IfA adds kite-marking higher-level qualifications to expanded remit

Quality-marking level 4 and 5 qualifications, to help boost the overlooked programmes, has become the latest addition to the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education’s expanded remit.

Education secretary Damian Hinds has announced a consultation on whether qualifications at those two levels, which are offered at universities, colleges and national colleges, should be renamed Higher Technical Qualifications (HTQs).

The change would affect a variety of existing qualifications, including higher apprenticeships, foundation degrees and higher national diplomas.

It is intended HTQs will be in place by the time the first cohort of T-level students finish that level 3 qualification in 2022.

The IfATE will be approving new and existing HTQs that “deliver the knowledge, skills, and behaviours set out in employer-led occupational standards”, and awarding them a quality mark.

Awarding bodies will submit HTQs to IfATE’s employer-led route panels, which already oversee the approval of standards and T-levels, for approval.

The submissions will be managed through a phased application process, much like was done with T-levels, and it will be possible for more than one qualification to be approved against an occupational standard.

The Department for Education is considering making it so approved Higher Technical Qualifications are only available with access to student finance at “high-quality further and higher education providers”.

A DfE spokesperson said these high-quality providers will have to have “suitably qualified and experienced teachers with current, relevant occupational and industry experience and expertise, as well as high-quality pedagogical skills”.

Leaders must also have the capacity and ability to ensure provision is sustainable and retains a clear focus on quality.

There must also be strong links with employer networks so they value what is being delivered; and learning environments with up-to-date facilities.

The DfE is also considering adopting a proposal from the Augar Review, that approved qualifications should be entitled to the same tuition fee support and teaching grant, and equivalent maintenance support, as level 6 qualifications.

The IfATE itself will be able to commission the creation of a qualification where there is a need for a HTQ to recognise a need for one to meet specific skills at levels 4 and 5, but no qualification has been put forward.

Despite this wide-ranging role for IfATE, on top of its responsibility for apprenticeship standards and the classroom-based element of T-levels, HTQs will still be regulated by Ofqual to “help ensure consistent standards in terms of complexity and challenge.”

These proposals come after Hinds announced last December the government would build a “new generation” of higher technical qualifications, to end the snobbery over technical education.

A spokesperson said: “The Institute will continue to work closely with the department as this policy proposal develops.”

The consultation has opened today, and will close on 29 September.

IfATE consulting on content for three new T-level pathways

Providers and employers are being asked for their views on the draft content for three more T-level pathways.

A consultation, launched by the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education today, is for courses in business and administration, human resources, and hair and beauty.

The deadline for responses is 6 August. The pathways are expected to be taught from September 2021, in the second wave of the T-levels rollout.

The content has been developed by the institute’s “panels of experts” and will be used by awarding bodies to develop technical qualifications for each T-level.

“We are seeking your views to help ensure that the content captures the right knowledge, skills and performance outcomes that will enable students to enter employment within their chosen occupational specialisms,” the institute’s consultation’s webpage states.

Its chief executive, Sir Gerry Berragan, added: “We are working closely with employers to ensure the technical qualifications are delivering what they need for a more skilled workforce.

“I would encourage all employers in the business administration and hair and beauty sectors to contribute to this consultation and hope those that do respond will continue to engage with us as these qualifications are developed.”

T-levels are new two-year, technical study programmes that will be available across 11 industry routes. They’re being designed as the technical alternatives to A-levels.

The outline content for the first T-levels (in education and childcare, construction, digital, and health and science) has been approved and published, and will be taught from September next year.

There has been two other previous T-level content consultations which covered courses in onsite construction, building services engineering, digital support and services, health, healthcare science, and science.

The full T-levels rollout, when a total of 25 subject areas will be covered, will not be until 2023.

 

New subcontracting rule slammed as ‘immensely bureaucratic’ and ‘shockingly late in the day’

The Education and Skills Funding Agency has “shocked” hundreds of providers by requiring thousands of subcontracting contracts to be rewritten just four weeks before the new academic year.

The agency is demanding that all subcontracting contracts, for both adult education budget and apprenticeship funding, include for the first time a “list of individually itemised, specific costs for managing the subcontractor”.

In addition to listing the services, the contract must include “how each cost contributes to delivering high-quality training” and “how each specific cost is reasonable and proportionate to delivery of the subcontracted teaching or learning”.

These costs are typically referred to as a management fee or “top-slice” and have proven controversial for many years.

Nearly all providers currently charge their subcontractor a percentage of the funding, with some colleges still charging in excess of 30 per cent.

The ESFA committed to considering a per cent cap last year, but this new rule, requiring costs to be listed, appears to be a different solution and could force providers into a very different pricing model.

Training providers have reacted angrily to the requirement, which appeared this afternoon (July 4) in a new version of the funding rules for 2019-20.

Mark Dawe, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, said: “We proposed a 20 per cent cap solution to end extortionate subcontracting management fees. But once again, a simple solution has been ignored and instead, this immensely bureaucratic process appears both out of the blue and shockingly late in the day.

“The ESFA should implement a percentage cap and bin this complicated rule of listing and justifying management services immediately, before thousands of providers spend even more scarce resources with lawyers and accountants rewriting contacts or worse, start looking for obvious loopholes.”

And a spokesperson for Learning Curve Group, a provider that operates as both a prime and subcontractor, told FE Week: “We would always support additional scrutiny on management fees as there have been a series of examples which would not be regarded as beneficial either to the subcontractor or the learner.

“However, the administration connected to these updated requirements seems overly onerous and ambiguous from an audit perspective.  

“The investment needed to monitor subcontracted activity tends to be fairly standard across Primes, so a capped percentage rate would be something we support. It is also hugely unhelpful that the publication of the rules is so late.”

According to ESFA figures for 2017-18, there were over 3,292 subcontracting contracts involving 516 main contractors and 1,032 subcontractors.

The new rule reads, in full: “You must include in your contract with each delivery subcontractor a list of all services you will provide to them and the associated costs for doing so. This must include a list of individually itemised, specific costs for managing the subcontractor, specific costs for quality-monitoring activities and specific costs for any other support activities offered by you to the subcontractor.

“You must include in your contract with each delivery subcontractor a description of how each specific cost is reasonable and proportionate to delivery of the subcontracted teaching or learning and how each cost contributes to delivering high quality learning.”

The Department for Education was approached for comment.

Clearing up misconceptions about the new inspection framework

The new EIF will be wholly fit for purpose when it comes into effect in September, says Paul Joyce

One of Ofsted’s core strategy promises is to improve the validity of inspection continually. As part of meeting that commitment, last autumn we carried out research on lesson visits and work scrutiny. Our aim was to test whether inspectors reliably assess the right things when they observe lessons and look at learners’ work.

Unfortunately, when the research was published last week, there was some misunderstanding about its findings. This was particularly the case with regard to the validity of our methods for observing lessons or training in further education and skills (FES) providers.

I want to clarify those findings and hopefully provide reassurance that our new education inspection framework (EIF) will absolutely be looking at the right things when it comes into effect in September.

Lesson visits and work scrutiny are just two important methods in our inspection toolkit. They help inspectors gather evidence and reach a judgment about the quality of education in a school or college. But we have not judged or graded individual lessons for some years now, and we will not do so under the EIF.

For the lesson visit research, inspectors were given a set of 18 measurable indicators and asked to evaluate independently the training or lessons they saw, against a five-point scale. The indicators covered three areas of interest: curriculum, teaching, and behaviour.

It’s important to clarify that these indicators were developed for the research study only. They will not be used on actual inspections under the new framework.

The education inspection framework will be the most tested that Ofsted has ever introduced

Our findings are encouraging. They show that inspectors are able to assess behaviour, teaching and the curriculum separately when they observe lessons or training. This has given us greater confidence about the validity of our new inspection framework, which has separate judgements for the quality of education and behaviour and attitudes.

But what we also found was that the research model did not quite fit the FES context. This meant the likelihood of two inspectors rating any of the indicators exactly the same was lower in colleges than it was in schools. This does not mean that the way we gather evidence from lesson visits in FE colleges is flawed, or that it leads to unreliable judgments. Only that our research model was not designed to take account of the complexity of further education providers.

With that in mind, we will be conducting a further research project later this year, specifically designed to test the validity and reliability of further education lesson and training observations. We have also established a research group of academics with expertise in this area and will be publishing a series of blogs and a literature review in due course.

But that doesn’t change where we are now with the EIF and shouldn’t cast any doubt on its suitability for further education and skills contexts.

We need to make sure our inspection tools are suitable for the uniqueness of each provider, as well as sufficiently reliable. That’s why we developed a flexible inspection methodology. We tested this methodology in a variety of FE providers as part of our piloting work, which is set out in our further education and skills inspection handbook.

Under the EIF, evidence from a number of different observation activities will be drawn together alongside meaningful discussions with leaders, governors, trustees, staff and students, as well as scrutiny of curriculum documents, learner records and published national data. We are confident this will enable inspectors to collect a secure evidence base on which to judge a provider.

The EIF will be the most tested inspection framework Ofsted has ever introduced. We recognise there is more to do, but that should not stop us from doing what we know is right – shifting our focus to the real substance of education and training, for the benefit of all children, young people and learners.

Why FE colleges need “big data” in the battle to recruit apprentices

Smart technology that transforms data management is available in an FE college near you, says Richard Alberg

Big data is everywhere; it enables the analysis of how we shop, vote and even make our way around cities. But what can it do for further education, particularly when it comes to the highly competitive apprenticeship market?

Technological innovations have amplified our capacity to store large data sets and use them to understand human behaviour. Whether by default or design, FE colleges, like education in general in the UK, have yet to fully embrace the potential of big data to help recruitment, retention, completion, career, course innovation and business development, to name but a few benefits.

The reluctance in some quarters is understandable. Data, as the academic Rebecca Eynon points out, comes with ethical dilemmas over privacy and its potential use to whittle out failing students, teachers and institutions. Furthermore, making sense of the vast amount of raw data out there is a huge job. You can download local apprenticeship market data from the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA), but these come as massive spreadsheets. Understanding the trends that can inform decisions elude all but the most motivated.

However, I would argue that data should be essential to the work of the FE sector, since apprenticeships are one of the fastest-growing post-16 training routes. Apprenticeships are complicated. Each learner is an individual with her/his idiosyncrasies. Programmes generally last for more than 12 months and are split between workplace and training centre. Add in compliance, audit and Ofsted, and it is easy to see how, with multiple learners, there are many moving parts where things can go wrong.

Colleges must also decide which programmes to offer. Apprenticeship standards require curriculum development, an expensive undertaking. Ensuring that the college invests its scarce resources in the right areas matters.

Using data to analyse learner progress is also a challenge. Data has to be exported from several systems – CRM, ePortfolio, LMS and funding – and then brought together. It can take an analyst several days, so unsurprisingly it is rarely done. Since there are often errors in the data, management can become sceptical about the information and revert to gut instinct.

Is there a solution?

For a while now, some of the more sophisticated training providers have been investing in very smart technology that transforms data management. Two elements are available, and we are on the cusp of a third.

We are on the threshold of using artificial intelligence in education

The first is end-to-end delivery in a single technology platform and one database, which helps administrative efficiency and eliminates double-keying of data. And it means that any required information can be generated instantaneously from this single database. There is no need to bring diverse data sets together because it is all in one place. Many industries, from medicine to banking, use this kind of structured data to help with regulatory compliance.

The second element is about interpreting and processing the data. Business intelligence tools, such as Microsoft’s Power BI and Tableau, are becoming popular. These allow you to select fields from a database and then view them visually, drilling in and out as required, making the intelligent business management decisions that lead to success.

For example, we created an interactive mapping project from ESFA apprenticeship data, that shows which apprenticeship standards and frameworks are being delivered in localities across all providers. Data like this enables college managers to plan around growth areas and market gaps with greater ease.

Finally, I believe we are on the threshold of using machine learning or artificial intelligence in education. Much of how it will evolve is still speculation, but machine learning can draw on the vast array of structured data to identify institutional patterns around efficiency, retention and completion rates.

And much like the recommendations we receive from Spotify or Netflix, algorithms can target students with courses or career options and can deliver personalised learning.

There is no getting away from the inevitable. Colleges that embrace data will be the colleges that prosper.

How we can get the talent pipeline flowing properly

Only by employers and educators working closely together can the UK’s chronic and increasing skills gap be closed, says Sandra Kelly

Employers must take ownership of the skills agenda to ensure that vocational programmes reflect what industry really wants and needs. The recent funding-band cuts across multiple sectors just go to show how important it is for employers to be proactive and to work in partnership.

The importance of this employer-led ethos really hit home when we invited the head of the Food Teachers Centre (a 5,000-strong self-help group for secondary-school teachers) to one of our quarterly Hospitality Skills & Quality Board meetings.

The idea was to exchange ideas to address the vastly reduced number of students on food-related courses at schools, which is set to have a profound impact on the talent pipeline, apprenticeships and full-time college hospitality and catering courses.

It’s no exaggeration to say that some of them looked shell-shocked to learn that fewer than 50,000 students in the UK are now taking GCSE Food Preparation and Nutrition – 50 per cent less than a decade ago.

Budget cuts and the new Ofsted inspection framework offer nothing to guarantee food education. This challenge is amplified by the fact that hospitality and tourism have one of the highest levels of skills gap of any sector.

It is estimated that by 2024, they will need to recruit an additional 1.3 million people (‘People & Productivity’, People 1st report, 2017).

On another occasion, we arranged for last year’s AA College Restaurant of the Year, Milton Keynes College, to meet with the Hospitality Skills and Quality Board to share what works well, and to set out why they refuse to work with employers that fail to provide a quality student experience.

The employer-led approach at the heart of both these initiatives highlights the need to encompass the whole talent pipeline. There’s no reason why this approach can’t be applied elsewhere.

FE colleges, for example, could be invited to meet with employer-led boards in other sectors where curriculums are being delivered. After all, why would you not want to influence and collaborate with employers who are actively investing in apprenticeships and further education in their workplaces?

One of the challenges with change initiatives is that to succeed they must be deeply embedded at a cultural level. Whilst it’s true that infrastructures and frameworks provide a platform for colleges to develop innovative partnerships, a sound strategy and effective communication at all levels helps to set the tone.

Our employer-led college accreditation board is an approach that can be mirrored in other sectors. Similarly, the partnership we have established with the AA for the AA College Restaurant of the Year award for student-run college restaurants is an idea that can be replicated in other sectors.

We need more initiatives like these to give the colleges an opportunity to be creative and really stretch the boundaries of what’s possible.

Another way to do this is to collaborate with the government and other key stakeholders. The Aviation Industry Skills Board, for example, is working closely with the Department of Transport to ensure the Aviation 2050 strategy delivers a ready supply of talent to meet current demand and future need.

Ultimately, these types of initiatives can only succeed if employers are fully engaged and working in partnership with education. Having industry around the table to develop entry-level standards for apprenticeships and the future T-levels simply isn’t enough.

We need to capitalise on the energy and passion of committed employers. This means not only unearthing what’s happening to their talent pipeline, but also taking collective responsibility to finding a sustainable solution.

Skills shortages are without doubt one of the biggest challenges currently facing the UK economy. It’s time to take action now.

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: EDITION 287

Your weekly guide to who’s new and who’s leaving.

Zamzam Ibrahim, President, National Union of Students (NUS)

Start date: July 2019

Previous job: Vice President (Society and Citizenship), NUS

Interesting fact: Even as a baby, she has had a drive to succeed, bypassing the crawling stage by going straight from sitting upright to walking

Dawn Chadwick, Governor, Northumberland College

Start date: July 2019

Concurrent job: Founder and director, Dawn L Chadwick Insolvency

Interesting fact: In her spare time, she enjoys competing in horse riding events.

Garath Rawson, Principal, Doncaster UTC

Start date: September 2019 

Previous job: Vice principal, UTC Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park

Interesting fact: He is a fluent Spanish speaker.

Kerry Patterson, Governor, Northumberland College

Start date: July 2019

Concurrent job: Head of HR, Tharsus Group

Interesting fact: She met Prince Charles at St James’ Palace.

Hinds blames colleges as their share of apprenticeships slumps to 26 per cent

Apprenticeships delivered by colleges fell to just 26 per cent last year, according to analysis by FE Week, and education secretary Damian Hinds has accused colleges of “not winning enough” funding.

When asked by the education select committee last week about financial constraints within the FE sector, Hinds blamed colleges for failing to secure more apprenticeship funding.

“The cash available for apprenticeships is doubling over the course of the decade,” he said. “I want FE colleges to be winning more of it.

“They are not winning enough of it today. No one is stopping them winning it, but it is not happening enough and I would like it to happen more.”

This is not the first time colleges have been urged to increase their uptake in apprenticeships. In 2015, the then skills minister Nick Boles told the Association of Colleges conference to stop letting private providers “nick your lunch”.

Our analysis of starts in the year to July 2018 found colleges’ market share for apprenticeships has shrunk from 31 to 26 per cent.

The official statistics also reveal that colleges are particularly struggling to win business in the new world of standards and large levy-paying employers.

They only delivered 19 per cent of all starts with levy-paying employers in 2017-18, while private providers delivered 66 per cent.

And in terms of standards, of the total starts on these new apprenticeships in 2017-18, colleges delivered just 18 per cent of them. Private providers delivered 72 per cent.

“Colleges exist to fulfil their mission, not to make profit”

FE Week approached a number of colleges that have experienced sharp declines in apprenticeship numbers in recent years, and the majority blamed their reduction or the move away from subcontracting.

The rules for subcontracting changed in May 2017, and main providers can now no longer subcontract entire apprenticeship programmes. Instead they must “directly deliver” more than a “token” number of apprenticeships to each employer.

In addition, many providers that were previously subcontractors are now on the Register of Apprenticeship Training Providers and so are able to contract directly with levy-paying employers.

Several colleges also mentioned the impact of the wider apprenticeship reforms in 2017, namely the controversial 20 per cent off-the-job training requirement, which is widely cited as the biggest barrier to apprentice recruitment.

A closer look at individual examples shows how Newham College had 890 non-levy starts last year, but only 40 that were levy funded. And of all of its starts in 2017-18, Newham only did 20 on standards.

Elsewhere, data for East Sussex College Group shows that it had 1,470 starts last year, of which just 120 (8 per cent) were levy funded. And figures for Croydon College reveal that of its 140 starts in 2017-18, none was on standards.

FE Week contacted all three colleges to try to find out what was stopping them from offering training to large employers and apprenticeship standards, but they did not respond at the time of going to press.

Teresa Frith, senior skills policy manager for the AoC, said that competing for large, national contracts with levied employers is “outside” of colleges’ mission to “support specific communities”.

“It’s possible that some organisations are making large surpluses from apprenticeships (particularly degree apprenticeships) but where colleges are growing their apprenticeship activity, they’re spending the revenue on training,” she told FE Week.

“Colleges exist to fulfil their mission, not to make profit.”

She added: “The main reason for the reduction in colleges’ market share is the low levels of non-levy funding allocations which are severely restricting colleges’ ability to recruit new apprentices, and this in turn is forcing colleges to turn away employers.”

Colleges are, however, attempting to reverse this trend.

The Collab Group, for example, has launched a range of partnerships in an effort to boost the number of apprenticeship starts for its 35 college members.

In March, the group announced a “strategic partnership” with the Association of Professional Sales and developed the “sales academy programme”, based on the level 4 B2B sales executive apprenticeship standard.

“We have built a set of innovative training materials to guide and develop the skills of professional salespeople, helping them to be significantly more productive and effective as sales ambassadors for their companies and UK industry,” it said at the time.

Collab’s chief executive, Ian Pretty, said the group’s colleges “will benefit greatly from this partnership”.

In February, Collab also partnered up with the UK Parliament to launch a programme that will see its colleges train “25 apprentices to work in the most important buildings of the UK government, including the House of Commons, House of Lords and the iconic Elizabeth Tower/Big Ben”.

One month earlier, Collab and its colleges had formed another partnership, this time with the Housing Associations’ Charitable Trust. In this alliance, the parties will “collaborate to provide digital apprenticeships to local housing associations”.

In the same month, Collab also partnered with Energy & Utility Skills to “connect leading UK colleges with the country’s leading energy and utility employers to inspire more learners into industry apprenticeships as they develop a sustainable workforce for a post-Brexit economy”.

‘Sorry’ Dudley College boss calls for support and advice as auditing system gets ever more complex

The leader of a high-profile college has called for greater support in navigating the government’s increasingly complex and high-stake audit system, after falling foul of data rules.

Lowell Williams, chief executive of Dudley College, says there is a “spectrum of issues” arising out of audits that have created an environment that doesn’t encourage “people to work together to solve the core problem”.

“I’m a national leader of further education and we go in and work with colleges on teaching, learning, engaging staff, communication and strategic planning, but I’m not aware of an equivalent line of support available for people getting the data systems right,” he said.

We’re going from no support to audit of the nth degree

“I would like the possibility for the sector to sit down openly with the Education and Skills Funding Agency and the audit firms and say, ‘We are having difficulty with some of this stuff’, and feel they can do that if they have made mistakes and that they won’t be castigated for it.”

Williams was speaking exclusively to FE Week just months after Dudley College had to pay back more than £500,000 to the Department for Education after an audit exposed numerous late withdrawals of learners, non-compliance with breaks in learning, and overstated achievement rates.

The chief executive of the Ofsted grade one college apologised for the “blunder” at the time and said he had even considered resigning over it.

But since then, his team has made a catalogue of significant improvements in their data tracking and recording processes, which will help to prevent the errors that have occurred in previous years.

Williams is now planning to share the results of the “action plan” (click here to read) with the wider sector, and wants a tripartite partnership between government, audit firms and providers to tackle the complex system.

He said the range of providers falling foul of audits go from “very serious calculated fraudulent activity at the extreme end, to, at the other end, mismanagement of complex data”.

One of the most “difficult things” for Dudley was that it “has been associated in the same breath as people who are doing some of this stuff for profit and personal private profit, in a way which warrants investigation by the police”, Williams said.

He continued: “There is virtually nowhere you can go if you are a college principal with a data issue which doesn’t end up in difficulty for you, and that is the problem.

“We gave back half-a-million pounds which we hadn’t anticipated doing. Our financial health was in a place where we gave it back and that was OK, but for others, that could have been a destabilising number. There is no incentive for people to be open about the difficulties they have.

“We’re going from no support to audit of the nth degree, in the most complex and difficult funding system that one could imagine, with huge consequences at the end of it.”

Williams said the fault does not just lie with ESFA staff, because their capacity has been “diminished over the years”.

“There was a time where if you did have an issue you could ring somebody up and they would come in and have a chat and give support and advice,” he explained.

“I sense the agency has pushed themselves to ensure they’re not held accountable for public funds being wasted.”

FE Week revealed in February that several dozen providers had been hit with recent mystery audits, after the ESFA raised concern about the reliability of their data. They not only faced a funding clawback, but were also removed from the official achievement rate tables.

Dudley College is planning on sharing its follow-up audit report, conducted by auditing firm RSM last month, with the sector from today (July 5).

“We will invite any college that wants to discuss it further to have a discussion with us,” he said.

“We’re quite happy to make that report available and the formulas and everything that goes with it if other people would like to use it.”

Williams concluded: “At the end of the day it was the college’s error, it is our responsibility to get the administration right as well as Ofsted right. We have now learnt a hard lesson about not being complacent for the need to check and double-check every aspect of your individual learner records management to get it right.”