Colleges and apprenticeships changing track

In The News

The changes in education and skills over the past few years have been monumental. Who could have predicted in February 2020 that working and learning methods would have to be completely overhauled the following month? 

There has been an upheaval in education policy as well, though that is par for the course. After the Technical and Further Education Act of 2017, now we have the Skills and Post-16 Education Act of 2022. After T Levels, now we’re getting Higher Technical Qualifications.

Yet what also stands out is a series but relatively low-profile but still significant changes to existing programmes. This is more like a change of track, rather than a completely new railway line which the Skills Act and T Levels have been trying to lay.

Firstly, the Treasury has announced a review of the Apprenticeship Levy… or maybe they didn’t as they have since insisted it is not a “formal review”.

In May, the DfE announced it is ditching the 20 per cent off-the-job training requirement for apprenticeships. Instead, learners will be expected to spend six hours a week training off-the-job, irrespective of working hours. This has been a key demand from employers and providers, as anyone who’s spent enough time at FE Week’s Annual Apprenticeship Conference the past few years will tell you.

Then there is the Office of National Statistics reviewing whether the colleges sector ought to be considered part of the public, instead of private, sector. What the ONS’ decides could have sizeable implications for college funding and their access to tax relief. 

Speaking at the Education Select Committee this month, higher and further education minister Michelle Donelan opened the door to extending the £1,000 incentive on offer to employers who offer industry placements to T Level students. Ministers’ confidence in their flagship qualification, after numerous setbacks, is looking shakier still.

Interview

Education Select Committee Chair and former Skills Minister Robert Halfon gives his expert opinion on the Treasury's levy review and the DfE's reforms to T Levels and apprenticeships.

What do you want to see from the treasury’s review of the Apprenticeship Levy?

I’d like to see the levy re-tuned so that if companies hired more 16 to 18 year olds, also hired more apprentices from significantly disadvantaged backgrounds and also if they hired degree apprentices, but with the skills that the country needs. So not just management degree ones but where we have skills deficits. So in other words if they are meeting the strategic skills needs of the nation.

Do you support the changes to the off-the-job training requirements for apprentices? 

I definitely think that they need a significant time to make it a real apprenticeship rather than just working or going to a work place.

I definitely think they need some time in the college or training provider. So I am open minded whether that needs to be 20 hours but I definitely think it should be a certain proportion a week or a fixed amount of hours.

Higher and further education minister Michelle Donelan hinted during the committee session last week that financial incentives linked the T Level placements could return. Would you welcome this?

Yes absolutely. I think it’s essential to make it happen.

And would you welcome the return of incentives with things like apprenticeships which have been very popular around here?

There are incentives already. There are various ones if you hired young people. Providers get something and so on. So there are incentives through the system but if they could be more and it was affordable then absolutely.

What are the next changes you would like to see for the apprenticeship system? 

I would like to move to a stage that maybe we could use levy funding and repurpose it back to the DfE so that we can try and offer every young person who wanted one an apprentice guarantee.

So basically every young person who wanted one, there would be an agreement so you would have a genuine offering from the DfE: T Levels, A-Levels, or an apprenticeship. The money that is spent on the Apprenticeship Levy would be given back to the DfE which they could then fund apprenticeships.

And those apprenticeships would be at level three, parallel to T Levels and A-Levels?

From level three upwards. Possibly level two but I’m open minded other than that.

Opinion

Chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association Bill Watkin charts how changes such as bringing colleges into the public sector could affect - or not affect - post-16 providers.

There are four important policy developments in the in-tray for sixth form colleges which are all related and concurrent, but distinct from each other in important ways.

First, the introduction of T Levels and the continued funding of applied general qualifications (AGQs). While T Levels represent a welcome part of the government’s strategy to address the skills gap, they are as yet unproven and are unlikely to have mass market appeal; they also have problems associated with finding enough employers to engage, persuading enough students to sign up and raising awareness of what they are and who should choose them. 

As we have highlighted through the Protect Student Choice campaign, AGQs serve a different purpose for a different audience and should happily co-exist with T Levels; their applied learning, alongside their relationship with the workplace, make them equally suited to higher education pathways and to the acquisition of skills valued by employers. 

Second, the introduction of the Skills and Post-16 Education Act that sets out new statutory obligations and accountabilities designed to ensure that colleges work with employers to deliver a curriculum that will see young people leave education with the skills that will help them contribute to economic productivity.

But this agenda will be experienced in different ways by different types of college: A general FE college might focus on local and immediate requirements, responding to the employment needs in the local area; while a sixth form college might consider national and long-term priorities, as its students often progress to higher education and usually travel to distant towns and end up in professional careers further from home. 

Local skills improvement plans, new accountability agreements and enhanced Ofsted inspections will need to take into account the context and core purpose of a college when evaluating impact.

Third, the academy question. Since 2015, colleges have had the option to adopt academy status and about a third of them have made this transition. This means they are now a part of the schools system and most have formalised their relationships with local secondary and primary schools, establishing themselves as system leaders and sharing their strengths in governance, finance and curriculum expertise. 

Those that have not yet become academies, often for reasons associated with a wish to preserve their autonomy and their ability to take out commercial loans, now face the prospect of reclassification. 

This is the fourth, and most recent addition to the in-tray. The move from the private sector to the public sector, heralded by the recent ONS decision to review the classification of colleges, is not the same as academisation. Colleges will still be colleges, and college and academy policy will continue to be as disconnected as it is now, though it is possible that some funding inequalities may be addressed.

Reclassification will prompt some colleges to review their status and the option to academise. 

The Skills Act will shine a light on a college’s (not an academy’s) contribution to the local skills agenda. Qualifications offered at sixth form colleges will continue to be dominated by A-levels and BTECs, though technical programmes will be available to a minority of students in some. 

Sixth form colleges will continue to do what they do so well: prepare young people for higher education and professional careers, working in partnership with local schools and with universities and employers across the country.