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ETF wants to tell the stories of disabled learners ‘living their best lives’

The Education and Training Foundation is on the lookout for stories of learners with learning difficulties or disabilities (LLDD) who are “doing something wonderful”.

The foundation, which leads on professional development for the sector, wants to feature about 50 learners “living their best lives” by being politically active or doing something with work, in their community or as part of their studies.

Learners with LDD are “often overlooked because their successes may not be measured in the conventional way”, says Simon Welch, the principal of National Star, a specialist college for young people with disabilities and learning difficulties.

Welch told FE Week he would welcome anything that celebrated the success and positive outcomes of young people with more complex disabilities or medical issues, as “not everyone is able to do a full-time job, but that does not mean they cannot be active citizens and have active lives”.

The ETF has put out a tender for a supplier to find these stories and create a publication, which will be downloadable from the foundation’s website and possibly available in a physical format.

According to the tender, which is worth £20,000, the foundation “wants to shift the emphasis, so we see bright young people first and disability second.

“The publication will show how by embracing inclusion we enable our young people to be, and lead, the change they want to see in the world.”

It will also celebrate the work of the FE sector to support learners with LDD. “While the focus of each learner profile is the young person, we feel it is also important to acknowledge the organisation where they studied or trained.”

The ETF says it is looking to hear “how the sector has been the springboard that enabled our young people to flourish”.

Teresa Carroll, the foundation’s head of wellbeing and social inclusion, said it wanted “to challenge outdated ideas of what young people with learning difficulties and disabilities can do and achieve”.

Di Roberts, the principal of Brockenhurst College in Hampshire and chair of the Association of Colleges’ disabled learners’ group, welcomed the plan. “FE colleges carry out valuable work with a range of students with learning difficulties and disabilities, which greatly enhances their ability to participate in their communities.

“We look forward to seeing all the successes colleges and their students have achieved.”

Inspired by the Shaw Trust’s Disability Power 100 – an annual list of the UK’s most influential disabled people – the stories will be published in the summer.

The tender is open until next month and can be found on the government’s Contracts Finder website.

The National Union of Students has said that while it is important to recognise learners’ achievements, too often “the barriers disabled students face are as a consequence of decisions by their institutions”.

“Many of the most engaged student activists are working to make change in their own colleges, to remove barriers to education that are the responsibility of their institution.

“When colleges celebrate the work of their students, in particular disabled students, they must recognise the responsibility they bear to examine the conditions they create and meaningfully engage with the challenges that their students are highlighting.”

The foundation has also tried to push forward the interests of learners with LDD through its centres of excellence for special educational needs and disability (SEND).

In June, City College Norwich, Derby College and Weston College shared £1.2 million to each host a SEND strategic leadership hub and develop “effective practice” for colleges by creating pathways to employment, curriculum co-creation and promoting staff and learner wellbeing.

Pledge to ‘reverse privatisation’ in FE clarified by shadow minister

Labour will not prevent independent providers from accessing public funding if the party wins next week’s general election, even though its manifesto pledged to “reverse the privatisation” of FE.

And nor does it want to “dictate the management of colleges or bring them under new forms of control”, the shadow skills minister insisted this week.

FE Week approached Gordon Marsden after reading a Labour pledge that said: “We will reverse the fragmentation and privatisation of further and adult education, incorporating it into a single national system of regulation that functions for education as our NHS does for healthcare provision.”

“We want to ensure there is a common system of regulation”

He conceded that he would not have used “reverse privatisation”, and said that in an attempt to mention “absolutely everything” in a manifesto, “the people writing it try to compress things and there is some degree of ambiguity”.

Marsden said that this pledge was “about ensuring that there is a common system of regulation across the sector”.

This meant ensuring “all institutions, whether they are colleges or private training providers, follow the principles” of Labour’s proposed national education service’s (NES) charter.

“This is not about changing the management of colleges or bringing them under new control, and it is not about private training providers not being able to receive public money,” he told FE Week.

“Sometimes there is a broader context in which you have to see these things. There is a big divide between us and the Tories. They believe everything can be done by the market.

“We believe that the market can operate within a set of principles that are common and to that extent give parity of esteem between higher education, skills and further education.

“At the heart of that will be the principle of the provision of universal learning, available as a right.”

Marsden said a Labour government would act as an “enabler, not a top-down micromanager from Whitehall” and described its approach as “pluralistic”.

“We have made it very clear that we are moving away from the market-driven, fragmented and siloed view of FE – the context of the words used in the manifesto under the Conservatives, which has led to the problems, disparities and in some cases scandals that have afflicted the senior management of a minority of colleges,” he said.

“We are committed to promoting a more collaborative and strategic approach, as well as significant extra funding, between colleges and a range of providers.

“Whether people agree with it or not, the fundamental thing we are saying is that the marketised competitive approach this government has used has not only failed in social justice, it has failed economically. You can see that in the apprenticeships area. We are charting a different route.”

Marsden refuted the assumption that Labour was looking to take the profit motive out of FE, but did say every provider needed to be held to account.

“This is not about changing the management of colleges”

“No one is saying an organisation shouldn’t make a profit, but that profit and the way in which it makes it and the salaries it pays in terms of ratio between the people such as lecturers and senior management, needs to be accountable and realistic.”

FE Week previously reported that colleges’ status as independent corporations could be at risk under Labour’s plan for free lifelong learning in 2017, after the party’s leader Jeremy Corbyn hinted that he wanted to bring them back under local authority control.

Asked to clarify the party’s position, Marsden said: “As we’ve said in the NES charter, colleges should operate with the maximum of democratic accountability at local and regional level.

“Some people tend to talk about FE as simply a product of government doling out money here, there and everywhere to providers and colleges. The reality of it is we are in a changing universe where you’ve got mayors and combined authorities and, for that matter, local enterprise partnerships.

“So the 2020s are not just going to be about what a minister of whatever party says in Whitehall about FE or skills or whatever. It will be a mixed universe of these various bodies.”

T-levels aren’t just about economic sense but social justice too

While T-levels have suffered criticism and setbacks, the UK government’s plan to revolutionise vocational education can benefit employers and students alike. I should know, writes Alfie Earlam, I’m one of the few lucky students trialling them and I couldn’t be happier

T-levels will be introduced in autumn 2020, replacing a wide range of qualifications. In the meantime, I am a student trying to open as many doors as possible in terms of my future career and further education, and T-levels are proving to be the perfect way to do this.

Like many of my peers, I’m not sure what I will do after my studies, or even what kind of studies I will continue to do. People who have that level of certainty are rare. But whether you want to go to university or straight into a job once you have finished post-16 options, T-levels prepare you for both.

The qualification works in a similar way to the current apprenticeship scheme. However, whereas apprenticeships require students to learn at a local college one day a week, with the rest of the week spent at work, T-levels include three days at college, with two days in a placement relevant to the course you are studying. Ultimately, 315 hours of work experience are required to gain the qualification.

As Julie Girling, T-level coordinator from New College Stamford, explains: “For students who are looking for a job at the end of the placement, T-levels improve their potential for employment. They provide real experience in the industry, which they can use on their CV.”

T-levels stand to make the job market fairer

But you don’t have to be someone with a clear vision of your future career; the new scheme is a way of trialling what you think you would like to do in the future. For example, a student may want to work as a veterinary nurse, and T-levels provide the opportunity to do this part-time as an element of their qualification – as long as their course relates to animal care. If, during their studies, they realise they don’t like being a veterinary nurse, they can choose to change their course, or to change their placement.

So, while more colleges should definitely prepare for this scheme, it’s also imperative to get the word out to businesses. Their awareness of, and participation in, the scheme is what will provide willing students the opportunities they need.

Many industries, such as construction, agriculture, manufacturing and engineering, are currently lacking skilled young workers, and apprenticeships are not filling the gap. This might be due to employers favouring their existing employees, but the level of commitment employers require from young people is also too great for many of my peers.

Anna Morrish, owner of Quibble Content, where I’m doing my placement, says that “the T-level programme has brought fresh perspectives, insights and ideas to the business as well as providing additional support on the two days our intern is with us”. She believes that supporting the younger generation with their studies is something that should be more common for the business community, especially in those dependent on skilled workers.

If employers are proactive and get involved, T-levels could create a whole new generation of workers who are more knowledgeable and experienced than ever before.

T-levels present another advantage for students who may have little or no work experience. It provides them with an understanding of how businesses work, how it feels to have a job and responsibilities. Quibble treats me as an employee, and that gives me real-life experience and the chance to feel part of the team and to prove myself in the adult world.

This is all to the benefit of industries while also creating the conditions for tackling youth unemployment. T-levels stand to make the job market fairer, allowing students who lack the connections that many entry-level jobs require – due to geography, demographics and culture – to shape a career based on their own merits.

Profile: Corrina Hembury

Corrina Hembury has seen it all: Jess Staufenberg meets the training provider managing director who started as an apprentice

Corrina Hembury “started everything young”. She began teaching at 19, got married the same year and was a qualified teacher by 21. Despite “loving school”, she only managed half a term of sixth form before switching to college and doing half a term there.

The managing director of apprenticeships provider Access Training decided what she “really needed was to be free and earn some money”. It was all looking rather spontaneous until she sat the old RSA (now OCR) wordprocessing exam and got an office job at an Asian women’s training charity in her hometown of Derby. They encouraged her to do a business administration apprenticeship.

Two decades later she is the boss of 50 staff and working with about 200 employers. She’s seen all the fancy new ideas in further education and can cast a caustic eye over the policy changes with civil servant-like precision.

Her parents were warehouse managers, so a career in education wasn’t in the blood. However, Hembury had a deeply supportive granny who encouraged her to get qualifications.

It was at Babington Business College in Derby, where she was getting her level 3 business administration apprenticeship, that lecturing caught her eye. She shadowed staff and began teaching her subject a couple of hours a week, before doing her level 4 diploma in education. “I really, really enjoyed it. That’s where I got the bug. The passion for me has always been about the learners and the difference you begin to see in them.”

It’s at this point that Hembury remembers the FE structures in place many years ago. While she was at Babington, national “training and enterprise councils” were replaced by “learning and skills councils”, which were more local.

“We were working really well with employers in the local area and building up relationships. It was certainly a very different time. That’s sadly missing at the moment – these opportunities for support for the sector. In those days there were big organisations like LSIS (Learning and Skills Improvement Service) who supported providers. They had a much bigger budget than nowadays and did a lot more, so there were good opportunities to meet other providers and get learning and training for yourself.” The LSIS that she speaks fondly of was scrapped and replaced in 2013 by the scaled-down Education and Training Foundation.

Hembury continued to gather various titles at the college, including “lead internal verifier”, and, by 30 was the regional manager for the college overseeing six sites across Derby, Nottingham, Stoke, Lichfield, Dewsbury and Sheffield.

Following a change of ownership, she became the college’s training director and saw staff numbers double to about 200. “It was a really exciting time for me. I also had my daughter!”

I find it hard to think it’s anything other than snobbery

Having done almost everything else young, Hembury held off becoming a parent for 14 years. Now she was where she wanted to be. “I also got really interested in policy stuff at this time,” she recalls, harking back to the SFA, or Skills Funding Agency as it was called in 2010 before becoming the ESFA in 2017.

The SFA was trying out an “employer ownership pilot”, in which employers were being encouraged to get involved in designing training themselves. “It was almost a trial for the trailblazer apprenticeships we’ve got today, with this idea of the employers being ‘in the driving seat’,” she says.

However, the idea results in a raised eyebrow. “The reservation that I have around this employer-first’ rhetoric is that the learner or apprentice seems to get a bit forgotten. For instance there are practical changes in funding rules, which is a real frustration.”

Hembury’s description of the problem points to an irritating flaw in the system. “The issue is when an apprentice has a break between moving employers – for example if they decide to take a week off between finishing one job and starting the next, they are then classed as a ‘new start’, meaning they have to complete the minimum duration of 12 months again, even if they only had six months left on programme.”

Doubly annoying, the provider doesn’t get all the funding again, only the remainder that has not been used up. “So I’m not sure why this can be resolved, but not the minimum duration?” You can imagine her silently tearing her hair out.

Around this time Hembury was also on the SFA group for advanced learning loans, which she says gave her “the leadership bug” and “some strong ideas around how I think things should be done”. When the MD job came up at Access in 2015, she thought she’d “better put my money where my mouth is”.

One of her first moves was to give the eight-strong executive team more management development training such as she had benefited from at Babington. The organisation was graded level 2 during a short inspection in 2015 – and Hembury, as ever, has her eye on policy areas for improvement. She mentions three quirks which again strike me as significantly irritating.

First, the ESFA was late in sending over the college’s report on the number of learners it has been paid for this year, Hembury says. “As of last month, we hadn’t had the proper reports of what they were paying us for. It’s these kinds of frustrations that for providers are very real, and really impact your business and take up time.”

You have a gut instinct when the latest change comes in

Second, she’s concerned about the lower funding bands for certain qualifications such as adult care. The funding cap for an adult care level 2 and 3 taking about 15 to 18 months is £3,000, but the equivalent for customer service is £4,500 and for a property maintenance operative it’s £9,000. “It’s really difficult for me to understand why a programme that helps people do such an important role, that we all will probably need one day, has one of the lowest funding bands.”

Hembury also worries about the Institute of Apprenticeships’ refusal to approve a level 2 business administration apprenticeship when old-style apprenticeship frameworks are switched off next year. She suspects it’s yet another unvalued qualification. “I find it hard to think it’s anything other than snobbery. Speaking as someone who started their career through the level 2 business administration route, I wholeheartedly disagree.”

She is clearly in love with her work. She talks glowingly of the “brilliant time” she’s had handing out certificates to learners nominated by staff. “What a nice job, to be able to turn up and help create happy people, who tell you how much this has helped their career.” She also has a sharp sense of humour and laughs that she’s being a “whinge”.

But she has a point. And since she’s been in the sector from the start of her working career, she probably knows what she’s talking about. She quips: “In FE, why have one policy when 20 will do?” It’s a joke, but she’s clear the complex and ever-changing rules governing the sector discourage new talent. “If you’ve been in it for two decades, then when the latest change comes in, you have a gut instinct about it. But new entrants into the market can find it really hard, even with the best will in the world.” Most people in FE think the many rules are “crazy”.

Hembury, 41, is at the top of her game, but, given her early start, she has been through more structures, systems and rules than many people her age in FE.

Her biggest wish? “Consistency.” Will the next government listen?

Northern Ireland’s colleges are more important than ever amid Brexit uncertainty

Amid Brexit chaos and the continued suspension of the Stormont assembly, what Northern Ireland’s colleges need most from this election is certainty, writes Marie-Thérèse McGivern

Brexit has created huge tension across the whole of the UK, but probably nowhere more so than in Northern Ireland, a region that voted in its majority to remain in the European Union. The continuing uncertainty about what Brexit will mean practically and Northern Ireland’s place in any settlement have created an environment which has had significant impacts already. Unpredictability has caused difficulties in maintaining and landing investment in the region, made businesses reluctant to invest until they have more clarity, and slowed down inward migration considerably, causing skills shortages.

For colleges here, as everywhere else across the UK, the need is to continue to deliver skills for the region that are aligned to business needs. While obvious skills shortages might be thought to at least make identification of those needs easier, decreasing funding presents a big challenge and uncertainty about the region’s future economic direction has a paralysing effect.

As if this wasn’t enough, Northern Ireland has had to contend with the absence of an Assembly now for over 1000 days, at a time when the region needs one most. There is now a significant backlog of reforms awaiting decision from local ministers in education, as well as health and the environment. The Northern Ireland civil service has tried valiantly to keep the region moving forward and to work for success, but it is a difficult job without a clear mandate or political direction.

The only certainty seems to be that Northern Ireland is facing increasing challenges. A lot of hope here hangs on the election providing the clarity and certainty the country desperately needs, and perhaps even nudging the Assembly towards reforming.

Our colleges are ready to bring solutions to the challenges facing the region

If so, then that resolution won’t come a moment too soon for our skills sector. When it last met, the Assembly was moving strongly in the direction of seeing skills, and the delivery of a talent pipeline, as essential to the future prosperity of the region. There was growing consensus that the six Northern Ireland colleges have a central role in developing a new ecosystem for success.

The Department for the Economy have continued to underline that work. They are currently building the evidence and analysis for a new Northern Ireland skills strategy for endorsement when the Assembly eventually returns, as surely it must.

While Brexit and Stormont divisions have put a lot on hold, the fundamentals haven’t changed. Aligning to business needs requires flexible, responsive delivery that can adapt training to a rapidly innovating digital sector at one end and, at the other, a sustained supply of highly trained and motivated workers across more traditional sectors such as hospitality and social care.

Colleges in Northern Ireland have worked hard to increase collaboration to ensure excellent delivery across the region. A concrete example has been the development of specialist hubs whereby each college has become a ‘Centre of Excellence’ for the sector as a whole, in areas such as digital industry, life sciences and advanced manufacturing. This strategy has allowed us to maximise limited resources to create maximum impact.

Our colleges are ready to bring solutions to the challenges facing the region, both economic and social. Yes, we work directly with businesses to increase productivity and skills levels in all industry sectors.

But getting skills policy right is about more than that; it is a clear route to increased social mobility too. Colleges routinely intervene in communities with high levels of poverty, giving individuals the opportunity to embark on lifelong learning journeys that are transformative for them and their communities.

Regardless of who forms the next government come December 13, colleges are waiting to play their part in Northern Ireland’s prosperity. What they require to do so above all else is political stability and a clear sense of direction.

Immensely proud to be reporting impartial news without fear or favour

In the nine years and 300 editions of FE Week, there is one story that best sums up our consistent and dogged determination to report the facts: Learndirect.

For the first and hopefully last time, a lawyer representing the country’s largest training provider emailed me at 11pm on a Friday in the summer of last year to tell me I was in contempt of court and could go to jail.

They claimed I had broken criminal law (for which there is of course no insurance cover) for publishing a story about the first day of the judicial review.

Despite not naming Learndirect in the story, the lawyer told the judge that our readers were so well informed they would identify the training provider as Learndirect.

We removed the story and the judge subsequently saw through the bullying tactics from Learndirect anyway.

The solution was to hire our own lawyers, at significant expense, to successfully challenge the gagging order.

A front page story in the FT followed along with a highly commended award for our investigative journalism from the Press Gazette.

Many of our stories are sourced from insiders, but that does not always mean they go to plan. Somewhat embarrassingly, our most read online story so far was about a government u-turn that never materialised – although we were subsequently told it was our story which triggered a change of heart.

More successfully, our two ‘save our’ campaigns successfully resulted in increased apprenticeship funding for the disadvantaged and 16 to 18 year-olds, as well as government support for adult learners tricked into taking loans.

And maybe most of all, I’m proud of the reputation for quality, award-winning journalism such that whilst FE ministers and their advisers come and go, they all read FE Week (even if the civil servants wish they didn’t).

So thank you to all our readers and contributors and I look forward to the next 300 editions.

IFS warns FE funding pledges may lead to fraud and poor value for money

The “extremely large” rises in adult education spending proposed by Labour and the Liberal Democrats open up “genuine risks” to fraud and poor value for money, a think-tank has warned.

A new report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies has analysed the FE pledges from the three main political parties ahead of next week’s general election.

It found that the Conservatives’ national skills fund proposal, which would be worth about £600 million extra per year by 2022, would reverse about one fifth of the cuts to total spending on adult education and apprenticeships since 2010.

“Although there are risks these can be managed”

In contrast, Labour’s proposals would equate close to a 90 per cent real-terms rise in total spending on adult education.

These included the costed pledges for lifelong learning up to level 3, and six years of free education at levels 4 to 6. Excluding the cost of abolishing of tuition fees, the Labour manifesto costs this and other adult education commitments at £3.3 billion extra per year by 2023.

The Lib Dems’ proposed “Skills Wallets”, worth £10,000 that all adults could draw upon for lifelong learning, would represent about a 35 per cent real-terms rise in total spending on adult education, on the basis this would cost about £1.6 billion extra per year in cash-terms by 2024-25.

Luke Sibieta, report author and IFS research fellow, described the Conservative pledges as “modest” but said Labour and the Lib Dems’ “big increases” in spending and eligibility come with “significant risk and uncertainty”.

The ‘Going further on further education?’ report outlines the possible consequences of these policies, stating that it is hard to predict how many people would take up the new offers and there would be a risk that spending could come significantly above or below what is expected.

The research warned “there is a risk of fraud with new providers and courses popping up to take advantage of the large subsidies, but ultimately providing poor education”.

The IFS pointed out that a similar policy, Individual Learning Accounts (ILAs), was scrapped within a year due to widespread fraud in 2001.

ILAs, which subsidised the costs of courses aimed at widening participation in learning and helping to overcome financial barriers faced by learners, had attracted much more interest than anticipated, according to the National Audit Office.

By 2002, the scheme was wound up amid a fraud scandal that left the public purse lighter by £268 million.

The IFS report noted that both Labour and the Lib Dems have “proposed tight regulation”, but the “very sizeable subsidy will mean that fraud or poor value for money are both genuine risks”.

The think-tank said there has been “a 50 per cent real-terms cut in classroom-based adult education spending” since 2009-10.

Sue Pember, former director of FE at the department for education and now policy director of adult education network HOLEX, said that although there are risks to the proposals “these can be managed”.

“Recent research shows that adults are not aware of what is already free and what their entitlements are therefore we need to find ways to motivate adults and encourage them into learning,”she told FE Week.

“The public seem to like the concept of an account or wallet as it puts them in control of their learning, therefore we should be building on that connection and ensure these new ideas are delivered through robust management of the provider base.”

Association of Employment and Learning Providers chief executive Mark Dawe said: “We need to see investment restored in adult education via skills accounts used with fully regulated and quality approved providers and only with an approved catalogue of courses as we now have for loans provision.”

Commenting on the IFS report, Angela Rayner, Labour’s shadow education secretary, said: “Further and adult education have been devastated by a decade of Conservative and Liberal Democrat austerity that cut billions of pounds from these vital services.

“Labour is committed to giving further and adult education the sustainable funding needed by significantly increasing 16-19 spending, introducing a new fully funded right to lifelong learning, and introducing maintenance support for young and adult learners.”

And a Lib Dem spokesperson said: “We will expand the Office for Students to monitor the programme and ensure courses are being delivered by verified, reputable providers.

“They’ll work closely with businesses to evaluate and identify good courses. Plus, we’ll offer free careers guidance which can point learners towards high-quality courses that will improve their career prospects.

“Similar schemes already work well in countries like Singapore and parts of Austria. Liberal Democrats will give people the power to decide how, what and when they learn.”

Lecturers strike at London college despite agreeing pay deal last year

Strikes started today at a large London college just a year and a half after staff agreed a pay deal.

University College Union members at the Tower Hamlets branch of New City College (NCC) have been on a picket line since 8am and will be out for 48 hours.

It comes in spite of NCC granting employees a one-off payment of £400 and an annual salary increase of £400 in June 2018 after a dispute which involved three days of walkouts the month before.

Since then, staff have received a 1 per cent pay rise in 2018/19 and a 2 per cent rise in 2019/20.

However, this latest action is part of a wave of strikes that washed across the country earlier this year focused on the national pay deal: the UCU is calling for a 5 per cent pay bump, or £1,500 if that is greater, for college staff.

This led to planned walkouts at colleges like New College Swindon, Lambeth College, Capital City College Group and Hugh Baird College – all of which later reached a deal with staff including a pay rise of between two and six per cent.

Gerry McDonald, chief executive of NCC, said in June 2018 the one-off pay rise and annual increase was “not a pay deal, and is not linked to any national UCU campaign or any organised union action”.

A spokesperson for the UCU said the union is unhappy with the way NCC applied this year’s 2 per cent rise – as it was done without negotiation.

It’s also a “flat percentage increase across the whole staff”, meaning that those earning the most will “receive much more than the lowest paid”, the spokesperson added.

Additionally, they said the pay rise is being applied in two stages: the first 1 per cent comes in at the end of November 2019 backdated to August, and the other 1 per cent in February 2020 – so while staff will end the year 2 per cent higher, in practice this is closer to 1.5 per cent for the 2019/20 academic year.

NCC staff also want action to tackle rising workloads, improvements to contracts and formal recognition for trade unions.

UCU regional support official Caroline Lake said: “Strike action is never taken lightly but staff at the college are sick and tired of hearing the same old excuses.

“The college cannot continue to use government cuts as a reason to hold down staff pay when other institutions are finding ways to fairly reward their staff.

“It’s time for the college to come back to the negotiating table with a better offer that addresses the concerns of staff, otherwise further action could be on the cards.”

In November, the Association of Colleges recommended their members only offer staff a one per cent pay rise this year. AoC chief executive David Hughes said at the time it would be “reckless” to recommend a higher pay rise “given the financial stress colleges find themselves facing”.

The UCU said the pay gap between teachers in colleges and schools was around £7,000 in favour of schools, and some teachers were also awarded a 3.5 per cent pay rise by the Department for Education last year.

NCC staff went on strike in May and September of this year and this latest action was voted for with 90 per cent of the vote.

New City College declined to comment on today’s strike.

Head of Programme 2D Studies – City Lit