In pursuit of parity: degree apprenticeships expand into the Russell Group

Although seen by some as controversial, degree apprenticeships are central to the government’s plans to put technical education on a par with academic education. The Department for Education has repeatedly referred to the number of Russell Group universities signed up to the register of apprenticeship training providers as a sign that it’s succeeding in this regard. But are they actually delivering apprenticeships? FE Week spoke to some of them to find out.

When the University of Cambridge secured a place on the register of apprenticeship training providers in February this year, the mainstream press finally took notice – with both the BBC and The Times reporting that the university was set to offer apprenticeship training.

But while those plans have yet to come to fruition, earning while you learn is an option at an increasing number of Cambridge’s fellow Russell Group universities.

Of the 17 on the Education and Skills Funding Agency’s register, eight are already running at least one programme.

A further four are set to introduce degree-level apprenticeships in 2019, and the remaining five are in the early stages of development.

Numbers are low at the moment – the eight have combined starts of around 500 so far in 2018/19. In comparison, there were more than 8,000 starts on level six and seven standards across all institutions in the first nine months of 2017/18.

But these are set to increase, with all the universities FE Week spoke to planning to expand their offer in the years to come.

“Those with no plans must stop dragging their feet”

Former skills minister and now chair of the education select committee Robert Halfon has long championed degree apprenticeships, calling them “a crucial step on the road to delivering social justice and boosting Britain’s productivity”.

He told FE Week it was “encouraging” to hear the findings of our investigation, but said all 17 universities “need to redouble their efforts to open up more of these opportunities, including to the most disadvantaged”.

Mr Halfon also urged the government and the IfA to do more to encourage universities to offer degree apprenticeships.

“Those with no plans, such as Oxford, must stop dragging their feet and get on with providing degree apprenticeships which can do so much to help people to climb the ladder of opportunity,” he said.

 “We were best placed to address skills shortages”

Queen Mary University London was the first Russell Group university to offer degree apprenticeships in 2015.

The university “jumped in” with the level six digital and technology solutions professional standard, according to Jamie Hilder, the university’s degree apprenticeships manager.

“We’ve already got a dialogue with employers in those sectors and identified a skills need, so our rich experience in the field and ideal location can help them address those skills shortages,” Mr Hilder said.

Many of the newer programmes are prompted by the introduction of the apprenticeship levy.

Three of the four new degree apprenticeship programmes being launched by Russell Group universities this academic year are run in partnership with professional services firm PwC.

All three are in digital and technology – areas where the firm had identified as having a skills gap, according to Louise Farrar, PwC’s head of student recruitment.

It makes more economic sense for companies to use their levy than to be paying out of their HR budget

“We’ve got a great opportunity with our levy money. Wouldn’t it be great if we can use that money to direct into areas where we need to build to meet future skills gaps?” she said.

The University of York is one of the universities planning to enter the degree apprenticeships market in 2019.

The university already works with local employers to offer part-time master’s degrees for people in work, and so its level seven apprenticeships will be an “extension” to that, according to Amanda Selvaratnam, the university’s head of enterprise services.

“For many companies, it makes more economic sense for companies to use their levy for that sort of provision than to be paying out of their HR budget,” she said.

 “You’ve got to be on your toes”

Developing a degree apprenticeship programme requires much greater collaboration between universities and employers than a traditional degree.

But for many of the universities FE Week spoke to, this hasn’t proved to be the greatest challenge.

The University of Nottingham, which is starting to offer the level seven advanced clinical practitioner standard this year, said “administrative complexities” were the biggest hurdle to overcome, “particularly meshing the sorts of reporting that is going to be required into current university systems”.

A number said they were having to change their ways of working – from recruiting students to how lectures are delivered.

The “vocational bent” of the programmes at Queen Mary meant they were placing more weight on “professional experience, maturity and application of knowledge to real-life scenarios” than purely academic achievements, Mr Hilder said.

Professor Tim Quine, deputy vice-chancellor for education at the University of Exeter, said it had “sought to innovate around delivery models” for its degree apprenticeships, using “blended and e-learning, reflective practice and block residentials”.

“All of this has taken time to understand and develop, and investment to support,” he said.

Some of the challenges faced by the universities will be familiar to many providers already delivering apprenticeships, with a number complaining about the non-levy procurement process, the Institute for Apprenticeships’ “aggressive funding policy” and the constant “iterations and revisions” to standards.

But while the FE sector is used to dealing with these difficulties, universities “traditionally haven’t been as adaptable”, said Louise Cowling, head of degree apprenticeships at the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre at the University of Sheffield.

The university began offering degree apprenticeships in manufacturing and engineering in 2017/18, and has just started offering level five nursing associate courses in 2018/19.

“You’ve got to be on your toes. I think universities are learning that they need to respond much quickly than they have done in the past,” she said.

 “Employers want a strong technical degree”

All of the universities FE Week spoke to were keen to stress that their degree apprenticeships had the same level of academic rigour as their traditional degree programmes.

Prof Quine said that Exeter’s degree apprenticeships allowed it to “extend the high-quality educational experience that we pride ourselves on” to “talented individuals” who’ve chosen not to study for a full-time on-campus degree.

And Ms Farrar said that the chance to study for a “top degree at a great institution” was one of the attractions of PwC’s programmes.

Employers also appear to appreciate the calibre of learning on offer from these institutions.

Mr Hilder said that “anecdotally we’ve been told that the depth of the course is different” at Queen Mary, with employers rating it “more substantial” than other degree apprenticeship programmes.

Being a “research-focused university” was seen as one of Sheffield’s strengths, Ms Cowling said.

Employers have come to us and said they want a strong technical degree

“Employers have come to us and said they want a strong technical degree, using modern technology”, she said.

Students on the AMRC’s programmes are able to draw on the centre’s research, and then apply that to their work environment.

“We’ve had students who’ve worked for large employers, and the students have been able to recommend changes to manufacturing processes and procedures within their organisation,” she said. 

“Degree apprentices are better in terms of diversity”

While full social demographic data on the new degree apprentices isn’t yet available, there are already signs that they’re widening participation.

While the average proportion of women on tech degrees is around 16 per cent nationally, PwC has “recruited 30 per cent”, Ms Farrar said. “We’re really pleased with that one.”

Likewise, Queen Mary’s cohort of degree apprentices are “better in terms of diversity” than its other undergraduate students – thanks in large part to the university “going into areas of high deprivation and low rates of participation in higher education, people who don’t typically apply to university, and saying ‘do you know degree apprenticeships are an option?” Mr Hilder said. 

Oxbridge degree apprenticeships – will they ever happen?

Being able to ‘earn while you learn’ at Cambridge or Oxford is seen by some as the pinnacle of parity of esteem between vocational and academic education.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t look likely to happen anytime soon – at least not at undergraduate level.

Cambridge successfully applied to be on the register of apprenticeship training providers earlier this year, and said at the time it planned to focus its initial offer at postgraduate level through its Institute of Continuing Education.

A spokesperson told FE Week that planning was still underway, with the aim of introducing the first programmes in 2019 at the earliest.

A “number of interested parties internally” are in discussions with the ICE about mapping “already established courses into apprenticeships”, he said.

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the University of Oxford said it currently did not “have any plans to offer degree or degree-level apprenticeships”.

Degree apprenticeships – the wider picture

The first degree apprenticeships were launched in 2015, with the aim of offering students the chance to study for a degree while working as an apprentice.

Just a few institutions were on board at the start, including Queen Mary University London, Sheffield Hallam University and Manchester Metropolitan University.

Fast forward three years and there are now 111 universities or university colleges on the register of apprenticeship training providers, although not all of them will be offering degree apprenticeship programmes.

According to the latest available Department for Education figures, there were 8,560 starts on level six or seven apprenticeships, which correspond to degree and master’s apprenticeships, in the first nine months of 2017/18.

Many of these starts are likely to have been at modern universities or colleges offering degree-level provision, many of which received funding through the Degree Apprenticeships Development Fund to establish their programmes.

A total of £10 million was on offer from the fund, which was managed by the now-defunct Higher Education Funding Council for England.

It was awarded in two phases, with 25 HE institutes and 20 colleges receiving a combined total of £4.5 million for 18 projects in the first phase, announced in November 2016.

A further 27 projects, involving around 60 universities and colleges, received £4.9 million between then in the second phase, announced October 2017.

Between them they were expected to result in nearly 10,000 new apprenticeship opportunities by this September.

Ofsted watch: Mega apprenticeship provider to high-profile employers hit with grade three

A major financial services training provider has been found to ‘require improvement’, in the only full FE and skills inspection report published this week.

Elsewhere, an apprenticeships and adult learning provider was found to be making ‘insufficient progress’ in three themes under review, in a follow-up monitoring visit report.

Kaplan Financial, which works with more than 2,000 employers dropped from its previous grade two in a report published September 28 and based on a visit at the end of July.

At the time of inspection it had almost 5,000 apprentices following programmes from level two to seven in administration and law, accounting, and finance, and around 800 adult learners.

Employers known to have worked with Kaplan include British Airways, Eurostar and Morrisons Supermarkets.

A spokesperson for Kaplan Financial said it accepted Ofsted’s findings.

“Their report recognised that our teaching is good; their critical observations were, in the main, about programmes we no longer offer,” she said.

“We look forward to a re-inspection in the near future and have already advised our larger clients of this report.”

A “significant restructuring” of the organisation was blamed for disruptions to apprentices’ review visits, which had “impacted negatively on apprentices’ achievements in 2016/17”.

Managers were criticised for having “an overly positive view of too many aspects” of the provision and for not having “accurate enough information” about apprentices’ progress.

The report noted that leaders had taken “effective action” in ceasing to work with “several underperforming subcontractors”, but also said they had “not taken swift enough action to rectify the weaknesses in training” at four of the nine subcontractors listed on the report.

Governors had been unable to provide leaders and senior managers with “sufficient challenge about shortcomings in the quality of provision”, as they “do not always receive sufficiently reliable information about adult learners’ and apprentices’ progress, achievements or the quality of teaching, learning and assessment”.

“Too many” apprentices did not complete on time, as “talent coaches do not always set apprentices challenging learning targets”.

“The proportion of adult learners who successfully completed their courses was low in 2016/17,” the report noted.

Skills Edge Training, an apprenticeships and adult learning provider based in Norwich, was found to be making ‘insufficient progress’ in three of the five areas under review in a follow-up report published September 28 and based on a monitoring visit in late August.

The visit followed a full inspection in December 2017, when Skills Edge was rated ‘requires improvement’.

It was deemed to be making ‘insufficient progress’ in securing rapid improvement in the areas of weakness identified at that inspection; in ensuring that the quality of teaching, learning and assessment is at least good; and in planning apprenticeship programmes to ensure apprentices make good progress and achieve on time.

But it was found to be making ‘reasonable progress’ in ensuring that learners and apprentices receive high-quality training to improve their English and mathematics skills, and ‘significant progress’ in safeguarding.

Independent learning providers Inspected Published Grade Previous grade
Kaplan Financial Limited 24/07/2018 28/09/2018 3 2
Skills Edge Training 22/08/2018 28/09/2018 M M

 

Time for FE to shine ahead of crucial Budget

EuroSkills

Almost seven years ago the world descended upon London’s Excel arena for the 41st WorldSkills competition – my first experience. At the time it was hailed as the largest ever skills competition, and the first single event to fully occupy the Excel centre. Transport for London even used the event as a drill for the upcoming Olympic Games.

 In the months following the event we worked with the National Apprenticeship Service, which was then operating skills competitions in the UK, to improve the profile of WorldSkills in the UK.

As a sector we often reflect on the lack of media attention FE receives. The work of WorldSkills UK and the successes of Team UK is something we should be extremely proud of, not just as a sector, but as a nation.

 We took the decision to accept an offer of becoming media partner later that year – a role which would embed us with Team UK and follow their journeys as they prepared to compete on the international stage.

At the time I was wee lad and about the same age as the competitors, in fact some were older. For two years I worked alongside Team UK and observed our world class education system in operation as the team got set to compete at WorldSkills Leipzig.

As my hairline has receded, other members of the FE Week team have had the opportunity to report and be inspired. My whole organisation is fully committed to investing in WorldSkills UK to ensure an increasing number of people are able to learn about their work and successes. We have now renewed our media partnership with WorldSkills UK for a further two years.

In recent years the national media has finally shown more of an interest in WorldSkills, from the BBC to daily newspapers. It’s great to see, and provides a great representation to the public of what our sector achieves.

Team UK’s successes are only possible thanks to the infrastructure provided by colleges, providers and employers across the country.

What the FE sector now needs to do is shout about it more. More than ever before. Get on social media over the coming few days and wish the team good luck, using the hashtag #TEAMUK. Share the news articles on our website with your colleagues and stake-holders.

It’s great to see more of the sector engaging with WorldSkills UK than ever before, but it’s not nearly enough! There is so much more we could do.

WorldSkills UK and Team UK are some of the best ambassadors for the FE sector we have. They and the sector deserve to be celebrated and recognised!

Colleges Week

Keeping with the theme of championing the sector, we have also this week thrown our weight behind the “Colleges Week” campaign, led by AoC. You might have noticed we’ve added the campaign logo to our masthead, both on our website and this newspaper.

The week provides a focused opportunity to showcase and celebrate the inspiring work colleges provide their local communities and beyond, alongside this highlighting the government’s underinvestment in colleges.

 We at FE Week fully support the mission of Colleges Week and hope it is a great success, with impact.

We would encourage all in the sector to support the campaign and hope that it has a positive impact for all providers. On the eve of the Chancellor’s autumn statement, we need a united voice arguing for an increase in the rates paid to ensure the entire sector can continue to provide a world class education for learners.

 Next week we will undoubtedly be showered with platitudes from Damian Hinds, when he speaks at his party conference, about the great work the sector does and its importance. Don’t let him and the Chancellor get away with their being no substance. This is a long overdue opportunity for them to put their money where their mouth is and cough-up.

But they will need a nudge.

What Labour plans for further education could mean for colleges

The shadow skills minister has refused to rule out bringing colleges back under local authority control, as part of Labour’s plans for a national education service.

But, speaking to FE Week on the third day of the Labour party conference this week, Gordon Marsden (pictured above) hit back at criticism that his party lacked FE and skills policy – calling such comments “nonsense”.

Mr Marsden said that, under plans set out for the NES, local communities would be “collectively responsible” for the education institutions within it, including colleges, and would be “empowered, via appropriate democratic means, to influence change where it is needed”.

The “appropriate democratic authority” would “set, monitor and allocate resources” ensuring that they “meet the rights, roles and responsibilities of individuals and institutions”.

When asked if this meant bringing colleges back under local authority control, Mr Marsden simply said: “It means what it says”.

He did not rule out such a proposal even when asked directly if he would do so.

The position he outlined, which was set out in Labour’s charter for the NES, “represents the party’s current and settled position on the basis of the consultation and responses received in it”, he said.

Mr Marsden’s remarks follow comments made by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in an interview with FE Week at last year’s Association of Colleges conference in November.

“We feel there’s a danger with the independent model of college education that they get too far away from local communities and local education authorities,” he said.

“And what we’re looking to is a model that will bring them closer to that, but not removing the important connection with local industry,” Mr Corbyn continued.

Labour faced criticism this week for failing to shine a light on its plans for FE, after shadow education secretary Angela Rayner’s speech to conference on Monday stopped short of going into any detail.

She spoke about the formation of a commission for lifelong learning, which would be led by Mr Marsden, but this was not new, having previously been announced in the party’s 2017 election manifesto.

The lack of detail prompted criticism from the Confederation of British Industry, among others.

Its head of education and skills, John Cope, said businesses wanted to hear more about what the NES “means for the issues that matter” which included improving “often woeful careers advice” and “technical education through apprenticeships and T-levels”.

Such criticism was “nonsense”, Mr Marsden said.

“You’re not going to get masses of detail in a seven-minute speech,” he said.

“If people want a 60-second soundbite on everything then they would have been disappointed. But there were clear indications of the direction of travel and who was taking them forward,” he added.

There were “a lot of things out there already” on Labour’s policy on T-levels and apprenticeships, through the “large number of short-term critiques that we are making”.

These needed to be distinguished from “our vision for the medium term and the longer term” which is being set out in its commission for lifelong learning.

The commission would “straddle both HE and FE, and existing methods of lifelong learning and future ones”.

It would focus on issues such as barriers to access, including the “damage that has been done particularly for older learners with the non-take up of advanced learner loans” and the “under-funded, under-represented” English for Speakers of Other Languages.

The “long-term aim” is to “integrate HE and FE in lifelong learning and give parity of esteem”, Mr Marsden said, and the commission would look at “systems of credit transfer” between the two.

It would also look at the role of institutions in delivering lifelong learning, “not just the colleges and training providers, but also looking at the potential for initiatives being done under devolution with local authorities, and the role of local enterprise partnerships,” he said.

Ofsted says sorry for carrying out wrong kind of inspection

Ofsted has been left red-faced after carrying out the wrong kind of monitoring visit and incorrectly publishing a report, before quickly deleting it.

Inspectors visited Wiltshire Council’s adult and community learning service on July 7 this year, after the provision was given a grade three rating by Ofsted in December 2017. A letter detailing the outcome of the visit was published on August 8.

Despite being written about online by this newspaper and by Wiltshire Council, the report has now vanished entirely from Ofsted’s website.

When questioned by FE Week, the inspectorate admitted that both the visit and the published report were “undertaken in error”.

A spokesperson said: “In line with Ofsted’s current policy, a further visit will now be arranged after which we will publish a letter. We have apologised to the provider for our error.”

Previously, when an FE provider was rated ‘requires improvement’ inspectors would arrange a ‘support and challenge’ visit before the next inspection.

These visits could include meetings with governors, visits for senior leaders to another provider or joint observations of particular lessons, after which the principal or chief executive would receive a reporting letter outlining actions to be taken and timescales agreed. Crucially, these letters were never published online.

However, at the end of last year Ofsted ran a consultation into scrapping the support and challenge visits and replacing them with monitoring visits, which would include a published report and judgements on how the provider was progressing with improvements.

This was approved, meaning that any FE provider which has been inspected by Ofsted since November 10, 2017, and receive a grade 3 rating will now receive a published monitoring visit.

Wiltshire Council was given a ‘requires improvement’ rating after a full inspection between December 5 and December 7, 2017. But despite changes to the rules, inspectors carried out a support and challenge visit on July 7. Curiously, a reporting letter was subsequently published online on August 8, even though this is never supposed to happen for support and challenge visits.

Although the report no longer exists online, it was picked up in Ofsted Watch, FE Week’s weekly round-up of published inspections, when it was first published.

FE Week reported then that the council was found to be making “good progress”.

 “Tutors have received appropriate training and are now taking a qualification to equip them to provide advice and guidance more effectively to learners before they start their courses and to prepare them for their next steps,” inspectors said.

“Managers now routinely and regularly undertake formal and informal observations of teaching and learning.”

A week after the report’s publication, an article on Wiltshire Council’s website said Ofsted had found it was making “good progress” in all areas.

 At the time Laura Mayes, the council’s cabinet member for education, said the report “positions us very well for our next inspection, anticipated in the autumn”.

Wiltshire council will now have to go through another monitoring visit before the next full inspection.

A spokesperson said plans were in progress for the next visit, and added that all visits from Ofsted “are a great opportunity to reflect and showcase the important work the team carries out in our communities.”

Since the November 10 cut off point, 48 FE providers have been rated ‘requires improvement’. Wiltshire Council’s short-lived report is the only one to have been published so far.

EuroSkills 2018: FE grandees fly out to support Team UK

Two grandees of the FE sector landed in Budapest today to witness “the best of the best” and cheer on Team UK at EuroSkills 2018.

Sir Gerry Berragan, chief executive of the Institute for Apprenticeships, and Sue Husband, the Education and Skills Funding Agency’s director of employer engagement, touched down in Hungary this morning to attend their first ever international skills competition.

They toured around the Hungexpo arena where 22 competitors from the UK are competing against representatives from 28 countries in trades ranging from mechatronics to hairdressing.

“I was really energised by the competition and captured by the range of skills on display, how good they all were and how competitive it all was,” he told FE Week.

“These young people are the best of the best in what they do and I hope they take their skills and knowledge back to the UK to share it.”

He added that WorldSkills plays a “really vital part in highlighting and getting that message out to employers and potential apprentices”.

“These competitions raise awareness,” Sir Gerry said. “In the UK we’re a really high-skilled economy and have some very skilled people in our different sectors and routes and why wouldn’t we want to showcase that here?

“Why wouldn’t we want to come and represent ourselves on the European and ultimately the world stage? We finished top 10 last year in the world so we would be crazy not to be here.”

He said it’ll be “interesting” to see how other countries approach skills.

“We can’t be complacent, we’re all facing similar challenges so how much emphasis they give it will be interesting to see.”

Ms Husband, who is a learner herself currently studying a chartered management degree apprenticeship, said she has “loved the experience” being out at EuroSkills.

“I knew this was going to be on a slightly different level so I’ve always been keen to witness it,” she told FE Week.

“One of the things you can see when walking around these competitions is how much the competitors have honed their skills and are focused on the task and that is hats off to WorldSkills UK because it shows their training has gone well.”

WorldSkills UK has struggled with government investment in recent years while the likes of Russia and China have invested heavily.

Ms Husband said the Department for Education and ESFA are fully behind supporting skills competitions, but it also needs help from employers.

“The government has been investing in these competitions for a number of years and I think we all now know more than ever that skills are vital to the economy.

“We have different cultures [to Russia and China] and different ways of investing in individuals. The UK model is very much about the government making the investment but I also think there is an ask on employers to share that investment.”

She continued: “I think that model works better with our culture and also there is a fine line between how much you might push the end goal of a medal versus the appropriate way to develop the individual to get world class skills.

“The key thing for me is making sure there is wider impact, not just on the 22 competitors here but across all of our colleges and training providers and employers.

“We want this lot to be the cream of the crop when actually there is a really big effect across the wider working population.”

FE Week is proud to be the official media partners for Team UK and WorldSkills UK.

Re-levelling of first aid course boosts level 3 qualifications

An extra 400,000 people taking level three qualifications this year, and a corresponding fall at level two, can be largely attributed to the decision to ‘re-level’ a popular first aid course.

The Emergency First Aid at Work qualification has been reclassified from level two after a “review” of the qualification from the First Aid Awarding Organisations Forum (FAAOF).

Chris Young, chair of the forum and chair of the board of directions at awarding organisation FutureQuals, said the group felt the qualification would be “more appropriately levelled” as a level three. The skills required to complete the course have not changed, in line with requirements from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), and nor has the price.

 Figures published by Ofqual earlier this month show the QA level three award in Emergency First Aid at Work had the highest number of certificates during the second quarter of this year (April to June).

It was also the most popular qualification in the first quarter, with another first aid qualification – the FAA level three award in Emergency First Aid at Work – coming in third. The same qualifications also came in first and third in the last quarter of 2017.

Accompanying notes to the statistics added: “A number of qualifications have high numbers of certificates this quarter, including new level three qualifications, which were not available to certificate in the same quarter in the previous year. Many of these are first aid qualifications.

“This is due to the FAAOF review of the Emergency First Aid at Work qualification and that these should be re-levelled from level two to level three in England.”

Approximately 400,000 people take the Emergency First Aid at Work qualification each year. If the trend continues this year, the number of people with a level three certificate will grow 33 per cent (1.2 million to 1.6 million), and level two certificates will drop 17 per cent (from 2.4 million to 2 million).

FAAOF does not have any website or online presence.

Mr Young said: “Emergency First Aid has been around for a long time, and it’s just a natural progression. We did some work on the Paediatric First Aid course a couple of years ago and it just led to a natural review, from a validity point of view, that we needed to look again at the Emergency First Aid.

“The autonomy and the requirements to carry out that role unsupervised suggested it should be level three rather than level two. It’s more appropriately levelled, based on the autonomy and the responsibility associated with the qualification.”

 For first aid in the workplace, the HSE only requires a suitable course which meets its guidance. There is no requirement for the course to be regulated by an awarding body, or what level – if any – it should be.

Building a National Education Service: What’s Labour’s vision for skills?

Labour has taken two years to flesh out its National Education Service plans – so what do they mean for FE? Joe Dromey shares his thoughts on what was shared at party conference

In the Labour leadership election of 2015, Jeremy Corbyn set out a vision for a National Education Service. Evoking the founding tenets of the NHS, he pledged education that was free at the point of use, from cradle to grave.

Over the past two years, Angela Rayner, the shadow education secretary, has been putting the meat on the bones, and setting out what a National Education Service might look like.

There is relative consensus on technical education and apprenticeships. Labour supports T-levels, though the party has called for additional capital investment to deliver the ambitious reform. On apprenticeships, Labour has pledged to retain the levy, but has focused more on quality than quantity. 

Beyond these areas, it is on further and higher education that Labour’s vision differs most from the government’s. Central to this is Labour’s pledge to scrap fees for further and higher education.

Tuition fees – introduced by the previous Labour government and tripled by the coalition – are capped at £9,250 a year. This has helped protect universities from the austerity that has hit other public services, and it doesn’t appear to have put off people; participation has continued to inch up. However, shifting the cost from taxpayer to students has led to soaring student debt; the average graduate emerges with debt of over £50,000, with poorer students facing greater debt. Just one in four students will pay off the full amount.

The coalition introduced a similar system – advanced learner loans – for further education. While debt may not have deterred many from going to university, fees have had a huge impact in FE. Participation in FE fell by nearly a third after the introduction of advanced learner loans.

For Corbyn’s Labour, education is not seen as a commodity but a human right

At the heart of this debate is an ideological divide about what education is for. For the government, education is primarily about advancing individual opportunity. So, as the individual benefits, it is reasonable for the individual to pay. While the government has commissioned a review of education funding, it has baked in this principle; insisting recommendations must “maintain the principle that students should contribute to the cost of their studies”. For Corbyn’s Labour, education is seen not as a commodity, but as a human right and a social good. Because everyone benefits from a higher skilled society – the party argues – it is reasonable for everyone to contribute.

Labour’s pledges do not come cheap. In the party’s costings of its 2017 manifesto commitments, scrapping tuition fees and restoring maintenance grants came to £11.2 billion; nearly a quarter of all additional spending pledges, and four times more expensive than scrapping FE fees, equalising 16-19 funding and restoring EMA put together. Scrapping fees would be regressive – in narrow distributional terms – as young people from wealthier families are more likely to go to university.

On the distributional impact, Labour would argue that if this was paid for by progressive taxation, the overall impact would be progressive. On the cost, many in Labour would say that what matters is not the headline cost, but the long-term economic and social impact. Corbyn argued in 2015, when he set out his vision for the National Education Service, “the extra tax revenues brought by a high skill, high productivity and high pay economy will fund further expansion”. But in the short term, with a dire need for additional investment in other areas – from health and care to prisons and policing and social security – there is a real question about whether this is the highest priority for constrained resources.

Beyond the false binary of learner vs public funding, there are other options. Labour could deliver education that is free at the point of use by – for example – introducing a graduate tax, as Melissa Benn has outlined in her recent book Life Lessons. These options would be worth exploring.

National Health Service founder Nye Bevan once said that “the language of priorities is the religion of socialism”.  In fleshing out its plans for the National Education Service, Labour should bear this in mind.

IfA and Open Awards reach deal on EQA contract extension

The Institute for Apprenticeships has reached a deal with the organisation that delivers external quality assurance on its behalf to extend its contract for a further six months – but will go out to tender for a “longer term contract” after that.

Open Awards first won the contract to deliver EQA on behalf of the IfA in August 2017. Its initial contract ran until March 31, but was subsequently extended for six months.

FE Week reported on Tuesday that the IfA was at risk of losing its EQA provider, as the two parties had failed to reach an agreement on a new contract just days before the old one was due to expire.

“We are pleased to announce that we have today extended the current contract in place with Open Awards to deliver external quality assurance on our behalf until March 2019”, an IfA spokesperson said.

“We intend to run a procurement exercise for a longer term contract to deliver EQA from April 2019 in the next few months,” she said.

Further information on the procurement of the new contract will be published “shortly”, she said.

Open Awards’ initial contract was valued at £160,000 for eight months.

At the time, the IfA’s share of the EQA market stood at just 19 per cent, but since then it has more than doubled.

According to the latest Education and Skills Funding Agency figures, the IfA is named as the EQA provider on 44 per cent fully-approved standards, or 150 out of 342.

“We will continue to review our model for delivering EQA and the resource behind this as end-point assessment numbers continue to grow,” the IfA spokesperson said.

“We are in regular dialogue with Open Awards to ensure that they have the resources in place to deliver a high quality EQA service.”