The ‘Forgotten Third’ deserve the dignity of a new type of qualification

In spite of decades of curriculum and qualifications reform, a third of 16-year-olds in England are not awarded a ‘standard pass’ at their English Language GCSE. It’s high time the qualification was scrapped, argues Roy Blatchford, Chair of the Forgotten Third Commission, and replaced with one we can all be proud of.

It is a remarkable statistic in the home of the English language, and in one of the world’s top economies, that one third of 16-year-olds, after 12 years of compulsory schooling, fail to achieve what the Department for Education describes as a ‘standard pass’ (grade 4) in GCSE English and maths.

This was the starting point for the independent Commission on ‘The Forgotten Third’ which was established by the Association of School and College Leaders, and which delivers its final report today. Its headline recommendation is for the replacement of GCSE English Language with a new type of qualification, a Passport for English, which would be taken at the point of readiness of the student and could be built upon over time between the ages of 15 and 19.

The many hundreds of students, teachers, school leaders, employers and parents who gave evidence to the Commission argued that we cannot continue with a system that – in the poignant words of one 17-year-old – “fails a third of students so that two-thirds can pass.”

This high rate of attrition is a product of the current system of ‘comparable outcomes’ under which the distribution of grades is determined largely by how similar cohorts have performed in the past. It means that, unless we take action, there will continue to be a dividing line with roughly the same proportion falling short of the coveted ‘standard pass’.

The Commission argues that the system must change in the core subjects of English and maths which, in the DfE’s own words, consitute “the passport to future study and employment.”

Then there is the very nature of the current GCSE English Language examination. It is, in all but name, a test in analysis of literature, rather than the everyday skills sought by employers. In the words of one Head of English: “There are, dispiritingly, large parts of the reading element of each English Language paper which many students are simply not intended to access.”

That is why English Language GCSE should be replaced by a Passport in English, certificated by a body of national and international standing. We make a similar recommendation for maths. 

The Passport would be a highly respected qualification for a new era which better reflects the full achievements of all students and supports progression to a wide range of pathways. As its name deliberately signals, this qualification would give all students a valued passport to future education and employment.

The recommended content of coursework for writing, speaking and listening would be complemented by assessments in reading and comprehension. These would be focused on young people’s abilities to handle language in a variety of everyday contexts, write with accuracy, and express themselves with confidence and articulacy – the very skills employers and parents have said to the Commission time and time again they want to see in school leavers.

The Passport would have the merit of being able to be taken by ‘stage not age’, over the 15 – 19 age range. It would also make redundant the wasteful GCSE resit industry which currently means that many young people currently have to retake GCSE English and/or maths in post-16 education only to then suffer the further blow of failing to improve their outcomes.

In 1963, John Newsom and his colleagues presented to the government of the time a beautifully crafted report titled Half Our Future. The landmark report painted a picture of 50% of the nation’s 15 year-olds with an unsuitable curriculum leading to poor or no qualifications. The number one recommendation was to raise the school leaving age – which took a decade to implement.

We are hoping for a more urgent response to what we consider is a landmark report in its own right. We need policy-makers to recognise that every young person deserves the dignity of a qualification of which they can be proud. 

 

Banks given £201m to clear college debts during area reviews

Colleges had over £200 million of bank debt paid off by the Treasury during the post-16 area reviews, but civil servants say it is “too early” to determine the programme’s success.

An ‘Area review: end of programme report’ was published by the Department for Education this afternoon to provide a “factual record” of the implementation of the programme, which kicked off in September 2015 and officially ended in March this year.

It noted how, as part of the spending review 2015, the government offered up a £432 million restructuring facility to help with the implementation of recommendations made by the FE Commissioner.

Today’s report stated that between 2016 and 2019, 157 “transition grants” were awarded to colleges, and £201 million (46 per cent) of the restructuring facility was used to pay off commercial debts.

It means that combined college debt has gone from £1.6 billion in 2014-15, to £1.48 billion in 2017-18.

The DfE is no rush to publish which colleges won individual awards, citing grounds of commercial sensitivity associated with the contractual terms of both loans and grants.

Today’s report stated that following this “large investment” in the FE sector, the “expectation is that, going forward, colleges will manage themselves effectively to ensure their sustainability, and support will be available through early engagement with the ESFA or the FE Commissioner”.

It showed the number of general FE colleges in England has shrunk from 241 to 193, while the number of sixth form colleges has reduced from 93 to 54 – which included 23 academy conversions.

Colleges with a financial health rating of ‘inadequate’ has gone down from 37 to 21 as a direct result of the mergers.

Although it is “too early” to determine the long-term financial position of the college sector, early analysis “suggests that area reviews have had a broadly positive impact to date”, today’s report said.

“The area review programme and the financial support it provided delivered a great deal of focussed progress in a relatively short time to re-shape the sector and deal with some of the most difficult financial cases,” it added.

“It will take time for financial efficiencies to be fully realised and for the benefits of stronger leadership to show in improved financial performance and Ofsted grades. Some early inspections have had promising results but we will continue to track and monitor performance.”

The DfE said it intends to publish an evaluation report in 2022, which will focus on the impact of the programme.

A spokesperson said: “The area review programme has helped in supporting colleges to be more financially sustainable, which is crucial if we want to continue to deliver the skilled workforce we need for the future.

“We are really pleased that the area review programme has encouraged collaboration and has made it possible to maintain provision in areas that could have been under threat of losing access to a local FE college.

“We are continuing to build on this through the work of the FE Commissioner and the college oversight regime to support colleges to go from strength to strength. We have also recently pledged a £400 million boost to help colleges and FE providers to continue to deliver high-quality education and training and recruit and retain the brilliant teachers and leader they need.”

College to stay open as usual during ‘mammoth’ 15-day strike

Nottingham College has said it will be open as usual during 15-days of strike action by the University and College Union, including two full weeks of industrial action.

College staff will be on picket lines from Wednesday 11 September to Friday 11 October after members voted to stage a one-day walkout which will escalate to strikes of two, three, four and five days in subsequent weeks.

The action has come about because of a dispute centring on a move by the college, the UCU says, to impose new contracts which leave over 80 staff more than £1,000 a year worse off, and remove protections for staff against work overload.

UCU general secretary, Jo Grady, said: “UCU members at Nottingham College are rightly furious at the college’s attempts to force staff into these damaging new contracts.

“These changes increase the risk that staff will burn out or simply leave the college, impacting on the student experience.

“Strike action is always a last resort, but staff are sending a clear message that they will not tolerate this attack on their pay and conditions and the college’s uncompromising approach has only hardened their resolve.”

She said that following Sajid Javid’s announcement of a £400 million funding boost for colleges last week, “the college cannot use funding as an excuse for refusing to address members’ concerns”, after staff have not received a raise since 2010.

But despite this action, a Nottingham College spokesperson said the college will be open as usual through any industrial action: “Everybody in the college cares passionately about providing our students with the best possible education, training and personal development and the last thing anybody wants is a strike.

“We have already reached collective agreement with UNISON and NEU and we remain in discussion with UCU in the hope that we can resolve remaining issues and reach an agreement.”

The full strike dates are:

  • This week: Wednesday 11 September
  • Week 2: Thursday 19 and Friday 20 September
  • Week 3: Monday 23, Tuesday 24 and Wednesday 25 September
  • Week 4: Monday 30 September, Tuesday 1, Thursday 3, and Friday 4 October
  • Week 5: Monday 7, Tuesday 8, Wednesday 9, Thursday 10 and Friday 11 October

New education secretary commits to Stourbridge College sell-off meeting

The education secretary has committed to meeting with principals around Stourbridge to discuss how further education can continue in the area – after its only general FE college was sold off.

Cash-strapped Birmingham Metropolitan College controversially announced in May that it would sell off and close Stourbridge College in a desperate bid to ease a financial situation which threatens its solvency.

Margot James, the MP for Stourbridge, has since been battling to find a way of offering skills provision and adult education in her constituency.

Just three days ago she tweeted to say she had met education unions about the future of the Hagley Road site that housed Stourbridge College, and was “pleased” to say there is “positive progress towards continued education provision on the site in the future”.

She took the matter to the Houses of Commons today to ask for the secretary of state’s help with the issue during his first appearance at education questions.

“Following the deeply regrettable closure of Stourbridge College earlier this summer, can I ask my right honourable friend whether he would consider meeting the principals of all the Dudley Colleges – Dudley College, Halesowen College and King Edwards – with a view to discussing their wish to continue to provide vocational skills training, particularly adult education, in my constituency of Stourbridge?” she asked.

Gavin Williamson said he would be “very happy to meet with my honourable friend to discuss this in detail with those stakeholders”.

Stourbridge College’s 900 learners have been transferred to Dudley College of Technology and Halesowen College since BMet announced the closure decision.

Many have, however, been left frustrated with extra travel time and costs.

James, who was the minister for digital and the creative industries until July’s reshuffle, believes Stourbridge College was “let down by the failures of management and leadership at BMet”, which is now on the “brink of insolvency”.

READ MORE: Minister and local MP in ‘shock’ at ‘tragic’ decision to close Stourbridge College

She wrote to the National Audit Office’s comptroller and auditor general Gareth Davies last month asking him to investigate how this situation unfolded.

James told Davies how under BMet’s stewardship, the college “got into difficulties” and has had to obtain multi-million pound loans and bailouts to survive, while Ofsted has rated it ‘requires improvement’ three times in a row.

Davies used his response to reveal that the UK’s public spending watchdog is preparing to launch a value for money review on the management of colleges’ financial sustainability.

He added that in the meantime, he has asked his education team to “engage with the Education and Skills Funding Agency in order to establish in more detail the facts of this particular case”.

Principal no-shows TUC fringe event panel but claims UCU pressure unconnected

A college principal embroiled in a bitter dispute with unions has denied withdrawing from a Trades Union Congress event panel after University and College Union leaders spotted his name on the agenda this weekend.

Paul Di Felice, whose college Ruskin College, claims to train up to 2,500 trade union officers each year, was due to speak at a fringe event at the TUC’s annual congress called ‘Trade Union Education – A New Start’ today.

However, his booking sparked outrage from leading members of the UCU, with former general secretary candidate Jo McNeill tweeting it was “unbelievable”.

UCU national executive member Sean Vernell tweeted: “You can’t make this up.”

Vernell alleged Di Felice “targeted” and “sacked” UCU representatives, after union branch officer and Ruskin lecturer Lee Humber was allegedly suspended then sacked for circulating information about a motion of no confidence in Di Felice, which passed days before Humber was suspended.

Ten union leaders wrote to the college in July to protest against the “victimisation” of trade union officers at the college, including Humber and three other union representatives who had been allegedly placed under disciplinary investigation; but Ruskin insisted it had not targeted staff for their union activity.

The college, which was also looking to make redundancies at the time after it needed a recovery plan in 2017 to address “severe solvency issues”, instead said any disciplinary investigations were unconnected with their subjects’ trade unionism.

After Di Felice had withdrawn, Ruskin College UCU said via Twitter it was “delighted to confirm” his action was “due to pressure”, and thanked people for their solidarity.

However, Ruskin Ccollege has denied these protests were the reason Di Felice pulled out, instead citing “very pressing family matters”.

A spokesperson said: “The college categorically denies the implication the principal has withdrawn under pressure from UCU as this is simply untrue.

“This is part of a campaign from a few members of former staff from Ruskin College aimed at misrepresenting and undermining the college, its students and current staff.”

Di Felice had been due to speak on new initiatives being implemented by Ruskin College aimed at developing trade union education and training.

This included a new trade union apprenticeship standard for trade union officers.

A spokesperson for the UCU said: “UCU has been in dispute with Ruskin since April over its victimisation of trade union reps and we believe the best place to now resolve this dispute is through ACAS.”

Adult education slumps to lowest since major survey began more than 20 years ago

The government has been told to “wakeup” after research by the Learning and Work Institute found adult participation in education has fallen to a record low.

The news comes after adult education was snubbed in the Chancellor’s Spending Review, which handed £400 million to students aged 16 to 19 – but nothing to older learners.

Learning and Work Institute’s adult participation in learning survey has been tracking the number of adults taking part in education or training in the UK since 1996.

Its report for 2018 reveals just 35 per cent of adults say they have participated in learning during the previous three years, the lowest figure on record.

This is two percentage points lower than the 2017 survey, which reported the previous lowest participation rate, and six percentage points lower than the survey before that in 2015.

Last year a report by the Institute of Fiscal Studies found that funding for adult education has been cut by 45 per cent since 2009-10.

The institute’s chief executive Stephen Evans said: “Lifelong learning has never been more important. So, it should be a real cause for concern that participation has fallen to a record low, leaving the UK at risk of falling behind other countries.

“This survey should serve as a wakeup call, encouraging us to redouble our efforts to make lifelong learning accessible for all, and to invest in adult education.”

The survey showed the biggest regional gap in participation on record, with participation as low as 29 per cent in the south west, and 30 per cent in Yorkshire and the Humber and Northern Ireland.

To read Evans’ exclusive op-ed for FE Week on this survey, click here.

Its findings are based on a survey of 5,314 adults aged 17 and over across the UK, with fieldwork conducted in November and December 2018.

Sue Pember, former director of FE at the department for education and now policy director of adult education network HOLEX, said the study demonstrates the government needs to establish a lifelong learning strategy, “which kick starts a refreshed understanding that we all need enhanced skills if we are to thrive both economically and personally in this new technology-led world.

“It is time to change, government has found more funding for young people, it now needs to turn its mind to adults and overturn the 2011 austerity measures by investing in community-based education for those one in five adults with poor basic skills, those who need to retrain because their jobs are at threat and those whose lives, wellbeing and productivity could be improved through learning something new.”

The Commons Education Select Committee is currently undertaking an inquiry into adult education and lifelong learning, which is exploring the level of support available to learners.

Chair Robert Halfon launched the inquiry by calling for every town to have its own adult community learning centre and for there to be tax incentives for employers who invest in training their staff.

The survey also carries some recommendations for the National Retraining Scheme, which is due to begin rolling out next year; the survey was part-funded by the DfE to inform the scheme’s development.

Recommendations include helping people recognise the need to develop skills, helping those with no job security or progression opportunities consider retraining for roles in different industries, and ensuring information about the opportunities available through the scheme are widely promoted and accessible to all, offline and online.

The Department for Education was contacted for comment.

Wake up call to reverse cuts in lifelong learning

For more than twenty years Learning and Work Institute has been surveying adults to ask if they are taking part in learning. Never has the figure been lower. Just 35% of adults are taking part in learning or have recently done so. Given that our definition of learning is a deliberately broad one – not limited, for example, to those undertaking qualifications – the decline is troubling. In the absence of any announcements about adult education in this week’s spending review, the results take on new urgency.

Our survey shows stark and growing inequalities in participation in learning by socioeconomic group and region. People in the highest socioeconomic groups are two and a half times more likely to be in learning than those in the lowest, a gap that has grown in the last year. The gap in participation in learning between the nations and regions of the UK too has never been larger. This means the falls in participation in learning have been greatest where participation was lowest to begin with, reinforcing inequalities and limiting people’s opportunities to progress.

While the figures are shocking, they are unlikely to be a huge surprise to many of us, given the scale of cuts to adult education over the last decade. Indeed we published a report earlier this year showing progress has stalled over the last decade in improving skills, meaning the UK is on track to slip even further down the international league tables by 2030. Forget title-winning performance. This is more like a relegation zone battle.

These findings should serve as a wake-up call. Lifelong learning can help to boost our stalled productivity, and in turn help increase wages and the money available for public services. It can help people find work and progress in their careers. It can help build cohesive communities and benefit people’s health and wellbeing. Lifelong learning is not the answer to everything, but it needs to be part of the answer to most things.

That connection and value is only going to grow. Lengthening life expectancy means 50-year careers will be the norm. Rapid advances in technology will transform our labour market in the coming years, and Brexit will have an effect too. Put all this together and you have an increased need for people to update their skills and participate in learning throughout their lives.

The good news is there’s increasing recognition of the need to do better on lifelong learning. A growing number of commissions is looking into it, business groups are making the case, and the main political parties are all saying the right things.

The bad news is that action doesn’t yet match the rhetoric. I was pleased to see the Chancellor announce an extra £400m for young people in Further Education. This was a vital first step and the first meaningful investment in Further Education in a decade, but it simply isn’t enough.

Ongoing political uncertainty means we don’t know when there’ll be a longer-term Spending Review. But the need for a clear strategy for lifelong learning and long-term funding grows more urgent by the day. We’ve shown how an extra £1.9bn per year could, over a decade, reverse our falling international position and deliver a £20bn annual boost to the economy.

How we invest is as important as how much we invest. Our survey shows that once people are in learning, they are far more likely to come back to learning in the future. Learning is addictive, but we have to get people through the door in the first place. Things like Festival of Learning’s Have a Go Month, taking place now, can help engage and inspire adults to take that vital first step.

Adults told us that the biggest barriers to learning were time pressures – how to fit learning around life and work. Respondents said they’d be more likely to consider learning if they could learn at home or at times that suited them, or if learning was cheaper. So, yes we need to invest more, but we also need to inspire people to want to learn, and help them to fit learning into their busy lives.

The Chancellor has said austerity is over, but for prosperity to be the order of the day, lifelong learning must be a top priority for any new government. Only then will we see sustained improvement, not only in productivity, but in social justice.

Early win for DfE’s £5m apprenticeship marketing campaign

The government’s latest apprenticeship campaign appears to be bearing fruit after the Department for Education claimed the proportion of interested young people has nearly doubled.

Last November, the DfE awarded a two-year £5 million contract to one of the world’s most renowned advertising companies – M&C Saatchi – to help boost apprenticeship numbers across the country.

They launched phase one of the Fire It Up campaign in January, when just 14 per cent of young people said they were considering an apprenticeship, according to the DfE.

Nine months on and this interest has risen by 71 per cent, going up ten percentage points to 24 per cent, the DfE told FE Week.

Figures have been calculated via online surveys of young people who are yet to make an application for A-levels or University and also for those that have already made an application.

Fire It Up, which replaced the DfE’s old “Get in go far” apprenticeships campaign, is moving into its second phase. The first phase involved promoting apprenticeships to young people, parents and employers through a series of adverts on national TV and social media, featuring real-life apprentices.

The second phase will broaden the activity to focus on those audiences that contribute to widening participation in apprenticeships such as those from disadvantaged backgrounds, women in under-represented sectors, low paid workers, people with learning difficulties or disabilities and people from ethnic minority backgrounds.

“Look out for the adverts on TV, cinema, out of home poster sites, digital and social media,” the DfE said.

While the figures show more young people are taking an interest in apprenticeships, it is unclear if the campaign is impacting upon employers.

And this interest has not necessarily helped boost starts, with the latest DfE statistics revealing a 23 per cent drop in the number of them between August 2018 and June 2019 and the same period in 2016/17, the year before the apprenticeship levy was introduced.

The boost in the level of interest may have come too late to save the government’s target of 3 million apprenticeship starts by 2020 also.

In June, the then-education secretary Damian Hinds admitted to the education select committee “that target is not going to be reached”.

Nevertheless, the DfE said its Fire It Up campaign is a “great opportunity for providers and employers to share case studies of your own apprentices with us” and has encouraged them to email their stories to: apprenticeships.campaign@education.gov.uk.

M&C Saatchi’s contract runs out in July 2020.

ESFA to demand actual off-the-job training hour data for every apprentice

Yet another data field for logging apprentices’ off-the-job training hours will be introduced to individual learner records (ILR) from next August.

It follows high-profile concern from the National Audit Office and Public Accounts Committee about non-compliance with the unpopular rule going unchallenged.

The Education and Skills Funding Agency revealed today that a mandatory “off-the-Job training – actual hours” data field will added to the ILR from 2020/21.

This will “enable visibility of actual training delivered”, the ESFA said.

It is unclear whether the “actual hours” field will need to be updated by providers every month, or whether the figure will need to be inputted at the end of each apprenticeship programme.

Further details will soon be posted to the feconnect forum and open for comments until 20 September, the ESFA said.

It comes after the ESFA announced in May that from the 2019/20 academic year, a new mandatory field in the ILR would be added that requires providers to record “planned” off-the-job hours.

This replaced the “optional” field for recording how many OTJ training hours had been completed on a monthly basis, which was introduced to the ILR in 2018/19.

The ESFA said the mandatory field for 2019/20 will “help demonstrate compliance with the funding rules”.

In March the National Audit Office said in its apprenticeships progress report that the ESFA, in summer 2018, had just one “red risk” associated with delivery of the programme – that apprentices do not spend at least 20 per cent of their time doing off-the-job training.

The government’s spending watchdog warned that the agency has “limited assurance” in knowing whether the policy is being abided by, as even though audits may identify problems, there is “scope for providers to under-deliver for some time without this being picked up”.

“This is an important gap in oversight, because the provider continues to be paid as long as the apprentice remains on the programme,” its report said.

Meg Hillier, the chair of the influential Public Accounts Committee, added that it was “concerning that the ESFA can’t be sure that apprentices are spending enough time on off-the-job training”.

The new mandatory ILR fields have therefore been introduced to mitigate the problem.

The policy, which requires apprentices to spend a fifth of their week on activities related to their course that are different to their normal working duties, has split the FE sector since its introduction in 2015.

Many have complained that the rule is the single biggest barrier to apprenticeship recruitment, but others view it as a vital part of the apprentices’ development.