BREAKING: FE champion Shakira Martin standing for NUS president

The top job at the National Union of Students is in the sights of Shakira Martin, currently vice president for FE, who has confirmed she is running for president in the April 2017 elections.

Ms Martin made the announcement at noon today (March 7) on her Facebook and Twitter accounts with a short video (see below). 

She said: “It is now more than ever that we need to build a strong, fighting union that is campaigning to win for students.

“The government is slashing our education left right and centre, and you need a strong national union to fight on your behalf … We need to put NUS back in your hands.”

Ms Martin said she would bring “vibrancy, fire, energy”and innovation to the role if she wins.

She has been a forceful spokesperson for FE since her election as NUS VP for FE in April 2015, when she replaced Joe Vinson in the job.

In April 2016 she was uncontested for re-elections to the post, winning with 152 votes compared to only 11 votes to re-open the nominations.

Toni Pearce

If she scoops the role of president, she will be the second ever VP for FE to be elected as the leader of the students’ union, after Toni Pearce , who was VP or FE from 2011 to 2013, made the jump into power in July 2013.

Ms Martin, 28, who has two young daughters, would also be the second NUS leader to have attended an FE college instead of studying at university.

She studied a range of courses at Lewisham College from 2005, including a level five diploma in education and teaching, and held the roles of college’s student union president, women’s officer and student liaisons officer.

She has also studied at Bromley College and Morley College in the past.

In 2016, Ms Martin championed a new campaign to force the government to recognise the impact that post-16 area reviews were having on learners.

The #FEunplugged campaign was officially launched in January 2016, with the aim of raising “the profile of area reviews and making sure the student voice is not ignored during the process”.

Later in the year she also began work with former business secretary Sir Vince Cable, on a research project into how major reforms coming for the sector should be tailored for learners entitled ‘Students Shaping FE’, the findings of which will be published in a report by autumn 2017.

Speaking about the project in November last year, Ms Martin said: “The fact that there is not going to be, as it stands, a student voice on the apprenticeship policing body, the Institute for Apprenticeships is a disgrace. That’s the sort of thing we need to address.

“It will be a pleasure working on this ambitious project together.”

Subsequently in December 2016, apprenticeships and skills minister Robert Halon confirmed that the IfA board would be advised by an apprentice panel, though the appointment of an apprentice to the board itself is yet to be achieved.

Ms Martin said at the time: “This is a victory for the apprentices and learners who called for better representation in the IfA.”

However, she added: “We still believe that, ultimately, the only way to be serious about learner voice and apprentice representation is to give them two full seats on the board itself.”

The 2017 NUS elections will take place at the union’s national conference in Brighton on April 25-27, 2017.

Malia Bouattia

Current president Malia Boutattia was elected president on April 20 last year. Previously the NUS’ black students’ officer, Ms Bouattia won in stage one of the count – by 372 votes to 328 for previous national president Megan Dunn.

She is the first black and minority ethnic woman to hold the role, but previously sparked some controversy because of an article she co-authored in 2011, in which she said the University of Birmingham was “something of a Zionist outpost in British higher education”.

An open letter was reportedly sent to Ms Bouattia shortly before her election from protesters and heads of student Jewish societies asking: “Why do you see a large Jewish society as a problem?”

Ms Bouattia reportedly responded to the letter by saying that she was “deeply concerned” that her views had been misconstrued, and highlighting her dedication to “liberation, equality and inclusion”.

Watch Ms Martin’s announcement in full here:

National Apprenticeship Week 2017: More than 10,000 back world record attempt through giant careers advice assembly

More than 10,000 young people joined-in for a giant careers advice assembly, through a world record attempt for National Apprenticeship Week 2017.

Schools, young people, parents, and employers from across the country tuned in to the event, called ‘The Big Assembly’,  from 8.45am to 9.15am this morning.

Robert Halfon

It was introduced by apprenticeships and skills minister Robert Halfon, and featured special films of and by apprentices, as well as questions and answers with experts.

The aim was to get more than 5,000 log-ins and to set a new Guinness World Records title in the process.

They didn’t quite manage to get that many, ending with 1,809 log-ins from 200 seperate‎ schools and colleges, but more than doubled their target for the number of young people who actually watched it – topping 10,000.

Helen Richardson, managing director of Work Pays and producer of the Big Assembly, said: “It was so impressive in terms of the number of schools, in particular, who took the time to rearrange their timetables so that their students could watch the Big Assembly.

“We didn’t quite manage to break the world record, because that relied on logins, and you could have hundreds of children watching one login.

“But we more than doubled our target for the number of young people who actually watched, which is great news with spreading the word about the huge benefits of apprenticeships and vocational training.”

She added: “Everything that happened today was delivered by apprentices, from the filming of it, to Liam Jackson, a level three business admin apprentices who hosted the whole thing, so I would like to thank them all.

“We also gave out careers-experience related prizes to 11 schools involved – including a day as acting chief executive for Nottinghamshire City Council, and a day with Boots UK learning all about how products are developed and launched.”  

The East and West Midlands Apprenticeship Ambassador Network, Workpays, and GetMyFirstJob organised the record attempt, with support from The National Apprenticeship Service, and D2N2, and Leicester and Leicestershire local enterprise partnerships.

It was also backed by a wide variety of employers including East Midlands Chamber, Toyota, Highways England, Nottingham City Homes, the BBC, Derry Building Services, Derby Homes, Busy Bees, Young Professionals,  EMH Group, Futures Housing Group, Uniper,  as well as Boots UK, and Nottingham City Council. 

Caption for main pic above: Liam Jackson, level three apprentice and Big Assembly presenter, Charlotte Potter, from Highways England, Helen Richardson, Big Assembly producer, and 

Prue Day, from Get My First Job

 

Here are some tweets about it:

 

 

Making sense of the plans for T-Levels

As reported in FE Week yesterday, the Budget on Wednesday will announce new money for technical education to fund what some national newspapers have called ‘T-Level’. The government said it was “the most ambitious post-16 education reforms since the introduction of A-levels 70 years ago.”

Is the introduction of T-Levels a new announcement?

No. The Government first announced in November 2015 that they had big plans for reforming Post-16 skills training, starting with a review by a panel led by Lord Sainsbury.

In May 2016 FE Week exclusively reported that there would be an academic and vocational divide at 16, with 15 new technical education routes.

Then, in July the government officially responded to the Sainsbury review and confirmed the plans for 15 routes in a Post-16 Skills Plan.

Read more: What are T-Levels?

In July the government said there was no new money to fund the courses in these 15 routes, so what is new is a commitment to increase teaching hours from 600 to 900 with additional investment of £500m by September 2022.

See DfE slide below for more detail

What is the timescale for the introduction of T-Level?

– April 2018 : the Institute for Apprenticeships (launching next month) becomes Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education
– October 2018 : Procurement begins for new technical qualifications (single awarding bodies)
– February 2019 : Technical qualifications approved for ‘pathfinder’ routes
– September 2019: First teaching of ‘pathfinder’ routes
– September 2020 – September 2022 – Phased teaching of other routes

See DfE slide below for more detail

Will there only be 15 T-Levels?

No. There are 15 routes but multiple occupations within them and four of the routes are to be delivered “primarily through apprenticeships”. For example, the journalism occupation sits in the same route as upholstery (see DfE slide below). Also read this from FE Week.

Is the T-Level a qualification?

Yes. As explained in the DfE slide below, qualifications will be developed to cover “core content” and a single organisation or consortium will be granted an exclusive licence to develop and certificate them.

 

Exclusive: Third largest awarding organisation pulls out of apprenticeship market

Awarding giant OCR has delivered a major blow to the government’s reforms programme by pulling out of delivering final apprenticeship exams altogether, FE Week can reveal.

The exam board was previously listed on register of apprentice assessment organisations, as an end-point assessor for the level four network engineer and software developer standards.

But an OCR spokesperson confirmed to FE Week today that it has pulled out completely from delivering end-point assessment.

The news comes just two weeks after FE Week reported that changes to the funding rules could price many assessors out of running apprenticeship exams.

“Implementing the reforms to apprenticeships will require a high level of development and investment and OCR has recently decided that, unfortunately, we will not now be pursuing or developing any new apprenticeship standards that incorporate changes in assessment,” the spokesperson for OCR, which will still have to pay the apprenticeship levy from next month, said. 

The exam board would continue to “support apprenticeship programmes offering qualifications that fit into the existing apprenticeship frameworks, including NVQs, VRQs, Cambridge Technicals and Functional Skills,” she added.

According to Ofqual statistics, OCR is the third largest awarding organisation – awarding 1.78 million certificates in 2014/15, which is the most recent published.

The company’s turnover in the accounts year ending July 2016 was £78 million, and its staff pay bill is in excess of £20 million.

This means that OCR will be in the uncomfortable position of having to pay the levy, even though it won’t offer any standards assessment.

FE Week reported two weeks ago that new rules coming into force in May will set the cost of final apprenticeship exams at a fifth of the overall training costs agreed between an employer and a training provider.

This will move away from previous guidelines which set the charge at no more than 20 per cent of the funding-band maximum for that standard.

It was warned at the time that this could leave awarding bodies struggling to apprenticeship final exams at an unrealistically low price, which they would effectively play no part in negotiating.  

Details of what should be included in an apprentice’s final exam are set out by the employer groups developing a standard, and are outlined in the assessment plan.

Some of these can be highly detailed, and therefore have high costs attached to them – which bear no relation to the cost of training.

Stephen Wright, chief executive of the Federation of Awarding Bodies, warned that the rule change could limit assessors’ ability to deliver the exams.

“Like every other organisation, awarding organisations can only provide their services for a fair price,” he said.

“If the percentage of the price between the trainer and the employer is too low to deliver a valid assessment, then awarding organisations will simply not offer end-point assessments, which will undermine the whole system.”

News of OCR’s defection from the apprenticeship exam market will be a blow for the government, which has been struggling to persuade organisations to sign up to deliver end point assessment.

By the end of January just over half – 81 out of 159 – standards approved for delivery had at least one assessment organisation in place.

But the proportion of learners on standards without an approved assessment organisation has been dropping rapidly, from 42 per cent in July to 18 per cent in October.

Hold on – there’s a hitch in the £500m promise

Sunday morning politics show devotees will recognise that there’s usually a theme that underpins the headlines – be it a leak, an announcement, heaven forbid a scandal – but so infrequently is this theme directly related to the FE world. This weekend, FE was the story.

And while all the talk of ‘T-levels’ was something of a distraction, the announcement that the upcoming budget will bring new investment in FE has been warmly received by all parts of the sector. There’s little doubt that it’s needed – after significant cuts to budgets over the last parliament and an unfavourable international comparison of post-16 funding, there’s an audible sigh of relief.

Any why is it so important? We all read it, that dreaded line in the ministerial foreword to the ‘Post-16 Skills Plan’: “We accept and will implement all of the Sainsbury panel’s proposals, unequivocally where that is possible within current budget constraints” and our hearts sank. More reform, more investment required yet no money. A recipe for disaster.

So the announcement of additional funding is certainly a welcome step in the right direction. However (and with apologies for putting the obligatory damper on the ebullience of the weekend) there are still challenges ahead.

Although the headlines talked of an additional £500 million, it’s our job to look at the detail, and here’s the first thing to note: there is a phased implementation. The first additional investment of £100m will be made in 2019/20 for teaching the first two pathfinder routes. Investment will then be increased year on year until all the new technical routes are available in 2022, at which time the additional annual investment will be ‘over £500m’. I promise at this point I tried not to think of the emperor’s new clothes, but (unless someone made a change to the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act without telling me) with the next general election in May 2020, that’s only £100m promised within this parliament – and an additional £500+ million that cannot yet be taken for granted.

The extra £100m investment that will come in 2019/20 will be vital in securing the effective implementation of the new technical routes. Anyone who has experienced a change programme in the sector before (and we’ve had a few) will know that there will be expenditure across many budget lines, from potential equipment costs to ensure that colleges can deliver the new employer-designed standards, to CPD for the workforce, to marketing and promotion of the courses, to working with local employers and critically, to developing relationships for work placements.

And these placements will present a significant challenge. When I speak to any member of staff from a school, college or training provider that is involved in finding work experience placements, they all tell similar stories of hard work, many conversations, multiple knockbacks and difficulty reaching the right person within organisations. Work experience placements are hard to find. Even the Treasury press release on the budget announcement reinforced the challenge of the more substantial work placement that will form a mandatory part of the technical route. It stated that “66% of employers consider work experience important for those entering the labour market, yet only 30% offer work experience”. I don’t think anyone would argue about the value of experience in the workplace or the impact that a good placement can have, however, there was nothing in the release that would suggest ways of overcoming existing barriers.

The recent Institute for Fiscal Studies report reminded us, “alongside many policy changes, 16–18 education has been the only area of education spending to see reductions in resources as a result of recent Spending Reviews”. This has created a challenging financial settlement for the sector. However welcome the additional funding is, the apprenticeship reforms have shown us the relative cost and complexity of some employer-designed models. Those involved in the design and development of these new technical routes must consider the cost implications of these new courses, or else the additional investment could end up being spent on the wrong things.

And for those in the sector offering A-Levels or Applied General qualifications, the budget announcements offered little respite. The additional funding is explicitly linked to the implementation of the technical routes. So that ‘bigger story’ from the IFS report still contains some stark warnings.

Chancellor to announce ‘over £500m’ per year in extra funding for post-16 skills reform

The Budget will invest new funding in FE from 2019 to pay for increasing the amount of training for 16 to 19-year-olds by more than 50 per cent to over 900 hours a year.

This will come as a welcome surprise to the FE sector, as when the Sainsbury reforms were first outline in the Post-16 Skills Plan last June it was to be achieved “within current budget constraints.”

But today the Treasury has confirmed that at the Spring Budget, on Wednesday, the Chancellor will put in an additional £100m for the first teaching on new technical education routes in 2019/20 (the final year of this spending review period).

This will rise each year as more routes are introduced, until there is teaching on all 15 routes in September 2022, when the extra funding will reach an annual figure “over £500m”.

The chief executives for both the college and independent sector membership bodies enthusiastically welcomed the announcement of new funding.

David Hughes, chief executive of the AoC and writing in FE Week said he was “delighted that the Chancellor has listened” to their calls for “fair funding for colleges”.

He goes on to say: “The announcement certainly signals a step-change in thinking, backed thankfully by proper  investment  which will put us on a par with our international competitors” and “this announcement will make a significant and positive difference.”

The Treasury has described this “major” and “radical investment” as “the most ambitious post-16 education reforms since the introduction of A-levels 70 years ago.”

Mark Dawe, chief executive of AELP told FE Week: “The increased investment in technical skills for a post-Brexit Britain is welcome.  Combined with apprenticeships, this will have a real impact.”

A statement from the Treasury concludes the post-16 skills reform “will help deliver a vision to have two genuine routes of equal footing to develop world class skills for young people; either via a well-established academic route or a technical skills route with a new and improved upgraded system – helping to build an economy that works for everyone.

However, those with not so distant memories will hope this latest reform does not repeat the failures of the 14-19 Diploma, introduced in 2008 and phased out in 2013. “The post-16 alternatives to GCSEs and A levels in schools and colleges need to be more widely available and to be credible with employers” said the 2005 White Paper, adding: “This major package of reform seizes a once-in-a-generation chance to transform 14-19 education and skills.”

The Budget will also announce the introduction of FE maintenance loans for students on courses at level 4 and above at National Colleges and Institutes of Technology, as well as “a fund of up to £40m” for “piloting new approaches to encourage lifelong learning”.

The full Treasury press release was as follows:

 

Shake-up to technical education to be confirmed amid major investment in skills at Budget

  • Budget to prioritise the next generation, helping young people get the skills they need to secure better-paid, higher-quality jobs
  • £500 million of investment every year will be committed to increase training for 16-19 year olds

A radical investment to implement the most ambitious post-16 education reforms since the introduction of A-levels 70 years ago will be placed at the heart of this week’s Budget.

The Chancellor, Philip Hammond will recognise that as the UK prepares to leave the EU, it is more important than ever that young people are ready and able to make the most of the opportunities ahead.

To give them the skills they need to secure the high-paid, high-skilled jobs of the future, he will announce a series of reforms to technical education, backed by over £500 million per year.

This will be underpinned by a transformation of the confusing current system of technical education, which is made up of around 13,000 separate qualifications. It will be replaced with a much more streamlined model of 15 world class routes that better suit the needs of students and businesses.

The government will work with employers and colleges to design these routes, from construction to creative based design professions, so that when young people leave college they have the skills, knowledge and expertise that employers want, as the Prime Minister’s modern Industrial Strategy boosts opportunities and spreads them to all sections of society and all regions of the country.

The new announcements also take the next step in the government’s plans to tackle weaknesses in the UK’s productivity levels – which the Chancellor will reiterate, is the only sustainable way to improve living standards for families up and down the country.

They will help deliver a vision to have two genuine routes of equal footing to develop world class skills for young people; either via a well-established academic route or a technical skills route with a new and improved upgraded system – helping to build an economy that works for everyone.

By pressing ahead with these reforms, the Chancellor will confirm that the government will deliver in full the recommendations of Lord Sainsbury’s review on Technical Education.

These include:

  • Increasing the amount of training for 16-19 year olds on technical routes by more than 50% to over 900 hours a year, including the completion of a high-quality industry work placement during the programme. These routes will be rolled out from 2019/20 and will receive over £500 million of new funding every year once fully up and running.
  • The provision of maintenance loans, like those available to university students, to students on higher technical education courses at levels 4-6 in National Colleges and Institutes of Technology. This will create real parity with the academic route. 

The Chancellor will also recognise that people should have the chance to retrain and upskill at all points of their lives and the Budget will set out further steps to support this, including:

  • Piloting new approaches to encourage lifelong learning to reflect the fact that the changing nature of work makes retraining and reskilling essential. A fund of up to £40m will be invested to test different approaches to do this.
  • Confirming maintenance loans for part-time degree-level study to improve support available tostudents, and doctoral loans to support higher-level study. Successive reforms to the student finance system now mean that government support will be available to adults wishing to study at any qualification level, from basic skills to PhDs.

Notes for Editors

There is a strong rationale to increase the technical skills of our young people:

  • There is increasing demand for intermediate and higher-level skills from employers: The CBI found that on balance, around 75% of businesses will demand more higher-level skills and around 40% will demand more intermediate level-skills.
  • Closer links to the world of work are required: 66% of employers consider work experience important for those entering the labour market, yet only 30% offer work experience.
  • The current system is confusing for students and employers: There are around 13,000 qualifications available for young people to choose from, many of which hold little value for either individuals or employers.
  • Our technical education system is weak by international standards: only 10% of 20-45 year olds hold technical education as their highest qualification, placing us 16th out of 20 OECD countries and by 2020 the UK is set to fall to 28th out of 32 OECD countries for intermediate (upper-secondary) skills.
  • And our current study programme for 16-19 year olds is smaller than leading international comparators: We currently fund 600 hours of study per year for our 16-19 year old students. This is less than countries with leading technical education systems, like Denmark and the Netherlands.

Budget will give green light to FE maintenance loans, which is a step in the right direction

It’s hard to believe that it’s been nearly a year since Lord Sainsbury’s independent panel on Technical Education reported the findings of their inquiry and kick-started what the government are now calling “the most ambitious post-16 education reforms since the introduction of A Levels 70 years ago.”

Central to Sainsbury’s reforms, and subsequent commitment from government including the 2017 Spring Budget, is to ‘level the playing field’ between an established and well-respected academic route through post 16 education, and a technical training route for ‘other people’s children.’

Part of this divide has been that for a long time, the State has significantly financially incentivised full time residential higher education; tuition fee loans and maintenance loans for living costs have been provided and the information on accessing those is relatively easy to come by. There’s even a handy government calculator. 

Post-recession, interest in forms of education and training that were ‘vocational’ and ‘work based’ grew.

However at the same time, public funding for those kinds of courses was cut.

 

But, in 2013, tuition fee loans were introduced in to the further education sector. Now from 19 years-old upwards, an Advanced Learner Loan will cover your tuition costs and you’ll repay under the same terms as HE student loans; 9% of your income over £21,000 a year and nothing until you earn that amount.

This is undoubtedly a step in the right direction.

Yet, the State provides additional loans to help HE students meet some of their living costs while studying.

There was still an unfairness in the system. Quitting your full time job and doing a full time level 4 in a technical subject somewhere across the country would still not be a viable option unless you were well off enough to afford all of your living costs yourself.

So, redressing the balance between academic and technical student finance support even more, then Skills Minister, Nick Boles MP, launched a consultation 12 months ago on the introduction of further education maintenance loans.

One year later, and we have now heard that government intends to go ahead with its proposals and introduce maintenance loans for higher technical students to “create real parity with the academic route”. Maintenance loans will be made available to support students on courses at levels 4-6 at National Colleges and Institutes of Technology.

Providing extra support to stimulate demand for higher level technical training is absolutely welcome. But the question has to be asked – what about all of the higher technical students of the future, on a Sainsbury approved technical training route, but not studying at a National College or Institute of Technology? Is this levelling the playing field, or is this just another ball-game of winners and losers?

In our response to the original consultation of maintenance loans, Learning and Work Institute opposed restricting access to maintenance loans for students in National Colleges and Institutes of Technology. We believe it would be wrong for the State to intervene in the supply market in such a way that doesn’t have anything to do with quality.

The government would not suddenly restrict student loans to students at Russell Group universities.

Instead, there should be a universal offer of maintenance loans for higher technical education students. Just like there is for university students.

This is undoubtedly a step in the right direction.

We look forward to when more detail will be published following the Budget on Wednesday.

 

‘Shocked’ staff sent packing as huge apprenticeship training provider goes bust

One of the largest apprenticeship providers in England has called in the administrators after the Skills Funding Agency terminated their contract, FE Week has learned.

First4Skills, which holds an annual £15m apprenticeship allocation and is 60 percent owned by City of Liverpool College, this afternoon told around 200 ‘shocked’ staff to pack their belongings and leave.

It is understood as many as 6,500 apprentices will be affected, typically in the retail sector, some with the 14 subcontractors that share £4.7m in contracts.

Matthew Kopanski, an employee in the administration team at First4Skills, described  how “we were emailed today, and a minute later called into an office with the director and the administrator and told we have no job, no notice period and no redundancy pay from the company.

“It’s a massive shock and I’m disappointed with what has happened. I have rent to pay and holidays booked, as well as other day to day expenses.”

One First4Skills manager took to LinkedIn to say “this has been an absolute shock to all concerned. So many talented staff members, not to mention the learners, will be affected by this decision.”

Another this evening said: “I am utterly gutted! I have given First4Skills my all for over 10 years, working with some amazing people. I wish all of my colleagues to come out of this stronger than ever.”

It is believed that First4Skills were inspected by Ofsted in early February and in a few weeks their published report will confirm a grade four, which as a private training provider would typically lead to a funding contract termination.

When asked whether the Skills Funding Agency were aware of the situation, a DfE spokesperson said: “We have exercised our right to terminate First4Skills Limited’s contract.

“We are working to ensure learners’ programmes are not disrupted and that where required alternative training provision is identified and transfer arrangements made.

“We will work with employers through the National Apprenticeship Service to ensure they are fully involved in the transfer process.”

The First4Skills website has been taken down and this afternoon the phone went unanswered.

The majority owner of First4Skills, City of Liverpool College, has itself had “severe financial problems” requiring millions in bailouts according to the government..

In a scathing letter from the Skills Minister in October, the college was informed it was to be placed into “Administered College status with immediate effect.”

The letter said that despite the college spending money on lawyers to challenge the FE Commissioner process the “government has provided £2 million of Exceptional Financial Support to the college as a result of its failures of financial management this year”.

The Minister went on to say “the Commissioner’s initial assessment in April indicated that the existing leadership had failed to exercise adequate financial oversight, and the recent, incomplete stocktake also found that the board had not properly managed senior post holders or held them to account.

Financial mismanagement is not simply a matter of hitting annual budgets, but of proper financial planning which enables the college to invest in outcomes and quality.”

As a result of the ‘administered status’ the college is “required to consult the Skills Funding Agency about any fundamental changes affecting its operations or finances.”

At the time of publication City of Liverpool College had not been approached for comment.

I’m delighted the Chancellor has faced up to skills challenges of Brexit

In the AoC’s pre-Budget evidence (Spring 2017 Budget submission) we said “…..the Government needs to properly resource education both for young people making the transition into work and also for adults in the workforce who deserve skills support to aid their progression and success.”

We asked for fair funding for colleges. So, I am delighted that the Chancellor has listened; for too long, technical skills and education have been overlooked when investment in education is being considered; this announcement will make a significant and positive difference.

Over the next few years there will be an injection of £500m per year in supporting young people to learn the technical skills they need to be successful in work. There is also welcome support, in the form of maintenance loans, for adults wanting to re-train and a pilot scheme to test new approaches to lifelong learning.

It would be all too easy to see this as jam tomorrow, to meet the needs of the JAMs (just about managing), but that would be churlish.

The fact is, this investment is a vote of confidence in colleges who are ready to work with employers to co-design the new routes, deliver the 900 hours per year and help more young people make a smooth and successful transition to work and to higher level learning.

Of course, colleges would prefer funding increases immediately, but the Government’s finances will result in very few new funding commitments this week or even this year. That means we should welcome the investment and continue to work closely with DfE officials to get this change right so that it delivers for young people and adults.

The announcement certainly signals a step-change in thinking, backed thankfully by proper  investment  which will put us on a par with our international competitors. The current offer to 16-19 year old in academic as well as technical education falls far short of the offer in other countries – 600 hours rather than 900 – 1000 hours in many others.

I am delighted that the Chancellor has listened

We also know that many young people become motivated by experiencing the world of work, so the funding to support work placements is critical to the success of this investment. We will be working hard with our partners to secure the 180,000 work placements of 1 to 3 months which are needed to ensure that technical education is truly occupation focused.

I have seen so many young people learn from a work placement why good literacy, numeracy and communication skills are important, and it does motivate them to achieve and progress in learning.

The Chancellor is right to highlight the need to improve productivity, address regional inequalities and help adults re-train and learn new skills. There will not be enough young people entering the labour market to meet the potentially widening skills gaps and shortages. Finding ways to support adults is a crucial component of our education system and it is a woefully under-funded and overlooked need.

The extension of maintenance loans to adults on pre-degree part-time skills courses is essential to widen access and I look forward to helping the Government design and deliver the pilots for lifelong learning.

Our collective challenge is to find ways to stimulate demand for learning amongst adults and then be creative about how we can offer opportunities in ways which fit in with peoples’ lives and work.

Post-Brexit Britain will need more self-sufficiency in developing skills and people will need the confidence, support and opportunities to adapt and change over 50+ year careers. This announcement is a good down-payment to help develop a new and better system over the next decade.

We will be working with Government to help design that system and implement the changes needed over the next couple of years. We will also keep reminding them of the funding challenges colleges face and the need to address fair funding for academic routes and for adult learning.