Hitting the targets, missing the point

While apprenticeship starts have risen for ethnic minorities and those with learning difficulties, much of their progress has been through reduced opportunities for others, laments Fiona Aldridge

Last week’s figures showing a decline in the number of apprenticeship starts continue to make headlines, both in and beyond the sector. Average monthly starts are currently 17 per cent lower than needed for the government to meet its commitment to three million apprenticeship starts by 2020.

Opinion is divided as to whether this is a temporary blip caused by the levy, or something more serious. But certainly if numbers do not recover soon, the government will quickly fall behind.

At Learning and Work Institute, our work on apprenticeships has focused on two key issues: quality and access. While supportive of the government’s ambitions for growth, we have continually argued that apprenticeships must be of high quality if they are to bring genuine skills improvements and productivity benefits. Like all other forms of education and training, they should be accessible for all who can benefit.

There are significant inequalities in access to apprenticeships

This is not currently the case – there are significant inequalities in access to apprenticeships by household income, ethnicity, gender, disability and caring responsibilities. Equality of access is not just a “nice-to-have”. This under-representation reinforces inequality, restricts opportunities and limits the talent pool available to employers.

L&W has been working closely with the government to address inequalities in access, particularly with its commitments to increase black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) participation by 20 per cent, to reach 11.9 per cent by 2020, and to increase the proportion of apprentices with learning difficulties and disabilities by 20 per cent, to reach 11.9 per cent by 2020.

So the apprenticeship starts figures published last week are particularly interesting. The data shows a small increase in BAME starts since 2015/16 – around 1,500 or three per cent. In the context of an overall decline in numbers however, this increase is set against 18,230 fewer white starts, a four-per-cent decrease from the previous year. While it is good that ethnic minorities are getting a fairer share of the opportunities, much of the progress has been through reduced opportunities for others.

In a similar vein, in 2016/17 the proportion of apprentices declaring a learning difficulty or disability (LDD) has increased from 9.9 per cent to 10.3 per cent, an apparently positive move.

The actual number of starts however has fallen by 170, with the percentage increase deriving from the 16,1780 fewer starts by those without LDD. Again, while it is positive news that those with learning difficulties and disabilities are gaining greater access to the opportunities on offer, this should not mask the fact that there have been far fewer actual opportunities.

The demographic data throws up other important patterns. Despite an overall decline in opportunities, more 25- to 59-year-olds started an apprenticeship than in the previous year, at the expense of a much more severe decline for younger adults.

It is too early to tell the extent to which these patterns are temporary, or a sign of things to come. While I am pleased to see that ethnic minorities and those with learning difficulties are better represented within the apprenticeship start data, it must be of concern that this sits alongside fewer opportunities for the young, for white applicants and for men.

This week’s ‘state of the nation’ report from the Social Mobility Commission warned that “the UK is in the grip of a self-reinforcing spiral of ever growing division” and suggested that unless we collaborate to ensure opportunity for all, then apprenticeships risk damaging rather than enhancing social mobility.

It is critical therefore that we work together to ensure that apprenticeships provide high quality opportunities for all who could benefit – younger and older, BAME and white, with or without learning disabilities, younger and older, men and women. Or else we yet again risk hitting our targets and missing the point.

Fiona Aldridge is assistant director of research and development at the Learning and Work Institute

Colleges’ Ofsted bounce-back should be acknowledged

Three weeks ago we reported that by the end of the last academic year, college performance had dipped to its lowest level, as measured by Ofsted.

The proportion of the nation’s 188 colleges graded ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ languished on 69 per cent, over 10 percentage points below other provider types.

How quickly things have changed: seven colleges have already moved up to a grade two in recent weeks.

The impact is sizable, not only reversing the decline but boosting performance of the sector by three points to 72 per cent, the highest it has been for two years.

The chief inspector is currently putting the finishing touches to her first annual report and its accompanying speech.

Even though this recent upturn is technically too late to be part of a report about last year, I do still hope it is acknowledged.

And FE Week will be watching the inspection trend over coming months closely, hopeful for students and staff that performance keeps getting better.

Milton’s mission – An interview with the Apprenticeships & Skills minister

Anne Milton has just passed her six-month mark as apprenticeships and skills minister. FE Week paid her a visit to find out how she’s handling her vast brief, and her vision for FE.

A self-confessed troublemaker who was always up to mischief at school, Anne Milton now wants to change the way parents and teachers view careers for young people.

“I would like to see a shift in parent and teacher attitudes to the career choices their children make,” she says, when asked what she wants to achieve during her time as minister.

“They need to understand the huge range of choices that are out there for their kids, and not automatically, as a knee-jerk reaction, look at university as the only option.”

Pushing alternatives to higher education has always been a passion for Milton, which dates back to her school days, where she admits she was a reluctant learner.

“I always sat at the back of the class,” she explains. “I was quite disruptive and a complete pain to teach, looking back on it.”

“We need to get employers realising there is an opportunity available for them in the levy and I want them to start using it.”

As a middle-class girl growing up in West Sussex, she attended the “high-achieving” Haywards Heath Grammar School, where there were three options if you didn’t want to go to university: be a nurse, a teacher or an executive PA.

Admitting that she didn’t have the application or desire to consider higher education, she dug her heels in when her teachers pushed her in that direction, and instead became a nurse, which she worked as for 25 years.

Now she’s come full circle.

“Nursing in those days was typically an apprenticeship route. You applied for the school of nursing, not university, and the students were essentially the workforce. We did exactly what an apprenticeship does today; we earned some money and learnt as we went along, trained off the wards and did some on-the-job training,” she says.

“Here I am back again in apprenticeships.”

Nursing is a far cry from a career in politics, so what prompted her to become an MP?

READ MORE: 11 facts about the new skills minister

“If my teachers had considered why I was disruptive in class and why I talked too much they might have suggested that politics was a fine option for me,” she admits with a chuckle.

Later in life, she realised that her lifelong “burning passion” was to right injustices and make sure people were represented well – not in a political sense but generally – could be channelled into a career in parliament.

“A vessel, if you like, into which I could put all of that burning passion that had simmered away inside me for years,” she says.

Since becoming the MP for Guildford in 2005, Milton has served as a shadow minister for both tourism and health. She has also been parliamentary under-secretary of state for health, and a government whip.

It could be argued that she has inherited the ministerial role at the most critical time in FE’s history, considering the extensive reforms to apprenticeships and technical education. So how is she finding the challenge?

The brief “fits me like a glove”, she smiles.

“All through the years of the Labour government when there was a big push on university, I constantly used to think, ‘what about the 50 per cent that don’t go to university?’ We want a versatile workforce – and for people’s happiness we need versatility – and that is what I’m here to push.”

She feels very fortunate that the sector – learners, training providers and employers – are “fundamentally enthusiastic about the direction we are travelling in”, and that has made her even more determined to get the reforms right.

“There are huge amounts of goodwill to make this work,” she says. “Six months into the job I feel I have the background to understand well where the sticking points are, where we need to put some oil on the wheels.”

Milton says the skills brief is a “very practical” role and she is clear that both her department and the Institute for Apprenticeships need to be nimble and responsive.

Milton during her time as a nurse

Besides changing parental and teacher perceptions of university as the only route into a successful career, she wants the apprenticeships service working like “like a piece of silk” by the time she leaves the role.

But she is acutely aware of the challenges.

“The challenge is that it is all new,” she confesses. “The levy is new, the IfA is new but now it needs to be fast and effective and efficient and adaptive.

“We need to get employers realising there is an opportunity available for them in the levy and I want them to start using it.”

She adds that she wants employers to be “evangelical” about apprentices, and get to the stage where the success of their business can be attributed to them.

While her enthusiasm for the ministerial role is clear, Milton cannot deny that has made some controversial decisions over the past six months.

“Procurements,” she says without hesitation, asked what the hardest part of the job has been.

“They’re really hard. It is essentially a competition, and about making sure that you have got bars set in the right place to make sure you get the best.

“But you also have to make sure you have a mitigation scheme for those that lose out as you don’t want to destabilise the system.”

The IfA is new but now it needs to be fast and effective and efficient and adaptive

She’s referring to the two procurement exercises that have infuriated the sector since she came on board: the adult education budget and non-levy tenders. Both have descended into farce as the government battled with oversubscription and last-minute rule changes.

She seems torn between admission of failure and saving face, insisting they have “not gone badly” before she contradicts herself and concedes they have “not been great”.

But the government is about “making decisions” and that is what her department has had to do.

She did, however, offer her “sincere apologies” to providers that have been caught up in the current non-levy tender debacle, after the results of the second attempted procurement were postponed.

“I really understand people’s frustration,” she claims. “It is terribly frustrating when people expect deadlines to be kept, and the message is ‘I understand your frustration and you have my sincere apologies’.

“These exercises are not easy to run. Things will only be delayed to make sure we get it right.”

No matter what the FE sector may think about some of her decisions over the last six months, nobody can doubt Milton’s passion for FE and skills.

She became the first skills minister in eight years to attend a WorldSkills competition, held this year in Abu Dhabi, and she pleaded for renewed “partnership” with providers at last month’s Association of Colleges conference.

“Absolutely,” she replies when asked if she’s up to the challenge of spending the next chapter of her career creating a culture of skills in our country.

“I was talking to a school recently about careers and I said ‘don’t think about what you want to be or the job, think about what skill you’ve got. Reframe the question.’,” she recalls.

“If you want to do well, pick a skill where there is a shortage of people. It is not about the job you do, it is about the skills you’ve got and what sort of lifestyle you want. Believe me, the range of careers out there is wide.”

It’s a personal thing

What is your ideal weekend?

Getting all my outstanding work done by Saturday, a day in the garden, on the sofa with a good film, reading my book or having the luxury of a doze!

What do you want for Christmas?

Lots of apprentices – and then being with my family.

Who was your favourite ever prime minister?

I don’t really do favourites, but as minister for women it’s great to have another female PM because it’s a message to young girls that they can do anything they want.

If you could choose any dinner guests, who would they be?

Field Marshall Alan Brook
Susie Orbach
Marie Curie
Mary Watts (wife of GF Watts)
Jo Brand

BREAKING: Government launches 10-week T-levels consultation

The long-awaited public consultation for T-levels has today been launched by the government.

The consultation, which has been delayed for over a year, comes in the form of an online survey and is made up of 45 questions.

It is seeking views on the implementation of the new “gold standard” technical qualifications, which are expected to roll out from 2020.

It will be open for 10 weeks (closing on February 8, 2018) and wants insights from businesses and training providers on how T-levels can best be designed to meet the aims set out in the Sainsbury Report and the post-16 skills plan.

You can take part in the consultation here.

Prevent is preventing education

The crude imposition of Prevent in colleges has created a with-us-or-against-us mentality, running roughshod over the British value of tolerance, argues Rania Hafez

At the beginning of the academic year as my second-year students were streaming in, I noticed one of the lads sporting a slightly bushier beard, and found myself wondering whether it was a hipster beard or a radicalised beard.

Needless to say, the young man in question was Asian Muslim. That is how pervasive the Prevent agenda has become, reducing a teacher (and a Muslim one at that) to racially profiling students and questioning the meaning of their facial hair!

While it is indisputable that the UK and mainland Europe face an ongoing terrorist threat from groups and individuals who self-identify as Muslim, the response to that threat as exemplified by the Prevent policy, a key component of CONTEST, the government’s counter-terrorism strategy, has been counterproductive and particularly damaging to education. Let me outline why.

Neither bushy beards nor burqas are a precursor to terrorist outrages

Firstly Prevent makes a categorical error in assuming that there is a conveyer-belt process that leads from “moderate” religiosity to murderous radicalisation. In fact, neither bushy beards nor burqas are a precursor to terrorist outrages. This fundamental fault has branded an entire faith and its followers as susceptible to extremism, and made teachers responsible for spotting some rather elusive signs. And herein lies the second problem: how are we to define that extremism? Face furniture and sartorial preferences clearly are the wrong way to go.

The government defines extremism as “vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs”. Yet as any moral philosopher will tell you, values are not geographically bound nor defined by a national legal identity such as being “British”.

The values under question are not absolute: democracy and the rule of law are mutable concepts, open to different perspectives which can at times be contradictory. Take a student who points out in class that opposing unjust laws is a moral imperative and a democratic duty. Under the guidelines she may very well find herself falling foul of this policy and branded an extremist. The whole concept is educationally incoherent.

As a sector we have bought into a flawed policy that is jeopardising our mission and role as educators

The trouble with Prevent is that it will only prevent what education should be encouraging: critical engagement with difficult, even controversial ideas, in an atmosphere that promotes that most fundamental of educational values, freedom of thought and expression.

As a sector we have bought into a flawed policy that is jeopardising our mission and role as educators. And we cannot claim that we did so unwittingly.

The crude imposition and policing of Prevent and British values in schools and colleges have created a binary situation, saying either “you are with us or against us”, totally oblivious to the irony of the fourth British value, “tolerance of different faiths and beliefs”.

We are complicit as a nation in problematising a whole faith community and pathologising actions that are simply an expression of religious observance. We are asked to spy on our Muslim students who are deemed latent victims of radicalisation in need of constant surveillance. And witness the recent Ofsted edict requiring inspectors to question primary school girls who wear a headscarf. It may very well be bushy beards next!

The impact of the Prevent policy on education and on us as educationalists is grave. Prevent has helped legitimise a wider Islamophobic discourse, and our uncritical compliance has made us party to that discourse. That is quite serious indictment for a sector and a profession whose vocation is nurturing critical objective enquiry and promoting equity and justice.

More importantly though, we are failing in upholding and safeguarding education’s sacred purpose and its foundational principles: freedom of thought, freedom of expression, and the unfettered pursuit of knowledge. These are our society’s principal weapons in confronting and defeating extremist ideas, wherever they may come from.

Rania Hafez is programme leader for MA education at the University of Greenwich

Almost 200 T-level panel members announced

The full membership of the first six T-level panels has been announced by the Department for Education.

The 187-strong membership encompasses a range of employers, training providers and college staff across 16 panels in the categories of ‘digital’, ‘education and childcare’, ‘construction’, ‘health and science’, ‘legal’, ‘financial and accounting’, and ‘engineering and manufacturing’.  

This represents the first six classroom-based routes for the new classroom-based technical qualifications due to begin from 2021, though limited pathways will be available in 2020 for courses in ‘digital’, ‘education and childcare’ and ‘construction’.

Notable names announced include the head of software engineering at BBC Online Technology Group, Matthew Wood, who sits on the ‘software applications, design and development’ panel.

The head of apprenticeships at the Construction Industry Training Board, Gillian Cain, is on the ‘on-site construction panel’, while Newcastle College’s vice-principal Scott Bullock is on the ‘health’ panel.

The chief executive of the Chartered Banker Institute, Simon Thompson, will sit on the ‘financial’ panel, while the principal of UTC Sheffield, Alex Reynolds, joins the ‘design and development in engineering and manufacturing’ panel. The manager of emerging talent at Lloyds Banking Group, Damian Jacobs, will sit on the ‘data and business services’ panel. 

 

They range in size, with 15 members on the ‘design and development’ and ‘maintenance, installation and repair’ panels in engineering and marketing, and just seven members on the ‘health’ panel.

The roles are all paid, with chairs receiving £2,000 per quarter while each member’s employer receives £1,000 per quarter. The chairs of the six panels were announced in October.

Still to be announced are the membership of panels for six routes due to begin from 2022: ‘hair and beauty’, ‘agriculture’, ‘environment and animal care’, ‘business and administrative’, ‘catering and hospitality’ and ‘creative and design’.

 

Source: DfE ‘Post-16 technical education reforms’

The membership of the four apprenticeship-only routes of ‘transport and logistics’, ‘sales, marketing and procurement’, ‘social care’ and ‘protective services’ is also still not known.

For the full membership of T-level panels for 2020 and 2021 delivery, click here.

Movers and Shakers: Edition 227

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

Iain Wolloff, Principal, Newbury College

Start date: February 2018
Previous job: Deputy principal, Farnborough College of Technology
Interesting fact: Iain, who began his career in child protection, holds a first-class degree in social science, as well as postgraduate degrees in
politics, teaching and management.

____________________________________________

Helen Camilleri, Business development project manager, the College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London

Start date: October 2017
Previous job: Progression programmes adviser, John Lewis Partnership
Interesting fact: Helen’s favourite food is seafood and garlic with white wine.

____________________________________________

Peter Kennedy, Principal, Franklin College

Start date: February 2018
Previous job: Deputy principal, Huddersfield New College
Interesting fact: Peter has recently developed a passion for running and enjoys putting on his trainers and escaping to the countryside.

____________________________________________

Lucy Edge, Chair designate, Truro and Penwith College

Start date: January 2018
Previous job: Founder and general manager, Avanti Communications Spacecraft Operations Centre
Interesting fact: Outside of work, Lucy is a keen athlete.

____________________________________________

Sir Charlie Mayfield, Non-executive chairman, QA Group

Start date: November 2017
Previous job: Chairman, the John Lewis Partnership (ongoing)
Interesting fact: Sir Charlie began his career as an officer in the army, and went on to become marketing manager for Lucozade.

 

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

Large fall in advanced learner loan applications

Advanced learner loan applications are continuing to fall, according to new government statistics.

Applications so far for 2017/18 are down 11,100 – or 17 per cent – on the same time last year.

FE Week reported last month that final 2016/17 loan applications dropped across all age groups to which they were available in previous years.

This morning’s statistics show there have been 54,900 loan applications for the year to date, down from 66,000 last year.

Applications from those aged 24 to 30 have shown the biggest drop, down 20 per cent 19,630 this time last year to 15,650 this year.

Apart from A-level applications – numbers of which remain very small – other level three courses have taken the biggest hit.

Just 33,860 applications were for certificate, diploma or vocational courses at this level so far in 2017/18 – down 21 per cent.

Source: DfE, Advanced learner loans application information: November 2017, November 2016

Gordon Marsden, the shadow skills minister, branded the latest figures “awful”, and another “example of a department that is increasingly accident prone and self-combusting”.

“The government has consistently, ever since advanced learner loans came in, just gone hell for leather to expand loans and scrap grants without waiting to see the impact on particular groups,” he said.

Mark Dawe, the chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, called the statistics “disappointing” – particularly as they are “an important part of the skills offer” discussed at the government’s Skills Summit on the same day.

“The frustrations are that some independent training providers could deliver more loans-funded learning if growth wasn’t capped and that the door is currently closed to new providers,” he said.

And Stephen Evans, chief executive of the Learning and Work Institute, called for “urgent action” to reverse the downward trend.

“This includes testing new approaches through new career learning pilots and reforms to the system, including greater flexibility to fund modules that adults and employers often want,” he said.

FE loans, originally known as 24+ loans, were introduced in 2013/14 for learners studying courses at levels three or four and aged 24 and older.

Their introduction corresponded with a fall in adults studying at levels three and four+, from 273,400 in 2012/13 to 195,200 in 2013/14, according to the DfE’s own statistics.

That number had fallen further still, to 169,400 by 2015/16.

Yet loan eligibility was expanded in 2016/17 to include 19- to 23-year-olds, and courses at levels five and six.

This expansion led to an increased in overall application numbers in 2016/17 – but this masked drops of between eight and 12 per cent from those age groups that were previously eligible for the loans.

FE Week revealed in September, through a Freedom of Information request, that a massive 58 per cent of FE loans funding – amounting to almost £1 billion – had not been spent since 2013.

The Student Loans Company, which processes advanced learner loans for the government, revealed that only £652 million in loan-funded provision had actually been delivered since 2013, compared with £1.56 billion in allocations.

Former Education and Skills Funding Agency and Institute for Apprenticeships chief executive Peter Lauener took over as leader of the SLC this week, following the dismissal of its previous boss Steve Lamey.

A DfE spokesperson said: “We will continue to work with colleges and training providers to raise the profile of advanced learner loans.”

Two thirds of apprenticeships ‘convert’ existing employees, report warns

Two thirds of apprenticeships are merely “converting” existing employees and could be certifying existing skills, rather than focusing on expanding expertise, a new report has warned.

Researchers recommend that Ofsted inspections should check that these existing employees being converted into apprentices are actually learning new skills.

‘Better apprenticeships’, by social mobility foundation the Sutton Trust, looked at whether apprenticeships are of a high-enough quality to boost the life chances of young people aged 16 to 24.

The issue of employers rebadging existing staff as apprentices – or “conversions” – is one of four “systemic problems” it found within the current apprenticeship model.

Around two thirds of apprentices are conversions, which “highlights the way in which the concept of apprenticeship has been stretched to achieve numerical targets rather than to ensure consistent quality”.

“Although this practice was highlighted in a select committee report in 2008, there is still no robust procedure in place to ensure existing employees are improving their skills rather than just being accredited for their existing competence,” the report said.

It recommended that Ofsted should include “specific processes for ensuring that existing employees are participating in substantial training to develop new skills and occupational expertise”.

“Although reference is made in several reports to the adequacy (or not) of recognising and building on the prior learning and experience of apprentices, there is no distinction made as to whether apprentices are new recruits or existing employees,” it said.

It is also “unclear” how the Institute for Apprenticeships intends to ensure that these conversions are “engaging in substantive training to develop new skills at a higher level”.

READ MORE: apprenticeships must not accredit existing skills

Even though the last Labour government agreed to publish separate statistics on new recruits and conversions from 2010 onwards, “this has still not happened”. 

In an exclusive expert piece for FE Week, Conor Ryan, the research director for the Sutton Trust, claims that the practice of converting existing staff to apprentices is “one way employers can circumvent” the apprenticeship levy, which came into force in May.

“It is vital that there are tough minimum expectations in every apprenticeship, so that they give apprentices the expertise and capability to adapt to a rapidly changing labour market and that they do not become a bureaucratic burden on business to be dodged by clever accountants,” he wrote.

The report concluded that while there are some “very good quality” apprenticeships, “too many” are “failing to provide sufficient training and access to skilled work to enable participants to progress”.

Other problems include the assumption that any workplace and job was suitable for apprenticeships, which leads to “considerable inconsistency across sector and levels”.

The “segmentation of apprenticeships by level puts an automatic break on progression” with “no expectation” that an apprentice will progress onto the next level.

It also said that “funding arrangements do not incentivise quality”.

An Ofsted spokesperson claimed the report “describes what our inspection of apprenticeship training already does”.

“Our focus is on apprentices’ acquisition of new skills, knowledge and behaviours, the quality of their actual training and the progress they are making,” they said. “That applies whether the apprentice is new to the employer or not.”

An IfA spokesperson said: “Each apprentice should undertake a stretching programme which will result in genuine skills gain, not in the accreditation of existing skills.

“It is important that apprenticeships remain available to new and existing employees, but they should only be offered to the latter where substantial training is required to achieve competency in their role.”

A spokesperson for the Department for Education said: “We want to ensure that everyone, regardless of their background or gender, has the ability to fulfil their potential and get the skills and training they need to build a successful career.”