An Association of Apprentices has been launched in an effort to help boost the number of the work-based trainees staying on and completing their course.

The new support network for apprentices was founded by the government’s apprenticeship ambassador Jason Holt, former Lord Mayor of the City of London Sir Peter Estlin and a co-founder of venture builder Blenheim Chalcot, Charles Mindenhall, in late 2019 but has been formally launched this week.

It gives apprentices access to information, advice and guidance about their programme – including what to do in events where their provider closes down or if they have been made redundant – as well as putting on social events for apprentices to network.

Holt told FE Week the association started almost ten years ago with his review of apprenticeships in small and medium-sized businesses, in which he recommended government to consider creating a society of apprentices.

Since then he, Estlin and Mindenhall have convened a number of apprentice roundtables in which it became “increasingly clear that there was a gap in the way apprentices were being supported”.

“We realised that something needed to be done to bridge that gap and build a community-based entity for all apprentices in the UK,” he added. “This is where the association was born.”

The founders hope the new network will play a part in helping providers and employers to retain the apprentices to complete their programme.

Apprentice drop-out rates are high, particularly for the new style programmes called standards. FE Week previously reported that in 2018/19, of the 54,590 apprentices that were due to finish standards, more than half of them withdrew from their course before reaching the end-point assessment stage.

The association is a not-for-profit company “for apprentices by apprentices” and has now recruited a council of 18 apprentices.

One of them is council chair Joel Roach, an apprentice at Microsoft, who believes the association will be a “powerful catalyst” for supporting apprentices and employers to “think creatively and be aspirational about skills and careers”.

“Not only will apprentices be able to learn from experts, employers and each other to enhance their skills and careers, but they’ll be able to build communities from which they can influence out, creating positive change across the thousands of organisations that employ apprentices,” he added.

Skills minister Gillian Keegan has already expressed her support for the association. In a podcast with the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education this week, she said: “Hopefully they’ll include older ones like me as well and I’ll get an opportunity to join. I think you can always learn from shared experiences.”

The association is currently being financially backed by its founders. A spokesperson said it may pursue charitable status in the future.

The association also has founding partners who include Babington, BBC, Health Education England NHS, NCFE, Royal Mail and Salesforce.

 

Training providers were left “appalled” this week after the Education and Skills Funding Agency made the “ridiculous” decision that all who are on RoATP will need to re-apply yet again.

“They just don’t get what we are going through, do they?” was how one managing director of an independent provider reacted, while a college principal declared this is the “last thing my team need at the moment” as they continue to battle against the pandemic.

This will be the third time that providers will have had to apply to the register of apprenticeship training providers (RoATP) since its launch in March 2017. The most recent “refresh” was in January 2019.

Last month’s FE white paper revealed that the government would undertake another “full refresh” of the register commencing in April 2021. The aim is to adopt “more stringent entry criteria for both new and existing providers, to better determine whether providers have the capability and capacity to be able to deliver these higher-quality apprenticeships”.

A “new set of application criteria” has now been created which every provider will need to meet to be able to deliver apprenticeships. A “phased reapplication” process will begin from May.

Guidance published about this on Wednesday also hinted at a potentially major change in the apprenticeships that providers are allowed to deliver.

It said that the agency is looking for providers to “evidence their capacity and expertise” and are considering how this “may be required beyond the initial application process where providers wish to expand their delivery to new areas”.

Former ESFA director of apprenticeships Keith Smith told FE Week’s Annual Apprenticeship Conference last year that he was working on plans to require providers to be “accredited” for the apprenticeship standards they offer.

FE Week asked the agency if the “subject-specific expertise” requirement meant that providers would need to re-apply to the register again in the future if they wanted to move into new sectors, but a spokesperson would only say that “further guidance will be published in due course”.

Smith also previously spoke about imposing earning limits on new apprenticeship firms, following various cases of new providers growing too quickly and struggling to manage demand.

The latest example of this was revealed by this publication last week. A freight company called Logistics.com (UK) got on to the register last March and then became the fastest growing provider in the country, delivering over 1,100 apprenticeships in eight months, mostly to apprentices working in care homes. The provider is now under ESFA investigation and faces going bust after the agency stopped payments.

Guidance published on Wednesday did not give any mention to new provider earning limits, but the ESFA told FE Week they have not ruled these out.

 

It’s the last thing my team need at the moment

A key part of the RoATP refresh is to kick providers off that aren’t delivering. Any provider that has not delivered training in the most recent six months will be considered for removal from May 2021.

Lianne Onslow, owner of training and learning consultancy firm LMO Development, said there “must be other ways of identifying and dealing with concerning providers”.

She was one of dozens in the sector who took to Twitter to express their outrage at the ESFA’s reapplication announcement.

“Blooming heck. I remember the RoATP reapplication like it was yesterday, probably because it near enough was yesterday,” she tweeted.

Elsewhere, Sue Bishop said: “I actually can’t believe they are doing this to us right now, we’re all on our knees trying to develop and deliver quality remote learning. Give us a break ESFA.”

Chris Todd, principal of Derwentside College, added: “Nooooooo!???!? Surely we can avoid this for those of us who are continuing to do well. It’s the last thing my team need at the moment.”

Jamie Rail, managing director of The Focus Training Group, said the decision shows the ESFA has a “complete and total lack of understanding of what’s going on out on the ground”.

Consultant Stefan Drew also tweeted: “I despair. I keep seeing FE leaders telling us the government are on our side, listening and helping. This disproves the optimism and brings a hint of reality to the situation. There is little help…just more applications for what most colleges have been doing well.”

RoATP has been closed to new applications since April 2020. The only exception has been for levy-paying employers delivering services critical during the Covid-19 outbreak. However, any providers that have been successful through this exceptions policy since its inception will still be subject to the refresh planned from May.

The head of the Association of Colleges is “worried” there will be a slow start to the new flagship level 3 adult offer despite pleas from the education secretary for his members to embrace it.

David Hughes has warned that colleges “still don’t have enough detail” to fully plan their offer, even though it is due to start in a matter of weeks under the lifetime skills guarantee.

He is also concerned about eligibility issues – such as the rule that it can only be taken by individuals who do not already hold a level 3 qualification – which may scupper demand.

He made the comments to FE Week following Gavin Williamson’s speech at this week’s AoC conference. The education secretary told delegates they would be “absolutely key” to the programme’s success and “strongly encouraged” them to get involved.

FE Week recently highlighted the plight of the fully funded level 3 offer for 24-year-old and above learners for independent training providers, who are being given just a four-month window to start and complete the substantial courses, many of which can take a year or more to complete.

The issue stems from the scheme being funded by the new national skills fund but routed through adult education budget allocations from April, the contracts of which run out for private providers in July.

Colleges are funded differently through “grants” and will continue to receive funding for the level 3 offer in the next academic year.

The government has set aside £95 million to fund the “entitlement” during the next financial year from April 2021 to March 2022. When FE Week asked the Department for Education how much had been allocated for the 2020/21 academic year, which ends in July, a spokesperson said this information would be released in “due course”.

 

Nobody should be under the impression that the timing is ideal

During his conference speech, Williamson thanked colleges for “all the hard work you’ve already put in to scale up this offer ahead of April”.

But Hughes has warned Williamson not to expect large numbers of adults taking up the offer in colleges from the get-go.

He told FE Week: “Nobody should be under the impression that the timing is ideal. We have said from the start that there is a lead-in time to expanding numbers, and colleges still don’t have enough detail to fully plan their offer, which is due to start in a matter of weeks.

“The publication of the eligible qualifications was helpful and officials are working hard to get the details and allocations out, but with the lockdown still with us, I am worried that numbers will be low in the first few months of the summer term.”

Hughes said that September will see a “big increase in numbers in colleges and I just hope that everybody recognises that as a realistic ambition”.

He added that there are also “wider issues which may limit demand, such as benefit claimants not being able to learn full-time and the entitlement only covering the first level 3 qualification, which means those needing re-training might not be eligible”.

Hughes pledged to “continue to press” for solutions to both of these and to allow modules to be delivered that “fit better with some needs from adults wanting training to move quickly into work”.

The Education and Skills Funding Agency will administer allocations for the offer for national training providers. Mayoral combined authorities with devolved AEB will be given their own allocations to fund the offer through their providers.

However, the allocations for devolved mayoral authorities have still not been signed off as they await further guidance from central government.

A DfE spokesperson said: “We have updated the funding rules for academic year 2020 to 2021, which provides full details of the level 3 adult offer for FE providers.

“We recognise that providers will want to know their individual funding amounts, this information will be shared with FE providers shortly along with updated technical guidance on gov.uk.”

With the income colleges make from international students plummeting, FE Week spoke with college and sector leaders to understand why this is happening, why foreign students are so important and what can be done to keep them coming.

Income from international students studying at UK universities and other higher education institutions is up two-thirds since 2010, hitting a whopping £15.9 billion in 2018. Yet the same official income figures for non-EU international student studying at FE colleges show a 64 per cent fall from £920 million in 2010 to just £330 million in 2018.

Why the dramatic fall in college income?

Government policy has been largely to blame for the fall in student numbers, according to the Association of Colleges’ international director, Emma Meredith.

The UK’s points-based immigration system, originally introduced in 2008, has “made it harder over time for FE colleges to recruit international students,” she says, particularly in countries with a higher demand for vocational skills courses.

The system has also proven problematic due to the “gradual” introduction of rules, including removing part-time working rights for students in 2015.

Colleges holding ‘tier 4 sponsor licences’ – a Home Office requirement when enrolling non-EU students – have been required to be rated either ‘outstanding’ or ‘good’ by Ofsted since 2011.

Highbury College, for example, lost their licence after receiving an Ofsted grade three in June 2018, and their financial accounts show a subsequent decline in international student income.

In addition, a number of “bogus” institutions had been filtered out the system, Meredith said, which has led to a reduction in numbers.

Then there is the red tape. One college with a tier 4 licence, Dudley College, has found recruiting non-EU students “increasingly challenging” due to the “increasing regulation of visa applications”. So much so, “we have planned for a decrease in this income stream in recent years”, a spokesperson said.

Dudley’s financial statements show its overall international student fee income has declined by over half between 2016 and 2020, falling from £1.172 million to £550,000.

Barnet and Southgate College has seen its international student fees income drop by 89 per cent, from £112,000 in 2016 to £12,000 in 2019.

The Ofsted grade three Bournemouth and Poole College, which does not hold a tier 4 licence, saw its income fall from £1.049 million in 2016, to £749,000 in 2019 – a 28 per cent drop.

Matt Butcher, commercial director of Bournemouth & Poole College, called it “a common trend that other colleges across the country have experienced when working with international students over the past few years,” and recent times “have been incredibly challenging”.

Why is it important for colleges to teach international students?

Meredith says colleges are a pathway into the already-booming higher education sector, where education-related exports rose by 67 per cent between 2010 and 2018, from £9.5 billion to £15.9 billion.

Also, such recruitment, especially where international students fill up classes, is a “good revenue and expertise base from which colleges can consider engaging in other forms of international activity”.

Oxford-based Activate Learning started a multi-million-pound, six-year contract to train China’s national youth rowing team in September 2019, in partnership with Oxford Brookes University.

Speaking to FE Week, Activate’s director of international, Niko Phillips, said the college group uses its commercial divisions to “help subsidise the income that we get from our domestic learners”.

So it was “pretty impressive for an FE college” to be able to score a contract with the Chinese government.

Yet once Covid lockdowns started coming in across the world in March, the Chinese students headed home, and until they return “we don’t see that money,” Phillips said.

“With luck and vaccinations, we should be able to start the project again,” he hopes.

What can be done?

The government does place prominence on the benefits of education providers making money from international students and acting overseas.

Last year, the University of Exeter’s vice chancellor, Steve Smith, was announced as the UK’s international education champion, to complete two ten-year goals in the UK’s newly updated international education strategy: to increase education exports to £35 billion per year, and to increase the number of higher education students learning in the UK to 600,000 per year.

The lack of a similar commitment for FE students does reinforce one point Meredith raised, that “colleges have not had much encouragement to take their offer internationally, and the FE international offer has not always been well understood nor promoted”.

The government also has an Education Sector Advisory Group, which meets three times a year and includes Department for International Trade and Department for Education ministers, where colleges and training providers are represented by the UK Skills Partnership, a grouping of sector organisations including the Association of Colleges and WorldSkills UK.

According to its GOV.UK page, the group “aims to increase UK education exports by overcoming sector challenges and exploiting opportunities”.

The government has also launched its new Turing Scheme, to replace the European Union’s Erasmus+, which will fund students and apprentices to study and work abroad from September this year.

This, the government says, will allow colleges, schools and universities “to build reciprocal relationships on a truly global basis”.

But the policy that led to the Turing scheme, Britain’s exit from the European Union, may stifle FE’s international student numbers, with Meredith warning the end of free movement from Europe means EU students will need visas to study courses longer than six months.

And from August 2021, EU students will no longer be eligible for ‘home’ tuition fees, which are charged at a lower rate than ‘overseas’ fees.

“The way the UK partners with the EU will need to adapt,” she said, “but the key concerns are to maintain the important partnerships colleges have built up in the EU over the years and assess where any new opportunities may lie”.

Federation of Awarding Bodies chief executive Tom Bewick (a former parliamentary candidate for the Brexit Party who has worked in ten countries on technical and vocational education systems) does not believe Brexit “will be a factor at all” on colleges’ international activity due to the breadth of nations with historical and cultural ties to the UK.

Bewick highlighted data from the International Monetary Fund, which predicted 90 per cent of all future growth in the world’s gross domestic product will be from outside the EU, “so that gives you a sense of importance of developing countries in Africa, many of which are quite well developed, with large populations with large middle classes ̶ same in India and South Asia”.

Meredith has called on the government to “better include” FE colleges in international campaigns that promote UK education, particularly in those countries with demand for skills education. Otherwise, she says, “international FE numbers will continue to decline”.

“Risk will always – and rightly so – be a concern. Colleges are keen to collaborate on international opportunities and more steps can be taken to facilitate this,” she added.

The Department for Education was approached for comment.

New provider monitoring visits have been delayed indefinitely by Ofsted.

The inspectorate previously said it would restart the visits from January face-to-face but later announced they would be conducted remotely until at least the February half-term in light of the third national lockdown.

The virtual monitoring visits to providers that are new to delivering apprenticeships were set to get under way on January 25, but Ofsted has now told FE Week these will not be going ahead.

There is also no set date for when they will recommence.

A spokesperson said: “During the national lockdown, we have had to pause new provider monitoring visits (NPMVs) because these visits require inspectors to carry out in-person inspection so that we can fairly judge the progress made, including safeguarding. However, we hope to return to NPMVs as soon as it is possible to do so.

“Currently, we are conducting remote inspections of those that most need it, but we will undertake onsite work where we have serious concerns, which could include new providers.”

FE Week understands the Education and Skills Funding Agency is becoming increasingly concerned about new apprenticeship providers that are going for prolonged periods without oversight from the watchdog following the pause to normal inspection activity since March 2020 amid Covid-19.

Last week, FE Week revealed how a freight company had become an approved apprenticeship provider in March 2020 and over the next eight months recruited more than 1,100 apprentices – more than any other provider in that period – mostly in the care sector.

The firm, called Logistics.com (UK), is now under investigation by the ESFA and faces liquidation.

According to Ofsted’s latest operational note for FE providers, published on February 12, after half term the watchdog will only conduct “progress monitoring visits” to “providers judged to require improvement for overall effectiveness that have not yet received a monitoring visit since their last full inspection”.

The same visits will be made to providers “judged inadequate for overall effectiveness that have not yet received a monitoring visit since their last full inspection, or that are due their second re-inspection monitoring visit (if they continue to be publicly funded)”.

While new providers awating their first Ofsted visit are still not in line, the guidance states that progess monitoring visits will be undertaken at “new providers that are due a full inspection and have received a new provider monitoring visit two years ago or more (subject to a provider’s individual circumstances)”.