A trio of business students from north London have reached the finals of a national innovation challenge with a safety device inspired by the Grenfell Tower disaster.
Their invention, called the “safety Jumping Bag”, is a giant airbag that lets people jump from high buildings without injuring themselves, and can be deployed in situations such as fires and earthquakes, where emergency services are struggling to reach.
The team from the College of Haringey, Enfield and North-East London are up against 20 other colleges from across the UK in the final round of the Big Idea Challenge, after impressing judges with their original idea and business plan.
The winning team in the competition, run by London Metropolitan University, will get the resources to make their product a reality, including free websites, business mentoring and internships.
“We’re aiming to sell this product to developers who would pay the full amount, directly to councils and governments for half price and the fire services, who will have a mobile unit on the back of their trucks,” explained 22-year-old team member Melany Monteiro Moniz.
Forty sports students at City College Norwich now have a qualification in anti-doping.
The group successfully completed UK Anti-Doping’s accredited adviser course alongside their college studies. They covered what doping is, the value of clean sport, and how sport performance can be enhanced safely and legally through a healthy diet and the right nutrition.
Typically anti-doping isn’t covered on sports courses until degree level, but tutors at the college are keen for their aspiring sports coaches to take the course for a head start in their career.
“We are training aspiring sports practitioners who will go on to work with sportspeople who might have been tempted to try performance enhancing substances,” said Jason Fligg, a sports science lecturer.
“By taking this qualification, these students can play their part in promoting clean sport – reducing the health risks to athletes and supporting the integrity of competitive sport.”
“The course has shown me how easy it is for people to get stuck into the trap of using performance enhancing drugs,” added Ben Brighton, a level three sports and exercise science student. “It happens a lot more than we realise.”
Colleges delivered less than a quarter of traineeships last year and nearly half across the country had no starts whatsoever, according to FE Week analysis of government figures.
In fact, the Education and Skills Funding Agency is aware that only 24 per cent of traineeships were delivered by general further education colleges.
That works out at 4,900 of all 20,450 traineeship starts in 2016/17, and amounts to a two percentage point drop from the previous year (see table below).
Just 110 colleges delivered the programme last year, a little over half of the total in England. Of these, a mere eight recorded 100 or more starts. In contrast, independent training providers had 14,430 starts last academic year, or 71 per cent of the total.
Catherine Sezen, senior policy manager at the Association of Colleges, defended colleges for their low level of engagement blaming rigid traineeship rules, particularly around the length of the programme.
Ms Sezen said colleges often felt it is “more appropriate, particularly with 16- to 18-year-old learners to put them on a full year’s study programme” that could be “very similar to a traineeship” but with more time for the learner to focus on improving their skills, including English and maths.
“Greater flexibility in the traineeship model would probably lead to increased uptake by both students and colleges,” she added.
Traineeships, launched in 2013, are designed to get young people aged 16 to 24 ready for work or an apprenticeship. They can last up to six months, and include a period of work preparation, English and maths courses and a work experience placement.
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The much higher level of starts at ITPs prompted Mark Dawe, the boss of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, to reiterate calls for his members to be more involved in developing prestigious new T-level qualifications.
FE Week asked the ESFA for the number of traineeship starts per provider for each year from 2013/14 to 2016/17, and worked out the breakdown according to provider type.
Our analysis showed that colleges delivered 19,501 of the 74,813 starts in that time period, with independent providers accounting for 50,782.
The remaining 4,530 – or five per cent – of starts were delivered by local authorities, sixth-form colleges and by others, such as specialist colleges.
The fall was more dramatic among colleges than private providers. And some of the colleges with the highest number of starts, such as Eastleigh, subcontract much of their provision.
NCG had the second highest number of starts of any college, with 1,170 over the four years covered by our data, although it subcontracts some of this provision.
Joe Docherty, the group’s chief executive, said it “encourages the take-up of traineeships across its colleges”, though he believes “there needs to be further marketing of traineeships to make sure their purpose is understood”.
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He urged the government to make it “clear that traineeships prepare people for apprenticeships, jobs, further training and full-time education”.
And Kit Davies, the principal of North Hertfordshire College, which had 220 traineeship starts last year, suggested that “incentivising businesses to take individuals on work placements” could help boost numbers.
The government, which has faced criticism for not doing enough to promote traineeships, launched a social media campaign last month.
It is part of its existing ‘Get in go far’ drive which it has already used to spread the word about apprenticeships through Facebook and Twitter. This new branch of the campaign operates under the slogan ‘Traineeships: Everything you need to know’.
“Traineeships offer employers the opportunity to shape training to meet their needs and build the high-quality, highly-skilled workforce of the future, and we encourage businesses across a range of sectors to get involved and offer these work experience placements,” a Department for Education spokesperson said.
Can colleges deliver on T-level work placements?
Colleges have been given a key role in piloting the work-placement element of T-levels – but their lack of engagement with traineeships raises questions about their suitability.
Each learner on these prestigious new qualifications will have to undertake a 45-day placement as part of their course.
AELP boss Mark Dawe believes colleges’ lack of engagement with traineeships supports his argument that ITPs should have a much larger role.
He has been “perplexed” by the extent to which colleges have been given far more of a leading role than colleges: “I know some colleges are successful at running traineeships, but these figures show that ITPs provide the bulk. One of the primary reasons for this is because they are so adept at engaging with employers. Some colleges are good at that too, but this indicates to me that ITPs are a more natural fit for the T-level pilots.
Mark Dawe
“Our argument all along has been that to make T-levels a success the government must involve ITPs and their expertise in employer engagement.”
The Association of Colleges insisted that colleges’ lack of engagement with traineeships had no bearing on their ability to deliver on the T-level work placements.
“Colleges already have lots of contact with employers, in terms of work experience, apprenticeships and additional training that they do for employers, and T-levels will encourage a growth in that,” said Catherine Sezen, the AoC’s senior policy manager.
The learners on T-levels will be “very different” from those on traineeships, and as such the challenges will be different.
T-level learners will be studying at a much higher level than those on traineeships, and will be on their second year of a two-year programme when they begin their work placement – whereas trainees are often just weeks into their programme, she said.
“Of course there may be challenges in terms of finding sufficient work placements, in terms of finding the right placement in the right place for the right student, but I think that’s different from the challenges of traineeships,” she said.
Stephen Evans, chief executive of the Learning and Work Institute, said employers and learners would need first rate support and guidance to get the most out of placements, and “the ability of a provider to do this isn’t determined by whether they’re a college or independent training provider”.
“I hope, therefore, that the government will focus on engaging and supporting employers” and “work with the best providers from across our sectors”.
A spokesperson for the Department for Education said it was “working to determine how best to make work placements work for employers across all technical routes.”
How some colleges have made traineeships work without subcontracting
Not all colleges subcontract their traineeship provision. FE Week spoke to a number that are running the programme themselves – and running it well.
These include North Hertfordshire College, which received an ‘outstanding’ grade from Ofsted for its traineeships, in a report published last November.
It’s had 530 starts over the four years the programme has been running, according to our data – 220 of which were last year.
Dave Hitchen, the college’s director of transformation, said it delivers the programme itself, through the college’s training arm Hart Learning and Development, “because we feel it meets a really important community need”.
The college has the “good employer relationships that you need to run a successful traineeships programme” as well as “good community engagement, in terms of referral partners like JobCentre Plus” which means they have “lots of pathways into the learners”.
With most learners it’s a matter of confidence, and finding which sector they want to work in
He admitted that finding work placements could be challenging – and a lot of hard work.
The “ideal case scenario” would be a company offering a work experience placement for a number of trainees, with the intention of employing some of them at the end.
But in other cases the college’s placement coaches would talk to trainees about their career goals then “hit the phones and try to find employers in the local area that meet that aspirational need” which can be “very time consuming”.
Because traineeships often attract learners who’ve had “a difficult educational experience” or that have “barriers that need breaking down”, it can be “a difficult job” to persuade employers of the benefits of taking on a trainee.
“Our coaches do a great job, but it takes a progressive, forward thinking employer to do that,” he said.
Weston College, which has had 340 traineeship starts between 2013/14 and 2016/17, also directly delivers the programme.
Paul Keegan, group director for apprenticeships and business development, said that “contracting out didn’t serve any purpose” as the college has the capability to deliver the programme as well as the “relationships we already have with employers through apprenticeships”.
Traineeships have proved a “really strong pathway” for learners.
“What we found with most learners is that it’s a matter of confidence, and finding which sector they want to work in,” he explained.
Mr Keegan said one of the secrets to the college’s success was the time it spent with learners to understand the field they wanted to work in – which could involve trying different placements before finding the right one.
“If you map the learner to the employer, it becomes a very direct route,” he said.
Colleges explain why they dropped the programme
More than a few colleges have stopped providing traineeships. FE Week asked them to explain why they took the decision and the grave problems they see with the programme.
Kurt Hintz, the deputy principal of the College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London said his college had 180 starts in 2014/15, 10 in 2015/16 and none in 2016/17.
“The inflexibility of the traineeship funding model, along with the strict condition of funding rules around maths and English,” made them “unsuitable” to provide “the highest levels of progression to apprenticeships”.
The condition-of-funding rule requires learners without at least a grade C or 4 in English and maths GCSE to continue studying these subjects post-16.
Mr Hintz said that this rule led to an “over-emphasis on passing maths and English qualifications rather than gaining skills for the industries learners are preparing to enter” through the programme.
Traineeships are a good example of over regulation disincentivising innovation
“Traineeships are a good example of over regulation disincentivising innovation in curriculum design that meets the needs of industry,” he said.
Another college to pull out is Harrow College. An early adopter of the programme, it recorded 60 starts in 2013/14 and 140 in 2014/15 – but none after that.
Pat Carvalho, the college’s principal, said it stopped in order to “focus on apprenticeships, to improve their quality”.
The college also wanted to “concentrate on more local delivery where employers were looking for shorter programmes such as sector work-based academy training”.
Just 110 colleges delivered on the programme last year, down from 124 in 2015/16.
West Nottinghamshire College had the second highest number of traineeship starts of any individual college, according to our data – but the “vast majority” of those were actually delivered by subcontractors.
However, after 210 starts in 2013/14, 310 in 2014/15, 320 in 2015/16, 30 in 2016/17, it won’t be running any more.
The college “took the strategic decision” to stop delivering traineeships “after 2016/17 because we found it wasn’t delivering the outcomes we wanted in terms of sustainable employment or progression into apprenticeships,” a spokesperson said.
Not all colleges that have stopped delivering traineeships made a conscious decision to do so.
The RNN Group, made up of Rotherham, North Nottinghamshire and Dearne Valley colleges, had around 180 starts between 2013/14 and 2015/16, but none last year.
A spokesperson for the group said it “continued to have the option available” but was “currently seeing little demand”.
The director of Young People and former sixth-form college commissioner has been given the mammoth task of devolving the adult education budget, as part of a reshuffle at the top of the ESFA.
In an extensive new brief, Peter Mucklow has become the agency’s director of further education, which as well as implementing devolution includes delivering any future national tendering rounds for AEB – a task that was plagued with major issues last year.
He takes on oversight of adult funding from Keith Smith, who recently switched from being the ESFA’s director of funding and programmes to become its director of apprenticeships – which includes taking over from Sue Husband as the head of the National Apprenticeship Service.
Mr Mucklow’s task of making the AEB devolution a success is seen by many in FE as a mission impossible.
It has already been delayed by a year and will not now be rolled out until 2019 instead of later this year as originally planned – and even this timescale is considered too tight.
Only eight areas of the country – London, the West Midlands, Liverpool City region, Greater Manchester, the West of England, Tees Valley, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough and the Sheffield City region – have signed deals to take control of AEB spending in their regions.
It means the Department for Education will remain as the central distributer of AEB for all other areas.
Peter Mucklow
The mayors from those regions with deals in place have recently “voiced concerns” with the government over the impracticality of the process.
They told FE Week in February they are worried that the combined authorities have “inadequate” influence and a lack of funding during the transition year, as well as “challenging” timescales for the handing over of power.
Future AEB tenders will also prove a headache for Mr Mucklow if history is anything to go by.
Last year’s tender was beset with delays, and successful providers were left outraged when they only received a fraction of their previous allocations.
The ESFA then made things worse by changing procurement rules to allow providers who had failed in their bids to receive 75 per cent of the amount they had the previous year.
Political campaigns and threats of legal action were threatened until the agency brought all provider funding up to the value of 75 per cent of the amount they had last year.
Mr Mucklow was previously the sixth-form college commissioner with a remit covering just 16-to-18 funding – a job which he had held since 2013 but stepped aside from last year when the Richard Atkins’ FE commissioner role expanded to cover SFCs.
In his new job as director of FE, Mr Mucklow is also responsible for the “full range” of intervention strategies he will impose to “prevent or remedy institutions’ poor performance in finance, quality or governance”.
He will also support implementation of the post-16 area reviews.
The job change has been implemented by the ESFA’s new chief executive, Eileen Milner, who started in November following the departure of Peter Lauener.
Keith Smith’s new role meanwhile means he is now the agency’s person who is most responsible for the apprenticeship levy and apprenticeship funding service.
He will be expected to intervene in cases of failure or high risk when it comes to apprenticeships, as well as take charge of NAS.
Ms Husband had been in charge of the service for four years but has now become director of employer engagement at the ESFA.
She is responsible for the National Careers Service, the National Contact Centre, WorldSkills UK and “developing relationships with employers at chief executive level to drive engagement with the skills agenda”. She also leads the ESFA’s people board, and takes on some internal ESFA “employee engagement”.
Meanwhile, the agency’s director of the transaction unit, Matthew Atkinson, is now the ESFA’s director of provider market oversight.
In this post he will keeps control of the transaction unit until it ends, but will also take on the agency’s financial assurance team who audit and investigate funding issues.
Students learned about the career journeys of female staff at Bradford College during an “empowering women” event.
Speakers included college governors, senior leaders and teaching staff, who shared the challenges they faced in their careers, and how they overcame them.
The college’s assistant principal Anita Lall shared her story of not being able to speak English when she started school, and how she excelled and went on to research childhood cancers before pursuing her teaching career.
Learners also heard from the college’s chair of governors, Cath Orange, who spoke about her work in the engineering industry. Fellow governor June Durrant explained that despite her struggles with dyslexia, she had a 31 year career in FE, holding a number of senior roles.
“Only you can limit yourself,” said social work lecturer Waheeda Azam during her moment in the spotlight. “You might have to take an alternative route but you will get there.”
The college will host a similar event in the next few weeks, when male members of staff will discuss their career experiences.
Learndirect Ltd appears to be on the brink of collapse, after a fresh round of redundancies belied the fact that its efforts to generate new business have proved “impossible”.
FE Week understands that the UK’s largest FE provider told the vast majority of its staff on April 23 that they are likely to lose their jobs next month as it prepares to “run down all areas”.
“The business has looked at every way possible that it can to generate new business after July 2018 but given the ESFA’s position this has proved to be impossible,” management wrote in a letter sent to staff across the business on Monday, seen by FE Week.
“We need to plan the run-down of all areas so that we can finish all outstanding activity by this point. These changes will have a direct impact on your role in that it will cease to exist once these proposed changes take effect.”
ESFA funding for adult skills and apprenticeships will not be available to Learndirect after July 2018, in punishment for the grade four it received from Ofsted last year.
We need to plan the run-down of all areas
An initial round of redundancies directly linked to this loss began in February for a small number of its 1,500 staff, but recent developments in other potential revenue streams appear now to have proven fatal.
The provider recently said goodbye to contracts with the Home Office and the Standards and Testing Agency, respectively to deliver the Life in the UK test for citizenship applicants and the professional skills tests for teachers respectively, which brought in a combined income of £10.8 million this year.
And it is understood that Learndirect has also been unsuccessful in sourcing new income from the European Social Fund – cash that the UK receives as a member state of the EU to increase job opportunities and help people to improve their skill levels.
The company claimed in its most recent accounts that it had “other sources” of “growing” cash, such as ESF contracts, which would be used to keep the company afloat after its adult skills and apprenticeships funding ended.
It had ESF funding amounting to just shy of £50 million to use up until July, but the ESFA has told Learndirect outright that it would not be awarded any more after that date.
The ESFA sent letters out last month to all other providers who were successful in their bids to extend their ESF, which have received an extension until March 2019 and additional funds.
The only other bodies that Learndirect could ask for access to ESF cash from would be the Department for Work and Pensions and the Big Lottery Fund – which administer the funding and provide match funding alongside the DfE.
Both organisations told FE Week they have no intention of handing the provider an extension.
Learndirect was privatised and sold to Lloyds Development Capital (LDC), the private equity arm of Lloyds Bank, in 2011. Its parent group is called Pimco Holdings Ltd.
As revealed in Learndirect’s accounts from November, Pimco has debts worth £48.5 million, plus a loan of £2.9 million from LDC, both of which need to be paid back from November 2018.
Your role will cease to exist once these proposed changes take effect
There is a further loan from LDC of £48.8 million which will be repayable in May 2020.
Pimco’s ability to repay, refinance or extend these loans will depend on the performance of its subsidiaries – including Leanrdirect – over the next 12 months.
“The medium-term strategy of the group is to continue to grow the value in its ongoing businesses (principally Learndirect Apprenticeships Ltd, Learndirect Professional and the ESF contracts for adult skills provision) in order to be able to repay its liabilities in due course,” the accounts said.
This plan has been dealt a financial hammer blow by Learndirect’s failed attempts to secure new ESF cash.
A spokesperson for LDC would not discuss Learndirect’s survival when FE Week asked for comment.
Learndirect also refused to comment.
A 14-day redundancy consultation period immediately commenced following the letter sent to staff on April 23.
Denise Jelly, Principal, Barnsley Sixth-Form College
Start date: March 2018
Previous job: Head of faculty for sixth-form, GCSEs and International, Nottingham College
Interesting fact: Denise once performed an Irish dance for royalty at primary school, but can’t remember if it was for Princess Margaret or Anne.
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Ciaran Barry, Group operations director, Linx International Group
Start date: February 2018
Previous job: Senior consultant, Linx International Group
Interesting fact: Ciaran was a detective in the Hertfordshire Police Constabulary for over eight years.
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Darren Jackson, Sales director, Roundhouse Corporate – Derby College Group
Start date: March 2018
Previous job: Director of client sales, Guestline Ltd.
Interesting fact: Darren has a passion for music, and out of work can be found playing his guitar and singing.
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Janet Morris, Interim chief executive, OCR
Start date: April 2018
Previous job: Director – international network, Cambridge International (ongoing)
Interesting fact: Earlier in her career, Janet worked in the international aviation sector, marketing London’s airports.
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Martin Sim, Interim principal and CEO, Barnfield College
Start date: April 2018
Previous job: Interim principal, Gateway College
Interesting fact: Martin is a model railway enthusiast.
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
Students from Chichester College and Crawley College have come together to brainstorm ways of developing an eco-friendly classroom, reports Samantha King.
A cross-college event saw over 50 learners from courses including engineering, design, motor vehicle, aeronautical and science work together in seven teams to design a new, futuristic classroom for Chichester College’s Brinsbury campus.
The teams presented their ideas to a panel of expert judges, including Jane Reeve, projects manager at Manhood Wildlife and Heritage Group, Graeme Clements, sustainables product manager at Covers Timber, and Kevin White, estates manager at Chichester College.
The concepts were judged on their practicality, the impact they would have on the surrounding area, and how they used sustainable resources, such as heat and wind energy.
Chichester College hopes to eventually turn the classroom concepts into reality in around three years’ time, if funding for the project can be secured.
“The dream is to actually build an environmental classroom. We’ve got an area at our Brinsbury Campus which needs refreshment. It’s a derelict area. It’s a beautiful campus, and lends itself to the environmental side of it,” explained Andy Chater, head of learning for STEM at Chichester College. “What we would love to see is the classroom actually being built by the students, with local companies and sponsors.”
Following the day of classroom conceptualising, the students’ designs will be built upon and developed by another crop of learners in the next academic year, who will look at the finer details such as costing and planning.
“Each year we move a little bit closer. The main idea is to bring the students’ specialist knowledge together across different curriculum areas and colleges, so they could all work in mixed groups and share great ideas.”
College principals have been lambasted as “greedy and hopelessly out of touch” by the University and College Union, after new analysis showed a third enjoyed a pay rise of more than 10 per cent in 2016/17.
It revealed that 17 principals earned salaries of over £200,000, and the union’s analysis of the 220 colleges included in the data found that 81 (37 per cent) gave their principal a bumper pay rise of more than 10 per cent.
These massive raises are all the more controversial, given that college staff across the country have been driven to strike action after they were offered a measly a one-per-cent increase of their own.
The union also pointed out that several colleges – including the likes of Hull College Group and Bradford College, both of which are planning huge job cuts – were not included in the data raising “serious concerns” about accountability.
Vision West Nottinghamshire College, whose principal was paid £275,000 in 2015/16, was also omitted from today’s release.
Sally Hunt
The accounts data can include pay for more than one post-holder because of ongoing mergers across the country – but the UCU said this is “no excuse” for inflating leadership pay.
“College principals who pocket huge pay rises while pleading poverty on staff pay look greedy and hopelessly out of touch,” said UCU general secretary Sally Hunt.
“Many of the worst offenders are at recently merged colleges, but we are clear that mergers are no excuse for inflating senior pay.
“The fact that several colleges are not included in the data also raises serious questions about accountability to students and taxpayers. We urgently need much greater transparency in how senior pay is decided to ensure that leaders at all colleges can be held to account.”
He was paid £294,000 on top of a £47,000 pension contribution and benefits in kind worth £1,000 last year – or just over one per cent of its entire turnover of £30 million.
