ESFA director of funding poached by Cabinet Office

The Education and Skills Funding Agency’s first overall director of funding – appointed just last year to oversee a new ‘centre of excellence’ – has been poached by the Cabinet Office. 

Kate Josephs will leave the ESFA to take up a director general role in the Cabinet Office to deal with the government’s Covid-19 response. 

She will be replaced by John Edwards, the regional schools commissioner for the East Midlands and the Humber, who will take up the role next week. 

Josephs had been overseeing the creation of a single funding operations centre of excellence responsible for schools, academies and post-16 funding. 

Plans for the new team and role, the first to preside over the DfE’s entire £63 billion budget, were first revealed by FE Week.

Josephs had also been the lead director for the ESFA’s Covid-19 core team.

Eileen Milner, ESFA chief executive, said Josephs had “expertly balanced two very demanding roles and has done so with great skill and capability”.

But she said Edwards brings a “wealth of experience as an RSC and in local government. I know he is very much looking forward to working with the directorate team and stakeholders to continue to develop an efficient and user-centred approach across the agency’s funding responsibilities.”

Carol Gray, the current deputy director in the East Midlands and Humber team, has agreed to become interim RSC pending a full recruitment process in the autumn.

Disappointing: Sunak’s skills package dodges the issues

The measures announced this week by the chancellor fail to address the key skills challenges the government faces, writes Toby Perkins

The scale of the threat to our crucial apprenticeship and FE sector is severe. The Association of Employment and Learning Providers warns that learning providers could close their doors, with FE colleges consulting on redundancies and college principals talking of the collapse in new apprenticeship vacancies. Worryingly, within hours of the chancellor’s statement, colleges told me that that employers were calling them to cancel apprenticeships and choosing instead to employ “the ones the government are paying”. Meanwhile, a generation of young people stand on the precipice of leaving education with no little to no job opportunities. 

In the context of the era-defining crisis that faces us, the skills package the chancellor outlined on Wednesday is hugely disappointing.  

At a meeting of college principals, with a particular focus on apprenticeships, a few hours after the chancellor had sat down, I heard disappointment and frustration that this crucial opportunity had been lost.

Individually, the measures announced all have potential merit, but as a package they fail to address the key skills challenges the government faced going into this statement, namely:

  • To create incentives for nervous businesses currently declining to employ apprentices to take the plunge and recruit.
  • To reassure the FE sector that they would have the finances in place to prevent a rash of redundancies that would hamper their capacity to react.
  • To create mechanisms that will be able to be delivered quickly, accessed simply and have clear objectives and outcomes to give confidence to employers, learning providers and students.

They have failed to do all three. 

The government’s new offerings will require very careful signposting if they are not to create perverse incentives against the employment of apprentices. 

The Kickstart programme was trailed as a six-month free employment programme, though I understand that it will entail three months of training followed by three months of employment. The recruitment of new work coaches will be crucial but the speed of delivery of recent government announcements doesn’t create confidence about their ability to put in place the staff needed to oversee the many new initiatives. 

The government must avoid creating a division between the 18-year-olds who firms can employ for free and the 16-year-olds they can have with a 25 per cent wage subsidy.

Whilst government may have a clear idea about the difference between the young people suitable for the different categories of scheme, communicating these nuances to employers will be tough. 

Both colleges and employers tell me that the £2,000 grant will be welcomed by employers who would have taken on an apprentice anyway but is unlikely to make a huge difference to the numbers of apprenticeship starts this autumn. The government should consider whether the incentive on apprenticeships is enough to address the collapse in apprenticeship starts.

FE colleges who are dependent on apprenticeship revenue are facing a perilous financial picture, and many of them are already consulting on redundancies. One of the key issues is the one-year funding lag on full-time course numbers which should be addressed with real-time funding this autumn. 

Without addressing this, FE redundancies are likely. That could lead to employers deciding to take on apprentices only to find that learning providers lack the capacity to deliver.

The chancellor has rightly identified the threat to a generation of young people. But the new measures follow years of chronic under-investment in FE. With policy driving more apprenticeship funding away from young people, and private providers unprotected, the government is risking young people’s futures and the means to rescue them. 

There is an urgent need for greater simplicity and flexibility, and for support for the FE and private institutions who deliver the training. There must also be a greater commitment to supporting employers to use apprenticeship funding to prevent the lost generation that the chancellor claims to be setting out to protect.

Colleges should seize ‘digital renewal’ to reimagine the student experience for the new normal

With online enrolment and hybrid learning environments set to become ‘the new norm’ from September 2020, students are left wondering, will the Student Experience ever be the same again?

We asked colleges, current student cohorts, the Association of Colleges, and Blueprint Education Services for their views…

 

Accelerating the rate of digital change

Colleges have had to adapt quickly to new ways of working during the Covid-19 pandemic – presenting both challenges and opportunities. The pace and scale of digital reform in the FE sector in the past three months alone has been tremendous. Many colleges are now looking to ‘digital renewal’ to deliver even better enhanced learning experiences with the help of technology.

 

Blueprint Education Services CEO, Jason Folkett summarises the opportunity:

“Lockdown has precipitated innovative approaches to teaching and learning, which, if harnessed through the smart use of technology will bring about not only efficiency, but [also] improve retention and success.”

 

Kev Gillard, Associate at Association of Colleges (AoC) agrees:

“Digital strategy and practice [are] at the centre of the dialogue about curriculum intent going forwards. Learners are already ahead of us, using Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok routinely and seamlessly in their lives. Our challenge is to emulate the intuitive nature of these tools so that learner’s engagement and involvement in learning enhances their progress.”

 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, a recent Tribal Group customer research survey of 240 students across 4 colleges and 53 subject areas revealed a 353% increase in usage of Tribal’s app ‘Engage’, when comparing a 3-month pre- and post-lockdown average. Many students said they are now reliant on digital platforms to create their learning experience and stay connected with staff and other students:

“[The app] is helpful to me especially during this period of time where we do remote learning. Whenever we have an online lesson, my tutor drops a message in the group as a reminder. I find it really helpful.”

 

To build on this uptake in usage and the digital transformation of services, colleges now need to focus on re-imagining the Student Experience, especially for new starters. As having the right approach and delivery tools in place will be key to both the short and longer-term success of FE colleges everywhere, Jason Folkett (Blueprint) concludes:

“I strongly believe that those colleges that embrace technology as a key component of business success will be the ones that thrive and survive”. 

 

Indeed, embracing technology now will reassure students that their chosen college is committed to delivering high-quality teaching digitally, dedicated to supporting their well-being via virtual services, and ready to help them achieve the best possible learning outcomes – now and in the future.

 

Preparing for the ‘new norm’ – trends that bode well for the FE sector

A glance at the short-term trends impacting course offerings suggests a likely increase in learners choosing to study health and nursing courses, inspired by the pandemic; although, recruitment for retail, leisure and hospitality schools will be more volatile. Longer-term, Britain’s plans for a new ‘green economy’ means that highly-rated specialist colleges are a potential source of the keyworkers and skilled tradespeople needed for this emerging sector. This is considered good news for general FE and sixth form colleges too, as they can steer learners directly into employment with the right learning support.

FE colleges may also benefit from an increase in demand for qualified vocational learners if the predicted housing boom occurs.  Staying in touch with local employers will, of course, be important for colleges, particularly in ‘commuter towns’ where we’re likely to see a sudden and persistent pressure on upsizing as homeworkers move for home-office and leisure space.

In other news, there have been extensive government-level discussions around promised courses, apprenticeships, and other FE study options – particularly for those no longer seeking higher education due to circumstances brought about by the pandemic. How this will transpire remains to be seen, so FE sites will need to use their well-honed skills to pivot quickly and adapt to new policy when opportunities arise.

Whatever courses your college has to offer, recent research suggests that all students will still want ‘live’ contact with their lecturers and trainers, as this is a valuable and important part of the Student Experience.

 

The challenge is to accommodate this in the immediate-term, taking into consideration:

  • Changes in college opening hours in response to capacity constraints on public transport
  • Restricted numbers in class, on campus, and in work-place settings
  • Staggered staff shifts and ‘rota’ working
  • Hybrid models of ‘blended learning’ comprising face-to-face teaching in small groups and online classes
  • An on-going increase in the number of learners with special educational needs and disability (SEND)
  • An anticipated increase in adjustments needed following enrolment to ensure learners are on the right courses (as a result of exam cancellations)
  • A possible reduction in numbers or increased shift to online learning for international students.

 

Many are heralding digital solutions, ideally in the cloud, as the answer to these challenges as FE colleges turn to flexible and scalable remote learning and engagement support for learners who cannot access sites consistently. Currently, demand is skyrocketing for apps, learner hubs and staff solutions that are accessible and engaging for all users.

This new technology, with correct application, also presents a transformative opportunity to bring in historically excluded learners, including blind, deaf, and non-ambulatory learners.

 

Five must-haves for delivering high-quality learning experiences – now and in the future

A successful digital college set-up enables back-end process to be more efficient and front-end interfaces to be more intuitive. It’s why many FE colleges are considering cloud-based CRM platforms, custom apps and other digital technologies that either provide or integrate with all the functionality the institution needs – but can be deployed ‘piece-by-piece’, as the college has the bandwidth, resources, and buy-in to add new use cases.

 

Jason Folkett (Blueprint) explains:

“We are starting to see the emergence of digital portfolios on learner facing Apps which link directly into CRM systems and this is exciting from an engagement and recruitment perspective. Colleges are starting to implement a ‘one stop’ approach to admissions by using collegiate onboarding systems and a more holistic approach to planning is generating sustained business efficiency.” 

 

 

So what are the five key digital capabilities that all colleges need to consider in 2020 and beyond?

 

  • Digital enrolment

Some colleges are considering digital solutions to deliver entirely remote enrolment supported by video and live chat, or a hybrid approach where only brand new starters come onto campus, and returning students re-enrol online.

For some time now, paperless enrolment processes have been gaining momentum throughout the sector and are increasingly considered best practice. Rather than learners standing in a queue for hours, using a digital enrolment solution is proven to:

  • Reduce reliance on manual processes, speeding up the process wherever possible,
  • Authenticate enrolment without needing face-to-face contact,
  • Provide real-time visibility of the journey for each applicant,
  • Deliver compliant, targeted communications to students/parents/carers,
  • Report management information at every step of the process to keep staff informed, and
  • Maintain a single source of highly accurate student data.

 

  • Digital participation

Whilst attendance has gone up since offering students online learning, recent insights from FE colleges indicate that participation remains an issue. For some institutions, a way of managing this may be to deliver via online platforms only to their highest achievers, and focus in-person support for other cohorts. Kev Gillard (AoC) advocates:

“Delivering programmes efficiently by having remote attendance alongside actual attendance so that students are all studying at the same time and pace will become a way forward…”Of course, most FE colleges have already modernised teaching and learning delivery to ensure students have the materials, information and support they need for their studies, on demand and at their fingertips via virtual learning environments (VLE) and student information systems.

However, with more ‘live lessons/training’ moving online, further innovation is required to encourage participation during real-time sessions. Using polls, instant messaging and gamification features within software solutions could prove really useful in the terms ahead as teachers and students adjust to and make the most of ‘virtual’ contact time.

 

  • Digital learning communities
    As well as participation during sessions, collaboration ‘outside’ of contact time is vital for individual study, peer-to-peer learning and developing relationships that are essential for wellbeing. As face-to-face collaboration is likely to be limited (or in some cases, non-existent) for some time, collaboration apps are now a ‘must have’ for colleges that want to nurture safe, secure and personalised communication between students, staff, departments and connected businesses.

    Giving students a private social network in which to learn and support each other, this technology consolidates your college’s existing web portals into a single app, making access to class activities, self-learning, and social events simpler than ever before.

 

When asked during the aforementioned Tribal Group survey, students explained the benefit they get from their college’s collaboration app:

“I like being able to see all updates about the college and current events that are happening as well as messaging my friends, my tutor when needed, plus seeing my timetable and all of my course progression.”

“[I can] chat to friends privately, post pictures and literally do anything. It’s like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram all in one but based on college friends so I can get information from others on my course.”

 

What’s more, these apps can be directly linked to supporting students’ mental health, as this respondent summarised:

             
“I’ve used the app for contacting my tutor while struggling with mental health issues. Additionally, with the Coronavirus, it’s been a way to check up on the status [of my classes].”

 

  • Digital student wellbeing and support

As the previous point indicates, all FE colleges are anticipating an increased pressure on pastoral and welfare services and are busy preparing support for bereaved learners and those who have suffered illness. Colleges with older and adult learners are also conducting risk assessments around tiredness, travel and sensitivity to further infections.

Post-Brexit, pastoral teams can also expect an increase in the number of questions regarding right to study, student finance, and finding work. Keeping your college’s FAQs up to date and as detailed as possible will prove a welcome source of reassurance for both existing and potential international students.

Indeed, ensuring your Student Wellbeing services can be accessed digitally and students can find the support they need, when they need it 24/7 365, has never been more important – for student welfare, and for retention.

 

  • Digital insights

A typical student now has many ‘touch-points’ with their college – including library records, tutorial log-ins, and sessions spent accessing virtual course-ware. With more and more of these touch-points now becoming digital, the capability to monitor them is increasing daily. Using intelligent software to analyse these growing data sets, educators can identify students who are struggling – and even predict who is likely to drop-out – so that they can stage targeted ‘interventions’ in time to make a difference, rather than months downstream of the issue.

Once at risk of ‘drowning in data’, now colleges have the power to combine ‘learning analytics’ with predictive analytics, student service usage, business intelligence, and financial performance, in order to increase efficiencies and improve student engagement and success. 

Indeed, studying your data trends now could help shape the rest of your digital transformation journey as you re-imagine the Student Experience at your college.

 

Blueprint’s Jason Folkett concludes:

“An ‘end to end’ business intelligence approach enables colleges to plan and respond with agility in an informed and measured way… In our experience colleges with fully integrated business systems are best placed to respond to the challenges and opportunities that the future holds for the sector.” 

 

For more ways to ‘re-imagine’ the Student Experience and enable your business to respond to market changes with agility, take a look at Tribal’s FE Digital Intelligence Hub. There you can access video resources, sign up for live webinars on topics like enrolment, and access a wealth of resources to support your transition to a digital focus.

Gavin Williamson’s speech on FE reform: The full text

Hello. It is a great pleasure to be here with you today and I’d like to thank not only the Social Market Foundation for hosting this, but also you for joining me.

We have all been busy, in different ways, dealing with the impact of COVID-19. The way people live, the jobs people have, in some cases the industries that are the bedrock of our economy, have all changed overnight. The unprecedented challenge posed by the pandemic has made it even more important to invest in long-term change and to think seriously about the post-16 education system we need in this country.

Education is a keystone of our society and it’s one we can be very proud of.

There is so much right with our education system but when it comes to further education, too many people here don’t value it as much as they should.

FE stands for Further Education but for too long it may as well have stood for Forgotten Education.

I don’t accept this absurd mantra, that if you are not part of the 50% of the young people who go to university that you’ve somehow come up short. You have become one of the forgotten 50% who choose another path.

It exasperates me that there is still an inbuilt snobbishness about higher being somehow better than further, when really, they are both just different paths to fulfilling and skilled employment. Especially when the evidence demonstrates that further education can open the doors to greater opportunity, better prospects and transform lives.

We must never forget that the purpose of education is to give people the skills they need to get a good and meaningful job.

I know that many people listening to this speech will have gone to schools where almost of all their classmates went on to university. It was expected: a rite of passage, a matter of course.

That wasn’t the case for me. Many of my friends from school went into further education. And they did very well there. It opened up opportunities and took them to where they wanted to be. They now have great jobs and are rightly proud of what they have achieved.

And further education helped them achieve that.

As I said, Covid-19 has thrown many of our assumptions into sharp relief.

I’d like to thank all colleges and other FE providers for the tremendous work they been doing to enable learning to continue throughout lockdown, including moving courses online, supporting learners and apprentices, delivering meals to disadvantaged young people.

The proportion of learners that colleges have managed to keep engaged is astounding. And while the challenge of moving learning online has been formidable, the success with which it has been achieved demonstrates the vast potential of digital learning – and the potential to transform education further as the pace of technological change continues to accelerate.

And I’m absolutely delighted to stand here today, following the Prime Minister’s announcement last week of an ‘Opportunity Guarantee’, giving every young person the chance of an apprenticeship or an in-work placement, so that they maintain the skills and confidence they need to find the job that is right for them.

The Chancellor set out the extraordinary details of that pledge yesterday. This included a major £2 billion ‘kickstart scheme’ to make sure no young person is left behind as a result of coronavirus, an investment of £111m in the largest-ever expansion in traineeships; the doubling of front line staff at job centres, as well as an extra £32m for recruiting extra careers advisers and £17m for work academies in England.

The Government is also providing £101 million to support school and college leavers to take high value Level 2 and Level 3 courses, where there are not employment opportunities available to them.

There will also be a massive boost to apprenticeships as businesses that sign up to employ new apprentices aged 16-24 between 1 August 2020 and the 31 January 2021 will receive an additional cash payment of £2000 per new apprentice hired, and £1500 if they hire a new apprentice aged 25 plus.

Together with the fast-tracking of £200m of capital funding announced last month, this investment represents a clear vote of confidence by this government in further education.

When I first came into this job, I was firmly of the belief that there needed to be a major shift in how we treat further education.

Not just because of its importance in levelling up.

Not just because it’s about delivering for all those communities who we, as Conservatives, are representing for the first time.

But because further education is vital if we want our country to grow economically and our productivity to improve.

We need fundamental change, not just tinkering around the edges.

As we recover from this tragedy, further education will be even more important than ever.

The development of technical and vocational skills, the greater embedding of digital skills – will be vital to charting our course to recovery.

There will be a tremendous need for upskilling, reskilling and retraining. Getting people back into work as quickly as possible.

And further education will be at the very heart of that mission. Its ability to offer flexible, practical training that leads directly to jobs is exactly what this country needs.

Local colleges firmly tapped into local business needs will get Britain working again.

Further education is central to our mission of levelling up the nation. Or quite simply, giving people the skills that they need to get the jobs that they want.

If you want to transform many of our left-behind towns and regions, you don’t do it by investing more money solely in universities. You invest in the local college – the beating hearts of so many of our towns.

By driving up the skills base of a community we drive up what it will achieve.

But unfortunately, we’ve not been providing as many of our young people with this opportunity as we should.

Since becoming Education Secretary, I was shocked to discover that while the number of people going to university has increased, the total number of adults in education has actually fallen.

So what’s driven that fall?

The number of adult learners in Further Education has plummeted, from 3.1 million to 2.1 million.

There has been a systemic decline in higher technical qualifications. Well over 100,000 people were doing Higher National Certificates and Diplomas in the year 2000; that has reduced to fewer than 35,000 now.

Within Higher Education Institutes, foundation degrees have declined from a high of 81,000, to approximately 30,000.

Undergraduate part-time study in higher education has also fallen significantly, from nearly 250,000 in 2010 to under 100,000.

Together, these more than outweigh the increase in young people going to university.

And for those who haven’t achieved the equivalent of A-Levels by age 18, the chances of proceeding to higher levels of qualifications is, as Philip Augar’s report puts it, ‘virtually non-existent.’

Unlike almost every other OECD nation, young people are no more likely to have basic literacy and numeracy skills than those over 55.

We’re writing off people who have a tremendous potential to contribute to our society.

Unless we change our course, we are condemning our country to low productivity and lost opportunity for a generation.

For decades, we have failed to give further education the investment it deserves. Of course, we know universities have an important role to play in our economy, society and culture. But it’s clear that there are limits to what can be achieved by sending ever more people to university, which is not always what the individual or our nation needs. In February I got sent a copy of the Oxford Review of Education’s special edition, about Higher Education and the labour market.

The introduction by Hugh Lauder and Ken Mayhew set out the facts.

Consistently across countries, there is evidence of filtering down in the labour market. That means that graduates are competing for jobs that used to be – and could still be – done by non-graduates. And a significant proportion of graduates fail to gain much advantage from going to university at all.

It reinforces what we already know. Green and Henseke have found that 34% of our graduates are in non-graduate jobs, more than any other countries in Europe except for Ireland and the Czech Republic. And employers say that too often, graduates don’t have the skills they need, whether that’s practical know-how or basic numeracy and literacy.

To quote Adam Marshall, Director General of the British Chambers of Commerce: ‘unless we improve the transition from the world of education to the world of work in the United Kingdom, we will not fix our long-standing issues around productivity’.

As it stands, productivity is only 4% higher than the level it was in 2008. At the same time, our businesses are crying out for skilled technicians.

Only 10% of all adults aged 18-65 hold a Higher Technical Qualification as their highest qualification. This compares to around 20% of adults in Germany and as much as 34% in Canada.

Skilled trade and professional occupations, in sectors such as manufacturing and construction, report some of the highest skills shortages.

Many of these occupations require intermediate or higher technical qualifications – precisely the things that we are not teaching.

Simply as a nation we seem to have given up on them when these are the skills we need most to have a chance of competing against other nations.

And let’s not pretend these qualifications are in any way inferior to a degree.

The outcomes speak for themselves. Five years after completion, the average Higher Technical Apprentice earns more than the average graduate.

I’d like to pause on that point just for a moment. A work-based, technical apprenticeship, lasting around 2 years, gives greater returns than the typical three year bachelor’s degree.

For too long, we’ve been training people for jobs that don’t exist. We need to train them for the jobs that do exist and will exist in the future.

We have to end the focus on qualifications for qualifications sake. We need fundamental reform: a wholesale rebalancing towards further and technical education.

And across our entire post-16 sector, we need a much stronger alignment with the economic and societal needs of the nation.

The tragedy is that for decades, we’ve forgotten about half of our education system.

When Tony Blair uttered that 50% target for university attendance, he cast aside the other 50%. It was a target for the sake of a target, not with a purpose.

Governments of all colours have failed to give the other 50% of young people the support and investment that they deserve. And all the energy and effort of our policy experts and media has been concentrated on the route that we took ourselves, driving more people into higher education.

We’ve focused on what we’re familiar with, not what the nation needs. We’ve been carefully building up a patch of sand in front of our nose, and haven’t noticed the tide sweeping in around us.

That has to change.

As Education Secretary, I will stand for the forgotten 50%.

From now on, our mantra must be Further Education, Further Education, Further Education.

My personal commitment is to put further and technical education at the heart of our post-16 education system. Like the Prime Minister, I believe that talent and genius are expressed as much by the hand and by the eye as they are in a spreadsheet or an essay.

We need to create and support opportunities for those who don’t want to go to university, not write them off – or drive them down a path that, can all too often, end with graduates not having the skills they need to find meaningful work.

What, what could be more dispiriting for a young person to think that the only way they can succeed is if they undertake a degree – only to find that it doesn’t open the doors that they dreamed of? Further education, our colleges, are fundamental to our success: to opportunity, to productivity and to levelling up every part of our great nation.

It’s about transforming lives, getting people into jobs where they can have pride in what they do and they can have money in their pocket.

A lot of Education Secretaries across the years have said they want to support further education.

I know some of you will feel you’ve heard all of this before. That you’ll feel a sense of fatigue from reforms that didn’t go far enough.

And of course, we have made some progress:

The introduction of the apprenticeship levy and the move to employer-led standards; the Sainsbury Review – which we are well on the way to implementing – and the introduction of T Levels.

But, we need to go further, we need to go further and we need to go faster: to remove qualifications that are just not fit for purpose; to tackle low quality higher education; and to give colleges the powers and resources that they need to truly drive change.

But I recognise that we cannot just talk – we must act.

We’ve already made a start.

We’ve begun transforming the post-16 landscape with our new high-quality apprenticeships and ground-breaking T Levels. The first T Levels will be delivered from September this year in Digital, Education and Childcare, and Construction.

In the Spring Budget we announced an additional £1.5bn to upgrade the further education college estate. This is the largest capital investment in the sector in a generation and will enable colleges everywhere in England to have buildings and facilities that can deliver world class tuition.

We have also committed to a new £2.5 billion National Skills Fund. This will galvanise our ability to get people working, as well as giving those already in work the chance to train for higher-skilled and better-paid jobs.

How we spend that money will be critical.

That’s why this autumn I will be publishing a White Paper that will set out our plans to build a world-class, German-style further education system in Britain, and level up skills and opportunities.

This will not be about incremental change, but a comprehensive plan to change the fundamentals of England’s further education landscape, inspired by the best models from around the world.

It will be centred upon two things.

Firstly, high quality qualifications based on employer-led standards. All apprenticeships starts will be based on those standards from August this year and we will be looking to place such standards at the heart of our whole technical education system.

Secondly, colleges playing a leading role in developing skills in their areas, driving an ambitious agenda that responds to local economic need and acting as centres for businesses and their development.

Let’s talk about these a bit more.

At the moment there are more than 12 thousand different qualifications at level 3 and below.

I think we can all agree this is a ridiculous number.

We are carrying out a review, to simplify the system so that young people and adults can have a simpler and consistently high-quality set of choices, with a clear line of sight to study at higher levels.

Qualifications which no-one takes, or that are poor quality, look likely to go in their thousands. Later this year, we will set out a detailed plan for the implementation of this reform.

We will continue to drive forward apprenticeships giving more young people the opportunity to learn while they work. Our new employer-led standards are already making a difference, with almost three quarters of all new starts using these standards.

As we recover from COVID-19, apprenticeships will have a critical role to play in creating employment opportunities, particularly for young people. We are looking to support employers of all sizes – and particularly smaller businesses – to take on new apprentices this year and will also ensure that there is sufficient funding to support small businesses to do so.

As the British Chambers of Commerce has said, support for vocational education and for apprenticeships are crucial to the Government’s ambition to ‘level up’ opportunities across the United Kingdom.

And following our consultation last year we will be bringing forward plans to reverse the decline in higher technical education so that we can begin once more to train people for the jobs that the economy actually needs.

We will be establishing a high-quality system of higher technical education. We want learners and employers to have confidence in high-quality courses that provide the skills they need to succeed, whether they are taught in a college in Yeovil or a university in Yorkshire. And we want to do much more to open up more flexible ways of studying, including better support for modular learning.

Reforming and growing higher technical education will be a long-term endeavour. We want to see our great further education colleges expanding their higher technical provision. And although this speech is about further education, universities can be an important part of the solution, if they are willing to significantly step up their provision of higher technical qualifications.

Of course, qualifications are only half of the picture. Equally important is where they are taught.

Colleges already play a leading role in many local communities and work with local businesses on skills and economic development, but we need to build on this in a far more systemic way.

I want colleges to be pivotal in their communities, training local people to work in local businesses, so that everyone feels the benefit.

So today I would like to spell out how our colleges should look in the future.

They should be led by great leaders and governors who are drawn from local communities and businesses, and teaching staff who have already have experience working in and with industry…

They should have industry-grade equipment and modern buildings which are great places to learn in and which act as centres for business development and innovation…

They should deliver courses that are of the highest quality and which are tailored to the needs of employers and their local economies…

They should work with small, local businesses to support the introduction of new technology and processes, and offer training in emerging skills….

And there should be a robust system of governance so that every college is financially secure, flexible and dynamic.

We are also driving forward our network of Institutes of Technology. They will lead the way on delivering higher technical skills in science, technology, engineering, and maths – skills that will give this country a competitive edge not just in the industries of today, but, just as importantly, those of tomorrow.

The first 12 are being rolled out across the country, ready to deliver the next generation of technicians and engineers, and more will follow soon.

There is so much excellent work happening in our colleges already. I know many of you will have been making a tremendous contribution, particularly during the Covid outbreak, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for everything you do.

Good colleges change lives, hundreds of thousands of lives, every year.

But we all know that those amazing and fantastic colleges are built on having fantastic teachers. We need to do more to encourage great people to teach in our great colleges – and to give colleges the ability to reward them properly.

Those who can, teach.

Our T Level Professional Development offer will give those currently working in Further Education the skills they need to deliver T Levels, and the Taking Teaching Further programme will encourage more high-calibre individuals with industry experience into Further Education teaching roles.

We’ll be continuing to develop good leadership and governance through the new College Collaboration Fund. This will enable great leadership development programmes to be made more broadly available to other colleges. I realise I am placing a huge burden of expectation on our colleges. But I know that with strong leaders and good governance it’s one they’ll be more than a match for. I want them to know that they can count on me to give them the resources they need to do the job.

Some people say that further education and apprenticeships are for other people’s children.

Let me be clear: I don’t.

I’d be delighted if my children went to college or did an apprenticeship.

In fact, as a Yorkshireman, I have to say there’d be something quite appealing about them learning and earning at the same time.

And I know that the education they would receive would serve them well.

Further education is central to transforming regions and transforming lives.

It’s fundamental to social mobility.

Fundamental to businesses and it’s fundamental to the economy.

Fundamental to levelling up the country and delivering on the promises we made to all those who put their trust in this Government for the first time last year.

It’s high time that we all started to feel the same kind of burning pride for our colleges and the people who study there, that we feel for our great universities and our great schools.

No longer can we persist in the view that university is the silver bullet for everyone and everything. The revolution and need for change is long overdue. Education’s purpose is to unlock an individual’s potential so they can get the job and career that they crave. If it fails to do that then education itself has let them down. Today I have laid down a marker for change. A commitment to stand for the forgotten 50%.

We will be unstinting in our efforts to build a world-class further education system that delivers for the whole nation.

One that gives people meaningful careers that allow them to fully contribute to their community and serve as inspiration to their family,

One that works with business to promote innovation and deliver courses that will enable our country to thrive.

And one whose students can hold their heads up high in the sure knowledge that they are second to no-one.

As we emerge from Covid, further education will be the key that unlocks this country’s potential and that helps make post-Brexit Britain the triumph we all want, and the triumph our young people all deserve.

Thank you.

Coronavirus jobs plan must support quality training and be more than a gangplank to the dole

We need to avoid a fiasco of schemes like Train to Gain when rolling out the Covid-19 jobs and skills rescue plan, writes Tom Bewick

The Chancellor of Exchequer has announced the latest coronavirus jobs plan. Like the ambitious furlough scheme, the Treasury is willing to pledge big interventions to help stave off a potential tsunami of employee layoffs and mass unemployment. As reported in this paper, the measures include a complex interplay of wage subsidies for young people, bonuses for taking on apprentices and additional careers support.

While these measures are hugely welcome given the scale of the economic crisis that the country faces, we still need to get the execution right. Equally, the government needs to remember some of the lessons of the recent past when it comes to the design and implementation of any demand-side interventions in the labour market.

For example, it’s been a decade since the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) passed judgement on the Treasury inspired Train to Gain programme. It was a scheme devised to get employers investing in their workers with generous public subsidy of over £850 million per annum.

Eligibility rules were relaxed to the point where a massive overspend opened up, with subsequent evaluations finding the training delivered of dubious quality. The PAC report made it clear: the government should “focus expenditure on training with the most benefits, in sectors with the highest needs, and with providers who provide good quality training”.

The question a lot of sector leaders are asking is will quality be placed at the heart of this jobs rescue plan? Will we learn the lessons of Train to Gain and look to minimise so-called deadweight effects and only let our best providers participate? How do we ensure learning is accredited and leads to qualifications that are valued and have on-going currency?

One of the many challenges of the latest Treasury scheme is the potential perverse effects of the various measures that have been announced. The total grant available to an employer keeping a 24-year-old in work is £6,500. This is twice as much as the support available for an apprenticeship. In cash terms, there is even less public subsidy for under 19-year-olds, notwithstanding the different minimum wage rates. From an employer perspective it adds up to yet more complexity, whereas the furlough scheme was stunningly simple in both its design and execution.

The Department for Education needs to get out on the front foot and explain the “offer” to firms in plain English. When I worked on Labour’s New Deal programme in 1997, we funded a multi-million TV advertising campaign explaining the different ways in which employers could support the programme. It proved extremely successful in nearly eradicating long-term youth unemployment.

The most important lesson is to ensure we link coronavirus jobs support to quality training. The experience of the 1980s and make-work schemes demonstrated that too often government was merely providing a gangplank to the dole. Unscrupulous employers engaged in the revolving door-syndrome where young people were laid off after 6 months, only for a new cohort to be taken on. It was the era of jobs without training and training without jobs. This generation of sector experts and labour market planners have the opportunity to rise to the challenge and get the Sunak plan right.

Government to reveal plans this autumn to create an employer led ‘German-style’ FE system

Education secretary Gavin Williamson will today pledge that the upcoming White Paper for further education will lead to a reformed “world-class, German-style” system.

In a speech hosted by the Social Market Foundation, Williamson will say that “for decades, we have failed to give FE the investment it deserves” as he “tears up” the symbolic target of sending 50 per cent of young people to university.

He believes there should be fewer people going into higher education as it can “all too often” end with graduates “not having the skills they need to find meaningful work”, and instead the country should see FE and apprenticeships as equally valid routes to “productive” employment.

Williamson will reiterate the government’s ambition to move Britain to a German-style technical education system, after he launched a target at the Conservative Party conference last September to overtake the country in this area over the next 10 years.

His commitment comes ahead of the publication of a White Paper this autumn which will set out plans for “long-term” change in FE.

Williamson will say: “For decades, we have failed to give further education the investment it deserves. Our universities have an important role to play in our economy, society and culture, but there are limits to what we can achieve by sending ever more people into higher education, which is not always what the individual and nation needs. 

“That’s why this autumn I will be publishing a White Paper that will set out our plans to build a world-class, German-style further education system in Britain, and level up skills and opportunities.

“As we emerge from Covid-19, further education will be the key that unlocks this country’s potential and that will help make post-Brexit Britain the triumph we all want. I want everyone to feel the same burning pride for our colleges and the people who study there, in the way we do for our great universities and schools.”

While details of the White Paper are largely unknown, FE Week understands one major change being considered is to bring colleges in England back into public ownership.

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said his membership body is “not sure why the education secretary feels it necessary to denigrate the value of higher education in setting out his ambition for further education”.

“Both sectors are of vital importance to our young people and our economy and already provide a variety of pathways to skills and careers.”

Barton added that he hopes the education secretary’s “warm words” about the importance of FE are “backed up with adequate funding”.

Association of Colleges chief executive David Hughes said today’s speech “isn’t about reducing the power and mission of universities, but recognising and supporting the power and mission of colleges alongside universities to meet the education, skills and training needs of every adult across their lives”.

“Our current system simply does not support the half of adults who don’t get the chance to study at higher levels,” he added.

“In fact it relegates them to second class citizens, without the investment and the opportunities to improve their life chances.”

During his speech today, the education secretary is expected to explain that while “many” of the skills that employers are demanding require intermediate or higher technical qualifications – only 10 per cent of all adults aged 18 to 65 actually hold higher technical qualifications as their highest qualification in the UK.

That’s compared to around 20 per cent of adults in Germany and as much as 34 per cent in Canada. And five years after completion, the average higher technical apprentice will also earn more than the average graduate.

James Kirkup, Social Market Foundation director, who will discuss Williamson’s plans with him during today’s broadcast, said: “Socially, too much of our national conversation is based on the implicit judgement that people who don’t go to university aren’t worth as much as those who do. Economically, decades of underperformance on technical education and training, for young people and adults alike, has held back growth and productivity.   

“More support for further and technical education, and more respect for the people who benefit from it, would make Britain happier and richer.”

Today’s speech comes a day after chancellor Rishi Sunak announced billions of pounds of support for skills and apprenticeships to combat unemployment post-Covid-19 (read what was promised for FE here).

You can watch Williamson’s speech here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eZnr5tqRkI.

Speed read: What the chancellor’s summer statement promised for FE and skills

Chancellor Rishi Sunak delivered a summer statement today in which he outlined the government’s “plan for jobs” to tackle unemployment post-Covid-19.

The statement included a number of funding boosts and new policies for apprentices and skills, ranging from employer cash incentives to a third year of education to school and college leavers.

FE Week has the key points:

 

1. Cash incentives for employers to hire new apprentices

Sunak announced a “brand new bonus” for employers to hire apprentices over the next six months.

From August 2020 to January 2021, any firm that hires a new young apprentice aged 16 to 24 will receive £2,000, while those that hire new apprentices aged 25 and over will be paid £1,500.

These payments will be in addition to the existing £1,000 incentive the government already provides for new 16 to 18 year-old apprentices, and those aged under 25 with an education, health and care plan where that applies.

It means that employers could receive up to £3,000 for hiring 16 to 18 year old apprentices during the six month incentive scheme.

 

2. £2bn ‘kickstart’ programme

The chancellor said the government will introduce an “initial” new £2 billion “kickstart” fund to create “hundreds of thousands of high quality” six-month work placements aimed at those aged 16 to 24 who are on Universal Credit and are deemed to be at risk of long-term unemployment.

Funding, which will cover 100 per cent of the relevant national minimum wage by age group for a minimum of 25 hours a week, will be conditional on the firm proving these jobs are “new”.

If employers meet these conditions “we will pay young people’s wages for six months plus an amount to cover overheads”, Sunak said. That means for a 24 year old the grant will be around £6,500, he added.

There will be no cap on the number of placements and the scheme will be open to funding applications from August 2020, with the first jobs are expected to begin in the autumn.

However, young people taking part in the programme cannot also be apprentices (click here for full story).

 

3. £111m boost for ‘proven’ traineeships

Sunak confirmed the government will provide an additional £111 million this year for traineeships in England, in a bid to triple participation in the “proven” programme.

Incentives of £1,000 per trainee will be paid, and eligibility for traineeships will be expanded to those with level 3 qualifications and below.

A Treasury spokesperson told FE Week the £1,000 bonus will be limited to 10 trainees per employer and the budget increase will also pay for a 55 percent increase in the training provider payment for 19 to 24-year-olds from £970 to £1,500.

There were just 14,900 starts on traineeships last year.

 

4. £101m for school and college leavers to return for a third year

The chancellor pledged £101 million to give all 18 to 19 year olds who are struggling to find work in England the “opportunity” to study “targeted high value level 2 and 3 courses” throughout 2020-21.

FE Week has asked Treasury for further details but the Department for Education explained it will involve offering school and college leavers that are at risk of becoming NEET an additional optional paid extra year in education.

A full list of qualifications available for the fund will be published in due course but it is expected to apply to A-levels in science, technology, English and maths, as well as qualifications in ICT and construction, for example.

 

5. £32m for the National Careers Service

The government will provide an additional £32 million funding over the next two years for the National Careers Service so that 269,000 more people in England can receive “personalised advice on training and work”.

 

6. Tripling of sector-based work academies

Sunak said £17 million will be made available to “triple the number of sector-based work academy placements in 2020-21”.

The scheme, run by the Department for Work and Pensions, typically lasts for up to six weeks and includes pre-employment training, a work experience placement, and a “guaranteed” job interview.

The Treasury said the funding boost will enable sector-based work academies to provide “vocational training and guaranteed interviews for more people, helping them gain the skills needed for the jobs available in their local area”.

 

7. Early release of college capital funding

In his budget last year, Sunak committed to making £1.5 billion available to for college capital projects from 2021.

As previously announced by prime minister Boris Johnson, the government will bring forward £200 million of this to 2020-21 to support colleges to carry out “urgent and essential maintenance projects”.

‘Kickstarter’ young employees cannot also be apprentices, Treasury confirms

Young people who take part in the government’s £2 billion “kickstart” scheme cannot also be apprentices, the Treasury has confirmed.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak confirmed in his summer statement today that the government will pay the wages of “hundreds of thousands” of people aged 16 to 24 who are claiming universal credit to take six-month work placements with employers.

FE Week asked if a person on the programme could also be an apprentice, and a government spokesperson said that while more details will be outlined on this in due course, the “kickstart eligibility is for a young person who otherwise might not have got into work (and therefore an apprenticeship)”.

The news is likely to concern the sector, including Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief executive Mark Dawe who said without this flexibility, the incentives for kickstart “will wipe out new starts for apprenticeships for the 18 month duration of this very attractive offer of wage support – a very unintended consequence”.

The AELP said they have since spoken with Treasury who explained the scheme is designed for the young person to work with Jobcentre work coaches and providers over the first 13 weeks to make them work ready and then place the person on to a work placement for a further 13 weeks with the aim of the employer offering full-time employment and an apprenticeship at the end.

Therefore, a young person on kickstart “can’t start an apprenticeship while on the scheme”.

Dawe added: “To borrow the prime minister’s words, it appears that the government is using both traineeships and kickstart to principally target young people in the NEET group and make them ‘oven-ready’ for the world of work and a full apprenticeship.

“We welcome the clarification which will help providers plan their provision for September.”

Funding for the kickstart scheme, which will cover 100 per cent of the relevant national minimum wage by age group for a minimum of 25 hours a week, will be conditional on the firm proving these jobs are “new”, Sunak said today.

If employers meet these conditions “we will pay young people’s wages for six months plus an amount to cover overheads”, he added, which means for a 24 year old the grant will be around £6,500.

There will be no cap on the number of placements and the scheme will be open to funding applications from August 2020, with the first jobs are expected to begin in the autumn.

Sunak also today announced a “brand new bonus” for employers to hire apprentices over the next six months.

From August 2020 to January 2021, any firm that hires a new young apprentice aged 16 to 24 will receive £2,000, while those that hire new apprentices aged 25 and over will be paid £1,500.

These payments will be in addition to the existing £1,000 incentive the government already provides for new 16 to 18 year-old apprentices, and those aged under 25 with an education, health and care plan where that applies.

It means that employers could receive up to £3,000 for hiring 16 to 18 year old apprentices during the six month incentive scheme.

The chancellor also confirmed the government will provide an additional £111 million this year for traineeships in England, in a bid to triple participation in the “proven” programme.

The funding boost includes £1,000 being paid to the employer per traineeship learner they take on.

DfE will allow adults to return to class from next Monday

Colleges and training providers can welcome back “priority” adult learners from July 13, the Department for Education has announced following pressure from membership bodies.

FE providers have been allowed to reopen to more students since June 15 following country-wide closures in March owing to Covid-19, but only 16 to 19-year-olds.

The Association of Employment and Learning Providers, Association of Colleges and HOLEX joined forces on Monday and urged education secretary Gavin Williamson to allow the safe return of adults, citing concerns that they are not allowed to complete their courses but can go to the pub and shop for non-essentials.

In updated guidance this afternoon, the DfE said providers can now make arrangements for learners aged over 19 to “return to onsite delivery from July 13, where this can be safely accommodated, in addition to those 16 to 19 learners currently attending”.

Providers have been told to “prioritise” adult learners for return onsite as soon as is “practical for the following learners”, in the following order:

  • Learners who have had their assessments delayed and were due to complete level 2 or 3 programmes between March and July 2020
  • Apprentices
  • Learners participating in level 1 and below learning
  • Community education provision

The DfE said any additional attendance onsite must be “properly risk assessed” in line with health and safety legislation and summer term guidance on implementing protective measures which “includes information on managing the number of learners in attendance at any one time and how much they mix with other learners and staff”.

Providers have had to keep learner numbers onsite down to a quarter of eligible 16 to 19 year olds since June 15.

DfE’s guidance states that “you should still apply a 25 per cent limit to the number of 16 to 19 learners attending at any one time for the remainder of the academic year and you must be confident that the overall numbers on site at any time can be safely accommodated”.

“You will not be expected to provide onsite provision for vulnerable 16 to 19 learners or dependants of critical workers over the summer holidays,” they added.

“You should assess how many learners can safely attend while observing the summer term protective measures requirements.”

As confirmed by Williamson last week, colleges and training providers are expected to make a full reopening from September with all learners attending on site delivery.