 people.
Funding for the project has now come to an end, but the authorities have pledged to continue attempting to improve BAME apprenticeship participation.
The Greater Birmingham and Solihull LEP has said it will be launching a marketing campaign aimed at BAME-owned businesses to highlight the benefits of apprenticeships.
The 5 Cities Project has been received warmly by BAME leaders, with Crook saying his organisation wants to see the project “continued and enhanced with better funding”.
The chief executive of the BAME Apprenticeship Alliance Isa Mutlib said the project “has created regional stakeholders to build capacity for boosting BAME apprenticeship diversity backed with local government funding”.
The DfE spokesperson said: “The lessons learned from this partnership are helping to inform how we shape policy, and what interventions have more impact.”
Mutlib spoke favourably of the government’s actions to increase participation, saying the Fire It Up campaign featured a diverse array of apprentices.
In addition, he said, the BAME Apprenticeship Awards, which he directs, receives support from government, and IfATE has a diverse apprentice panel “to boost diverse apprenticeship representation”.
Virtual work placements, redesigned curriculums for practical courses and borrowing prosthetic limbs are among the creative adjustments made by FE providers to continue education in the midst of a pandemic, Ofsted has found.
The inspectorate this week published letters from the first ten “interim visits” of colleges and training providers that are taking place this autumn ahead of the watchdog’s return to normal inspections, currently set for January.
The five-page letters include inspectors’ findings from interviews with both leaders and learners about the provider’s response to Covid-19, but do not include a judgment grade.
Mental health has reportedly deteriorated among young people during lockdown, according to various pieces of research conducted across the country, and this was a key area of focus found by Ofsted among the ten providers.
Inspectors said this was a “high priority” at Blackpool and the Fylde College, for example, which introduced “online social time” so that students and staff do not suffer from social isolation, while counselling support was increased at Birmingham Metropolitan College.
Private provider Intuitions Limited, based in north Yorkshire, conducted “wellbeing meetings in between reviews to identify those who were most vulnerable in terms of mental health, and they offered support by telephone”. Meanwhile, staff at London-based independent specialist college The Autism Project – CareTrade organised a “variety of online wellbeing support for learners who struggle with being stuck at home” such as “quizzes and social gatherings via computers or mobile phones”.
In terms of the curriculum, Ofsted found leaders at most providers had modified sequencing due to restrictions, such as by reordering practical elements to be taken at the end of a course in anticipation for local lockdowns where theory can be delivered online.
At Blackburn College, which this week moved into tier three (the top level of England’s Covid restrictions), inspectors said: “In anticipation of further local restrictions, managers and teachers have amended the sequencing of the curriculum to ensure that the practical skills are delivered early in the programme.
“This is as a result of lessons learned during the summer term Covid-19 restrictions, where learners studying sports were unable to complete their practical assessments in sports halls and gyms because they were closed.”
Ofsted said the college is “confident” that it has a “variety of flexible approaches” to enable it to continue to deliver practical curriculums. For example, teachers have provided prosthetic limbs for beauty therapy learners so that they can practise manicures and pedicures at home.
Work placements have also been heavily impacted by the pandemic, with many sectors, particularly health and social care, not allowing visitors except their own employees.
To tackle this issue, a number of the providers that Ofsted visited introduced virtual placements.
For example, managers and staff at WS Training Ltd, a Suffolk-based independent training provider, explained how they had been “running an online shop, rather than a physical one”.
At Catch 22 Charity Limited, a provider based in London, staff now “make use of a virtual work experience arrangement provided by an employment agency, where students complete work-related tasks that they can do from home”.
At The Autism Project – CareTrade, where a “high proportion” of learners’ time is normally spent on work placements at local hospitals, leaders and staff have “adapted the curriculum by adding lessons in business enterprise, through which learners develop their ability to work in a team and use their knowledge of English and mathematics”.
Ofsted also quizzed the providers on their work to keep students safe online following the switch to remote delivery.
All ten providers were praised for their work in this area, with inspectors finding bolstered training for staff and a range of safety software being introduced to protect learners from online fraud, cyber bullying and extremism.
Inspectors found that Beacon Education Partnership Limited, a private provider in London, had introduced a new video conferencing package which has “improved safeguarding” by, for example, only allowing learners to access online lessons “with an identification code for the session”.
At Catch 22, leaders said “organisations, such as Social Switch, were useful in training teachers, trainers and students how to share text and images safely when learning through digital media”.
The winner of the Share the Love (Our Colleges) competition has been announced by the Association of Colleges as a jam-packed Colleges Week 2020 draws to a close.
A heart made of scrap metal, forged at Cornwall College (pictured), was picked to win the £500 prize because it “stood out and it was really clear how much time and effort went into creating it,” association chief executive David Hughes said.
The competition was sponsored by law firm Irwin Mitchell and called on colleges to produce or perform creations themed around the message “Love Our Colleges”.
Cornwall College told FE Week, before being announced as the winner, that study programme lead for engineering Darren Reski and his students were “excited” by the task and “quickly” came up with the idea of making a heart from the recycled metal on which they had been practising welding earlier in the week.
“We are always so impressed with our learners when they are set a task or challenge,” the spokesperson said.
“This metal heart symbolises people using new skills, creativity, art, resourcefulness and ultimately, it represents people training for rewarding careers.”
Craven College’s TikTok video
This is the third Colleges Week to have taken place, and education Secretary Gavin Williamson took the opportunity to say: “I want to thank college leaders and staff across the country for their dedicated efforts during these unprecedented times. The sector has gone above and beyond to make sure their students are supported, can continue learning and return to onsite delivery.”
Shadow education secretary Kate Green used her message for Colleges Week to pay tribute to her local college, Trafford College, sending them her “good wishes” and saying she has had a “great time” visiting them “over the years”.
Colleges Week 2020 was also marked with a debate in the House of Commons on “the role of colleges in a skills-led recovery”, organised by the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for further education and lifelong learning, Peter Aldous MP.
“College education is something that we do well in the UK, but at times we unintentionally undervalue our colleges, which are at the heart of so many communities right across the country,” Aldous said.
“In 2020, more than ever, colleges have demonstrated their value in supporting learners and businesses to deliver quality learning and training, despite the challenges raised by the Covid-19 pandemic.”
MPs from across the political spectrum contributed to the debate, with education select committee chair Robert Halfon heralding this as “a potential golden age for further education”, as education secretary Gavin Williamson himself attended a college and made a “ground-breaking” speech on further education.
Halfon also put a motion before the Commons to “recognise the unique role colleges play in supporting people, employers and communities to thrive, and their central role in rebuilding the economy”. At the time of writing this motion has been signed by 17 MPs.
Pictured top: Emma Thornton and William Davison, level 2 Engineering students
The Department for Education could be forced to hand back up to £80 million to the Treasury after closing the national retraining scheme pilot, FE Week has learned.
Skills minister Gillian Keegan last week announced that the retraining scheme would be “integrated” into the new £2.5 billion national skills fund to “reduce complexity” in the skills system.
This publication later revealed how the centrepiece of the national retraining scheme – Get Help to Retrain – would be scrapped as part of the move after a number of mayors, including London’s, declined the opportunity to take part.
FE Week has now discovered that any leftover cash from the £100 million earmarked for the retraining scheme will not be added to the skills fund.
Instead, the DfE has confirmed it will go back to HM Treasury.
The DfE refused to say how much of the £100 million remained unspent but the 2018 Budget suggests around £80 million was due to be spent in the next financial year.
The document, published by the Treasury, stated that the retraining scheme’s funding would be spent over a number of years: £10 million in 2019/20, £25 million in 2020/21 and £80 million in 2021/22.
The news comes just weeks after prime minister Boris Johnson announced major plans for a Lifetime Skills Guarantee to help adults retrain.
Toby Perkins, Labour’s shadow apprenticeships and lifelong learning minister, said the government continually claims to be wanting a skills-led recovery, but its actions and performance “always achieve the opposite”.
“Like the £300 million of unspent apprenticeship levy money that they sent back to the Treasury, here is another failing government scheme retreating back into its shell whilst the numbers requiring support from the government continue to soar,” he added.
“It’s hardly surprising that so few in the sector have any confidence in their ability to deliver on their rhetoric.”
Perkins quizzed Keegan on the decision to bin the Get Help to Retrain service during a Westminster Hall debate on Tuesday.
She said the “learnings” from the service’s pilot would be brought into the national skills fund but then claimed that it “will be called something else but the learnings will not be lost”.
This is despite the DfE adding a note to the Get Help to Retrain website on October 15 that reads: “This service will no longer be available from November 11, 2020. You can continue to access services for support with skills and training through the National Careers Service.”
Perkins told FE Week he was “surprised” to hear Keegan suggest that the service was simply changing its name, adding that she “needs to explain whether she deliberately misled the house to cover up the department’s failure, or whether she didn’t realise what was happening to the centrepiece programme under the national retraining scheme”.
Not much is known about how the national retraining scheme funding was spent, aside from research and the Get Help to Retrain service. Tender documents suggest the firm chosen to pilot the Get Help to Retrain website held a nine-month contract for £1.8 million, which started in May 2019.
Further tender documents seen by this publication show that plans were afoot to roll out the Get Help to Retrain nationally as well as to develop a “find and apply for a job” service at a cost of between £5 million and £6 million. The tender received 28 applications before it was “cancelled” in April.
And according to the national retraining scheme timeline there would be further tenders for the remaining products, which never materialised, at a total cost of £20 million over the next 24 months.
The DfE said it is considering how it can provide further details of the NRS spend in “due course”.
A spokesperson added that it is “normal procedure” for any department-level underspends to be returned to Treasury.
The national skills fund will dish out £600 million a year from 2021/22. The DfE is expected to launch a consultation on how the fund will be spent in the coming months.
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”.
Today’s consultation will set out “detailed measures” that the education secretary Gavin Williamson will take to tackle this, including removing funding for the “majority” of qualifications that “overlap” with A-levels and T Levels by autumn 2023.
It will also include plans to open T Levels up to adults from 2023, as reported by FE Week earlier this month.
Williamson said the measures will “ensure that whether a student opts to study A-levels, a T Level or any other qualification, they can be confident that it will be high quality and will set them on a clear path to a job, further education or training”.
A briefing document, seen by FE Week ahead of the consultation launch, shows that for 16-to-19-year-olds, the DfE will propose to fund two groups of level 3 technical qualifications alongside T Levels.
The first will be qualifications that “give people the knowledge, skills and behaviours described in an employer-led standard that is not covered by a T Level”.
The second will be “additional specialist” qualifications that develop “more specialist skills and knowledge than could be acquired through a T Level alone” such as a course in marine engineering, which “builds on the technical qualifications in the maintenance, installation and repair T Level”.
The DfE will also propose to approve for funding two groups of “small academic qualifications” to be taken alongside, or as an alternative to, A-levels where there is a “clear need for skills and knowledge that A-levels alone cannot deliver”.
The first group includes qualifications that would “complement A-levels, for example, if they have more of a practical component, such as health and social care or engineering”. It will also include those that are designed to “enable progression to more specialist HE courses”, such as arts institutions.
The second group will be a “specific, limited group of well-recognised, small qualifications that develop wider skills to support study at higher education, such as core maths, performing arts graded qualifications and extended project qualifications”.
The DfE also plans to fund “large” qualifications that would “typically make up a student’s full programme of study and could be taken as an alternative to A-levels if they give access to specialist HE courses, such as those with high levels of practical content”. Examples might include sports or performing arts courses. The International Baccalaureate diploma will also continue to be funded.
For those aged 19 and over, the DfE says they will “generally need greater flexibility than 16-to-19-year-olds and will also tend to have greater prior experience”. So the department’s starting point for adults is that they “have available to them a similar offer as 16-to-19-year-olds but with some additional technical qualifications to meet their needs and more flexibility built into the design”.
The DfE will also propose three “key principles” for level 3 technical qualifications for adults: “Modular delivery of content; recognition of prior learning and experience; and assessing a student’s competence at the end of a course.”
The level 3 and below review includes applied generals, tech levels and technical certificates. While these cover a wide range of courses, BTECs, awarded by Pearson, are the most popular.
The DfE said it will also shortly publish a call for evidence inviting views on qualifications at level 2 and below, including basic skills qualifications (English, maths, ESOL and digital), to find out “what is working well”.
Bill Watkin, chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association, said there is a “place for both T Levels and applied generals” to “happily and usefully coexist”.
He warned that to remove “too many” applied generals would “significantly impoverish the curriculum, damage social mobility and do nothing to reduce the skills gap”.
Someone with intimate knowledge of what the DfE has done to improve BAME participation in apprenticeships is former skills minister Anne Milton (pictured).
It drew submissions from around the country, including a Love Our Colleges 