The Department for Education has launched a consultation into plans to extend survivor benefits under the teachers’ pension scheme to civil and same-sex partners.
The change, one of three proposed to the scheme, comes after the Supreme Court ruled in 2017 that the husband of former cavalry officer John Walker was entitled to the same benefits upon Walker’s death as he would have been had he been married to someone of the opposite sex.
The landmark ruling prompted wholesale reform of all public sector pensions.
The DfE also intends to remove a requirement for the completion of a nomination form for unmarried partner benefits in the teachers’ pension scheme.
Currently, for unmarried partners to qualify for a survivor’s pension they must have been nominated to receive the pension before the member’s death and to have been in a “financially interdependent and co-habiting relationship” for at least two years before the death.
This proposal was also prompted by a landmark Supreme Court appeal in 2017 where a woman from Northern Ireland had previously been denied payments from her late partner’s occupational pension scheme. The Local Government Officers’ Superannuation Committee had refused Denise Brewster a survivor’s pension because they were not married and the committee had not received the appropriate nomination form before her partner’s death.
Now, the government is proposing changes with retrospective effect from 1 April 2007 so that a survivor’s pension is paid to a person who meets surviving partner qualifying criteria but without the need for a nomination to have been completed.
The consultation also includes “other small technical changes and clarifications to ensure that the scheme operates as intended”, such as a new regulation that make clear to members that they have the option to elect for any death grant payment to be paid as a pension protection lump sum death benefit.
The consultation will run until June 25. Changes to the teachers’ pension scheme are expected to be announced by autumn 2019.
“These very important changes will make the Teachers’ Pension Scheme fairer for teachers and their spouses in same-sex marriages and civil partnerships, and will simplify the process for those in unmarried relationships,” said Nick Gibb, the schools minister.
“Over the next six weeks we will seek the views of a variety of stakeholders to ensure these changes properly meet our legal responsibilities, and I would urge all those involved to share their views.”
The DfE confirmed the changes would apply to college lecturers.
Teacher pensions have been in the news recently after it was announced that college contributions to them are set to rise from the current rate of 16.48 per cent to 23.6 per cent – an extra £142 million a year – from September 2019.
The DfE said last month it would be providing extra funding to cover the initial rise, but it is not clear for how long this government subsidy will last.
The Association of Colleges has won a contract with the government to develop a “transitional” course for T-levels, following a secretive and restrictive procurement.
It will now design the offer and support providers with its “phased” implementation running up to first delivery of the new post-16 technical qualifications in 2020 and 2021.
The course, recommended by Lord Sainsbury in his technical education report in July 2016, will be for 16-year-olds to take if they are not ready to start a T-level at level three, but can “realistically achieve it” by age 19.
“The T-level transition framework will help young people, who may not quite be ready, get up to speed with the skills and gain the confidence they need before starting their T-level,” skills minister Anne Milton said today.
“I’m thrilled that we have appointed the Association of Colleges to support the first T-level providers to run a phased implementation of the transition offer in 2020 and 2021.
“The Association of Colleges has a wealth of FE technical expertise and will be well-placed to take this important work forward.”
A tender for an organisation to develop this offer was finally launched in February but only ran for 15 days.
The DfE was then accused of “locking out” small firms, as the procurement was only made available to suppliers in a specific category in its Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS).
The DfE refused to release the tender documents, list who is eligible to apply or even say how much the contract is worth.
The department again today would not reveal how much the contract is worth, saying the information is commercially sensitive.
David Hughes, chief executive of the AoC, said: “We bid for this work, in the normal way, because it is important to our members and because we have lots of expertise and understanding of the issues.
“We were pleased to win and are getting on with delivering the work needed.”
Timescales for developing the transition course will be tight, as there is just over a year to go until the first three T-levels, in education and childcare pathway, design, surveying and planning, and digital production, design and development, are delivered.
Six more new providers have received temporary bans on recruiting apprentices following early Ofsted inspections that found them making poor progress.
Since October 2018, the watchdog has been carrying out monitoring visits at every directly-funded provider which won a contract to deliver training after April 2017.
The Education and Skills Funding Agency has released an updated version of the register of apprenticeship training providers for May, which shows 33 providers are currently banned from taking on apprentices.
Six providers were added to the list this month, including: Cogent Skills Training, EMA Training, Moor Training, Piper Training, Right Track Social Enterprise, and Vogal Group.
Each of them had been found to have made ‘insufficient progress’ in at least one area during an Ofsted monitoring visit.
They will now be prevented from recruiting apprentices until they have received a full Ofsted inspection and been awarded at least a grade three for apprenticeship provision.
The providers can still carry on delivering training to their existing apprentices, but cannot train new apprentices as a subcontractor, or take on new apprentices as a subcontractor.
Cogent Skills Training, which had 106 apprentices at the time of inspection and specialises in life and industrial sciences, was found to have made poor progress in ensuring the provider is meeting all the requirements of successful apprenticeship provision, with inspectors reporting “too many” learners were “accomplishing little more than accrediting existing skills”.
EMA Training was marked down by Ofsted in the same area, because its 28 apprentices, who are training to be train conductors and drivers for Southeastern Trains, received no time during work hours to develop skills and behaviours after an extended period of training at the start of their programme.
Managers at Moor Training, which specialises in areas such as plumbing, heating and gas engineering, were found to have not kept accurate information on apprentices’ start dates, of which it had 44, whether apprentices had withdrawn from training, and the number of learners who had achieved their apprenticeships.
Piper Training, an arm of the trade association the Building Engineering Services Association, had 123 apprentices at the time of the inspection on heating and ventilation courses.
It has been barred after leaders were found to have concentrated too much on contractual compliance and financial and business developments, and not enough on ensuring employers know how to support their apprentices.
Its leaders were criticised in the report for not observing any teaching in the subcontracted colleges where most of its apprentices are taught, and for not checking whether subcontractors’ plans for learning are clear and logical.
Training director Tony Howard previously told FE Week they had had ongoing issues with subcontractors not submitting enough information for Piper Training to monitor progression.
“We are working with our sub-contractors to drastically improve on their capability to report at the frequency we are requiring,” he added.
Ofsted reported the quality of training received by 23 apprentices at childcare, business administration and customer services provider Right Track Social Enterprises did not always take adequate account of an apprentice’s job tasks and responsibilities, or the specific needs of employers.
And inspectors found staff at Vogal Group, which had 18 apprentices on engineering and manufacturing courses, did not have “appropriate awareness” of safeguarding, its policies of which were out-of-date, and apprentices only had a basic understanding.
Ofsted has started conducting full inspections of new apprenticeship providers that were previously banned from taking on new starts following ‘insufficient’ monitoring reports, and awarded them grades that allows them to start recruiting again.
The first was at Watertrain Ltd, which was rated ‘requires improvement’ in February. Since then, other turnaround providers have included Unique Training Solutions, rated ‘good’ in April, and Mitre Group, also rated ‘good’ in April.
It follows a three-month public consultation, which prompted more than 15,000 responses – the highest number the education watchdog has ever received.
A new FE and skills inspection handbook has been created as a result, which includes a number of changes to the way inspections are carried out in the sector.
FE Week has gone through the 63-page document as well as Ofsted’s 39-page consultation response and listed what it means for FE providers.
Number of provision types reduced to 4 – but WILL include high needs
Arguably the most controversial proposed change for FE was to reduce the current six provision types graded in inspection reports: 16 to 19 study programmes; adult learning programmes; apprenticeships; traineeships; provision for learners with high needs and; full-time provision for 14- to 16-year-olds.
Ofsted wanted to cut these to just three: education programmes for young people; apprenticeships; and adult learning programmes
Half of respondents in the consultation agreed or strongly agreed that reducing them would make inspection reports more “coherent and inclusive” but around one in five disagreed, mainly because of the exclusion of the “high needs” grade.
“Often, the concern was that this would lead to providers reducing the priority given to high-needs provision and not making its quality sufficiently clear, especially in providers that have a small proportion of learners with high needs,” Ofsted said.
As a result, the education watchdog has been “persuaded” and will include a category specifically for high needs in FE reports, along with education programmes for young people; apprenticeships; and adult learning programmes.
Clare Howard, chief executive of Natspec, which represents specialist FE providers, welcomed the U-turn and said it is “right that provision for learners who attract high needs funding is inspected and graded alongside the other funding streams for young people, apprenticeships and adult learning”.
Shift in focus to the “quality of education” rather than data
One of Ofsted’s most supported moves in developing the new inspection framework has been the promise to put “less emphasis” on data, such as achievement rates, and more on progress and destinations.
The inspectorate has confirmed it will proceed with its headline proposal for a new ‘quality of education’ judgement, after it received support from three quarters of respondents.
“Many understood how this would help reduce the incentives for schools and colleges to focus on just achieving better published outcomes at the expense of a rounded education,” Ofsted said.
It means that inspectors will make judgements on the following areas for FE providers: overall effectiveness, and four key judgements: quality of education; behaviour and attitudes; personal development; and leadership and management (see image below for example new FE report).
Four-point grading system here to stay – but new timescale for re-inspecting grade 3s
All inspection judgements will continue to be awarded under the current four-point grading scale: outstanding; good; requires improvement; and inadequate.
Ofsted said reports will be redesigned and shortened to only give the key information about each provider.
Each overall effectiveness grade will continue to carry specific consequences (click image to read what each means) for FE providers.
Providers that are judged ‘requires improvement’ overall will have the timescale for their next full inspection extended from 12 to 24 months to 12 to 30 months. This will “allow us to recognise whether rapid improvement has taken place or whether it may need more time,” Ofsted said.
A new model for short inspections – but no on-site planning
As is the case under current Ofsted rules, providers graded ‘good’ for overall effectiveness will usually be inspected within five years of the publication of that inspection report, and most will receive a short inspection. This will “determine primarily whether the quality of education/training that learners receive is good”.
Ofsted said these inspections will change from September to focus on particular aspects of the provision – principally the quality of education, safeguarding and leadership – as a “subset of the full EIF criteria, while allowing the lead inspector some discretion”.
The education watchdog had proposed that inspectors would arrive at a provider the day after they are notified of a short inspection, to complete planning the visit on-site, but providers voiced concern that the move would “effectively reduce the notification period and be the cause of stress and workload in providers”.
“Following the outcomes of the consultation and our experience on pilots, it is not clear that on-site planning is always beneficial to providers and inspectors,” Ofsted said, adding it will not move forward with the proposal.
But in an interview with FE Week in November, chief inspector Amanda Spielman (pictured) ruled out introducing campus-level inspections in the new framework for 2019.
Its exclusion can be blamed on a lack of performance data for individual campuses from the Department for Education.
New provider and merged college inspection timescales to remain the same
Ofsted will continue to carry out a monitoring visit within 24 months to any provider that becomes newly, directly and publicly funded to deliver education training.
When a provider receives one or more insufficient progress judgements, it will normally receive a full inspection within six to 12 months of the publication of the monitoring visit report.
A newly merged college will receive a full inspection within three years of the merger, and will be treated as a “new” college – meaning it will not carry forward any inspection grades from predecessor colleges.
Those with an overall effectiveness grade of ‘requires improvement’ or ‘inadequate’ at one or more of the predecessor colleges will normally receive a monitoring visit before the first full inspection.
UK business needs to create a virtuous circle of positive change, says Ben Farmer, with successful women becoming inspirational role models for the next generation of builders, innovators and inventors
The UK’s ongoing STEM skills shortage is a key issue for employers such as Amazon. Vacancies for highly skilled technical roles will double over the next decade, while 89 per cent of businesses are already struggling to recruit for STEM roles.
Attracting more women and girls into these careers is rightly seen as part of the solution.
The benefits of a diverse workforce are abundant, for employers and employees Our recent research, in partnership with WISE, polled 1,000 women working in STEM and found that a 10 per cent increase of women in STEM careers would lead to a £3 billion boost for UK business.
We also found that on average women in innovation earn up to £11,000 a year more than in other careers.
However, we also found that more than a quarter of women currently working in innovation had experienced more barriers than enablers in their careers, including a lack of confidence, having to adapt to male-dominated work environments and a lack of recognition from senior colleagues.
With these challenges in mind, it is apparent that our culture – within businesses and across wider society – must be considered as a key driver for change. The innovation and technology industries now have a deep understanding of the relationship between innovation and diversity.
In simple terms, diversity is integral to a robust creative and problem solving process – and innovation drives the technology sector.
The benefits of a diverse workforce are abundant
Anyone considering an apprenticeship should be reassured that they offer high-quality training, financial sustainability and a range of career options, regardless of gender or background. For example we recently announced plans to create 1,000 new apprenticeships, with pay ranging from an entry-level starting salary of £9.50 an hour (£10.50 in London) and up to £30,000 a year. We also offer employee discounts, private medical insurance and a company pension plan.
We’re backing up these opportunities with Amazon Amplify, initiatives designed to increase the number of women working in innovation.
This includes our Women in Innovation bursary, providing funding of more than £130,000 a year for 24 female students, new global candidate inclusive interview questions, plus a UK-wide interactive training programme to build confidence, networks and personal skills.
We also became a signatory to the WISE Ten Steps Commitments (something I’d recommend for all businesses concerned with these challenge), a framework to help organisations improve the recruitment, retention and progression of women.
While apprenticeships are vital, we also need to create a pipeline for STEM careers. For example, we offer free tours of our fulfilment centres for children and we have launched Camp Amazon, accredited by the British Science Association, which inspires young people to think and behave like scientists and engineers while taking part in real-world STEM projects.
Businesses need to tailor their solutions according to their organisational goals and resources.
But there are common themes for any employer that genuinely seeks to accommodate everybody in their workplace: fully-funded apprenticeships and internships, flexible career pathways, flexible and remote working, return-to-work programmes, formal retraining opportunities, mentoring, peer support and robust HR policies.
Championing women working in STEM careers is one part of the solution – for example, it has been great to see how the government’s Fire It Up campaign portrays women in STEM through positive imagery and role models.
We also work hard to share and celebrate the success stories of our own women working in innovation, such as Fiona McDonnell, Jacqui Chin, Lauren Kisser and Lauren Gemmell, who were named in the FT’s HERoes list, and Katie George who was named in the EMPower list.
These female leaders have not only helped to inspire our employees, but also helped to change how young women perceive technical, apprenticeships and careers.
The proportion of sixth form colleges with in-year deficits has soared fivefold over a six-year period due to crippling 16 to 19 funding cuts, according to new research from an influential think tank.
In 2016/17, 36 per cent of sixth form colleges had “adjusted operational in-year deficits”; whereas in 2010/11 it was just seven per cent.
Over the same time period, the proportion of FE colleges with in-year deficits doubled from 20 per cent to 40 per cent.
This is not sustainable in the long term
According to the report from the Education Policy Institute (EPI), the rising deficits suggest some providers “have used their balance sheet to cushion falls in funding to avoid more serious declines in provision or quality”.
“This is not sustainable in the long term,” it adds. “If providers’ financial health continues to deteriorate as a result of falls in funding, then provision and quality could be further compromised, with potentially more severe effects on students and providers.”
The report also found that guided learner hours for 16 to 19-year-olds fell by nine per cent between 2012/13 and 2016/17, from 730 hours to 665 hours per student.
It explained that the reason for the rising deficits and reduced learning hours was largely because 16 to 19 funding decreased “faster than in other phases of education between 2010/11 and 2018/19”.
“Funding per 16 to 19 student fell by 16 per cent in real terms compared to 10 per cent in the whole school sector,” the report said.
The FE sector has already taken notice of this decline, and several unions and associations have clubbed together to form the Love Our Colleges campaign.
Additionally, the Sixth Form Colleges Association is leading the Raise the Rate campaign, which is lobbying for an increase to the base rate for all 16 to 18-year-old students from £4,000 per student to £4,760.
The Association of Colleges has meanwhile said the rate should be upped to £5,000, which it says is needed to avoid a T-levels crisis.
A third area that has seen a hit in recent years is the wages of FE college teachers: these fell by an average of eight per cent in real terms between 2010/11 and 2016/17, from £33,600 to £31,000, according to the EPI report.
Teachers at FE colleges are now paid 17 per cent less than those in secondary schools, who are paid, on average, £36,700.
The fall was less pronounced at sixth form colleges, where the average teaching wage decreased from £39,900 to £39,000.
FE teachers’ wages is a live issue, as staff at a number of colleges continue to go on strike over pay.
In March, members of the University and College Union voted for their third wave of strikes this academic year, following similar action in November and January.
EPI chair and former education minister David Laws said the report shows sixth form and college funding has been the “big loser” when compared to other phases of education.
Rod Bristow of Pearson, which commissioned the report, said the report “made clear” FE institutions have been “struggling against the tide of decreasing funding levels by narrowing choices”.
With the Spending Review on the horizon, the deputy chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association, James Kewin, said the report provides further evidence cuts have been “bad for students, bad for teachers and bad for the financial health of institutions,” and its main audience should be Treasury ministers, not the DfE.
David Hughes, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, added: “Report after report and expert after expert have highlighted the impact of the decade of cuts that England’s colleges have had to endure.
“The message is clear; the Chancellor cannot go on ignoring the overwhelming independent evidence consistently presented to him. If he is serious about supporting our economy and our communities, he has to get serious about investing in our colleges.”
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “We recognise that 16 to 19 funding rates are challenging for all providers at the moment and are looking carefully at this in the run-up to the next Spending Review.”
You need more than stars in your eyes if you’re determined to have media glitterati on your board, cautions Ruth Sparkes
Is it really a good idea to have a journalist on your governing body? Hopwood Hall College’s latest governor, Nazir Afzal, thinks it is (Profile, FE Week, May 3).
It’s an interesting question. It’s one I deliberated with senior managers very early in my FE career. I guess the answer from my point of view is, “it depends”.
It depends on why you would want a journalist on the board and what kind of journalist they are.
On the face of it, it sounds like a great idea – having your local paper’s editor or a national journalist on the board could be really useful; they could help to trumpet your good news, advise you on actions and messages when the news isn’t so good, and put a word in their colleagues’ ears when the opportunity arises.
But, that’s an ideal world, not the real world.
Professional conflict of interest is almost certainly going to be an issue: crises and unwarranted breaking news.
By their very nature colleges are hubs for thousands of individuals, including teenagers and vulnerable people, and they deal with issues that, if they became public, wouldn’t be helpful to the institution or their students.
A few examples from my own PR “anthology” include drugs on campus, inappropriate lecturer and student behaviour (varying levels of activity, including unlawful), student death, dodgy achievement rates, lost student portfolios, affairs, IT misconduct and a whole shedload more.
Journalists by their vocation and training are compelled to tell stories and to expose truths.
If I were a journalist rather than a PR, I’d be writing or broadcasting this juicy news rather than managing it.
And, colleges could be conflicted too. Will senior leaders have to be more selective with the information they share with a journalist governor? Will open and frank discussions with governors be a little less open and frank?
If your reason for having a journalist in the board is for a different reason other than college promotion, then you might be on to a winner.
FE funding, social mobility, apprenticeship take-up and barriers to learning, lecturer pay, etc, are all important issues that FE grapples with every day – but generally the perception is that the wider “media doesn’t care about FE”.
Every time I hear this well-worn record it sets my teeth on edge. But if you have a journalist on your board who can help to amplify FE’s national issues, and if your college is willing to have a national voice and take part in national activities, then it might be worth the risk. And, it is a risk.
Another option is to properly professionalise the role of PR and corporate affairs in your institution, drag it up the food chain and give the role proper credibility and responsibility. Employ someone who is suitably knowledgeable, experienced and qualified; they might be an ex-journalist or might not.
But if you absolutely must have some media glitterati on your board, instead of a jobbing journalist you might want to think about a different kind of influencer . . . you might want to consider what universities do; they often have celebrity or influential chancellors.
These include: Sir Brian May of Queen, the comedian Dawn French, the Hollywood actor Jeremy Irons, the ex-BBC Dragon Theo Paphitis, Great British Bake Off’s Prue Leith, the designer Zandra Rhodes and many others.
Universities also regularly bestow honorary degrees to VIPs, which can help to raise their profiles and help to “validate” them in a particular way.
But it’s still a risk – celebrities have celebrity lives and can go “off message” and cause embarrassment. You might be lucky enough to engage with an absolutely faultless ambassador, but you must choose with caution – there’s a huge gulf between Belfast’s Queen’s University’s link with Hillary Clinton and the likes of Bedfordshire and Leeds universities, both of which bestowed honorary degrees on Jimmy Savile . . .
No college would consider it had done a good job if it allowed students to complete their studies without learning how to research information online. But this is the reality in prisons across the country. Cath Murray finds out about the challenges of running an education department on the inside.
Sarah Aumeer doesn’t understand why more FE tutors don’t want to work in prisons.
“It’s much calmer than a college,” says the 37-year-old education director at HMP Oldingley.
“Behaviour’s a lot better.
“Prison education is also a lot slower, so staff can build up a rapport with students and really focus on the subject at hand.
“A lot of people think it must be exactly like you see on TV, but actually, it’s exactly the same as in FE. You just can’t rely on things being there at the drop of a hat.”
This could be something of an understatement. Aumeer, who has met us the prison entrance and is now guiding us through a series of locked metal gates on the way to the education block, has just spent the morning failing to submit an electronic purchase order for some printer paper.
Even when things are running smoothly, if a tutor at the prison wants to prepare lesson resources – let’s say pictures of haircuts for barbering students – there’s a complex protocol just to get the images into the classroom.
First, they will have to look them up on a computer that’s connected to the internet and email them to Aumeer.
When she receives the email on her secure computer, she will take out her bunch of keys, unlock the key box to retrieve a code for the safe and remove the USB memory stick, which she will use to transfer the images from the secure computer in her office to the computer on the adjacent desk, which is networked to the prison’s secure intranet, known as the virtual campus (VC).
“That just shows how much you have to forward-think when you’re teaching in prison,” she says.
“And how much the prisoners rely on us for their access to information.”
Aumeer and her team of 16 tutors and staff are employed by Somerset’s Weston College – 120 miles away from the Surrey prison – which is one of four providers of prison education nationwide.
On a day-to-day basis, the team functions pretty autonomously, which has its benefits but also its downsides.
“The tutors are all part of the FE community, but they don’t always feel like they are,” she says.
Before taking over at Coldingley in January, Aumeer was head of special educational needs for eight years at Nescot College, Surrey, and before that, worked for the council in alternative and community education.
Much of her own education came through FE.
“I didn’t achieve any qualifications at school. All my education was as an adult – evening and distance learning.”
Sarah Aumeer
She’s now on a scholarship at Middlesex University, doing a part-time masters in inclusive education.
If she could change only one thing at Coldingley, it would be to broaden the range of courses.
Even teaching prisoners to cook for themselves could make the difference between getting by and getting into debt once they leave.
More classes to support prisoner wellbeing would also be welcome.
“Anything to help them cope with the stress of being locked up for years. Many of them have lost a lot – lost relationships and so on. Their mental wellbeing is important. I wish there was more that we could do to support that part of it.”
Education not linked to employability was one of the recommendations from Dame Sally Coates’ 2016 government-commissioned report into prison education, Unlocking Potential.
Better ICT access was another.
When Alan, who is turning 51 on the day we meet, was awarded his 2:1 in criminology and psychology from the Open University, his probation officer, who had done the same degree, couldn’t understand how he’d managed without online resources.
“I used to spend a lot of time on the phone to my sister,” he tells me as we sit in a classroom in the education block.
“A £5 phone call saying ‘Can you google this?’. Then I’d say, ‘Read me that article’ and she’d go ‘It’s 127 pages’ so I’d say ‘Right, print me that out’ and she’d send it – which is a cost of printing and postage – and I get it and say ‘That’s not what I want’.”
The OU has about 1,800 students in 150 prisons and secure hospitals across the UK, to whom it sends printed study materials.
It also recently introduced a postgraduate library scheme where students can request additional resources linked to their degree.
But the simple steps of googling for terminology or reading around a subject that most students take for granted is off-limits – and while tutors are on-hand for subjects such as functional skills, those studying at a higher level must depend on occasional phone calls or visits with a specialist tutor.
“A lot of guys fall at the early hurdles because they are just overwhelmed by the barriers that are in their way,” says Mark, a former King’s College London law student who was convicted in 2010 for the murder of his father, but maintains his innocence.
“It’s not difficult to have monitored, restricted internet access. We have all the technology available to do that. All it needs it someone with proactivity and the right attitude,” says the 31-year-old.
“Education has to take second place to security.”
Mark completed an undergraduate law degree in prison and is now studying for a masters.
“You’ve got to give people responsibility if they’re to develop into fully functioning human beings – that’s surely what prison is there to achieve. It’s not there to infantilise you, which is inevitably what it does.
“What do you expect that end product to be, when he finally walks out the door, if he hasn’t been able to do basic things like accessing educational material?”
Prisoners currently have six hours a week to type up assignments or access the VC, which hosts resources such as the OU’s virtual learning environment.
Sir Simon Hughes, the former Liberal Democrat MP, has been working with Ruth McFarlane, the OU’s senior manager of students in secure environments, to lobby for in-cell laptops connected to this secure network.
“Imagine how much more work we could do,” Alan says, who is now doing a masters in development management.
“The last four nights we’ve been banged up at 5 o’clock every night [over the Easter weekend]. We could be studying, working, writing up assignments, whatever.”
Coldingley is a category C working prison, which means that for many of the men – all of whom have long sentences – it’s the penultimate rung on the rehabilitation ladder. The next placement is a category D open prison, or, for a few, straight to release.
The prisoners all have full-time jobs in the on-site workshops – such as making disposable earphones for airlines – for which they’re paid less than £20 a week. If they opt for the six weekly hours of education, their pay is docked to reflect this.
“There’s a disincentive to take up education,” Alan says, who spends most of the £17.89 that he earns in the graphic design studio on phone calls to family.
“You just can’t rely on things being there at the drop of a hat.”
A few prisons are specifically devoted to training, but location can be an issue.
Coldingley’s nearest town, Woking, is half an hour from central London on the train.
“I’m here because my family’s ten minutes down the road. I wouldn’t give that up for anything,” Alan says.
“I think a lot of guys are here because of the London location – yes, they’d like to do a lot more education, but they’re here because of their families.”
Education can be interrupted when prisoners are moved to another site.
“I’ve been lucky; I’ve been to three prisons in nine years,” Mark says.
“Others have been through three prisons in nine months. It’s very unsettling – and if you’re moved to a new prison it may not have your course.”
Security concerns can also be a disruptor.
Cordingley’s horticulture polytunnel, for example, is in a part of the prison with no overhead netting, which means it’s more vulnerable to “throwovers”.
If banned goods are found to have been smuggled in this way, and it’s not possible to work out who is responsible, every student might be “sacked” from the horticulture course, Aumeer says.
“Education has to take second place to security.”
Yet education is positively correlated with reintegration into society. The Prisoners’ Education Trust (PET) found that ex-prisoners who had completed one of their courses – which could be anything from book-keeping or an OU access module to a level 2 gym instructing qualification – were 25 per cent less likely to reoffend, and 26 per cent more likely to be in employment, one year after release.
The Coates report contained recommendations around improving internet access, encouraging progression to higher levels and generally making prison governors accountable for creating a “culture of education”.
Three justice secretaries, one referendum and one general election later, has any progress been made?
“We’re hopeful that the culture is starting to shift,” says Rod Clark, the chief executive of PET.
“And we’re gearing up for the expectation that prisons will soon become digital. At present, we are leaving many prisoners woefully unprepared for the modern world – without giving them the chance to use technology to access education, find information, apply for jobs or secure housing.”
It has never been more crucial that we ensure that we have the best regime possible to assess quality, says Sir Gerry Berragan, chief executive of the Institute for Apprenticeships & Technical Education
Our mission at the Institute for Apprenticeships & Technical Education is to develop high-quality apprenticeships and technical qualifications in order to transform the skills landscape.
Quality is rightly at the heart of this. If employers and apprentices do not believe that apprenticeships are a highquality product which provide the skills that are needed across the economy, then the ongoing reform work of recent years will have been in vain.
As part of my role as chief executive at the institute, I chair the Quality Alliance, which brings together the government organisations responsible for different aspects of apprenticeship quality, as well as the key representative bodies for training providers and end-point assessment (EPA) organisations.
Earlier this year the Quality Alliance published the Quality Strategy, which sets out 14 statements of best practice across all facets of apprenticeship delivery. Our next step will be to develop an action plan to sit below this strategy, which will set out what actions each alliance member is taking to support the strategy.
I was delighted that Anne Milton, skills minister, was able to attend our most recent meeting and discussed with members the next steps on embedding quality across all levels of apprenticeship provision.
One focus for the institute is the external quality assurance (EQA) arrangements for end-point assessment. The institute has a statutory responsibility to ensure that EQA is delivered, as well as providing EQA ourselves (through our delivery partner, Open Awards) where we are selected by the trailblazer.
Independent EPA is fundamental to the success of the apprenticeship reform programme and as volumes increase it is right that we step back and assure ourselves that we have the optimal regime in place to qualityassure this assessment.
Independent EPA is fundamental to the success of apprenticeship reform
Over the course of the spring the institute has been undertaking a programme of work to put in place a strengthened operational framework for EQA, including a digital service to manage the interface between the institute and EQA providers. Both of these will allow us to better exercise our statutory duty and bring greater consistency. This is still in draft form and is currently being shared with EQA providers and end-point assessment organisations before it is due to be finalised and made public.
We have built the framework around five principles. We want EQA to be: relevant; reliable; efficient; positive; and learning. At the core of this sits the concept of occupational competence. EQA must give us assurance that EPA is not just a well-administered test, but a relevant, reliable assessment of the knowledge, skills and behaviours that apprentices need in order to perform in their chosen occupation – from commis chef to actuary to plasterer.
To do all of these things, EQA must be timely and proactive, not retrospective and reactive. It must involve people with expert knowledge of the areas being assessed witnessing assessment taking place, and it must involve some reach back to employers and apprentices after completion, to externally validate their training and assessment – to confirm their satisfaction with the level of occupational competence achieved.
But if the principle of relevance is important, so too is efficiency. We need a system that doesn’t impose undue burden on EPA organisations and is easy for all parties to understand and engage with.
So I have also written to the chief executives of Ofqual and the Office for Students to ask them to bring forward proposals for how their organisations can work with employer groups and professional bodies to provide an optimised EQA process.
A strengthened EQA system will give employers confidence that EPA is a relevant and reliable assessment of occupational competence. That is an important function and one that the institute will continue to work with other regulatory bodies in government, and professional bodies, to deliver.
