Lambeth College and LSBU merger is back on

A merger between a cash-strapped London college and a nearby university will be going ahead after all – even though the college has been searching for other potential partners.  

Lambeth College originally said it would join London South Bank University in December 2016. But it emerged in January that those plans had hit the buffers, and that it was in the market for a new partner.

The college has reverted to its original plan, and is set to join the LSBU “family” of institutions at a yet-to-be confirmed date in the future.

“Joining the LSBU family heralds the beginning of an exciting new era for Lambeth College,” said Monica Box, the college’s principal.

“We look forward to working with the team at LSBU to improve further education provision in Lambeth and to build on our position as the careers college of choice for the local community.”

Professor David Phoenix, vice-chancellor of London South Bank University, said the two institutions had been “working closely” for two years and described today’s announcement as “an exciting development”.

“The unique ‘family’ approach creates a coordinated group of specialist institutions, each sharing a common educational framework that focuses on the learner,” he added.

The exact arrangements of the partnership still need to be finalised between the Department for Education, the college and the university.

Earlier this month FE Week reported on a new merger model being pioneered by Bolton College and the University of Bolton.

That model, proposed by the DfE, would see the college retain its own principal and governing board, giving it greater protection than it would through a traditional merger model.

Lambeth’s troubles began in 2016, when a “significant deterioration” in its cashflow prompted an intervention by the former FE commissioner Sir David Collins.

His report, based on a visit that September, found problems with the college’s finances that were so severe it was “no longer sustainable” unless it merged.

Lambeth emerged from the central London area review, which ended two months after Sir David’s visit, with a recommendation to pursue one of three options: a merger with LSBU, one with Lewisham Southwark College, or joining the new grouping of City of Westminster College and the College of North West London.

The following month, the college announced that it would “join the LSBU family in principle”.

FE Week reported in June last year that the college was preparing to hand over wide-ranging control of how it was run to the university, via controversial changes to its governance.

It consulted on changes to its instruments and articles of governance that would have seen its principal stripped of many of their duties, and at least half of the college’s governors appointed by the university.

Those changes were due to take effect by mid-June – but in September FE Week reported that implementation had been delayed.

The merger with LSBU, which had been due to complete in July, had been delayed “with submissions of further financial and strategic plans to the Education and Skills Funding Agency and the minister of state”, according to the college’s accounts, dated December 2017.

“At the date of the signing of these financial statements these plans are to be tested against other proposals through an FE commissioner-led structure and prospects appraisal that will conclude by February 2018,” it continued.

The same document also revealed that the college was depending on government bailouts to keep it afloat.

It had received £8 million in exceptional financial support, and was expecting to receive funding from the “restructuring facility of around £25 million in early 2018”.

Movers and Shakers: Edition 238

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

Sandra Wakefield, Quality manager, PHX Training

Start date: January 2018
Previous job: Quality and training manager, Learndirect
Interesting fact: Sandra went to stage school.

____________________________________________

Samantha Rutter, CEO, Open Study College

Start date: March 2018
Previous job: Chief operating officer, Open Study College
Interesting fact: Samantha will be on the judging panel at the Education Awards 2018.

____________________________________________

Liz Austin, Vice-chair, the Essex Employment and Skills Board

Start date: March 2018
Previous job: HR director, London Stansted Airport (ongoing)
Interesting fact: Liz began her career in occupational psychology, and spent time working in mental health.

____________________________________________

Fabienne Bailey, Managing director, One Awards

Start date: February 2018
Previous job: Learning and skills manager, Stockton Borough Council
Interesting fact: Fabienne was born in Germany and lived there for nine years as her father was in the armed forces. Through his work and her own interest in travel, she has visited 28 different countries.

____________________________________________

Dr Anne Murdoch OBE, General secretary, Principals’ Professional Council

Start date: February 2018
Previous job: Principal and CEO, Newbury College
Interesting fact: Anne rode pillion to Italy on her husband’s motorbike four years ago, touring through France, Germany and Austria, to northern Italy and the Dolomites, and they have another trip planned this year.

 

If you want to let us know of any new faces at the top of your college, training provider or awarding organisation please let us know by emailing news@feweek.co.uk

What the government needs to do to promote T-levels

All the polling suggests that not enough people know about the new T-levels, and those who do value them less than A-levels. This must change, writes Julie Hyde

CACHE recently commissioned a poll of parents and of young people aged 11 to 16, to get a sense of how ready the country is for T-levels and where the pitfalls might lie in the implementation. The results were revealing.

Firstly, there is a startling lack of awareness of the reforms underway – 53 per cent of parents and 56 per cent of young people polled had not even heard of T-levels.

While this could be expected, given that T-levels are still in the early stages of development, it is worrying that the very people who will need to navigate the new post-16 education landscape have no awareness of what’s coming.

The prime minister was right when she noted recently that people still view technical education as “something for other people’s children”

Perhaps more alarming is that 63 per cent of parents with children and 68 per cent of children aged 11 to 16 could not name an existing technical qualification. There is a lot of work to do to make technical education a widely recognised alternative to A-levels.

Parity of esteem remains a long way off: it’s encouraging that three quarters of parents believe technical qualifications are “just as valuable” as A-levels and 82 per cent think technical qualifications can “lead into good future careers”. In spite of this, twice as many parents would advise their children to pick A-Levels (53 per cent) rather than technical qualifications (26 per cent).

The prime minister was right when she noted recently that people still view technical education as “something for other people’s children”.

The government has the right idea: creating robust technical qualifications respected by employers that give learners strong prospects. But simply introducing new qualifications is not enough to deliver a real change in how technical education is viewed.

The government should acknowledge this challenge and set out in its consultation response how it plans to actively change perceptions and promote the benefits of technical education.

We need to find ways to educate parents and children about their post-16 choices so they can make informed decisions, and we need to start now.

The Baker Clause was designed to address this by ensuring that young people hear about all their options in school, but it has no teeth. The skills minister did recently call on FE providers to report schools which fail to cooperate, but this risks feeding the adversarial dynamic that created the problem in the first place.

We need a more direct approach. During the implementation period for T-levels, the government should actively work with the FE sector to harness our expertise and develop an impactful marketing and information campaign about the reforms, targeting parents and young people. We know what attracts people to our sector and what they want from a qualification, and we can help.

It is also crucial that people from the sector have a visible presence in the policymaking landscape.

We need politicians and other high-profile people with experience of technical education front and centre, who can serve as role models and make a strong case for the benefits. The recent decision not to appoint anyone from FE to the Office for Students’ board was particularly telling. If the government does not lead by example, then how will parity of esteem ever become a reality?

Ultimately, the best thing to ensure that technical education becomes the norm would be a period of stability. By my calculation, the sector has seen more than 20 different major reforms since 1980 – which explains why the public are struggling to keep up and can’t name a technical qualification.

That’s not to say that the academic sector has not faced its fair share of changes – it has – but while the content and assessment of qualifications may have changed, the core principles and components of the academic route have remained broadly similar and easy to follow.

Giving these reforms adequate time to take root is vitally important, as creating parity of esteem requires a significant generational shift in attitudes that clearly can’t be achieved overnight.

Julie Hyde is director of CACHE

Terrorist attack survivor gives students a talk on radicalisation

A 16-year-old survivor of a terrorist attack has shared his experiences with Walsall College’s supported learning students to raise awareness of radicalisation and extremism.

Ahmad Nawaz was shot in the arm by Taliban terrorists while at school in Peshawar in Pakistan in 2014, losing his younger brother and numerous school friends in the attack.

He spoke at the college’s Wisemore campus during Prevent Week, where West Midlands Police also ran an interactive session on the Prevent duty, and raised awareness of the dangers of getting involved in far-right extremism.

“We make it our mission to ensure that staff and students can study and work in a safe and welcoming environment, and that involves ensuring that everyone is aware of their rights and responsibilities,” said Carol Egan, director of student journey at the college.

“Prevent Week is a good opportunity to raise awareness of radicalisation and extremism, and for our students to develop the knowledge to empower themselves to keep themselves and others safe.”

College celebrates International Women’s Day with photographic exhibition of Nottingham’s female residents

Learners celebrated International Women’s Day with a photographic exhibition of some of Nottingham’s female residents that went on show at the city’s Victoria Centre.

The team of photography students from Nottingham College took 100 photos of business owners, college staff, friends, family, and even two Olympic gymnast sisters, Becky and Ellie Downie, for their ‘Women in Nottingham’ project, to mark the centenary of the right for women to vote.

The pictures were shown on a large screen at the city’s Intu Victoria Centre for 10 seconds each throughout International Women’s Day, which took place on March 8.

“We decided to concentrate on the women of Nottingham as it is where we are based and to celebrate the diversity, skills and attributes of women who live in a community at any one time,” said photography lecturer Matt Bunn.

“Women’s rights and the fight for equality is in the news a great deal at present, and this project is a positive way to promote the impact that women have on all of our lives.”

NHS trusts will use levy cash much faster than other employers, research finds

The majority of NHS trusts in England will spend their apprenticeship levy at a faster rate than other employers – even though most are frustrated by the policy’s “inflexibility”.

The news will be welcomed by the government as it struggles on to reach its three million apprenticeship starts target by 2020 – given that the NHS is the largest employer in the country with tens of thousands of people to train each year.

However, one significant sticking point appears to be the 2.3-per-cent apprenticeship target for the public sector, which most trusts do not feel confident in meeting.

A major survey of 175 trusts, conducted by BPP University, found that 95 per cent plan to use their levy money rather than lose it, and half (52 per cent) would spend the cash in the first year.

This compares to less than a fifth (18 per cent) of employers outside the NHS, such as those in banking, engineering and construction, and law, who say they’ll use their funds that quickly.

Four-fifths of the trusts (81 per cent) envisage spending their levy by year two, while only slightly over half of other employers (54 per cent) reporting that they will do the same.

It is gratifying to see so many in the health service embrace apprenticeships with enthusiasm

Meanwhile, 79 per cent of NHS employers plan to expand their number of apprenticeship programmes and almost all plan to offer clinical as well as non-clinical options – 89 per cent, for instance, plan to offer health care support and 85 per cent nursing degree apprenticeships.

“Many people in the NHS, especially those in clinical roles, had until recently little experience of apprenticeships,” said Professor Lynne Gell, director of nursing and healthcare education at BPP.

“So barely a year or so after the introduction of the apprenticeship levy, it is gratifying to see so many in the health service embrace them with enthusiasm.”

The findings will be taken as a boost by the apprenticeships minister Anne Milton, who is under pressure to urgently increase starts.

Figures released by the Department for Education in January revealed starts have fallen 41 per cent since the introduction of the levy in May, compared with the same period in the previous year.

For the government to hit its target there would need to be an average of at least 50,000 starts a month.

Ms Milton identified September as the month by which she expects to see a surge in starts, in an exclusive webinar with FE Week last month.

The NHS, which has a total workforce of 1.3 million, estimates its levy spend will be £200 million a year, and will achieve 28,000 starts by July 2018.

However, it appears the health service is not content either with how the levy is currently set up or the way the government is allowing it to spend its fund.

Ninety-one per cent of those surveyed said they wanted more “flexibility” in how they spend the levy and none are satisfied with the status quo.

Click here to download BPP University’s levy report

Large majorities wanted to be able to use the levy pot for in-house training programmes outside of apprenticeships (84 per cent), programme overheads (81 per cent) and salary and headcount (82 per cent).

But while the rules are as they are, NHS trusts are focusing most of their levy funds on internal rather than external candidates.

Two fifths said they would use 80 per cent of the levy on internal apprentices.

Professor Gell said the government’s 2.3-per-cent apprenticeship target for the public sector is partly responsible for employers’ focusing on existing staff rather external hires.

What is worrying is that less than half of trusts (48 per cent) said they felt confident they would meet this target.

One of the major stumbling blocks the NHS is coming across when delivering apprenticeships is the 20-per-cent off-the-job rule – which was identified as the biggest barrier to apprenticeship recruitment in an FE Week survey earlier this month.

Three -quarters of NHS respondents said the requirement remains a problem.

Despite the sector-wide concerns about this rule, Ms Milton recently confirmed she would not budge on it.

Student artists join fight to boost tourism in historic Yorkshire town

Aspiring student artists are using their work to encourage more visitors to the historic village of Elsecar in Yorkshire.

The group of Barnsley College art and design learners worked closely with the Elsecar Heritage Centre to produce artwork depicting the history of the village, focusing on its architecture, industry and residents.

The artwork has already been showcased at the ‘Elsecar: A village begins to reveal its secrets’ exhibition at the Elsecar Heritage Centre, and will soon be on display to the public.

The project was part of a three-year partnership between Barnsley Museums and Historic England called the Heritage Action Zone, to attract more people to visit the area and celebrate its history.

“I really like history and enjoyed learning about the mining industry and how it changed the lives of the people of Elsecar,” explained one of the artists, Rebecca Warburton. “I decided this was what I wanted my artwork to represent.”

“Working with the College is helping the HAZ team to explore different and creative ways in which they can inspire new audiences and celebrate Elsecar’s amazing story,” added Roy Miller, a Barnsley councillor.

Rehabilitation rests on investment in education

David Gauke’s recent speech on prison reform had a lot in it to like, writes Peter Cox, who explains what he sees as the next steps

The justice secretary recently outlined his views on the role of prisons within society. Sitting in the audience, I was struck by his honest overview of a prison system with challenges, but also the capacity to address them. As he said, we send people to prison “as a punishment not for punishment”, and it was heartening to hear that rehabilitation is one of the main aims.

But to make this happen we need to rely on investment made by both the system and the prisoner, providing hope and aspiration, so the right choices can be made and supported through education, skills and employment to reduce reoffending.

Mr Gauke referred to a “key-worker model”, which would see prison officers build relationships with small groups of offenders.

To me this is a fantastic starting point, and the crux of getting prisoners into the classroom to support their education. Prison officers are the pillars of the prison system; they have maximum exposure to the prisoners and they know their needs, fears and aspirations.

For education to affect rehabilitation, there must be a flexible strategy integrated into each establishment’s regime

Prison education providers should collaborate with prison officers to close the loop and get offenders into the classroom. As an education provider we first come into contact with an offender during their induction process, along with other agencies. This can be a stressful time for them, and it’s only an initial point of contact. Prison officers have day-to-day contact with offenders and a greater opportunity to build rapport, and potentially influence their decision to engage with education.

If the education provision can be matched with examples of success, we can improve these relationships further.

We currently run a peer-mentoring programme, where offenders use their existing skills or develop skills to support their fellow inmates to engage with education. They also introduce them to others on their wing who are positively engaging in education, and reference former inmates who have successfully benefited from education.

A key-worker model would function similarly, and collaboration with education providers will create a cycle of support to underpin rehabilitation efforts.

Crucially, Mr Gauke suggested that his education and employment strategy would be released soon.

For everyone working in prison education, it cannot come soon enough. Our hope is that it will address ways we can balance the need for core skills such as English and maths with practical support and access to technical education and apprenticeships.

For education to affect rehabilitation, there must be a flexible strategy integrated into each establishment’s regime, but which sets clear outcomes for progress and successful rehabilitation.

It’s a difficult balancing act and it is vital that the education and skills learned in the prison classroom are valuable to employers in a prisoner’s home community, and not just to those around the prison.

The focus on education and employment is important, but addressing only one factor will fail to reduce reoffending.

I agree with Mr Gauke that release on temporary licence needs to be looked at further and could be a means of linking rehabilitation and learning with practical support around housing, community and, fundamentally, a job.

Crucially any changes in ROTL must include access considerations to training opportunities, and this in turn raises questions about how systems such as adult education budgets are used, targeted and commissioned.

Finally the idea of a cross-government effort to reduce reoffending is, in my opinion, long overdue and very welcome.

It makes absolute sense to link rehabilitation and reoffending with the services that ex-offenders often need but cannot always access. However, a cross-government group must recognise that most of these services are provided locally, but that local government, mental health trusts and colleges have major challenges, vastly reduced budgets and limited capacity. They must, however, all be part of the conversation.

Mr Gauke has a compelling overview and vision for prisons. We welcome the opportunity for change, and the emphasis on rehabilitation being so clearly linked with education is especially welcome.

Peter Cox is managing director of Novus

Hair and beauty learn how to give chemotherapy patients a makeover

Hair and beauty students in the north-east have had a crash course in giving chemotherapy patients a makeover.

The Middlesbrough College learners explored how to style wigs, redraw eyebrows and work with uneven skin tones, as well as learning about the danger makeup brushes can pose to the patients who have a lowered immune system as a result of treatment.

The session was delivered by Look Good Feel Better, an international cancer-support charity, which runs free skincare and makeup classes and workshops for women undergoing cancer treatment.

“The experience has been invaluable for learners across our department, from our trainee hairdressers picking up tips for styling wigs, to those on makeup courses understanding how to make the most of re-growing eyelashes,” said Heather Ferguson, hair and media makeup course leader at the college.

“Cancer affects people in so many different ways and it was really inspiring to see how something as simple as makeup can help them feel like themselves again,” added Rebecca Dick, a level two hair and media makeup student.