An FE based edition. FE Colleges, Life Long Learning and Skills have all been marginalised. We look at how this could be reversed for the benefit of learners and society.
Blog 11 September 2023. Liz Bromley CEO Newcastle College Group makes a plea for FE Colleges, Anya Cook looks at women and life long learning, James Whiting writes an open letter on T levels.
Mind The Gap – Skills, the economy, new jobs and life chances
Liz Bromley FRSA CEO of Newcastle College Group, having worked in Universities, laments how FE Colleges have been marginalised and constrained leading to ‘the Gap’ between HE and FE widening further.
I have spent more than 25 years working in the education sector. I was drawn to education as a workplace as the first child in my family to enter university, or indeed to have any interest in learning and formal education. My career started with the Open University, an experience which shaped my view of the transformative power of education open to everyone, regardless of their background, experience or age. The OU was delivering lifelong long, long before the idea of ‘LLE’ was spawned. (But remember the OU did not slam the door closed for anyone over 60.) The notion of education being the ‘golden key to the door of opportunity’ came to me again, reminding me of the opportunities my own journey through education had provided.
Moving from the OU to Salford University took me to a world where a city university strove to work with local employers to create employment opportunities for employable and work-ready learners. Education continued to be transformative on my journey.
By the time I moved to UCLan, a large civic university based in Preston, I felt that I had seen every different facet of university life, study and consequent opportunity. The impact of education on participating minds was manifest. But I had started to have qualms about the debt levels being accumulated by young people, and the downward trajectory in terms of their ‘graduate level’ career paths. I decided that a move to the world of Further Education would take me close to the ethos of the OU that I had so loved many years before.
And herewith comes the Gap. Further Education is the place where lives are changed, positive futures are mapped, and employability becomes a real outcome. It is the underfunded second tier of an education system that should be seen as the national priority as we struggle with skills gaps, new skills requirements, and a declining number forming part of the national workforce. How many times do we hear Ministers refer to ‘Schools and Universities’, missing out that important and yet ‘Forgotten Education’ referred to by Gavin Williamson all those Education Ministers ago; how quickly that was itself forgotten about. Colleges are at the heart of their communities; they are community assets, open to learners of all ages from 14 to (x) – there is no limit to those welcomed through our doors. But the funding regime is laborious and unwieldy. It is hard to quantify how much resource is directed to the behind the scenes administration that is required to keep us funded and compliant, both within colleges, and within the Department; resource that could be directed to our learners, or indeed, to those who teach them.
We have a funding body which has a KPI to recoup as much money as it can from colleges through ‘non compliance clawback’. This has been emphasised as an activity since FE has been reclassified as being part of the Public Sector. How does that work for learner benefit? Reclassification has widened the Gap between FE and HE, has made us less flexible and responsive to opportunities; unable to take on commercial funding and bound by rules around pay, activity that could be ‘novel, contentious, or repercussive’ and constrained by LSIPs (Local Schools Improvement Plans) and ERBs (Employer Representative Bodies) in terms of justifying the curriculum we offer to our communities.
Post Covid was the moment when there should have been a resounding parity of esteem given to FE, to stand beside HE, offering something different but equally valid, and of its time. Muddled education policy with a lack of clarity as to what is actually needed to ‘level up’, or to rebuild the economy, or to make us a nation proud to have skilled workers where talented hands are as valued as talented minds, has widened the Gap. The cost cutting within DfE has resulted in the loss of long standing DfE civil servants with an understanding of what Skills for Jobs was aiming for, and with an appreciation of the intention of the Skills Reform. We have an infrastructure which has exaggerated the administration, the bureaucracy, the costs and the loss of autonomy that would free colleges to do good things creatively, responsively and fast. Our new-found inability to raise commercial capital, the imposition of LSIPs to shape our curriculum and the raised expectations of our governance structures moves us so far from the Higher Education context that we can barely see across the Gap, let alone reach across the divide.
So what might a national education system that serves well the population, and industry, and families, and learners look like? In my view, outreach that will have social impact will start with a framework for early years that makes the youngest in society embrace education and expect it as a lifelong opportunity. Secondary school should ignite the fires of ambition for all our learners, and should directly relate the things that they ‘have to learn’ to a range of interesting careers – or jobs – that they should be aspiring to take up. Colleges should be present and alive as a credible, respected outcome for learners as they approach 16; not as a place to retake those painful English and Maths GCSEs, but a place where lives transition from the classroom to the workplace, and many kinds of expectation can be realised.
Schools should not be judged on how many of their pupils move to University, or to Russell Group universities. This metric of ‘quality’ widens the Gap, and distorts the impact of education that gets a child from a family of generations of worklessness into a mindset to take up an apprenticeship, or other vocational qualification, and then to get a job. Schools, Colleges and Universities should work together to give the broadest range of options to learners, excellent and wide-ranging careers information advice and guidance should be embedded in the curriculum, not bolted on, and we should be a nation in which our young people understand that they are our future – shaping our productivity, our economy and our social structures for local and national good. We should be educating them to be the constructors not of new policy, but of a better society where diverse talents are recognised and valued.
Employers should be incentivised (corporation tax breaks???) to release staff to teach in colleges, either directly or to teach the teachers so that we are completely aligned in terms of the curriculum of the future, and the new skills that are being shaped every day with new technologies, new kinds of energy, construction and transport. Industry should be encouraged or mandated to turn the golden key of education to unlock the opportunities needed to put the UK at the forefront of future thinking about productivity and employment.
I saw a comedian on a quiz show last week being introduced as having studied social sciences. His retort on national TV was ‘I did that at College, I was too thick to go to University’. And therein lies the Gap that we must close. Colleges are not for ‘thick’ people – they are for people who understand that the skills we teach will give them options in employment – maybe even onto national TV earning huge salaries and reaching wide audiences. Next time the quip might be – ‘I did that at College, I wasn’t daft enough to take on massive debt to find the job that I love’.
Liz Bromley FRSA
Chief Executive NCG (Newcastle College Group)
Women And Lifelong Learning
The Right2Learn Campaign asserts that access to education should be a right throughout life and that lifelong learning sits at the heart of a fair society. This summer they organised two linked events ahead of Labour Party’s annual conference with the intention of taking issues to its national policy forum to shape ideas and future policy.
‘Women, Work, Jobs and Skills’ took place in Parliament in July and Anya Cook FRSA, SEA NEC member and SEND Advisor at Newcastle College reports.
Arranged at short notice before the summer recess, to influence policy and the agenda of the Shadow Equalities team ahead of conference season, the brilliant Right2Learn Campaign convened a conference in Parliament on barriers to education and employment for women post-pandemic.
The event was introduced by Margaret Greenwood MP with contributions from Emma Hardy MP, Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Oracy, Shadow Equalities Minister Yasmin Quereshi MP discussing the positive impact of flexible working and her bill (which has now had Royal Assent), Faiza Khan Director of Affairs at City & Guilds on learning routes, Rose Stephenson Director or Policy at HEPI on gender disparity and structural barriers and Naomi Clayton Deputy Director at Learning & Work Institute on the link between education and occupational success.
Research shared with us showed that women are more likely to be highly qualified, more likely to undertake job-related training and continuing professional development. They do not take the plunge though, and undertake additional training outside of their role to make the move into better paid positions. It probably comes as no surprise that women earn less than men at every age, are more likely to be found in insecure work and to get stuck in low paid jobs. Interestingly, women are also more likely to be interested in green career paths. Their lack of awareness of routes into these posts and limited training opportunities, mean this interest does not translate into jobs..
There are barriers that men and women both encounter, particularly for those living in areas of social deprivation. They are low educational outcomes, poor literacy and access to higher education. Women also face expectations around leading on caring responsibilities both for children and elderly relatives. Quereshi’s Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act 2023 may benefit many women in future, when they will have the right to apply for flexibility in terms and conditions from day one of employment. There would also be the creation of job share opportunities in more senior posts.
Adult Education funding is restricted, higher qualifications require loans to be taken out and time spent learning can mean less time earning for some. The benefits system itself creates its own steep barriers, with sanctions, reduced claims and withheld monies rendering poverty inevitable and sustaining low incomes or cyclical state dependency rather than supporting and enabling people to upskills and become unstuck.
The jobs that women undertake are linked to gender expectations such as cleaning or care work. Health and social care is the largest growing industry in the UK, predominantly employing women and is the lowest paid. Compounding issues of poverty wages, lack of quality training, lack of progression and the lack of credit and esteem for the work undertaken, trap many women in the sector.
One question unanswered is why men aren’t expected to undertake the same work as women. It is a dis-service to men that kindness, compassion and care are attributed to women, just as it is a dis-service to women that men are generally earning more. Both men and women both have a role to play in shifting gender stereotypes.
In a recent conversation at work a colleague joked that it was her perceived masculinity that meant she provided support to the engineering department. Quite rightly her line manager, a man, challenged her on this. What hope have we got to balance the scales if as women ourselves, we are upholding outdated societal gender views and how then does this help encourage our young women to develop agency and move into alternative, better-paid career paths?
The provision of strong, positive women role models is key to addressing barriers for women in education and employment; women need other women to pull them through and to show them how they in turn can pull other women through - they need to see it is possible. Other solutions include improving access to high quality careers advice at all ages, addressing wide barriers such as financial costs and the benefits system as well as building confidence, assertiveness and esteem in our women and girls throughout their lives.
As Simone de Beauvoir says, ‘’our experiences shape the women we become’’ and so it is vital that men and women in education roles and in positions where they might influence women in their progression and life choices role model equality in words and actions, leading without bias and prepared to challenge assumptions.
Socialism and education are not separate, they are a double helix, an unending cycle of learning and growing and it is in the learning that women find hope and can lift themselves out of their situations.
https://right2learn.co.uk/
Dear Seema Malhotra MP,
The first public statement by Seema Malhotra, new Shadow Minister for Skills and Apprenticeships expressed Labour support for the imploding T levels qualifications. James Whiting SEA General Secretary expresses his concern.
Congratulations on your recent appointment to the Shadow Education as minister for Skills and Apprenticeships.
Your first public statement unsurprisingly was about the T levels shambles. The Tories insistence on implementing this qualification at the expense of BTECS threatens to cut off progression routes for 155,000 students. The OFSTED report about their implementation is damning citing huge drop-out rates, unprepared students and mixed engagement of employers in the project. OFSTED is not in a position to question the whole policy but Labour in opposition, is.
I was surprised by your response in the light of this new information.
‘Labour supports the introduction of T-Levels and the provision of high-quality vocational pathways for young people. Yet the Government’s mismanagement threatens our future skills pipeline.’
THE NPF policy document which has just been published recommends a review of all qualifications at level 3. This is clearly at odds with the front bench position which appears to have short-circuited any such review by expressing support for the introduction of T levels. I would urge you and your front bench colleagues to shift position in the light of the shocking reports which have emerged to one of ‘awaiting the results of the review’ before deciding the future of T levels.
My contribution to any such review would be as follows. I do not believe that Tory mismanagement is the only issue here. Yes there is rush to try and prove, after years of just focusing on the academic, that they want to develop twenty first century skills in our young people to keep up with our competitors and yes they want to claim that they are providing equivalent opportunities for young people pursuing a technical/vocational route rather than an academic one. In reality T levels create a separate stream post 16 which, unless the affluent middle-class rush to get their children on it, will always be second best to the academic and therefore not a positive choice for many pupils post 16. They will have been persuaded to choose them or the pre-T level course, because they have not done well enough at GCSE. T levels create this ‘stream’ because there is no room for students to take another course such as a single A level alongside.
The second reason I believe the Tories are desperate for them to succeed is that they have failed to engage, cajole and force employers to run a quality apprenticeship programme. Just look at the titles of some of the T levels. Some are broad enough:- Finance, Science, Health but others are ridiculously specific;-
Maintenance, Installation and Repair for Engineering and Manufacturing
Design, Surveying and Planning for Construction
Design and Development for Engineering and Manufacturing
The specificity is absurd for a course mainly taken in college rather than at work. Also given the accelerating rate of change due to AI developments etc what students learn on the course is in danger of being out of date before they have finished the course. Failure to find suitable employers to provide the work element of T levels limits choice to students. ‘The number of suitable placements is often limited in any given area because of the specific employment sector where the placement is required and the length of time students are required to attend’ says OFSTED. This must also mean that students in a metropolitan area have a far greater choice than those in rural areas. Because the Tories are in the pockets of business lobby groups, there is no pressure on employers to provide a quality experience for students during the 35 day placement a T level requires. ‘Often employers are poorly informed about the content and structure of T levels. In these cases, activities that students complete on industry placements are not well aligned with the T-level course content. In some instances, industry placements are not appropriate for the pathway that students are on’ OFSTED again.
T levels have to succeed as apprenticeships are failing. Since the levy was introduced take-up has declined. Only 713000 apprentices were registered last year, the lowest since 2010. Private training companies have created a market for supplying skills training, but their record compared with FE colleges is poor. Setting up an apprenticeship system that works and has the confidence of young people should be a high priority for Labour. For this to happen it will have to be properly funded with most medium to large employers playing their part. The ‘market’ for delivery of training should cease and as much as possible brought back to FE colleges. Employers should reserve permanent jobs for those completing apprenticeships. What appears to be happening is that because apprenticeships are failing, the DFE think they can minimise employer input which they cannot control and make teachers and lecturers accountable for delivery of the work-related T levels.
Apprenticeships backed by strong skills provision at FE colleges should take on the content of the more specific T levels. I would argue that the more realistic and general T levels are already covered by BTECs and OCR nationals etc. These qualifications are embedded in the system with students, parents and employers becoming familiar with them. They are recognised by universities and can lead to degree courses apprenticeships or both. Furthermore, they allow for mix and match. A student wanting to take a nursing degree for example, can take one A level in Biology with BTEC Health and Social Care. Of course, there is room for further development of BTEC courses and further widening of their scope. Whilst academic A levels supposedly the gold standard have remained constant, vocational qualifications appear to change like the wind confusing parents and employers. There has been GNVQ, CPVE, the Diploma, BTEC and now T levels. Why defund BTECs when their currency is increasingly understood? Sadly, the Tories have another reason:- cutting off a route to university for working class kids doing supposedly ‘micky mouse’ degrees.
The SEA argues along with many others, for a 14 to 19 baccalaureate style qualification made up of vocational and academic courses plus a wrap-around curriculum. I would certainly put that case to any review. T levels though are a busted flush and are patently not a ‘high quality vocational pathway’. It is naïve of Labour to support them. If they do they will wither and die anyway. 16 year olds are not stupid and in spite of the propaganda the DFE is putting out, it is word on the street from older students who have struggled, hated T levels and dropped out which will carry most weight.
Welcome to your new role Seema. It is arguably one pf the toughest in government if you get elected. My advice as an ex teacher /leader managing transition at 16 would be:-
1. Review T levels then abolish them as not fit for purpose
2. Build a world class apprenticeship system
3. Develop and grow BTECS
Then with your colleagues in the team, in time, implement an overarching 14 to 19 qualification incorporating A levels and BTECS plus other vocational courses and abolishing GCSE,
Kind regards
James Whiting (SEA General Secretary)
I’ve only just read this article and I want to say why FE was so important to me.
I failed my 11+ and left school with no recognised qualifications, aged 15. After ten years of dead-end jobs
Derby College (then Wilmorton gave me a place on their mature students 1 year O-level course. The following year I did the 1 year A-level course then graduated from the University of Bath in 1980.
I taught in FE for 22 years . I then moved to the University of Derby where I trained FE teachers and university lecturers on PGCEHE programmes
My book, ‘Teaching in the lifelong learning sector’ now has two had two editions and my book on teaching in HE was published in 2017. I became a Senior Teaching Fellow. I have an MA in Education and, for a retirement project, gained an MA in Creative Writing.
This may all sound like bragging but I wanted to show FE transformed my life.
Peter Scales
I've said it before and I'll say it again - 'Btec' is a trade name, a marketing tool used by a commercial profit-making company, by saying 'Develop and grow Btecs' we are adding to Pearson's market monopoly and profit. The term for all vocational qualifications is VTQs, it's a simple enough collective term that we should be encouraging the use of.