After Brexit, the government must replace the £500 million provided every year by the European Social Fund for people in disadvantaged circumstances, says Shane Chowen
It’s only been a month since that windy Tuesday morning when the prime minister announced that the country will face a general election on 8 June.
When parliament resumes on June 19, the new government will have to negotiate Britain’s exit deal with European leaders.
But among talk of negotiations, “divorce payments”, trade deals and “remoaning”, the next government also has to find ways to align its domestic policy agenda to a post-EU legislature. The Conservatives want a great repeal bill to cut many EU laws from the UK.
The new government must also provide some clarity about the future of projects and provision currently in receipt of EU funding, specifically the European Social Fund.
The Brexit white paper, published in February, confirmed that projects funded through European Structural Investment Funds, which includes the ESF, that were signed before the 2016 autumn statement and which have end dates after the UK leaves the EU in 2019, will still be fully funded.
But £400 million-worth of projects currently cofunded between the ESF and the ESFA have an end date of March 2018 – a year before we’re due to leave under Article 50 – and the 76-page white paper makes no specific reference to ESF at all.
Learners and providers have been offered no security or assurances on the future of their funding
Elsewhere, there are 19 open calls for proposals for projects funded through the current ESF programme through DWP: Enterprise M3 LEP is looking for projects to improve digital skills for unemployed people, Hertfordshire LEP has £1.5 million to invest in upskilling its health and social care workforce, and Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire LEP have £5 million available for projects to develop higher-level skills in key sectors.
These calls for proposals specify varying end-dates; some stipulate that projects have to be done by October 2020, and others “after three years”, with the caveat that you could be told sooner at DWP’s discretion.
Providers have the right to know where they stand. Users of the ESF span the private, public and charity sectors. They employ specialist practitioners who work with often the most marginalised and disadvantaged across the UK.
At the Learning and Work Institute, the work we’ve seen done with ESF funding over the years through the Festival of Learning and the Adult Learners’ Week Awards has been extraordinary.
Take Bad Boys Bakery for example. With support from ESF, this programme based in Brixton prison provides skills and work experience to offenders which improves their chances of securing a good job on release. That investment has also led to a dramatic cut in reoffending rates. On average, 47 per cent of ex-offenders reoffend within 12 months of release from prison. For participants of Bad Boys Bakery, that figure is just 3 per cent.
Despite this, learners and providers have been offered no security or assurances at all on the future of their funding, which just isn’t good enough.
The breadth of organisations that have signed up to the campaign to protect the kind of learning opportunities that the ESF currently provides following Brexit demands action. The country cannot afford to lose the £500 million that is invested every year in the life chances and opportunities for people in deprived areas, people with disabilities, older people and ex-offenders.
Replacing the ESF with domestic social investment must be central to the next government’s economic and social justice strategies; whether that’s “a country that works for everyone” or “for the many not the few”.
Shane Chowen is head of policy and public affairs at the Learning and Work Institute
A plumbing student has been crowned the winner of a skills competition in the north-east.
Seventeen-year-old Josh Wilkinson, who studies a level two EAL diploma in plumbing and heating at East Durham College, took first place in the North East Inter-College Plumbing Competition Final, as the only competitor to successfully build a fully watertight pipe circuit.
Students had four hours to build a complex pipe circuit, with their work scored on dimensional accuracy, pipework joints, soldering, clip spacing, machine pipe bending accuracy and watertight performance.
The challenge was taken on both by Josh and his fellow EDC student, Kyle McCullough, also 17, who competed with students from the nearby Bishop Auckland College.
The competition was part of a series of inter-college challenges in the region taking place throughout the year, which challenge different vocational disciplines in an effort to build students’ practical skills and increase their confidence.
“It was a very close-fought contest with only two points separating them all, but Josh emerged as the winner, being the only competitor to achieve a fully watertight pipe circuit,” said Lecturer Tim Beasley.
“Congratulations to Josh, and everyone should be very proud of their performances. They are an absolute credit to their respective colleges.”
Main image: Josh, right, with East Durham’s Rob Hutchinson
Horticulture staff and students at Derby College have designed a garden representing multiple sclerosis as their entry to BBC Gardeners’ World Live.
More than 50 students have been involved in the design and building of the garden, which depicts the journey from diagnosis to life with the disease.
The garden will feature soft-flowering plants and spiky thistles to show the difference between good and bad days experienced by those living with MS, as well as a bridge and cave signifying the support available for sufferers of the condition.
Click to enlarge: the garden design
The college teamed up with the Multiple Sclerosis Society to design the garden, entitled ‘Journey to Hope’ (pictured left), which will be submitted to the annual gardening event for consideration.
“Following our gold award at last year’s BBC Gardener’s World Live we were keen to do something even more ambitious this year,” explained the college’s horticulture lecturer Mike Baldwin.
“Our goal is to raise awareness of the work of the Multiple Sclerosis Society and the challenges, anger, pain and frustration facing more than 100,000 people affected by the neurological condition in the UK.
“It is our biggest project for many years, but we are confident that the results will be striking.”
Main image: The college’s winning entry in last year’s event
A group of students from Wigan and Leigh College have gone behind the scenes of BBC’s Question Time to see what a career in television might be like.
Students from the college’s level three media course and A-level professional honours programme took part in backstage preparations and pitched questions to David Dimbleby during a script rehearsal.
During sound checks, the show’s long-time presenter took the time to ask them about their studies and their interest in politics.
Maria Babu
Students also had the chance to shadow camera operators, audio engineers and producers at the BBC during the rehearsal, to see how the programme was put together.
Maria Babu, a student on the A-level professional honours programme, said: “It was truly an incredible opportunity to be involved in such a high profile television show such as Question Time. The BBC team were so supportive and willing to answer lots of questions about the technology used on sets and about the show. I got an amazing insight into the world of politics and television.”
The college’s professional honours programme offers students the option of studying a combination of A-levels and professional qualifications, along with work experience and internships.
“This has been an incredible opportunity for our students wishing to pursue careers within this industry,” said Anna Dawe, the college’s principal.
“This experience has been invaluable in providing them with opportunities to inform their career aspirations as well as engaging them in current affairs.”
Emily Chapman has overcome depression and anxiety to be elected as the National Union of Students’ new FE champion, a poignant reminder that challenges like these don’t define who you are or what you can achieve.
The NUS’ newly minted vice-president for FE will take up the role in July, marking a complete turnaround from her darkest days, when she was afraid even to leave her room to attend college.
She was brave enough to speak frankly about her experiences during last week’s Mental Health Awareness Week, and the troubles she has conquered to reach this point suggest that, despite her modesty, she has the determination required to fill the space left by formidable predecessor Shakira Martin.
Emily was born in Edinburgh in July 1989, but her dad moved her to Blackwater in Hampshire when she was just 18 months old after her mum walked out on them.
The LCCSU photo wall
She was often cared for by her grandparents while her dad was at work as a credit controller. It was in this job that he met her step-mum, whom Emily says is still “always there” for her.
But life in this quiet country town was disrupted when she moved to Leeds aged 10, the year her half-sister Keri was born.
She had been used to hiding behind her dinner lady grandmother at school in Hampshire, but starting year six in Leeds was much tougher.
“Socially I’ve never been very good; I didn’t make friends very easily,” she admits.
“I found school quite challenging. I was bullied from age five to 15 – more when I came up to Leeds because I was different.”
She describes herself as a “lanky cockney girl” at the time. “I also have quite a high testosterone level and so I have dark hair that is quite prominent,” she explains.
“I got things like ‘Tina Turner’ or ‘Chewbacca’. I really suffered from it quite badly.”
It was an incident at Pudsey Grangefield Secondary School that made Emily stand up for herself, when at age 14 a punch from another student almost broke her nose.
“It shook me into thinking ‘why am I letting this happen?’”
Her “saviour” at the time turned out to be rugby league. She learned how to play and referee and the sport soon boosted her confidence.
“After that, if people did start bullying me again I’d give them stick back,” she adds.
Joining both the student council and the school radio station were other ways to improve her self-esteem – and she soon became a media buff interested in politics.
“It was a way to be hidden but express yourself at the same time,” she says.
Me with the SU mascot, SU the meerkat
This experience led her to study a BTEC national diploma in media studies at Leeds City College – but it was at this point in her life that “the wheels came off the wagon”.
Her dad and step-mum moved to Spain in 2006, but Emily was “stubborn” and decided to stay in England by herself at just 17.
Desperate to find a secure friendship group, she began going out drinking. “I ended up in quite a bad depression. It was a very bad time,” she says.
Between September and December of 2006 she stopped going into college and eventually couldn’t face going out at all.
“I physically couldn’t leave my room,” she explains. “I didn’t want to see the outside world.”
After Christmas with her parents she worked up the courage to go back into college in January, but to her horror found she had been expelled.
Rather than walk away, she explained what had gone wrong and luckily, the college gave her a second chance.
She had to report to a tutor every other day, and was set up in sheltered housing with a counsellor who visited every week.
With this support she achieved an amazing “distinction-merit-merit” result from her diploma.
“It shocked some of my family members; they thought I could only get Es and Fs,” Emily says.
A job on the checkout in Marks and Spencer’s for a year brought more stability. Then she applied for a media and sports studies degree, receiving an unconditional offer from the University of Stirling to start in 2008.
But the path ahead was obscured again when, four weeks before she was due to start university, she found out her parents were coming back to England and getting divorced.
“My family was in disarray at that point,” she says, admitting that the situation triggered struggles with socialising again.
“I was trying to buy my friendships. I kept borrowing money from payday loans, I didn’t pay my bills and I tried to get credit cards so I could keep spending money.”
Everything came to a head just a week before Christmas, when she was evicted after getting behind on her rent.
Emily chokes up as she explains having to call her dad to bail her out: “That broke my relationship with my dad quite badly. I’d let my family down on the money and I’d lied. I thought that I was being an adult and I could deal with it. I couldn’t. That whole scenario basically broke me.”
But despite feeling as though she had hit rock bottom, she found the determination to carry on.
I physically couldn’t leave my room
Just four months later, in April 2010, she found emergency council housing and a new job at Grosvenor Casino, back in Leeds.
“Work became my life. I thought ‘if I’m in work I’ll have money, and I have to have money to live’.”
After two and a half years she moved to a new job at security firm Golden Crown Management, but was battling with an anxiety disorder and regular panic attacks.
“If you’d said to me at that time in 2012 that I would go on to be the next VP for FE at the NUS I would have laughed at you. I didn’t want to be visible in any way,” she says.
The words of a close family friend, who was like an uncle to her, spurred Emily back into education when he passed away in February 2014.
“He always used to say to me, ‘this year is going to be your year, I can feel it my girl’,” she says.
“I used to laugh it off, but when he died it made me ask myself what I really wanted to do.”
She took the plunge and returned to Leeds City College to start a foundation degree in law and criminal studies.
“It was a great feeling,” she says.
At the college’s higher education fair Emily had her first encounter with the student union – when a rep unexpectedly introduced her to the president, Craig Clements.
A campaign shot promoting the need for student voice (I knew this picture would haunt me)
Craig became a mentor, helping Emily through a late diagnosis of dyslexia and partial dyspraxia at 25. Working with the union became a way to overcome her barriers, especially anxiety.
“I’m a lot better than I was. I’ve had a big group of people around me who support me. Shakira was one of them,” she says.
They have been working together since Emily became president of LCCSU in March 2015. And while it has been her “security blanket”, she is looking forward to moving on.
“Shakira and I are completely different people, but I’m really looking forward to working with her when she becomes the national president,” she enthuses.
“We can continue the growth of FE. I’ve got big shoes to fill – I don’t think anyone would disagree with me on that – but hopefully working with her I can do that.”
It’s a personal thing
What is your favourite book?
‘The Butterfly Lion’. I was with my family over the weekend and we were in Waterstones and I saw it for £7. I thought “I know this is a children’s book and I’m turning 28 in July but I don’t care, I’m buying it!”
What do you do to switch off from work?
I spend time with my family. I’m a very big dog lover so we’ve got quite a few dogs in my family and extended family. I enjoy going home and seeing my mum and the dogs.
What’s your pet hate?
I hate negativity. I’m bad for it myself but I don’t like this whole “we’re not going to do it, we think it’s going to fail before we start”. You have to be realistic but you should have some optimism at the same time.
What did you want to be when you were growing up?
I wanted to be a sports journalist. In essence I wanted to be [BBC reporter] Tanya Arnold, who does the rugby league sports show.
Who do you most admire, living or dead, and why?
Jemina Puddleduck, my treasured item
I admire anyone who has gone through bullying and come out the other side of it. It’s one of those things that people can really suffer with and it can harm them. The #BeKind project [an anti-bullying campaign] that ITV’s ‘This Morning’ show are doing at the moment is something that I’m very passionate about and would love to see more of, and I’ll pledge to do more with that. Bullying has got so many evil forms now.
Who do you turn to in times of crisis?
I’ve got a circle of people I turn to. One of them is Craig Clements, the former president of LCCSU, who is basically my best friend now. Even though he hasn’t been president here for two years he hasn’t been very far away and I do speak to him every other day. If I’ve ever got a problem I can ring him. The other person would be my mum. If I need anything mum’s always there at the end of the phone – even if she doesn’t know what I’m talking about, which in terms of politics can happen quite often! She’s always there ready to let me rant and to listen. I turn to mum in crisis mode.
What is your most treasured possession and why?
I think it’s my Jemima Puddleduck toy. I’ve had it since I was a baby; it was given to me when I was born. It’s 27 years old with a floppy head because I used to hold her around the neck and never let her go! She’s always with me, even when I go away to national conferences I take her with me.
Blackpool Sixth Form College’s student council has been on a mission to keep teenagers across the Fylde coast healthy during exam season – by giving out free bananas to those in need.
Each banana comes with a guide produced by the college as part of its ‘Learn to Live’ healthy eating campaign, and addresses how to deal with exam stress, with tips on ways to stay calm, healthy and hydrated.
The guide has been designed for year 11 pupils, and is being distributed across local schools, including Hodgson Academy, Unity Academy, Montgomery High School and Aspire Academy, in an effort to help students boost their grades and reduce stress levels.
“A group of our students took part in an experiment earlier in the year where they changed their habits for two weeks to see if it had a positive impact, said the college’s associate principal Estelle Bellamy.
“Very quickly, they saw huge improvements in their concentration and focus. The student council are really keen to share what they have learned from their research into how learning improves with a healthy lifestyle.”
Seven Lee Stafford Education partner colleges took part in a national hairdressing competition at London’s L’Oréal Academy, and Chichester College came away with most of the accolades, reports Samantha King
Colleges from across the country have competed in the first ever Lee Stafford Education awards, an event open to any institution partnered with the hairdressing brand.
Students and staff from Chichester College, Peterborough College, Knowsley College, Abingdon and Witney College, South Tyneside College, Croydon College and Tresham College all took part, with Chichester romping home in first with three of the awards.
It was made ‘college of the year’ in recognition of standards reached by both students and staff, while Lauren Chater, a 17-year-old apprentice, won first place in the first year styling competition with her mermaid-inspired hair design, and the overall ‘student of the year’ award.
Lauren Chater with Lee Stafford, left, and judge Tony Woods, right
Lauren, who works at the Mark Lewis hair salon in East Wittering, said: “I was really nervous when we were travelling up to London – everyone on the coach was chatting but I was so quiet, which isn’t like me at all.
“Once the competition started I just seemed to relax and spent the whole time talking to my model as I worked on her hair. I never thought I’d win, so I was really surprised when they called out my name.
“I thought it was a joke at first as I had seen the other people in my category and they were amazing!
“To go on and win student of the year was unbelievable, especially as I only started the course in September. I was in shock but I’m really happy and my family are very proud of me.”
I am fortunate and privileged to be working with so many talented college trainers
Lauren’s fellow Chichester students Jodie Mayer and Zana Kuklyte came second in the ‘cutting and styling’ and ‘level three colouring’ categories, though students from Peterborough College and Croydon College pipped them to first.
Alongside the college’s three top prizes, hairdressing tutors Sam Morgan, Sam Lister and Sue Sweeney were presented with a pair of engraved gold scissors in recognition of reaching the highest standard of achievement possible in the partnership, by mastering 22 different hairstyling, cutting and colouring techniques.
“We have always believed we have an enormously talented team in our training salon – and this proves it,” said Shelagh Legrave OBE, Chichester’s principal.
“The awards given to our students and staff recognise the achievements and effort that they put in every day.”
Lee Stafford, the award-winning celebrity hairstylist was also present and posed for photographs with the winners.
“I am fortunate and privileged to be working with so many talented college trainers who have dedicated themselves to developing the next generation of leading stylists,” he said.
“The standard of work on show today is truly outstanding and the students should be incredibly proud of what they are achieving.”
Since the results were announced, a further three colleges – North Kent College, Doncaster College and North Lindsey College – have signed up to become partners for the 2017/18 academic year.
The Education and Skills Funding Agency has dug itself a huge hole. Incredibly, it’s still digging.
As readers will know, it was in the interest of “stability” that it decided to pause the non-levy tender, after demand from over 1,000 providers well outstripped the paltry £440 million that was available.
Instead it is extending pre-May contracts until December, which left some relieved and others – those without direct access to any funding – disappointed.
But the sense of relief and pretence of stability hasn’t lasted long, as the value of the contract extension appears well below expectation, in some cases by as much as 70 per cent.
The ESFA told providers this week how it arrived at these allocation figures, but still refuses to answer key questions about how much was dished out overall.
While it’s clearly unfortunate the data isn’t accurate and that there isn’t more funding for small employers, why refuse to fully explain how much and in what way it’s been allocated?
Starving providers of funding is bad, but also keeping them in the dark is appalling.
A copy of the Draft Labour Party manifesto was leaked to FE Week yesterday. Here’s the section on further education and apprenticeships in full. One of the commitments is to fund apprentice travel, so we’ve asked how much this policy would cost and above is our draft cartoon.
At a time when technology is changing demand for different kinds of skills, and evolving patterns of work mean that people are more likely to pursue several careers over a lifetime, it is crucial that our education system enables people to upskill and retrain over their lifetimes. As part of our dynamic industrial strategy, lifelong training will deliver productivity and growth to the whole economy while transforming the lives of individuals and communities.
To ensure that we deliver for every part of the UK, we will devolve responsibility for skills wherever there is an appetite.
Further and Adult Education
Despite claiming to be committed to delivering high quality training, the Conservatives have ruthlessly cut funding for FE colleges – our main provider of adult and vocational education – and reduced entitlements for adult learners. This has led to diminishing numbers of courses and students, and plunged the sector into crisis.
Labour would introduce free, lifelong education in FE colleges, enabling everyone to upskill or retrain at any point in life.
Our skills and training sector has been held back by repeated reorganisation, which deprives providers, learners and employers of the consistency they need to assess quality. Labour would abandon Conservative plans to once again reinvent the wheel by building new Technical Colleges, redirecting the money to increase teacher numbers in the FE sector.
We share the broad aims of the Sainsbury’s Review but would ensure vocational routes incorporate the service sector as well as traditional manufacturing, working in tandem with our broad industrial strategy to deliver for the whole economy.
We will improve careers advice and open up a range of routes through, and back into, education, striking a balance between classroom and on the job training, to ensure students gain both technical and soft skills.
To implement Sainsbury’s recommendations, we would correct historic neglect of the FE sector by giving the sector the investment – in teachers and facilities – it deserves to become a world-leading provider of adult and vocational education.
More specifically, we would:
Bring funding for 16-18 year olds in line with key stage 4 base lines, while ensuring that the budget is distributed fairly between colleges and school 6th forms
Restore the Education Maintenance Allowance for 16-18 year olds from lower and middle income backgrounds
Replace Advanced Learner Loans and upfront course fees with direct funding, making FE courses free at the point of use.
Drive up quality and consistency in the FE sector by:
Encouraging cooperation and leadership across colleges and 6th forms, improving curriculum breadth and quality
Setting a target, backed up by funding, for all FE teaching staff to have a teaching qualification within five years
In recognition of the role played by private sector providers, we would extend support for training to teachers in the private sector
Increase capital investment to equip colleges to deliver T-levels and an official pre-apprenticeship trainee programme
Apprenticeships
Employer-led training is the most effective way of meeting our growing skills gap. Labour supports the apprenticeship levy, but will take steps to ensure that every apprenticeship is of a high quality.
Labour will:
Maintain the apprenticeship levy while taking measures to ensure high quality by requiring the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education to report on an annual basis to the Secretary of State on quality outcomes of completed apprenticeships to ensure they deliver skilled workers for employers and real jobs for apprentices at the end of their training.
Set a target to double the number of completed apprenticeships at NVQ level 3 by 2022
Give employers more flexibility in how the levy is deployed, including allowing the levy to be used for pre-apprenticeship programme
Guarantee trade union representation in the governance structures of the Institute of Apprenticeships.
Set targets to increase apprenticeships for people with disabilities, care leavers and veterans and ensure broad representation of women, BAME, LGBT and disabled people in all kinds of apprenticeships
Cover apprentices’ travel costs, which currently run to an average of £24 a week – a quarter of earnings if apprentices are on the minimum wage
Consult on introducing incentives for large employers to over-train apprenticeships to fill skills gaps in the supply chain and the wider sector
Reverse cuts to Union Learn
Set up a Commission on lifelong learning tasked with integrating FE and HE
