Pulling together to maintain apprenticeship quality

We are in a stronger position going into this second lockdown, and alongside the challenges there are positive ways in which we can help reduce the impact on students and apprentices, writes Jennifer Coupland

I would like to start by acknowledging the huge challenges that everyone involved with apprenticeships faces as we approach a second national lockdown.

At the institute we work so closely with so many employers and apprentices that we are seeing first-hand how difficult this is, particularly for businesses on the high street, who have worked hard to make themselves Covid safe and are now having to close again.  

The institute will do everything in our power to support employers, providers, end-point assessment organisations and apprentices through this. Our key objectives will continue to be protecting the safety of everyone involved with apprenticeships and sustaining a resilient skills system that meets the needs of employers.  

And while we need to be realistic about the challenges, we also need to acknowledge some positives. We are in a stronger position in many ways going into this lockdown.

This time, the government has said that colleges, independent training providers, end-point assessment and external quality assurance organisations can keep operating, so as to help reduce the impact on students and apprentices. 

We have acquired the wisdom of having been through this once before, so government financial support packages and more established online training and assessment practices already exist.

The institute has also rolled out flexibilities for more than 100 apprenticeships that have provided fantastic support with apprenticeship completions in spite of Covid-19.

I announced back in June that these special measures, which in most cases allow for high-quality remote rather than face-to-face assessment, would be retained into the new year.

In light of the latest lockdown announcement, we have now agreed that they will be extended until the end of March to give everyone much-needed stability.

Our report published today on our latest survey, this time with 340 apprentice employers and other organisations, provides further grounds for optimism. It was carried out in September so circumstances have moved on, but there is still much from which to draw comfort.

A relatively small proportion (eight per cent) of respondents indicated that any of their apprentices had been made redundant through Covid-19.

When asked to estimate recruitment over the next 12 months, 57 per cent said they planned to recruit new employees as apprentices. This is compared to 14 per cent who said they would not and 29 per cent who did not know.

We of course understand that this latest lockdown is a further setback, but what employers told us in September demonstrates the commitment they have to the apprenticeship programme.

Some 78 per cent of respondents said the majority of their apprentices were doing some off-the-job training, up from 62 per cent in our previous survey in June.

While I am all too aware that survival, not staff training and progression, will be the top priority for many businesses, it is vitally important that the sector does everything possible to ensure learners continue to get their off-the-job training through lockdown.

The introduction of the requirement for apprentices to spend at least 20 per cent of their working time training away from the workplace has been a key driver of the improved quality for apprenticeships. It is a fantastic investment in apprentices which is exceeded in many apprenticeships. 

Employers and providers are clearly showing genuine commitment to apprenticeships and an impressive ability to adjust and innovate how they work.

The government shares that commitment and I have no doubt that apprenticeships can play a key part in our economic recovery when it comes.

We can all play our part in the meantime with helping to ensure their quality is not undermined as circumstances become more challenging.

The institute will continue to engage directly, through collective forums and through our pulse surveys, with employers and wider stakeholders throughout this crisis. We are always open to ideas and welcome feedback on what is working well and where we might improve flexibilities and our other areas of work.

I am confident that while the pandemic might dent the apprenticeship programme in the short term, the long-term commitment we have built up with employers, providers and apprentices has put us in a position of strength. I look forward to the day when we emerge together from this awful Covid cloud ready to make apprenticeships and wider technical education better than ever.

Colleges and universities should collaborate not fight a ‘turf war’

David Hughes responds to vice-chancellor of Nottingham Trent University Edward Peck’s call for ‘applied universities’, not FE Colleges, to drive the country’s technical skills revolution

There’s a lot to like in Edward Peck’s essay for Policy Exchange – “Technical Breakthrough Delivering Britain’s higher-level skills” – but there are also a few arguments and conclusions I take issue with. I hope that the flaws don’t detract from the constructive and important overall thrust of the essay because we do need to make progress on growing Level 4 and 5 higher technical education. That growth will only come about if we can agree how to achieve it and the essay provides some useful proposals on the steps to do that.

The essay covers lots of familiar ground about the need for growth in Levels 4 and 5 which I think are well made by Peck and in other recent reports, so I won’t comment on them here. The author then proposes three challenges which need to be addressed in delivering that growth – based around demand (how students are supported financially), supply (how to make a coherent local offer) and focus (how the offer meets labour market needs). It’s a nice way of un-packing the challenges and reflects a lot of our thinking at AoC.

It also reflects emerging thinking from the government (take a look at the Prime Minister’s speech in September at Exeter College or the recent NAO report on FE funding), in the Commission on the College of the Future and amongst many thinktanks (EDSK, IPPR for instance). All of these, I am sure, would broadly agree with the recommendations to address the demand challenge, with college and university students being able to access the same funding for fees and maintenance. The PM’s announcement of a lifetime skills guarantee looks set to deliver that, with the flexibilities to support modular learning, flexibly over a lifetime. There’s a lot of detail to be ironed out, but steps are being taken in the right direction.

The third challenge of focus is also supported by sensible recommendations in the essay which again reflect and build on thinking and ideas from other reports, so I won’t comment on them here.

That leaves the gnarly issue of the supply challenge. The overall conclusion is once again spot-on, with the challenge of how to join things up in a local labour market to ensure that pathways for students are clear, employers can get what they need and investment is concentrated for maximum impact. I agree with the authors that “Opportunities for students, universities, colleges and employers are being missed through a lack of joined-up approaches to both policy and practice.” And that this results in a confusing landscape with duplication of effort and resources. So far so good. It’s in the next steps where I think erroneous statements are made which make it look like an unnecessary and partisan land-grab.

There are generalisations about colleges with throwaway dismissal of the quality of their offer and facilities and about their reputation which I simply do not recognise and for which no evidence is provided. There are also some false Aunt Sallies knocked down to make the case for universities to dominate the growth in level 4 and 5. For instance, the essay suggests that “a major argument for enabling FECs to take a much greater role in future level 4/5 provision appears to be that it will support their financial sustainability.” I’ve not seen that argument made anywhere. If it was we would not support it. The argument we do make is that colleges should be funded properly for what they do, that they are more widespread than universities, exist in all communities and are able to make a local offer everywhere which is vital for people and labour markets. But the authors don’t address those arguments. Probably because they are more difficult to knock down.

The case study of Nottingham Trent University working in Mansfield is a good one and shows one strong   approach to college – university collaboration which can work and will work in some places. But we know that for many or probably most other parts of the country, collaborations like that will not happen because the interests and priorities of the universities are very different. In places like Weston-super-Mare, Grimsby, Blackpool and others, the college is the only game in town and it delivers high quality, from great facilities with positive outcomes. Let’s not dismiss those case studies please, because for those places, the college simply needs equal access to the student finance and other investment that NTU has to be able to deliver what is needed.

The need for more higher technical education is strong, and the need for coherence of the offer is clear. We have always advocated a collaborative approach between colleges and universities, based on a level playing field for all. Whilst colleges need to go cap in hand to a university for awarding powers at levels 4 and 5, there will always be a power imbalance which is unhelpful and unnecessary. Whilst that does not always get in the way of progress, it often does and that needs to be changed in the white paper, to back up the Prime Minister’s promise “to transform the training and skills system, making it fit for the 21st century economy”.

The essay has some great proposals, but please let’s not get into a turf war about who ‘owns’ the higher technical education space. Not only is there room for colleges and universities, we all owe it to the communities we serve to make sure the pathways are clear for learners and employers know who can best help them. That requires local place-based collaboration between colleges and universities, working with employers and others. Not a fight to see who is strongest.

Apprenticeship assessment flexibilities extended

Special measures that have enabled 25,000 apprentices to complete their end-point assessment during the Covid-19 pandemic will be retained until at least March 2021.

The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education’s chief executive Jennifer Coupland will tell delegates watching the Skills World Live Apprenticeships conference tomorrow that the extension has been granted in light of the new national restrictions that will run during November.

Apprenticeship assessments usually involve an element of face-to-face assessment, which was not possible due to movement and social distancing restrictions during lockdown.

Flexibilities have been introduced to 132 apprenticeship standards since the first lockdown in March 2020. The IfATE announced in July that the measures would remain in place until January 2021.

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.

Coupland said that she recognises it will not be “business as usual” for all apprenticeships as many businesses temporarily close during November.

But where training can continue, “we would expect that providers will work as closely as possible with employers to make sure that apprentices who are on their programmes can continue to advance their off-the-job training during the month of lockdown and hopefully progress if they’re about to take an end-point assessment”.

“They will be able to take advantage of the flexibilities that the institute has put in place to enable those end-point assessments to happen even during lockdown,” she added.

“About 25,000 apprentices have managed to complete since lockdown. And we’re really confident that we’ve done that in a way that protects quality.

“So in light of this current, new lockdown, we have decided that it’s right to extend those flexibilities until the end of March to give people some certainty that that the existing regime will continue for the foreseeable future.”

Coupland said the institute will review this timeframe again in March.

Revealed: DfE publishes FE Covid guidance for November lockdown

Colleges and training providers should continue to deliver education for 16 to 19-year-olds on site during the new national lockdown, but have been told to move adult learners to online teaching where possible.

The Department for Education has this afternoon published its guidance for delivering FE this month ahead of the national restrictions set to be implemented from tomorrow until 2 December.

It confirms that further education settings will “remain open to on site delivery for the duration of the national restrictions”.

Face coverings should be worn by adults and students when “moving around the premises, outside of classrooms, in corridors and communal areas where social distancing cannot easily be maintained”.

For 16 to 19 study programmes, providers should “continue to seek to deliver the majority of education on site unless they have had written public health advice to move some groups to remote teaching”, in which case they should “inform their ESFA territorial team”.

And if there are “operational constraints which necessitate a greater proportion of online teaching”, providers should “discuss this with their ESFA territorial team directly or email FED.COVIDCENTRAL@education.gov.uk, ahead of any announcement”.

Providers have been told to preserve provision on site for learners who “need it”, including vulnerable learners, children of key workers and learners without access to devices/connectivity at home.

For adult education, the DfE is asking providers to “consider moving to online teaching where possible to do so while still achieving educational objectives”.

Where education needs to continue on site to enable access to equipment, or where students cannot access remote delivery, this “can continue in a Covid-secure way”.

The guidance also states that apprenticeships and other training in the workplace will “continue where those sectors remain open” but DfE expects to see “particular impacts in hospitality and retail”.

In terms of sport and physical education, this can continue “as part of education and training”.

Outdoor sports should however be “prioritised where possible, and large indoor spaces used where it is not, maximising distancing between consistent student groups and paying scrupulous attention to cleaning and hygiene and using maximum fresh air ventilation through either opening doors and windows or ventilation systems”.

Competition between different colleges should not take place, in line with the wider restrictions on grassroots sport.

For clinically extremely vulnerable young people, adults and staff, they are advised not to attend education whilst the national restrictions are in place.

Education secretary Gavin Williamson said: “We must put the interests of our children and young people first, especially when the benefits of being in the classroom are clear.

“Education is a national priority and we cannot allow it to be disrupted again.”

Winners of the 2020 Festival of Learning awards announced

A mother bullied out of school aged 13, and an agency which fights serious and organised crime nationwide are among those recognised at this year’s Festival of Learning awards. 

The awards, run by the Learning and Work Institute (LWI), recognise the inspiring stories of adult learners, and top-notch adult learning providers, tutors and employers. 

Skills minister Gillian Keegan congratulated all 12 winners, saying she hopes their stories “inspire and motivate others to kickstart their own learning journeys”. 

One such winner is Wiltshire mother Hannah Wilkins, chosen by LWI’s patron Princess Anne for the Patron’s Award, who completed over 20 different courses after being bullied out of school at the age of 13. 

The winner of the President’s Award, chosen by LWI president and former Department for Education director-general of lifelong learning Nick Stuart, was Positive People.  

A partnership of organisations run by social enterprise Pluss, Positive People helps unemployed adults in the south west, with a sister programme in west Yorkshire, develop life skills in areas such as digital technology. 

Brandon Layton has won this year’s Outstanding Individual award, as having found his education and potential were limited as an autistic teenager attending a specialist school, the judges said he transformed his life and his academic and career prospects at Derwentside College. 

The Learning for Health award has been won by Waltham Forest Adult Learning Service’s health and wellbeing programme. The project has created a range of creative learning courses focused on improving health, wellbeing and social welfare.  

The Employer award, supported by awarding organisation NOCN, has been won by the National Crime Agency, the body responsible for fighting serious and organised crime in the UK. 

The law enforcement organisation was recognised for their initial operational training programme, which provides learners with the knowledge, skills and experience to help fight crime through accredited flexible learning. 

Derby-based Evripides Evriviades has won the Tutor award, which is supported by the Education and Training Foundation. Evriviades has supported many vulnerable and marginalised people through “innovative, creative and functional” English and maths lessons, from entry to level 2. 

Warwickshire Police Inspector Paul Barnsley received the Learning for Work award, also supported by NOCN, after taking to his heart a course with North Warwickshire and South Leicestershire on understanding mental health while signed off work. He has since set up a number of new workplace initiatives to make the force more inclusive. 

Laura Dunn-Green overcame severe anxiety by taking part in a health and social care course run by City College Peterborough at a local care home and has now embarked on a career as a healthcare assistant, winning her this year’s New Directions award, supported by the Skills and Education Group. 

Rubi Naz has won the English Language Learning Award after having been motivated by her son, who was born with various medical conditions and has special education needs, to enrol at Tameside Adult and Community Learning Education to learn English. She is now supporting others in her community to improve theirs. 

A project delivered by social housing providers, Motiv8, has received the Project award for helping disadvantaged and vulnerable Greater Manchester adults access housing and benefits, as well as employment through CV and job-searching help. 

The Return to Learning Award, supported by adult education provider City Lit, has gone to Liz Collins, who, following a “traumatic” experience of education as a child, enrolled on an Introduction to Adult Social Care course with Islington Adult Community Learning and is now a support worker. 

The social impact award, supported by adult learning provider the WEA, has been awarded to a volunteer digital champion Phil Branigan, for running regular computer drop-in sessions at a sheltered housing scheme and supporting other volunteers through an online forum. 

Learning and Work Institute chief executive Stephen Evans said the winners of the awards, which are being held during England’s first Lifelong Learning Week, “show just how powerful learning can be and the difference that great tutors and learning providers can make.  

“I hope their stories help to inspire others to go into learning, and make the case for a renewed commitment to – and investment in – lifelong learning.” 

The awards ceremony is being broadcast live on LWI’s YouTube and Facebook pages from 6pm this evening. 

The full list of winners:

  • Hannah Wilkins – Patron’s Award.
  • Positive People – President’s Award.
  • Brandon Layton – Outstanding Individual Award
  • Health and Wellbeing Programme – Learning for Health Award
  • National Crime Agency – Employer Award
  • Evripides Evriviades – Tutor Award
  • Paul Barnsley – Learning for Work Award
  • Laura Dunn-Green – New Directions Award
  • Rubi Naz – English Language Learning Award
  • Motiv8 – Project Award
  • Liz Collins – Return to Learning Award
  • Phil Branigan – Social Impact Award

Top image caption: Front row – Hannah Wilkins, Evripides Evriviades, Brandon Layton, Health and wellbeing programme.

Second row – Laura Dunn-Green, Motiv8, Liz Collins, Paul Barnsley

Third row – National Crime Agency, Positive People Programme, Phil Branigan, Rubi Naz

Highbury College appoints permanent chair as merger option explored

A college that has been led by a troubleshooting interim chair for almost a year has appointed a permanent replacement as it continues to consider options for a merger.

Ex-chief executive of the Association of Colleges Martin Doel (pictured left) was parachuted into Highbury College in December 2019 after it was hit by an expenses scandal and placed in formal FE Commissioner intervention.

Succeeding him from this month is businessman Paul Quigley (pictured right) who has been promoted to the position of chair after joining Highbury’s board as a member in January.

His CV includes finance and managing director positions at numerous waste management and chemical companies across Europe. His LinkedIn page says he has led a number of business “acquisitions and divestments” throughout his career.

Quigley previously spent 12 years on the board of neighbouring Eastleigh College including eight years as chair in a period which saw the college rated as ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted.

Penny Wycherley, Highbury’s interim principal who took over from former principal Stella Mbubaegbu also in December 2019, has agreed to stay on until August 2021.

The decisions come as the college continues a structure and prospects appraisal with FE Commissioner Richard Atkins. While there is currently no deadline for the appraisal’s conclusion, the college told FE Week that “all options” are being considered, including merger.

Wycherley thanked Doel, who was previously brought in to chair West Kent and Ashford College’s board as it was put through insolvency, for his “commitment and dedication to Highbury during what has been a truly extraordinary year”.

She also welcomed Quigley as the new chair, saying that he brings a “wealth of knowledge and invaluable financial experience to the role and his dedication to the further education sector is admirable”.

Quigley said: “After joining the board in January, I am both delighted and excited to become chair of an organisation so fundamental to the prosperity of Portsmouth, both educationally and economically.

“The current team of governors is stronger than ever with members from an impressive array of backgrounds. I very much look forward to working with all at Highbury and can see exciting times ahead.”

Highbury’s former chair Tim Mason and principal Mbubaegbu stepped down after FE Week revealed how £150,000 was spent on Mbubaegbu’s corporate college card in four years, including extravagant items such as numerous first-class flights, stays in five-star hotels, a boozy lobster dinner and a £434 pair of designer headphones.

Around the same time the college had to make redundancies, scrap its A-level provision and dropped from Ofsted ‘outstanding’ to ‘requires improvement’. Highbury has also been stuck in a legal battle with a Nigerian state following a failed technical education project.

Just a month after Doel and Wycherley took over a Highbury, the pair discovered the college was running out of cash and had to secure a £1.5 million emergency bailout to keep it running.

FE Commissioner Richard Atkins was sent in to the college at the command of then Department for Education minister Lord Agnew last October. Atkins’ report from his visit was finally published last month and found “serious issues regarding leadership, management and governance”.

A follow-up visit was conducted during the summer of 2020 where Atkins said a “significant step-change in openness and trust” had been made under the interim new leadership.

Eight more T Level qualifications put out to tender

Awarding organisations are being sought to develop T Levels in areas such as media, animal care, and hair and beauty for the fourth year of the flagship qualification’s rollout. 

The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE) has today published an invitation to tender for suppliers to help design the eight pathways set to start teaching from September 2023. 

The awarding organisations, IfATE says, will be responsible for “designing the content of the qualification; upskilling providers (further education schools and colleges); providing learning and teaching materials; updating content; and delivering qualification assessment services”.

They will form the final wave of T Level qualifications.

The most popular of the qualifications (see full list below) is expected to be the media, broadcast and production, which the IfATE tender predicts could have 4,800 learners in its first cohort, and have had 51,200 by 2027/28.  

Second most popular is expected to be the animal care and management T Level, with 27,500 learners by 2027/28, followed by hair, beauty and aesthetics with 25,200.  

Overall, the eight T Levels are predicted to have been delivered to 149,000 learners by that year. The tender has been valued at a combined £44.7 million.  

There is a tight deadline for applications to be considered for the contracts, as potential suppliers will need to have completed the selection questionnaire for the first stage of their application by two weeks from now (17 November).  

Those that pass from there will proceed to the second and final stage, where suppliers will have to submit tenders by 23 February next year.

The successful applicants will be notified the following August. The contract’s end date is September 2030. 

Suppliers must be recognised by Ofqual to deliver the qualifications at the point the contracts are awarded.  

It was announced last month the six T Levels being rolled out in 2022 will be awarded by Pearson and City & Guilds.  

Pearson is currently delivering, alongside NCFE, on the first three T Levels, which started in September. City & Guilds and NCFE are set to award seven T Levels being delivered from next year.  

The steady escalation in the number of T Levels being delivered each year was mandated by the 2019 T Level Action Plan, which outlined an objective to “expand the number of providers delivering T Levels so the momentum behind the programme continues to build”.  

Here is the full list of wave 4 T Levels included in today’s invitation to tender:

  • Lot 1 Hair and Beauty: Hair, Beauty & Aesthetics 
  • Lot 2 Creative & Design: Craft & Design 
  • Lot 3 Creative & Design: Media, Broadcast & Production 
  • Lot 4 Catering & Hospitality: Catering 
  • Lot 5 Agriculture, Environment & Animal Care: Animal Care & Management 
  • Lot 6 Agriculture, Environment & Animal Care: Agriculture, Land Management & Production 
  • Lot 7 Legal, Finance & Accounting: Legal Services 
  • Lot 8 Business & Administration: Human Resources

WorldSkills competitions in China and France postponed by a year

The next two WorldSkills competitions, set to take place in Shanghai in China in 2021 and Lyon in France in 2023, have both been postponed by a year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Competition organisers WorldSkills International announced today the competitions will instead take place in 2022 and 2024 respectively. 

This comes after the EuroSkills competition, set to take place in Graz, Austria next January, was indefinitely postponed last month due to the “worsening” Covid-19 situation in Europe. 

WorldSkills International president Chris Humphries said of this latest postponement: “We are grateful for the support of both WorldSkills China and WorldSkills France and their organising teams who have worked closely with WorldSkills International to reach what we all believe is the best solution to preserve the integrity and spirit of the Competition.” 

Preparations were already well underway for WorldSkills UK to take part in the competition, which had been due to include over 1,300 young skilled people from 60 countries competing in 56 competitions between 22 and 27 September 2021. 

A longlist, known as Squad UK, of potential members of Team UK, who would compete in Shanghai, had already been drawn up with the aim of regaining this country’s top ten place among competing nations. This had been lost at WorldSkills Kazan in 2019, when the UK was pushed down to twelfth. 

WorldSkills UK chief executive Neil Bentley-Gockmann said: “The UK remains committed to competing at WorldSkills Shanghai and we will continue to support our Squad UK members, their employers, colleges and training providers and the wider training team, who have been working tirelessly to prepare for the competition, so we can deliver a medal-winning performance for the UK in 2022.” 

A new date for Shanghai has not been finalised, but it is expected the competition will take place between October and November next year.

The rules around age eligibility for the tournaments will also be amended for Shanghai, so all competitors in training for WorldSkills Shanghai will be eligible for selection. 

Fears growing number of 16-19s will stretch budgets this year

Fears are growing that the government’s FE funding boost for this year will not be sufficient to cover an anticipated surge in 16 to 19 year old college places.

The government is pumping an additional £400 million into further education in 2020-21, which includes raising the 16 to 19 learner base rate to £4,188 and could, the Institute for Fiscal Studies says, represent the first real-terms increase in spending per student for about a decade.

However, the organisation’s annual report on education spending, published today, warns that because of the way the FE funding system works, exceptional rises in student numbers could still generate a real-terms fall in funding per student.

It explains how student numbers in FE colleges and sixth forms are likely to increase this year due to rising numbers of young people combined with “unusually high” GCSE results and “significant” reductions in training and employment opportunities.

The report chimes with an FE Week investigation in September that found recruitment for traditional level 3 further education courses was booming, and even university technical colleges learner numbers were on the rise despite the pandemic.

The IFS says that responding to these changes in participation will be “challenging” given that providers’ funding is set by the Education and Skills Funding Agency based on lagged student numbers.

The IFS does recognise that the 16 to 19 funding system does have mechanisms to allow colleges to apply for in-year growth if they have a spike in student numbers. However, they say that this is “subject to affordability” and it is “not designed to address significant sector wide growth”.

Imran Tahir, research economist at the IFS and a co-author of the report, said: “Student numbers could have risen dramatically more than expected due to a reduction in training, apprenticeship and employment opportunities, on top of population growth.

“If there is no additional funding forthcoming, planned real-terms increases in spending per student could be mostly – if not entirely – eroded.”

James Kewin, deputy chief executive at the Sixth Form Colleges Association, shared the IFS concern that, because in-year growth is subject to affordability, not all colleges that need the funding will be able to access it.

He told FE Week that his organisation has been “making the case for some time” that the threshold for in-year growth funding needs to be lowered.

Responding to the IFS’ report, Kewin said: “A combination of demographic trends, this year’s exam results and the lack of work-based opportunities means that more young people than ever could participate in 16 to 19 education.

“However, the lagged funding model means that this will put pressure on the cashflow and finances of some colleges and schools at a time when they are already under strain dealing with the additional costs of Covid.

“This, and of course an increases in the core rate of funding itself, should therefore be a priority area for investment.”

David Hughes, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, said his organisation has “raised the issue of in-year 16 to 19 growth several times now with ESFA”.

He told FE Week: “Overall we believe that numbers will be higher, just as the IFS supposes. The commitment to support exceptional growth is always subject to affordability, which is unlike in HE where it looks as though increased student numbers will attract full funding immediately. That does not feel fair and we hope that ESFA recognises that too.”

A government spokesperson said: “We understand this has been a challenging time for the education sector which is why we introduced a range of support to help colleges and universities manage their finances and safeguard students.

“We have protected grant funding for further education, worth over £3 billion for a full year, and increased education and training investment this year for 16-19 year-olds by an additional £400 million.”