The four main themes of the government’s widely anticipated careers strategy have been set out by the skills minister, in a speech delivered at the Careers Education and Guidance Summit.
Anne Milton said the strategy would be published “shortly”, speaking at the event in London today.
“I am tremendously grateful for the work that you do. That is why I want to give you a first insight into the careers strategy. I know many of you in this room have been waiting a long time for this,” she told delegates.
“It will be an important document that will set out what government will do to ensure that everybody has access to the right advice at the right time. A clear and accessible document, setting out the part we will all play in achieving this vision.”
The first theme is ensuring a “high-quality careers programme” in every college and school.
This will be largely achieved, she said, through making the eight “Gatsby benchmarks” the “bedrock of our careers strategy”.
These markers, set out through the Gatsby Charitable Foundation’s Good Career Guidance, include the need to link curriculum learning to careers, and learn from career and labour market information.
The second pillar is making sure employers “are an integral part of our approach”.
She claimed that the Careers and Enterprise Company had made “outstanding progress”.
“There are now over 2,000 enterprise advisers working with over half of the schools and colleges in England providing support to develop a careers programme,” she said.
“They use their networks to help pupils get more experiences of the world of work and provide insight into the key skills needed by local businesses.”
The CEC is thought to have been backed by more than £70 million of government funding, and boasted of working with over 700 schools and colleges last July.
Yet FE Week last December reported criticism of a very mixed bag for its engagement with colleges – as opposed to schools which are generally viewed as the organisation’s priority – around the country.
We had repeatedly pressed the Careers and Enterprise Company, which was set up in July 2015 to connect young people with the world of work, for details of the colleges that it works with.
After being told three months earlier that we couldn’t have the information for “data protection” reasons, we were finally given a list showing a postcode lottery for FE coverage, with 15 LEPs not covered – and London completely absent.
The third theme will be making sure everyone can benefit from “tailored support”.
“Personal guidance from a qualified adviser can have a real impact. I know that the careers profession has experienced many shocks in recent years and that organisations such as Careers England and the Career Development Institute are working tirelessly to raise the profile and status of the profession,” she said.
Finally, Ms Milton said the careers strategy would seek to make the most of the “rich sources of information about jobs and careers that exist”.
She admitted that such “information sources can be difficult to navigate and those who could most benefit from them are sometimes unable to”.
She added: “The government already publishes data on students’ destinations, but we recognise that more needs to be done to make the data easier to interpret.”
Senior government figures have been forced to defend whether further education is getting its “fair share” of funding during questioning at the House of Lords.
A hearing on the economics of higher, further and technical education saw senior civil servants quizzed about the disparity of funding across the sector, during a session of the Economic Affairs Committee.
Speaking at the meeting, Lord Burns criticised the “lavish funding” afforded to higher education and said “it’s not surprising” that people believe FE “isn’t really getting a fair share”.
He quoted statistics showing that in 2017/18, 3.5 million FE students received approximately £2,700 funding per learner. In contrast, 1.5 million students in higher education received £11,000 per learner.
The director general of HE and FE at the Department for Education, Dr Philippa Lloyd, said the government was working to address the issue but described it as “difficult stuff”.
She said the recently launched apprenticeship levy on large employers does “help counter some of that”.
“As I said, we are very aware that our technical education is not where it needs to be and that’s what we are focused on,” she added.
Asked whether it was time to “radically rethink” the “fragmentation” of FE funding by Lord Layard, Dr Lloyd admitted the sector “definitely needs attention”.
Lord Darling also asked whether, at a time when so many universities are offering technical education, the divide between HE and FE should be looked at again and made clearer “given the disparity in funding”.
Dr Lloyd said it was something the DfE did think about it and described the issue as “complicated”.
She also discussed “lessons learned” in the department following the revelation that T-levels were the 29th reform to technical education so far.
“Sometimes people have tried to do technical reforms without sufficiently involving employers, or sometimes with employers involved but not really establishing if the employer would actually take people with those qualifications,” said Dr Lloyd.
“I think also there are things about really understanding how and why people make certain choices. One of the things we are trying to do this time is, and it’s not meant to sound novel, we are actually talking to students and parents and teachers about how they feel about the decisions they are going to take.”
The government has opened its consultation on new national minimum standards for residential accommodation for 16- to 18-year-olds in the FE sector.
It has gone live on gov.uk today and will close on January 26.
“The standards were last revised in 2002, and much has changed in the FE sector since then,” said a Department for Education spokesperson.
“They are also too long, detailed and prescriptive by today’s standards.
“By revising and updating the standards we aim to make it easier both for FE institutions and for Ofsted to provide protection and reassurance for students and their guardians.”
A draft set of national minimum standards have been unveiled with the consultation.
The new rules are clearer on how providers should liase with local authorities and other key public bodies than those from 2002.
There must be “an effective working relationship between the college and local services, including local authority children’s or adult services and the police, especially whenever suspicion or allegations of abuse have occurred”.
A senior member of staff must also take responsibility for student safeguarding policy, to “liaise with the children’s or adult services (depending upon the age of the student), the designated officers within the local authority, and to coordinate action with these services, and where applicable liaise with the police following any allegation or suspicion of abuse or significant harm affecting a student”.
Hereward College, a general FE college which caters for day and residential learners with complex disabilities and learning difficulties, received a damning grade four-overall Ofsted report last November, which raised serious concerns about safeguarding in particular.
The report condemned the governors, leaders and managers for refusing to accept the findings of an investigation by the local authority into an incident.
“There have been a number of alleged incidents of peer-on-peer abuse in the college’s day and residential provision. One or more of the alleged incidents remains under investigation by another agency,” it said.
A former student at the college was subsequently found guilty of raping another learner at the campus, something the college said it was “deeply saddened” by.
In the section on staff recruitment and checks on other adults, the proposed new national minimum standards stress that anyone visiting residences must be “kept under sufficient staff supervision to prevent them gaining substantial unsupervised access to residential students or their accommodation”.
A college must have and follow “an appropriate policy on recording and responding” to complaints, and students must be aware of how to make a complaint.
A new government-commissioned report has further warned of a “striking level of mistrust” between residential special colleges and schools and councils.
The report, ‘Good intentions, good enough?’, was commissioned by the Department for Education and written by Dame Christine Lenehan (pictured), director of the Council for Disabled Children, and Mark Geraghty, principal and chief executive of the Seashell Trust charity.
The combination of financial pressure on town halls and rising numbers of learners with high needs, coupled with a feeling among these colleges and schools that pupils are only referred “at crisis point” were said to be contributing to issues on both sides, and their charges are being caught in the middle.
Justine Greening, the education secretary, has already taken up one of the report’s recommendations, agreeing to set up a new “national leadership board for children and young people with high needs”.
The new board will work with councils, health bodies and providers to support collaboration, the report says.
Richard Atkins completed his first year as FE commissioner in October. In a special interview to celebrate his anniversary, FE Week asked him about his expanded role, including the new £15 million fund to help failing colleges improve their education and training.
Almost exactly a year to the day since he took the torch from Sir David Collins, Richard Atkins is full of enthusiasm and keen to talk about his work.
But as his remit expands, he’s at risk of straying into other institutions’ territories.
Take the new £15 million strategic college improvement fund, for example – shouldn’t that have gone to the Education and Training Foundation, which is after all supposed to be responsible for boosting standards and quality in the sector?
Not according to the former Exeter College principal, who insists he does a “different job”.
“Most people actually ask if we’re duplicating the work of either Ofsted or the ESFA, rather than ETF,” he says.
Most people actually ask if we’re duplicating the work of either Ofsted or the ESFA, rather than ETF
“I think what we do is intervene, or provide diagnostic assessments and early intervention, at a governance and leadership level, with a real focus on institutional success. Our understanding of governance, leadership and institutional sustainability is second to none.”
He does believe the ETF is doing a good job, but won’t be drawn on what else he thinks they could be doing.
“They’re a non-governmental agency,” he says, “which provides a wide range of support services to colleges, from teacher training to English and maths – which is great, but they don’t do what we do.”
What’s more, he says he will “absolutely” work alongside them, and is happy to endorse their services.
“I have no doubt that if the ETF is offering the right thing, I will recommend it,” he insists.
The SCIF is just one aspect of Atkins’ expanded role, first announced by Justine Greening in July, which is designed to ensure he can support colleges before they hit crisis point.
Previously the FE commissioner intervened at failing colleges – those which had either been rated ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted or were in financial trouble – and overseeing the area review process, which ended in March.
“The thing that hit me when I first started the job is that there’s something frustrating about only working with colleges that have already hit the bottom,” he says.
This led to conversations “from very early on” with the education secretary’s strategy team, about how to “work with colleges that are on the way to becoming ‘inadequate’ and prevent them from becoming ‘inadequate’”.
He explains that the team “consulted extensively” with a range of people across the sector, including the Education and Skills Funding Agency, Ofsted and the afore-mentioned ETF.
“I had a significant input into [the strategy team’s] work, and what you see now are many of the suggestions that I made have turned into policy,” he says.
He definitely “suggested” that his office needed money – although he claims he “didn’t put an exact amount on it”, as “the strategy unit did that”.
The improvement fund, he says, while “not enormous” in terms of the overall DfE budget, is nonetheless “enough money to make a real difference”.
“I’ve spoken to a number of colleges; if we made between £200,000 and £300,000 available in-year and focused it on key quality-improvement, they’ve all said to me that could make a real difference,” he suggests.
The idea behind the fund, which is running in pilot form until July 2018, is to encourage peer-to-peer support – which Atkins wants colleges to see as a positive.
With daughter Beth at Wembley Stadium
The scheme will see weaker colleges – those rated grade three or four overall or for their apprenticeship provision – work with a stronger college to develop and implement an improvement plan, and both colleges will be named on the application form.
Eligible costs aren’t predetermined, and can include diagnosing a college’s quality issues and developing a plan to tackle them, mentoring and other professional development activities for senior leaders, or the cost of staff time.
He wants to learn from the pilot before deciding what will be funded during the main phase.
Between 10 and 15 colleges are expected to receive cash, with the rest of the money available in the first half of 2018. It is expected to run until March 2020, though it could be extended.
It aims to engage leaders from ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ colleges, to use their expertise to support colleges that need to improve significantly in one of more areas, which could lead to an application to the fund.
Atkins and his team will only be involved at the beginning and end of each plan, “to do a health check” and also “see what’s effective and how we can spread the best practice”.
While the commissioner will give his views on bids to the fund, he won’t be involved in the final decision over who gets the cash – that will be made by a “group in the DfE”.
We’ve absorbed some of the really difficult cases
Another new aspect of his expanded improvement toolbox is diagnostic assessments. These will see two members of his team spending a couple of days with colleges that “have the early symptoms of becoming unwell, but which haven’t yet developed the full illness” – to prevent them from slipping further towards failing.
These visits will result in recommendations for improvement, but no published minister’s letter.
Atkins says he’s about to start the first of seven pilot assessments, but estimates that “up to a third of colleges” could benefit from one.
He’s also setting up a college improvement board, which he hopes will meet for the first time after Christmas.
The plan is to bring all the different bodies involved in college standards, including the DfE, the ESFA, the Institute for Apprenticeships, Ofsted and the ETF, to develop a “strategic overview” for improvement.
While a part of the focus will be on failing colleges, and developing a coordinated approach from all the parties involved – “because if you’re trying to turn around a failing college you do not want another government official arriving every day of the week” – he says he believes the board will discuss “all colleges”.
He tells me that the sector is in a better financial position overall than it was before the area review process – thanks to the resulting mergers.
“We’ve absorbed some of the really difficult cases,” he says.
“They’ve now merged with a stronger partner and they’re much less likely to be predicted to fail.”
He insists the process was a success overall, “but I never thought for a minute that every recommendation would go through”.
But what about those merger plans that have fallen through?
He points out that many of those are, or have been, going through an appraisal of structure and prospects to find new partners: there are 10 this year, and 10 more expected in 2018.
Atkins describes the process as a “much more meaningful way” for a college to find a partner than area reviews.
“It’s the difference between going to a speed-dating event and going to an introduction agency and having a courtship,” he jokes.
The difference is “the focus it brings on an individual college”, which “tends to lead to meaningful mergers”.
He says he’s “pleased with the trajectory” of colleges over the past year; fewer are in intervention, and fewer are rated ‘inadequate’, while two thirds are ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ – but there’s still more to be done.
“I’d like to see that two thirds grow to three quarters,” he says. “That’s my initial target, and long-term I’d like to get to where schools are, around 80 to 85 per cent.
“You’ve got to start – and we’re starting now.”
Quick questions:
How many miles have you racked up as FE commissioner?
I’ve travelled approximately 40,000 miles in my first year in the job, much of this during the area review period. In one week I visited Lancashire, London, Norfolk, Northamptonshire and Manchester, in that order! Fortunately my working life is more manageable now. I always travel by public transport, either by train or plane.
Is there anything you wish you had known when you took the job?
How to manage myself without a PA, after 21 years of being supported by one! Recently, I’ve had an excellent new PA appointed, which helps a lot.
How many colleges have you visited in the past year?
I estimate that I’ve visited 70 colleges in my first year, and in the same way that enthusiasts visit football stadia or tube stations, I’m keen to visit many more this coming year. I find every visit fascinating, because every college is different.
How many hours do you work in an average week?
I usually work an average of 45 to 48 hours over four days per week – which is less than when I was a principal! We had 16 days holiday in Canada in September, during the college enrolment period, as they’re too busy to respond to me then.
Which do you prefer – being principal of an outstanding college or FE commissioner?
I loved being a college principal for 21 years, especially the final few years when my college was rated as ‘outstanding’, but it was the right time to go and I have no regrets at leaving. I didn’t expect to take on another major job, but the FE commissioner opportunity came up and I’m enjoying the work very much.
Two thirds of colleges and schools have had to cut extra-curricular activities and student support services due to crippling 16 to 19 funding cuts, a damning survey has found.
This was one of the main findings in a report published by the Sixth Form Colleges Association today, based on a survey of 341 college and school leaders, with mental health support, employability skills, and careers advice hardest hit.
Teaching of modern foreign languages and science, technology, engineering, and maths (STEM) were also found to have been seriously undermined.
The research was done on behalf of the eight organisations, including SFCA and the Association of Colleges, behind the Support Our Sixth-formers campaign geared at securing a significant increase to the national funding rate for students.
The SFCA said these problems had come about because sixth form funding was cut three times since 2011 and had not been adjusted to account for inflationary pressures or cost increases.
“Funding for 16 to 19 year olds is now 21 per cent lower than the funding for 11 to 16 year olds,” today’s report said.
“Sixth form funding in England sits at the bottom of a funding chasm.
“In addition to being out of step with the resources made available to educate younger children, the average funding for 16 to 19 year olds in the state sector is 50 per cent less than the average university tuition fee of £8,977 and 71 per cent less than the average sixth form fee in the independent sector.”
The survey found that 67 per cent of those who responded to the survey had been forced to reduce student support services or extra-curricular activities.
Bill Watkin
“Fewer clubs and events reduces the scope for young people to develop. Our cohort is among the most deprived and the reduced life experiences that they receive is heart-breaking,” said one college principal.
There have been cuts to extra-curricular activities such as educational visits, sport, and music and drama.
Support services have also been drastically reduced, leaving respondents less able to teach students the employability skills they need.
A further 50 per cent dropped courses in modern foreign languages as a result of funding pressures, with A-levels in German, French and Spanish the main casualties.
Over a third dropped STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths) courses.
To address this, the Support Our Sixth-formers campaign, which was first launched in May is “calling on the government to increase the national funding rate for each sixth form student by £200 to £4,200 in the forthcoming Budget”.
Other concerning findings from today’s research included that more than three quarters of schools and colleges (77 per cent) were teaching students in larger class sizes and half had reduced the delivery hours of individual courses.
Two thirds (66 per cent) had moved from a four to a three subject offer as standard.
And almost three quarters (72 per cent) did not believe the amount of funding they would receive next year will be sufficient to provide the support required by students that are educationally or economically disadvantaged.
“Our survey shows that sixth form students are not getting a fair deal – these young people deserve to have their education adequately funded,” said Bill Watkin, chief executive of the SFCA.
“The government’s planned investment in post-16 technical education will do nothing for the vast majority of students who are pursuing academic courses – we urge the Chancellor to boost funding for all sixth form students in this month’s budget.”
David Hughes, boss of the Association of Colleges, said the results highlight that “our young people are in danger of getting short-changed compared with previous generations”.
The skills minister has appeared to agree that Ofsted should inspect subcontractors during an exchange at education questions in the House of Commons today.
Anne Milton seemed to echo the beliefs of her predecessor Robert Halfon when he asked her about subcontracting in Parliament.
Mr Halfon, now the chair of the influential education select committee, was following up comments he made a few days ago to FE Week, that he “strongly believe that Ofsted needs to make the inspection of subcontractors a priority”.
“Does my honourable friend not agree that Ofsted should inspect subcontractors,” he asked today, “and will she review the extent of subcontracting and ensure that all apprentices receive the quality training they deserve?”
In response, she admitted that he was “absolutely right”.
“I know that he did excellent work when in his previous role on this area,” she continued. “What matters to me is that every pound spent produces a pound’s worth of good high quality training.”
“We are looking at subcontracting, very mindful to make sure that money goes to where it is needed – producing high quality apprenticeships that young people value and employers value,” the minister added.
Subcontracting is a significant issue in FE today, due to the huge sums of government funding involved and the number of learners affected: in January this year, there were 1,200 subcontractors accessing £693 million.
Despite this, it emerged last week that the inspectorate had still not directly inspected a single subcontractor, despite apparently changing its own rules to allow it.
Ofsted inserted a line into its handbook in September last year, emphasising that it “reserves the right to inspect and grade any subcontractor and its provision as a separate entity”.
“As part of the inspection, inspectors may inspect any provision carried out on behalf of the provider through subcontract(s) or partnership arrangements, including by subcontractors that hold additional direct contracts of their own,” the clause reads.
An FE Week investigation in July found that Ofsted had not directly inspected a single subcontractor in the following 10 months.
A spokesperson for the inspectorate insisted that subcontractors are inspected “through main contractors, not separately”, but they
refused to identify any specific inspections.
“We believe this is the most efficient and effective way of doing so,” they claimed.
Last Tuesday, Ofsted’s chief inspector Amanda Spielman admitted to the education that she was also worried by this lack of action.
She told the hearing that “there is a great deal we shouldn’t be comfortable about” with subcontracting.
Ofsted is looking at “how best to use” data on subcontractors, and “might” to decide to inspect “some” subcontractors.
The education secretary has been accused of putting more talk than action into growing apprenticeships amongst ethnic minorities.
Justine Greening repeatedly told the education select committee that the Department for Education has had a “big focus” on encouraging “a higher proportion of BAME [black, Asian and minority ethnic] young people going into apprenticeships”, during a recent session.
The current picture for BAME representation is bleak.
DfE apprenticeship starts figures do not include ethnicity with an age breakdown, so FE Week looked at the ESFA’s national achievement rate tables and found that just eight per cent of England’s young apprentices are BAME.
In the rest of FE, 23 per cent are minorities, who make up 18 per cent of the country’s total population (see tables).
The DfE was unable to identify a single actual policy to create more BAME apprenticeships since 2015, when we asked what the minister meant by “big focus”.
“Justine Greening has fallen into the age-old trap of simply reannouncing something that was thought of two years ago, and which there apparently has not been much progress on since,” said the shadow skills minister Gordon Marsden, in reference to the 2020 target.
“Talk is cheap and delivery is difficult, but let’s see some beef from this rather than rhetoric,” he added.
The DfE claimed it is “making progress”, but such efforts as it is making are proving slow: the proportion of all-age BAME apprenticeship starts increased by less than one percentage point in 2016/17 on 2015/16, according to provisional figures.
It drew attention to the Apprenticeship Diversity Champions Network, launched nine months ago by former skills minister Robert Halfon, who now chairs the very committee which grilled Ms Greening.
However, FE Week understands the group only meets four times a year and has so far been used as a platform for employers to share best practice, rather than to produce solid policy proposals.
The network’s 27 members pale into insignificance when compared to the 20,000 or so employers that are eligible to pay the apprenticeship levy, for instance.
According to the DfE, the group’s members are “committed to encouraging other employers to promote diversity in apprenticeships and to championing apprenticeships in BAME communities”.
Andy Forbes, a co-founder of the BAME Principals Group, who leads Conel College in London, told FE Week that “there appears to have been a lot more talk than action in this area so far”.
“Last February, Mr Halfon launched the network, but we haven’t heard anything about how this work is progressing,” he said.
Andy Forbes
He said that his own organisation is “ready at any time” to help the education secretary “turn aspiration into action and get the ‘big focus’ that is so urgently needed”.
Mark Dawe, the boss of the AELP, has not been impressed by the government’s attempts to hit its own target.
“We have to say that in terms of matching the rhetoric, the initiative has been a bit slow to get off the ground especially in terms of engaging providers with the employer links in areas with significant BAME populations,” he said.
“It’s another example of the social mobility agenda, including tackling the disability employment gap, where we would hope to see more action.”
In its 2015 ‘English apprenticeships: Our 2020 vision’ document, the DfE said it would ensure its youth-employment campaign included “targeted material for BAME audiences”, and that it would work with local enterprise partnerships to encourage employers to diversify their workforce with BAME apprentices.
The DfE said its relatively recent ‘Get in go far’ campaign, which “featured apprentice role models from diverse backgrounds”, was one measure that helped.
It is also currently working with local partners to develop approaches to increase representation in apprenticeships at a local level, the spokesperson claimed.
Three local authorities have been told by Ofsted that their provision of adult and community learning ‘requires improvement’.
Birmingham City Council and Swindon Unitary Authority both slipped from grade two to grade three in reports published this week, while Kettering Borough Council kept its grade three rating.
Swindon Unitary Authority’s adult community learning service was inspected on September 26. Although staff from the council take responsibility for strategic leadership, quality assurance and providing guidance to learners, all the courses are provided by eight subcontractors.
However, Ofsted found managers and leaders were not monitoring closely or being sufficiently critical about the quality of provision delivered by subcontractors, or making sure improvements are being carried out.
Tutors were also criticised for not taking the abilities and aspirations of learners into account or setting clear objectives for developing skills and knowledge, while managers do not set high enough standards for the quality of assessment or collect information on learner destinations and the impact of courses on learner progression.
However, the service – which is mainly used by learners from disadvantaged communities on non-accredited courses to improve their communication, English and mathematics skills – was commended for its “well-considered curriculum” taking into account skills shortages, gaps in learning and community needs and providing a “safe and welcoming environment” to help learners progress.
Birmingham City Council provides accredited and non-accredited programmes at entry level, level one and level two through the Birmingham Adult Education Service (BAES). The service provides over 2,000 courses annually from 10 main centres and 60 partner venues.
During its inspection on September 26, Ofsted found that managers had “an inflated view of the quality of teaching, learning and assessment” with learners left unprepared for their next steps despite high achievement rates, while data collected on learner outcomes is “too positive and does not support meaningful analysis or the production of specific improvement actions”.
It also found that senior managers are not held to account sufficiently, with senior leaders in governance roles criticised for not requesting performance reports or knowing “enough about the quality of provision” to set improvement goals.
The service was commended for creating a “harmonious learning environment” with well-qualified tutors and well-behaved learners, but Ofsted warned not enough was being done to raise awareness of online safety or the dangers of radicalisation.
Kettering Borough Council’s adult and community learning service retained its grade three ranking when it was inspected on September 20.
The quality of lessons at Kettering Borough Training was described by Ofsted as “not consistently good enough” with too few learners achieving their planned qualifications or targets and not enough help to make sure learners are able to take part in additional training programmes.
Although the service does give “good support and care” to help students address their barriers to learning and develop in confidence, managers were said to not monitor performance well enough to raise standards.
Elsewhere in the sector, employer provider Nestor Primecare Services dropped from a grade three to four. Now known as Allied Healthcare, and one of the country’s largest providers of domiciliary healthcare staff, the service was found to have “no key strengths” when it was inspected on September 19.
Management was criticised for an “abject failure to challenge themselves and their teams to deliver high outcomes”, with weaknesses identified in safeguarding, teaching, learning, assessment, governance, quality assurance and student guidance.
Stratford-upon-Avon College also dropped from a grade two to three after an inspection on September 19 found the college did not consistently create good teaching or outcomes for learners, with teachers behaving inefficiently in planning, teaching and assessments.
Ofsted accused senior leaders of not providing governors with enough information to allow them to be held to account, although it acknowledge achievement rates were high with most learners and apprentices developing a good range of skills.
Also inspected on September 19, Grantham College climbed up the rankings from a grade three to a grade two, with improvements noted in the standards of teaching, learning and assessment and learner outcomes.
The Lincolnshire-based college was commended for good partnerships with local and regional employers, although Ofsted warned that too many students were on work placements that were not linked to their studies or being monitored effectively and assessments of mid-year grades were not always reliable.
Reading-based independent learning provider BPP Holdings Limited kept its grade two ranking at an inspection on September 26, as did four colleges which received short inspections: Kingston Maurward College in Dorset (inspected October 10), EMBS Community College in Oxford (inspected October 4), Adult Education In Gloucestershire (inspected October 3) and Lincolnshire-based Community Learning in Partnership (inspected October 4).
Early reports into the efficacy of work placements suggest that they’ll be tough to get right, writes Bill Esmond
The Sainsbury Review’s proposals for technical education, enthusiastically welcomed by government, focus on high-quality work placements as part of every course. The process is limbering up slowly, but research studies, modelling exercises and evaluations commissioned by government are yet to report on how it might work.
There are, however, early indicators from a research report funded by the Gatsby Foundation published last week, exploring models currently used for work-based learning on study programmes. The study was commissioned to find models for securing access to workplace learning, which may end up consuming quite a slice of the additional £500 million budget. After all, a world short on job opportunities for young people is also a world short on work placement opportunities.
Alongside the differences in arranging placements, from well-established schemes with plenty of employer involvement to learners making their own ad-hoc arrangements, other important issues for FE colleges emerged.
Length does not equal quality
Although the length of a placement is central to Sainsbury’s proposals, and much study programme work-based learning is strikingly brief, time spent in the workplace does not directly determine what kind of learning programme takes place. College staff will know that learners on early childhood or health and social care programmes may already be required to spend months in workplaces. But although they learnt about behavioural expectations in these settings, those in the study did not have the same kind of access to specialist, advanced knowledge as those on what will be other future technical routes.
Some “work-based learning” involved no real experience in workplace
If technical education is going to offer advanced skills unavailable in college, workplace learning needs to identify what learning opportunities will be available there.
Workplace learning is not automatic
Learning is not an automatic result of depositing a learner in the workplace. The best examples are built around planned programmes, with access to expertise and learning opportunities that enable students to learn identified skills. These were the product of highly organised liaison between colleges and work organisations, but they also depended on a proactive approach by employers committed to offering the right opportunities.
By contrast, some “work-based learning” involved no real experience in workplace settings; this was a characteristic of creative and media courses we studied, all of which made use of “employer projects” where students worked towards solving a problem set by an employer but colleges provided the technical skills in studio settings. These appeared to better develop technical skills than some work-based programmes, as well as enhancing learners’ confidence and softer skills.
College-workplace integration is essential
The more tutors are directly involved in these processes, the better. In the best-organised examples, staff used what learners had discovered in the workplace to advance their college-based studies. In other areas, work-based learning was seen more as meeting a funding requirement. One programme manager compared his own projects to the token activity at his daughter’s school that “gets her out of their hair for a week”.
In the same way, workplace learning is often carried out in ignorance of college programmes; one workplace trainer eloquently described what she taught but had very little idea how it related to any course requirements. “They get a qualification at the end of it, I think,” she said. It seems unlikely that technical education will provide the expected benefits without greater integration between workplaces and colleges.
Technical education will require much more proactive involvement from staff, rather than simply negotiating satisfactory placements. Of course, this may delay implementation, or restrict technical education to a narrower field than originally envisaged.
A broader question for policymakers is whether the wider institutions exist to support an integrated system on the lines of the UK’s European competitors. While German dual training is sustained by employers’ associations, small businesses, trade unions and the state, the English system remains largely voluntarist despite the levy, benefitting those most able to invest individually in training. But that’s another story.
Bill Esmond is associate professor of learning and employment at the University of Derby
