Latest news from FE Week

Let’s have a collective post-18 system for HE and FE

The lifelong loan entitlement will fail if policy doesn’t remove other barriers for students, writes Tim Blackman

Colleges Week marks the critical role colleges play in education and training, bridging skills gaps and equipping students of all ages to thrive in the workforce.

The Open University (OU) has a long history of links with the further education sector, working closely with individual colleges and the Association of Colleges to widen access to opportunity.

At the Conservative Party Conference recently there was a strong political and policy focus on skills, lifelong learning and broadening educational pathways.

This makes it an exciting as well as potentially challenging time for post-18 education.

But it is essential that we think about a collective post-18 system.

We must use this opportunity to be bold and ambitious, so that our frameworks enable flexible study without the often false distinctions between ‘academic’ and ‘technical’ paths.

The much-heralded lifelong loan entitlement in England is a key milestone on that journey but it will fail if it does not embrace incentives that overcome the many financial and practical barriers that adult learners face.

Critical to the lifelong loan entitlement is that everyone has access to the same funding entitlement regardless of how they choose to study.

That could be part-time, full-time or through modular study, face-to-face or distance learning, and higher technical qualification or traditional higher education qualifications.

Another area of uncertainty is around the fee caps and it is not yet clear how these will be set for modular study. Currently, there are two fee caps – one which applies to students registered on full-time courses and one which applies to students registered on part-time courses.

Under current legislation, there is no link between a part-time student’s study intensity and the fee cap which applies to them – it is set at 75 per cent of the full-time fee cap, no matter what.

This is a blocker to flexibility – many OU students want to be able to flex their study intensity over their qualification so they can fit their studies around their working and family lives.

We are calling for a single credit-based tuition fee cap linked to study intensity – where the fee cap applicable to a student would be determined based on how many credits they were actually studying rather than their mode of study.

Maintenance support should be extended to cover modular study

Maintenance support should also be extended to cover modular study, higher technical qualifications and distance learning rather than just full-time students and part-time degree students as it is at present.

At the Open University, we are well placed to work together with colleges, to help learners, businesses and public services succeed in what will be very challenging times.

We currently partner with 30 colleges across the four nations, validating their higher education programmes, sharing course content and expertise, and helping to expand their apprenticeships offer.

In England, we have worked with Milton Keynes College and the South Central Institute of Technology to offer new progression routes to engineering and computing degrees.

Learners will study at the college for two years, qualifying for a Higher National Diploma, and then progress to a third year at the OU to achieve a BA in engineering or computing honours.

This is made possible through a precedent award, which allows students to bypass the review that standard applicants undergo, expediting their application for the undergraduate degree.

Excitingly, our first students on this programme began their studies with us this month.

Such progression agreements are likely to become more common, helping those that want to qualify as quickly as possible to enter the workplace and earn.

The HND programmes at MKC cost £3,625 per annum – with the OU topping up £6,336 – making them affordable and an attractive option for many.

In Scotland, we’ve been working with 15 regional colleges to support transition between college and university.

These partnerships promote progression routes and credit transfer opportunities for students who wish to go on to degree study with the OU, again at lower cost while studying at the right pace for them.

The Open University in Wales has partnered with Cardiff and the Vale College to support 68 of its students to progress into higher education with monthly support interventions to help remove real and perceived barriers.

This is a model which can be adapted to work with other college partners.

Finally, in Northern Ireland the OU has been working with Belfast Metropolitan College to address the shortage of cyber security skills through a higher-level apprenticeship, leading to a foundation degree in cyber security.

This also allows students to progress to the final stage of the OU computing and IT degree.

We have a long history of being innovative and responsive to the needs of our learners, industry and public services.

Our partnership with the further education sector, as evidenced through some of these examples, demonstrates what is possible in challenging times.

FE staff offered scholarships to explore gaps in sector’s research

FE staff will be funded to take a Masters or PhD by the Association of Colleges and NCFE, under a new scheme to fill research gaps in the sector.

Research Further will fund ten scholarships in the first year of a three-year scheme, focused on areas such as adult education and tackling inequalities.

The association’s senior policy manager for research and evidence Julia Belgutay said the FE sector has “historically had a limited amount of research to tap into when we consider reports, data and general knowledge around FE and skills”.

She said the “ground-breaking” collaboration between AoC and NCFE will “support practitioners from the chalkface, those who know the sector best, in helping fill this gap and ultimately improve practice and the sector as a whole”.

The AoC has also announced the launch of a new research unit to “coordinate commission and utilise high quality research to support informed post-16 teaching practice and policy development at scale”.

Both announcements come during Colleges Week, an annual event intended to celebrate the FE sector which this year is taking place between October 18 and 22.

Proposals to research digital and adult education particularly welcome

Research Further will fully fund tuition fees, with commitments being made annually, though the AoC could not say how much will funding the scheme will have in total.

While there are no specification on what scholars must focus on, proposals to research areas like digital, what works in specific subjects or with specific cohorts, adult education and tackling inequalities will be particularly welcomed.

Proposals should also demonstrate there is a gap in existing evidence for the area the scholar wants to look into.

Applicants should have contacted the university at which they would like to study, though they can be assisted to identify the most appropriate one.

Existing Masters or PhD students can also apply, and part-time and full-time projects will be considered.

The scholars’ work will be disseminated through a webinar series. New findings about pedagogy or policy will be shared through think pieces, reports, articles, and blogs.

Project will ‘power impact-focused research’

NCFE chief executive David Gallagher is seeking “high quality data” which can “identify gaps” and allow the sector to “collaborate to tackle the changes which are needed within the education eco-system”.

Research Further will “power impact-focused research that will drive excellence and innovation in FE and make the greatest possible positive difference to learners’ lives,” he said.

The scheme is being supported by an advisory board made up of representatives from Ofsted, education technology company Jisc, Gatsby Charitable Foundation, the government, college leaders, research practitioners and the four nations of the UK. The precise membership is yet to be confirmed.

The board will advise on research themes and which applications will be funded.

This is not the first proposal supporting extra research in the FE sector: the Social Mobility Commission recommended in January 2020 the government spend £20 million on a research centre to explore “what works” in the sector and where extra investment is needed.

Applications for AoC-NCFE’s scheme are now open and close on 19 November. Applicants must work for an AoC member college and provide confirmation from their senior managers they will be allowed to spend at least one day a week on their course.

The application form is available from: https://www.aoc.co.uk/research-further

Make climate education compulsory and give us £1.5bn to build sustainable campuses, colleges tell government

College leaders have warned that the government’s net zero target will fail unless all courses for 16- to 18-year-olds are changed to include compulsory modules on climate change.

They also want an additional £1.5 billion capital investment in the next three years to sustainably transform their estates and invest in technology required to train for green jobs.

Their demands have been made in a letter signed by 150 college bosses to prime minister Boris Johnson and education secretary Nadhim Zahawi. It comes less than two weeks before world leaders meet in Glasgow to discuss how to reduce the effects of climate change at the COP26 summit.

The government published its Net Zero Strategy on Tuesday, which details how ministers plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to reach an aim of net zero by 2050.

Some colleges have made their own commitments to become net zero by 2030 but there is currently no sector-wide target that all colleges have signed up to.

Ministers are also aiming to “support up to 440,000 jobs across net zero industries in 2030” and say in this week’s strategy that colleges will be “key” to this goal.

College leaders believe the net zero ambition is “likely to fail” without making education on climate change and sustainability part of all study programme courses.

A curriculum audit from their membership body, the Association of Colleges, has found that less than 1 per cent of post-16 students are currently on a course with broad coverage of climate education.

The college leaders say the Department for Education and Ofqual should urgently work with stakeholders like awarding bodies to review all qualification specifications and ensure that they describe how education for sustainable development (ESD) is addressed.

AoC chief executive David Hughes said: “The government’s plans for the transition to net-zero simply will not work without aligning education policy with climate and sustainability priorities – that includes embedding climate modules in all study courses.

“College leaders and students have been crystal clear this is something they want and is necessary to meet the emerging skills needs of a greener economy.”

Colleges are also calling on the government to establish national centres of excellence in low carbon skills.

These would be hubs of experts in colleges which “could enable collaboration and sharing of best practice across the sector, with an easily accessible and well-known point for employers and people to engage with”.

Additionally, ministers should “urgently” fast-track the lifelong loan entitlement for training in priority green sectors.

The entitlement is currently set to launch in 2025 and will allow people to access funding for four years of study between levels 4 and 6, either in full years or as modules throughout their life.

One hundred and forty universities, all part of Universities UK, committed yesterday to cut their emissions by at least 78 per cent by 2035 compared to 1990 levels. They have committed to net zero by 2050. Both targets are identical to those set by the government for the whole economy.

Neither the college leaders’ letter or the AoC’s ‘green college commitment’ report commit to a hard target for when all college campuses will become net zero.

But some have committed to doing so by 2030.

Gloucestershire College is one signed up to the target. It is planning to undergo a £4.8 million energy “retrofit”, which is being partly funded by a £2.8 million grant secured through the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme.

The project will involve installing ground source heat pumps, solar panels for the college to generate its own renewable energy, followed by battery storage and smart energy controls.

Matthew Burgess, Gloucestershire College principal, said it currently takes the equivalent of 13 million kettles being boiled to run his campus every single day, so becoming carbon-zero is the “biggest and most important goal we can have”.

Other colleges committed to becoming net zero by 2030 include Craven College and Harrogate College – both located in North Yorkshire.

Colleges want a £1.5 billion injection in the next three years to develop sustainable campuses. This would be in addition to the £1.5 billion already committed by this government over this parliament for college capital projects.

The AoC estimates that 237 English colleges hold 8.5 million square metres, which they say “presents a significant opportunity for [net zero] impact”.

A DfE spokesperson said: “As we build back greener from the pandemic, we are committed to supporting people to get the green skills they’ll need for the careers of tomorrow.

“From skills bootcamps to apprenticeships, T Levels and traineeships, our programmes will create the talent businesses need in key sectors and help people at all levels to get the skills they will need for the green jobs of the future.”

Presenting a curriculum that works for every learner, whoever they are or whatever they want to be

It’s that time of the year when tutors and teachers are extra busy showcasing course options to prospective students. With options evenings or open days already in the diary, helping learners choose qualifications that suit their learning style and needs, can be tricky. Which is why Pearson has launched a free BTEC Options tool, which will help you showcase the specific BTEC courses your centre offers.

It’s never been easier for current and prospective learners to explore how a BTEC qualification can open doors to university, an apprenticeship, or into the world of work.

BTECs are important qualifications for preparing young people and adults with the knowledge and skills needed for the jobs of the future. Particularly in these times of economic flux and uncertainty. BTEC qualifications give learners a balance of the skills and knowledge they need to progress into the careers they want and by teaching BTEC, colleges can create a broad, balanced and diverse curriculum in their local community for all learners.

Career-focused education is also a powerful driver of social mobility that benefits employers, our economy and our communities. The jobs of the future will require uniquely human skills.

Studying a BTEC can help learners of all ages apply their study in real-life scenarios, ensuring they are uniquely prepared with a range of entrepreneurial and employability skills. Those skills enable them to flourish in our competitive world of rapid technological change, and to enjoy a career fuelled by passion and purpose.

The new BTEC Options tool is specifically designed to help you talk to students and parents about their next steps. The tool is easy to use, engaging and interactive. What’s more, it allows you to focus solely on the BTEC subjects offered by your centre, offering a wealth of customisable information that will help you recruit and retain learners on their journey to success.

Students and parents can access:

A tailored online webpage that shows the BTEC courses your centre offers
An interactive careers quiz
Subject-specific information
Employability skills students will develop on the course
A range of career options after studying BTEC
Stories from BTEC students and employers in all subject areas
A unique URL so that they can browse in their own time.

If you have specific questions about BTEC or need further help or support for Options 2021 you can also contact Pearson on Twitter at @TeachBTEC with your questions, and they’ll get straight back to you.

Explore what a BTEC can do for you and your students at btecworks.com

Universal Credit training flexibility extended by six months

The flexibility allowing Universal Credit claimants to undertake training for up to 16 weeks has been extended, the employment minister has announced.

Speaking at the Learning and Work Institute Youth Employment and Skills Summit 2021 today, employment minister Mims Davies announced to delegates the flexibility will now last until the end of April 2022.

“It means that UC claimants are now in an even better position to access sector specific training as part of the Department for Education’s Lifetime Skills Guarantee and the skills bootcamp initiatives,” she said.

The flexibility, originally announced as a six-month pilot in March 2021, increased the amount of time claimants could study full-time, work-focused courses will still receiving benefits from eight weeks to 12 weeks.

This went up to 16 weeks if the claimant was on a skills bootcamp – which train adults aged 19 and over in fields such as digital, construction and green skills.

“It allows people across Great Britain to take part in work related training to get them those key skills and be ready with them for what employers really value and need,” Davies added.

This comes after the government’s Kickstart scheme, funding jobs for 16- to 24-year-olds on Universal Credit, was extended from December until March 2022.

The scheme of £3,000 incentive payments for employers to take on new apprentices were also extended from September to the end of January.

The eight-week Universal Credit rule has been criticised by the FE and skills sector, with the Association of Colleges publishing a report in June saying it meant claimants are “prevented from developing skills that would allow them to get into better-quality, more stable, better paid employment over the longer term”.

The latest DWP data reveals 5.8 million people were receiving Universal Credit in September 2021.

Give every prisoner in-cell access to the internet, charity tells chancellor

The chancellor’s spending review should include a “major investment” so that every prisoner has access to a digital device and the internet in their cell, according to the Prisoners’ Education Trust.

Rishi Sunak, who will deliver his spending review next week, has been called on by the charity for the investment after the Covid-19 lockdown exposed how prisons are “stuck in the digital dark ages”.

The Centre for Social Justice published a report in January and found that only 18 out of the 117 prisons in England and Wales have the cabling or hardware required to support broadband in cells.

And when the pandemic struck, face-to-face learning was replaced by worksheets posted under doors which were deemed unhelpful to more than half of those who received them, according to a survey published by the HM Inspectorate of Prisons in February.

Prisoners were kept in their cells for 23 hours a day during the 18-month prison lockdown.

The Prisoners’ Education Trust believes digital devices and “secure, limited access” to the internet in every cell would allow prisoners to use their time to “access educational materials, helping them to ‘level up’ and better prepare for digital life on release”.

The charity said it could not put an estimated figure on how much funding would be needed exactly, but it would be over £100 million.

This year’s Centre for Social Justice report noted that the Ministry of Justice estimates that the cost of installing the hardware necessary to support broadband throughout the country’s prison estate would be in the region of £100 million.

Devices for each prisoner are estimated to then cost around £207 per prisoner, according to think tank Reform. Considering there are around 79,000 prisoners in the country, the devices alone would cost over £16 million.

Then there would also be the cost of any necessary educational content plus the cost of installing the devices, training for staff, along with ongoing running costs.

Jon Collins, chief executive of the Prisoners’ Education Trust said: “Everyone in prison, wherever they are in the country and whatever their background, should have access to education. Digital technology can help to make this happen.

“It is possible to provide safe, secure intranet and internet access to people in prison and in-cell devices would open up a world of educational opportunities. Without this, the digital divide will become a chasm, with prison leavers re-entering society ill-equipped to cope in a digital world. It is time prisons move out of the digital dark ages.”

A prison service spokesperson from the Ministry of Justice said: “We’ve kept education running throughout the pandemic with digital technology and in-cell learning.

“Education is key to reducing reoffending and we are restarting face-to-face learning where it is safe to do so.”

The spending review will take place on October 27.

Colleges ‘key’ to net zero strategy, says government

The government has said colleges will be “key” to hitting their target of supporting 440,000 net zero jobs by 2030.

The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy published its long-awaited Net Zero Strategy today, which details how ministers plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to reach an aim of net zero by 2050.

It comes less than two weeks before the COP26 summit in Glasgow, where world leaders will discuss how to reduce the effects of climate change.

Today’s strategy document states that it is the government’s ambition to “support up to 440,000 jobs across net zero industries in 2030, contributing towards a broader pivot to a greener economy which could support two million jobs in green sectors or by greening existing sectors”.

Reforming the skills system is a critical part of this plan, according to the document.

It states that new measures outlined in this year’s Skills for Jobs white paper will be “central” to this.

For example, the government is legislating through the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill to put employer leadership of new local skills improvement plans on a statutory footing and ensure they have “regard to skills needed to help deliver on our net zero target, adaptation to climate change, and other environmental goals”.

Colleges’ place at the “centre of their local communities and economies means that they are key to unlocking opportunities across the country,” the document says.

It adds that the government is reforming the adult skills funding and accountability system for colleges and other training providers to make sure they are “better supported to focus on helping their students into good jobs; reduce the complexity of funding so that colleges can focus on their core role of education and training; and define clearer roles and responsibilities for the key players in the system.

“This means that, for the first time, we will be able to reflect the value that relevant courses deliver to the taxpayer in the funding rate colleges receive for putting on courses.

“We will hold colleges to account for delivering good outcomes, and are consulting on proposals to introduce new accountability agreements setting out national priorities against which we expect colleges to deliver, for example enabling students to access opportunities in the green economy.”

While there is no mention of extra investment in FE providers to achieve the net zero goal, the government’s strategy lists off recent new policies they hope will contribute.

This includes green skills bootcamps, available in areas such as housing retrofit, solar, nuclear energy and vehicle electrification; and the adult level 3 offer under the lifetime skills guarantee which gives people access to free qualifications linked to green sectors.

The government recognises the “transition” through the skills system will require teachers in the further education sector to have a “strong understanding of sustainability”.

To this end, the government points out that employers have developed a refreshed apprenticeship standard for further education teaching – the level 5 learning and skills teacher apprenticeship standard – which came into effect in September 2021.

This apprenticeship, for the first time, requires that sustainability is integrated into their teaching, including through “modelling sustainable practices and promoting sustainable development principles in relation to their subject specialism”.

According to today’s strategy, “early estimates” from the apprenticeship’s trailblazer group suggest around 1,500 teachers each year could train using this apprenticeship standard.

It adds that this standard will “soon be incorporated into all future further education teaching qualifications, so that all teachers across all subject areas will be able to embed and promote sustainability in their teaching”.

UK training provider The Skills Network steps up to fill the skills gap on sustainability training and resourcing

COP26 is upon us. Agreements will be reached, hands shaken and agreements with the potential to drive rapid change across the world signed. Heads of state will return home ready to act on new targets or agreements, or at the very least, to figure out how to make it look like they’re doing so.

As a result of the agreements that come out of this make or break moment, business leaders will be compelled to adapt these changes into their vision and strategies to meet net zero, decarbonisation or even carbon negative targets.

What will this mean for the education sector and the new skills it will need to lead on? Earlier this year, FE News published an article on the sustainability roadmap for FE and HE institutions in the UK. The UNESCO 2030 roadmap is clear in its call for climate-ready learning environments, empowerment and upskilling of educators and more support for youth mobilisation on climate action.

There is still a huge piece missing when it comes to the picture of the skills needed to facilitate the social changes required to fight climate change. There has been much focus on ‘green jobs’ , such as the 694,000 of them that are forecast to exist across England by 2030 but the reality is that this is just part of a much, much bigger picture!

Whilst these green jobs will be essential for building a more sustainable economy, the overwhelming majority of us will continue to work in ‘non-green’ jobs in sectors that will still have to transform to become more sustainable. Green jobs alone will not bring the scale of change we need to meet sustainability targets.

It is not just a case of sustainability skills becoming essential for employability, but more that we have the challenge of changing personal and social behaviour across society to ensure that individuals know how their choices, as citizens and consumers, impact on the climate and future generations.

This means that our challenge goes far beyond developing skills for green jobs. We need to embed mass eco-literacy and sustainability skills across all sectors, job roles and society as a whole. The skills sector is the obvious choice to lead on this.

Where does this leave the teachers, students, apprentices and campus staff who could be taking action now but need the resources and training to do so? What can we do to support them?

A transformative solution for challenging times

An education and training solution which empowers the sector to lead on skills to mitigate and prevent the worst impacts of climate change, to equip all learners with the knowledge they need to support sustainability objectives, and the skills they need to be actively involved in change. That is the challenge we set ourselves at The Skills Network.

The solution needs to be accessible, adaptable and available to education institutes to personalise and align with their own focus, employer partnerships and region. It needs to provide practical strategy, support, end to end delivery resource and teacher training to empower education stakeholders to embed sustainability across their delivery to help them become Sustainability Change Makers.

The critical element here is impact. We do not need more people to know more things, but rather to feel able, empowered and ready to do more. To meet this challenge, and to address the huge sustainability skills gap we currently have, we are launching a suite of transformative solutions.

Understanding and applying environmental sustainability (level 2 RQF)

This unique programme is the first in the suite, and has the flexibility to draw relevance from a wide range of sectors, from those working in marketing admissions and finance on campus, to the learners doing their apprenticeships in hairdressers and catering companies, to people working in non green office jobs, or even working from home.

There are a lot of sustainability courses out there, with phrases like “raising awareness” or “equipping with knowledge” but this is not a course in GDPR or health and safety. There is a major lack of training, support and resources available to educators to embed it into the delivery of their own subject.

The Skills Network’s resources are different; designed to provide educators with an end to end solution for developing core sustainability skills and providing adaptable, sector-specific examples and many opportunities for practical application. Our level 2 qualification include project work applicable to each individual sector, and we provide the resources to embed this into full time programmes.

In line with this approach, our content explores key sustainability themes in a way that goes beyond basic knowledge transfer, and is instead relational and co constructed.We have embedded case studies and activities throughout our courses, which apply to a wide range of sectors and roles, ranging from ‘office’ job and service sectors to manual sectors, from large companies to individual sole traders, colleges to communities.

“That’s not co-constructed” you might say, and normally you would be right. In this new offer, however, we have added an additional project unit to our course offer on ‘Impact at Work’. This enables learners to take all of their new skills and knowledge to apply to practical sustainability scenarios in specific job roles and work sectors, which then feeds back into the learning resources as tangible, relatable examples of real impact.

Making real impact

The impact project component is a unique offer. Learners are asked to draw together their learning from the core units and apply it to make real change in their own setting, whether that be college, work, home or community.

From conducting and acting on sustainability audits to analysing sources of emissions and recommending and implementing changes, learners are firmly in the driving seat, and educators and institutions can be alongside in support.

We have created pathways for these learners to share that personal impact with us, so that an ever-increasing diversity of case studies can be fed back into the resources at learners’ disposal. The more a learner can see someone like themselves, making positive change in a context that feels personally relevant, the less distance there is from a sense of agency. In other words, if they do it, why can’t I?

In using this as a cornerstone resource to inspire change, educators can become instant sustainability champions, even if they are new to the subject. By taking our programme to use ‘off the shelf’ to deliver in-depth sustainability skills or by using our course editing tool to add in additional case studies and activities that are specific to the subject they teach, our resources can be used as a basis to deliver sustainability skills in everything from hairdressing and catering to construction and engineering!

Reflection, reaction, action.

Throughout our intensive, down-to-earth and practical suite of sustainability courses, we have created numerous opportunities to reflect, deepen learning, conduct independent research and to find out more about how each area of sustainability connects to the world around the learner. What do rising global temperatures mean for life in my region? What does the circular economy have to do with an apprentice plumber?

Each unit has opportunities to apply that learning. From small tasks at home, to organisations you can contact, to ideas for projects at work and in college. This approach is designed to build competency-based sustainability knowledge and skills that can be aligned to multiple roles and sectors, making learners more employable and able to use the practical skills developed on the programme to effect positive change at work

At each opportunity we connect the global context of big concepts like the UN SDGs and the big summits on climate change to the actions we see in everyday contexts around us. If we want to connect knowledge and reflection to action, we need to see the thread that runs through all of the narratives, policies and practices around us. Perhaps COP26 might feel a little less distant that way.

To help transform organisational cultures, systems, communities and societies, our offer is designed to find ways to meet people where they are, and shrink the distance between the issues we collectively face and the personal choices we make every single day.

The Leading Solution for Mass Sustainability and Eco Literacy Skills in Non-Green Jobs

As much as we have focused on creating relevance to a range of people, roles, sectors and contexts, nobody knows your setting better than you do. That means flexibility and adaptability will be a critical success factor for a sustainability training that aims at making real change in society.

While our ready to go, off-the-shelf provision will certainly appeal to many, we do offer a course builder tool which allows you to fully adapt, edit, brand and personalise the provision to your institute or subject.

Getting started with sustainability training can be very time consuming, but this way there is no need to start from scratch. You can add in examples from your own institution, your own case studies, extend areas that connect to key lines of strategy, and any number of other tweaks to take personalisation to the next level. Whatever your provision, region, local or national ecosystem, making this work for you is

Learning can be fully online (generally a lower carbon option!) or blended to add, for example, site visits and opportunities for experiential learning. Mass sustainability skills mean the broadest possible access, and online learning supports this.

This way, education institutes and businesses can use our core content to support their own branded, institutionalised sustainability strategy, with clear connections to specific student/institute projects and practical application activities.

Moving forward from there, we have a range of progression routes to more specialised courses for teachers and leaders, as well as consultancy support to help embed ESD within your wider sustainability strategy, from core projects to employer partnerships.

Through these layers of quality skills training and support, embedding sustainability in your institution just became much more accessible. If we are to be bold, we must be willing to say that every job is a green job in a truly sustainable world. That means every job must be supported with the skills training to make that a reality..

Empowering action now, not later

An ambitious sustainability strategy is not just an extra, or a nice-to-have in any business or education institution. Sustainability training is not an added value, but inherent. Minimising our impact on people and the planet is not just good for business and innovation, but a responsibility and an obligation.

The tidal wave of demand for sustainability skills is now coming into full view, but it is also our responsibility to equip the mass workforce with these skills, so that real systemic change is possible.

We need not wait for new rafts of regulations and targets to be handed down, especially those which shift with the prevailing political wind. If the last 20 years have proved anything, it is that we cannot always look up for leadership on climate action.

Arming our staff and students with knowledge of what sustainability means and how it connects to each of them, means they will see the way they live, eat, travel and work in a new light. The invigorating realisation that the worst impacts of climate change need not happen if we all step up, can make all the difference.

Leadership, empowerment, future skills and positive action. What’s not to like?

Keep calm and carry on recycling if you like, but we owe it to generations present and pending to learn more, say more, do more. To give this our best shot, and to do it together we need to be inclusive and make sure everyone gets involved.

We invite institutions to reach out and work with us to ensure that when these targets and strategies filter down from COP26, we have a new generation of graduates and learners, educators and leaders, who know just how to drive them forward.

For more information on The Skills Network’s sustainability courses and to sign up click here

Interview: Baroness Tina Stowell

Baroness Stowell is a born-and-bred FE college alumna from the Midlands who ended up leading the House of Lords. Now she’s calling for an end to the ‘disrespect’ of non-graduates

“I’ve spent a lot of time working in places where there are public crises and dramas. I’m not fazed by that, I don’t panic, I’ve seen it all before. It’s like bread and butter to me.”

Tina Stowell, or Baroness Stowell of Beeston (the Beeston in Nottinghamshire, not Leeds, she clarifies), is not exaggerating. She has seen it all before. She’s worked for RAF chiefs, in Washington when the Berlin Wall came down, under William Hague when the Conservatives were in their late 1990s crisis, and at the BBC during the Hutton Inquiry.

In that time, she has risen from a girl training to be a secretary in a further education college in the Midlands to being appointed the country’s Leader of the House of Lords. At one point, I just ask: how did she do it?

“I think it’s that I could make things happen. I could take charge of organising things, I was very good at building relationships and influencing people to be able to make things possible. I was like a mini-fixer.”

With William Hague and Michael Portillo in 2000

But while Stowell, who says her strength is “defining and redefining something down to its most simple point, to drive through change”, is comfortable in a major crisis, she is disturbed by a quieter crisis – an underlying trend rather than a front-page scandal. And education, she says, is at the heart of it.

It’s not a new argument: the country, and the western world, is increasingly divided along lines of educational attainment, rather than the old categories of class. The phenomenon is behind big fallouts over things like Brexit and Donald Trump.

But Stowell is perhaps unusual in having bothered to personally pen a paper, published last month with the Social Market Foundation, in which she “defines and redefines” the issue to make sense of it.

That’s how she came to FE Week’s attention: her report calls for an end to “disrespect” for non-graduates, once and for all. She explains.

“The education divide is showing up as a proxy for something else, and that’s the lack of respect for the people who sit on one side of that divide,” Stowell begins.

“What’s happened is over time, most people in positions of responsibility or leadership are graduates. These decision-makers among us then tend to define success in their own image. And they tend to think that the best way of serving everyone else is to encourage people along the same path as themselves.”

Stowell leans forward. “And that has led them to concentrate on academic qualifications as the main kind of credential that determines whether someone is worthy of respect or not.” She raises her eyebrows. “They don’t do it deliberately.”

This has several consequences. First, the longer people have been going to university, “the more that degrees have become seemingly the only currency that allows you to travel”. The government is arguably hoping to change this, with its focus on technical education reform through T Levels, degree apprenticeships and the wider Skills Bill proposals, including a lifelong loan entitlement.

But “ramping up” further education is not a sure-fire solution, Stowell warns in her paper.

It will “only assist in bridging the educational divide if it is not seen as a consolation prize for those who do not go to universities”.

Second, among the older generation are “successful people without degrees who can feel quite frustrated that their contribution is not understood”.

On the Red Benches in 2017

Stowell knows this all too well, as someone who got to the top with a vocational qualification from an FE college. Her father was a painter and decorator, her mum worked in a factory, and Stowell was brought up believing in work.

“I wanted to be a grown up, and work was grown up. I was in a family where work was talked about a lot. You put work first, you worked hard, you never turned down overtime.”

At the end of school, which Stowell persisted at but didn’t love, she set her sights on a prestigious secretarial course at college. “I wanted to be a hot-shot secretary!”

There was no sense this was a sub-par choice over university, she continues. “Those who went to university had always been known as the brainy ones. For those who went to college like I did, that was something to be proud of.”

Stowell was the only girl from her school year accepted on to the course, where she studied for the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry private secretary certificate. “I thought college was fantastic. It was because it felt different to school. The lecturers treated us like adults.”

From there, Stowell’s career took off. But not many other secretaries are making speeches in the Lords now. Stowell’s vocational qualifications gave her a leg up – she became private secretary to an RAF commodore and then got a job in Washington through the Ministry of Defence – but her attitude built her career. Or, as she calls it, “standards”.

With the Queen in 2015

“People like to talk about values, but they shy away from the word ‘standards’. However, values can be quite nebulous: be kind. Who doesn’t agree with being kind?

“But standards are more specific. The reason they are so critical is they allow us to judge behaviour. The only way we can judge someone’s motives is through their behaviour. You can’t judge what’s really in someone’s mind.”

Stowell’s point is that by adhering to certain standards of behaviour, people can trust one another. “Standards like punctuality and working hard, they are an exercise in self-discipline, and they force us to show respect to someone else, and that cultivates a mutual understanding.”

To illustrate her point, Stowell describes returning from Washington to a job as Number 10’s press secretary’s assistant. She soon oversaw the travelling press parties overseas and was an important contact for lobby journalists.

After a break from politics, she returned to work for William Hague, with Sebastian Coe as chief of staff and George Osborne as political secretary. There she was, surrounded by graduates from vastly different backgrounds to her own.

The reason someone like me has progressed is the fact I have brought to my work my commitment and standards

But if Stowell’s preoccupation is what divides people, then her solution is these standards. “The reason someone like me has progressed is the fact I have brought to my work my commitment and standards. These have been reciprocated to me by people who have been educated in a different way, and gone through a different system.

“We’ve seen and recognised in each other common standards, which has made it possible to trust each other and form serious bonds.” It’s a powerful argument.

Finding common standards is how Stowell works. After standing unsuccessfully to be selected as an MP in 2009, she was appointed by David Cameron to the Lords, from where she guided the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 through the House.

She did so by “telling the doubters it was OK to be doubtful”. The argument became less divisive and more were inclined to back the bill, she says. By 2014, she was Leader of the House.

Her other superpower is articulating the problem in hand. Take this one: reform of the Lords. “The purpose of the House of Lords is to complement the House of Commons by working in a different way […] less combative, more thoughtful, less political.” But this is changing with the move away from hereditary peers towards directly appointed peers instead, says Stowell.

“I don’t think the House of Lords is adding as much value as it might have done in the past, because it’s becoming increasingly, in its practices and its methods, more like the House of Commons.” Successive prime ministers have appointed people to get legislation through, so there are more former MPs, she explains.

“So they’re continuing what they were doing in the Commons.” There is a real danger people will “legitimately” ask what the point of the Lords is, she warns.

First day in the House of Lords in 2011

In terms of solutions, Stowell says she favours a more elected model, but she doesn’t have a blueprint.

However, she does have solutions for the educational divide.

Everyone has “got to see FE as a route to leadership and positions of authority. It’s really important we see people who go down that path as potential leaders themselves.”

Meanwhile, employers should stop valuing a university degree over the “standards” a person displays. “Too many entry-level jobs seem to value a university degree for no good reason. Beyond qualifications there are social norms or standards, and these are things we ought to recognise.”

But here the rub. Does Stowell realise that having these “standards” (self-efficacy, self-discipline and self-belief, often arising from a stable home life) is itself a dividing line? How do we help the people whose lives are too chaotic, or too traumatic, to learn such standards?

We know the long-term solutions for changing behaviour (high-quality social workers, coaches and therapy) are expensive.

“I don’t know if there’s a structural answer to that question, but today’s leaders have a responsibility to demonstrate and promote those standards, to argue for them and to back people who uphold them.”

It’s not an evasion, but there are many college staff working with the most vulnerable who would say such a solution is really not sufficient.

Nevertheless, Stowell makes a powerful case, when others have given up ̶ or wouldn’t express it half so clearly, or bravely.