Issue 127 | April 2022

GOVERNMENT PUBLISHES DETAILS OF £2.6 BILLION UK SHARED PROSPERITY FUND ALLOCATIONS

On 13 April, the new UK Government Department for Levelling Up. Housing and Communities published details of financial allocations to local authority areas from the UK Shared Prosperity fund (UKSPF). This follows the UK government’s commitment to match the funding from the European Social Fund (ESF) and European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) the UK government previously got back from its gross contributions to the EU central budget. The government claims that the UKSPF will be much more flexible and locally led, and will not involve the complex bidding processes needed to apply for EU Structural Funds. The government also says that ’there will be far more discretion over what money is spent on, with funding decisions being made by elected leaders in local government, with input from local members of parliament and local businesses and voluntary groups’. The government goes on to say that ‘EU requirements to provide matched funding, which unduly impacted on poorer places, will be abolished’. Examples given of how UKSPF cash could be used include ‘…regenerating rundown high streets, fighting anti-social behaviour and crime, providing focused education and training, helping people into decent jobs, helping to revive communities, tackling economic decline and reversing geographical disparities across the UK’.

£2.6 billion will be allocated from the UKSPF to local authorities over the period between 2022 and 2025, with allocations reaching £1.5 billion per year by March 2025. England has been allocated a total of £1.58 billion from the fund, Scotland £212 million, Wales £585 million and Northern Ireland £127 million. A further £129 million is being retained centrally for ‘contingencies and evaluation’.  Allocations from the UKSPF to local authority areas in England, Scotland and Wales will reflect local population data and a broadly based ‘index of need’ (which includes factors such as unemployment and income levels). Northern Ireland will receive a block grant from the UKSPF to be allocated to local areas by the Northern Ireland Executive.

The government says that the money provided through the UKSPF will be in addition to the £4,8 billion of levelling up funding outlined in the government’s Levelling Up White Paper, plus the additional £3.7 billion being made available to councils in 2022/23, plus the £150 million Community Ownership Fund, plus the £3.6 billion Towns Fund outlined in the March Spending Review. There will also be an increase in block grant funding to the devolved administrations that will see Scottish Government funding in each year increase by an average of £4.6 billion, Welsh Government funding by £2.5 billion, and £1.6 billion for the Northern Ireland Executive.

The UKSPF includes an earmarked £559 million to fund an adult numeracy programme for the whole UK called ‘Multiply’. The programme will provide people with no, or low-level, numeracy skills with free one-to-one tutoring, training in the use of computers, and flexible courses to support them to get back into work or progress in their jobs. UKSPF allocations to local authority areas for the Multiply programme in all UK countries were published on 13 April.

APPLICATIONS OPEN FOR YEAR 2 TURING SCHEME PLACEMENTS

Applications have been invited from schools, colleges, universities and independent training providers (ITPs) for a share of the £110 million in funding being made available for the Turing Scheme in 2022/23 (year 2 of the scheme’s operation). There has been a window of just one month for applications for year 2 places which opened on 31 March and will close on 30 April. The Turing scheme has replaced the Erasmus+ scheme, which was funded by the EU from the net contributions to the EU central budget made by member countries.

The Turing scheme enables students to obtain work experience and study placements abroad which usually last for up to three months. Erasmus+ programmes tended to last for one year, with participants being predominantly university students and the Erasmus+ placement in effect becoming part of a 4-year degree course. The government argues that the shorter placement periods under the Turing scheme allows more young people to participate, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, and from a wider range of institutions. Funding for student travel and other costs is provided through scheme and students can be eligible for grants up to £335 per month.  For students from disadvantaged backgrounds, this can rise to £455 per month. Students with special education needs and disabilities (SEND) will be given support in addition to this, based on their needs. Government data shows that 41,024 participants took part in year 1 of the Turing Scheme in 2021/22. Of these 28,997 were HE students, 6,888 were FE students (including apprentices) and 5,139 were from schools. 48% of these students were from disadvantaged backgrounds.

FIRST LOCAL SKILLS IMPROVEMENT PLAN TRAILBLAZERS AND STRATEGIC DEVELOPMENT FUND PILOTS PUBLISHED

On 14 April the Department for Education (DfE) published the first six of eight Local Skills Improvement Plan (LSIP) trailblazers. The LSIP trailblazers were led by local Chambers of Commerce in collaboration with colleges and other training providers. LSIPs are a key component of the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill that will shortly become law, and are intended to give employers more influence over skills provision offered by colleges and other providers in their locality. The DfE document also gives details of the first approved pilots from the £92 million Strategic Development Fund.

DFE ANNOUNCES MORE FURTHER EDUCATION CAPITAL TRANSFORMATION FUND ALLOCATIONS

The £1.5 billion  Further Education Capital Transformation Fund (FECTF) was launched in September 2020. Only incorporated English FE colleges have been, and still are, eligible to bid for and receive cash from the FECTF. The first phase of the fund saw an initial £200 million shared between 182 FE colleges so that they could carry out urgent remedial work. Then, on 8 April last year, the DfE announced that 16 colleges with buildings in the poorest condition would receive cash from the FECTF to upgrade their sites and facilities.

A further FECTF bidding round opened in July 2021 and closed in October 2021. All colleges were allowed to bid for funds in this latest round. The DfE  guidance specifically mentioned that bids should focus on the need to ‘construct new teaching spaces to replace buildings in poor condition and to refurbish existing learning environments for students so that they are fit for purpose, especially in capital intensive subjects such as automotive, ICT, science and engineering’. The guidance went on to say that colleges would normally be expected to contribute 50% of the total project value from their own reserves, commercial loans, donations or other locally managed grant programmes, but would be able to apply for a match funding waiver if they could prove that they were unable to raise the required match funding themselves. Following the scrutiny of the bids received, on 4 April the DfE announced that a further 62 FE colleges in England will receive a share of a £400 million from the FECTF, the details pf which can be found here.

FECTF allocations are in addition to the Post-16 Capacity Fund, which so far has allocated £83 million for 39 projects in English FE and sixth form colleges, schools with sixth forms and 16-19 academies (but not Independent Training Providers) for new facilities to accommodate the rising numbers of 16-19 year-olds.

ELIGIBILITY TO ACCESS 16-19 TUITION FUNDING EXTENDED TO A WIDER RANGE OF STUDENTS

In 2020/21 the DfE provided £96 million for a 16-19 Tuition Fund. The Fund was extended into 2021/22 with an extra £102 million being provided. It was then extended further into 2022/3 and 2023/4 with an additional £222 million being made available. The Fund is part of the government’s Covid-19 education catch-up package and is intended to be used to support small group tuition for students aged 16-19 in English, maths and other subjects that have been disrupted by the pandemic. However, the use of cash from the fund has previously been restricted to 16-19 students who did not achieve a GCSE grade 4 or 5 in English and/or maths or who did have a grade 4 or above in these subjects but were from a disadvantaged background. This led to complaints from colleges and other 16-19 providers that the Tuition Fund eligibility criteria was too constrained. In response, on 31 March the DfE published updated guidance, which said that from 2022/23:

• The 16-19 Tuition Fund can be used to support all students who have not achieved at grade 6 or above in English or maths GCSE.
• The current requirement for students to be resident in the most economically deprived areas of the country will be scrapped.
• There will be an automatic renewal of funding in 2022/23 for colleges and other providers who received cash from the 16-19 Tuition Fund in 2021/22. However, those providers who have not yet used the fund will need to apply if they want to access funds in 2022/23.
• The requirement for colleges and providers to publish a Statement of Intent on how they intend to deliver the fund has will be removed and replaced with an End of Year Financial Report.

Sector leaders have welcomed the extension of the fund but called on the DfE to go further by opening it up to support apprentices as well.

DFE FUNDING FOR THE NATIONAL TUTORING PROGRAMME TO BE ALLOCATED DIRECTLY TO SCHOOLS 

Previously, funds from the National Tutoring Programme (NTP) could be used directly by a school to employ additional tutoring and mentoring support, or to pay the Dutch human resources firm Randstad (which had won the DfE contract to source and provide tutoring support) to provide tutoring and mentoring services on a school’s behalf. Randstad’s delivery performance was poor and was severely criticised by the House of Commons Education Select Committee. As a result, its contract to provide services has now been cancelled. On 31 March, the DfE announced that all of the £349 million of NTP funding that will be provided in 2022/23 will now be allocated directly to schools and that they will be given the freedom to decide how best to use the funds to provide tutoring for their pupils. This could include one-to-one or small group tutoring through teachers or teaching assistants, or continuing to work with external tutoring specialists and academic mentors.

EXPANSION OF ELIGIBILITY TO PARTICIPATE IN FREE LEVEL 3 COURSES FOR JOBS SCHEME

On 4 April, the DfE published an updated National Skills Fund Policy Paper, in which an expansion of the eligibility criteria for people wanting to participate in the free Level 3 Courses for Jobs Scheme was announced. The scheme is part of the Lifetime Skills Guarantee and previously, only those aged 19 or over without a Level 3 qualification were able to access the offer, but this has now been extended so that anybody aged 19 or over who is unemployed or who earns below the National Living Wage (£18,525) can participate regardless of their level of prior attainment.

OFSTED REPORT SAYS FE AND SKILLS PROVISION SHOW SIGNS OF RECOVERY BUT CHALLENGES REMAIN

On 4 April, Ofsted published a report on the levels of education recovery in the FE and skills sector. Ofsted’s views were based on inspections of 43 independent training and employer providers and 9 general and specialist FE colleges carried out between 10 January and 18 February 2022. 30 of these inspections took place under Plan B Covid-restrictions, which encouraged working from home where possible. Key findings in the report included the following:

• FE and skills provision shows signs of recovery, but challenges remain.
• Some colleges found that new learners had lower levels of, and more variability in, prior knowledge and skills than usual. In response, colleges had developed a curriculum to ensure that learners could reach the expected levels and quickly made the progress of which they were capable.
• There were issues in respect of the behaviour and attitudes of learners, particularly those enrolling from school. Standards of behaviour were below expectations. Inspectors attributed this to the disruption learners had experienced in their education over the last two years.
• Students’ mental health had suffered during the pandemic. Those who enrolled from schools were the most severely affected. Ofsted said that this was largely due to anxiety about sitting formal exams and about returning to education more generally.
• Some learners on apprenticeships had not resumed work placements because these had yet to be fully reinstated since the pandemic. When learners did have work placements, there were concerns that they were not being given enough tasks at work to develop their skills sufficiently, due to pressures businesses were facing.
• A number of employers were not giving apprentices enough time for off-the-job training. As a result, some apprentices were studying in their own time.
• The pandemic continued to affect staffing in colleges and other providers. One provider reported that staff turnover had increased by almost 50%. Recruitment and retention of staff was made more challenging by the fact that salaries offered were lower than those in industry. In addition, the pandemic and experience of lockdowns had made some staff reconsider their careers. The impact of this was significant and, in some cases, had a knock-on effect on the quality of education and training provided.
• The education, skills and work activities taking place in prisons were generally good and had improved due to better collaborative working between prison leaders and education providers.

OFSTED PUBLISHES ITS NEW 5-YEAR CORPORATE STRATEGY

On 26 April, Ofsted published its Corporate Strategy covering the period from 2022/23 to 2027/8, along with a summary of its ‘core values, strategic approaches, areas of work and evaluation metrics’. Ofsted says that the strategy is ‘guided by the principle that inspection is a force for improvement’. The Corporate Strategy covers all education sectors, but with reference to FE, amongst other things, Ofsted says it will:

• Review its inspection model for how FE is inspected (although the Education Inspection Framework will be retained) to accommodate the complexity, diversity and the size of FE providers.
• Develop a new area SEND inspection framework, in line with proposals for reform of SEND provision in the recent Green Paper (see below).
• Over the next four years, assess all colleges on how well they are meeting the skills needs of local employers and the wider economy in line with the DfE’s proposed reforms on FE funding and accountability in the Skills and Post-16 Education Skills Bill that will shortly become law.

FE LEADERS SAY THAT THE DFE SEND GREEN PAPER DOES NOT ADDRESS POST-16 SEND UNDERFUNDING

On 6 September 2019 the DfE launched a review of support for children and young people with SEND and those placed in alternative provision, such as pupil referral units (PRUs). This was delayed by the pandemic, but on 29 March the DfE published the review findings, which highlight how these children and young people achieve poorer outcomes than their peers at every stage of their education. For example, Key Stage 4 destination data in the report shows that of young people placed in alternative provision in 2019/20, only 55% sustained their post-16 destination for more than six months. (See here for a copy of the full review document, which is entitled ‘SEND Review: Right support. Right place. Right time’).

On 11 April the DfE published updated proposals for reforms to support for children and young people with SEND and in alternative provision, along with a consultation on the proposals, which closes on 1 July. The proposals include a new national pricing framework, new national standards for planning and funding of SEND and alternative provision, new digital education, health and care plans (EHCPs), new local inclusion plans and the development of a new ‘open inclusion dashboard’ to benchmark the provision of support for all people aged 0-25 with SEND. However, leaders of general FE colleges with SEND provision and specialist post-16 SEND providers say they also wanted the review to address the under-funding of post-16 provision, pointing out that the review itself reveals that of the £2.2 billion extra spent on high needs funding in 2020/21 only £175 million of this was allocated for post-16 provision. They have argued that that this imbalance needs to be addressed urgently and as an example of the need for this, point to statistics that reveal that young people aged 16 and over with SEND are 25% less likely to be in sustained employment at age 27 than their peers, and are more likely to end up as long-term NEET (not in employment, education or training).

DFE PUBLISHES SUSTAINABILITY AND CLIMATE CHANGE POLICY FOR EDUCATION: IMPLICATIONS FOR FE

On 21 April, the DfE published the final version of its policy document entitled ‘Sustainability and Climate Change: A strategy for the Education and Children’s’ Services systems’. (The draft of the document was released at the COP26 Conference in Glasgow). With reference to FE, the policy document says that:

• By 2023, a new occupational standard will be developed which explicitly requires all new teachers (but curiously not existing teachers) to integrate climate change and sustainability into the teaching of their subject specialisms in ‘all courses and at all levels’.
• By 2023, all bids for FE capital funding will need to include environmental impact, carbon reduction and adaptation measures, and be aligned with the government’s targets and objectives for this.
• By 2025, a new natural history GCSE will be introduced. Climate change and sustainability will be a key focus of the course. Pupils will be taught about the history and evolution of species and the impact humans have had on natural environments. It is hoped the course will help pupils to develop skills needed for future jobs and careers in conservation and the wider green economy.
• By 2025, every college will have a nominated a ‘sustainability lead’ who will receive ‘carbon literacy’ training. The lead will be responsible for developing and putting in place action plans to reduce carbon emissions and address sustainability issues within their college.
• By 2025, ‘at least four schools and one college will have been built via the Gen Zero Platform that the DfE demonstrated at COP26’. (The GenZero platform is a method for delivering educational buildings to the highest environmental standards in the most economic method’).
• The programme of government skills reforms, including the introduction of new vocational and technical (VTQ) courses at Levels 4-6, the use of the Strategic Development Fund and the content of Local Skills Improvement Plans ‘will be expected to play a role in the FE sector’s contribution towards green skills’.

Sector leaders have welcomed the government’s commitment to tackling climate change but say the proposals for FE do not go far enough and the Association of Colleges (AoC) has sent a letter signed by 150 FE college principals to the Education Secretary for England, Nadhim Zahawi, calling for all courses for students aged 16-18 to include compulsory modules on climate change and sustainability.

FEWER LEVEL 3 BTECS TO BE DEFUNDED THAN WAS ORIGINALLY THOUGHT

As part of the government’s plans to reform and rationalise Level 3 qualifications in England, it has been proposed that qualifications that duplicate or significantly overlap with A-Levels and T-Levels should cease to be eligible for public funding. This would see three main post-16 Level 3 routes being available, these being A-Levels, T-Levels or apprenticeships. The proposals have been met with considerable resistance from sector leaders, teacher and student unions, employer organisations, awarding bodies and members of parliament, who have come together to form a campaign group called ‘Protect Student Choice’ to lobby for the retention of BTECs (and certain other Level 3 applied general qualifications) on the basis that the removal of these qualifications will limit opportunities for young people. Lord David Blunkett, a former Labour education minister, is the latest politician to have tabled an amendment to the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill (currently in its final parliamentary stages prior to becoming law) which would prevent the withdrawal of funding from BTEC and other Level 3 qualifications for at least three years. However, on 7 April, Nadhim Zahawi, the Secretary of State for Education in England, surprised many observers by sending a letter to members of the House of Lords which, amongst other things, said that:

• The list of qualifications scheduled to be defunded will be published next month, but it is expected that ‘significantly less than half’ of Level 3 BTEC and other applied general style qualifications will be included in the list. Awarding organisations (AOs) with qualifications scheduled to be defunded will be able to appeal. Employers will play an important role in determining the outcome of the appeals.
• Decisions on the continuation of funding will be based on tests that will be used to determine the extent to which other Level 3 qualifications overlap with T-Levels and A-Levels. The level of enrolments on Level 3 qualifications will also be considered. Those with low or no enrolments are at risk of being defunded if it can be shown that they are not needed. (Around 400 qualifications have low enrolments and around a further 1,400 have no enrolments. These are believed to include around 40 BTECs).
• There is no plan to create a ‘binary system’ comprised of just A-Levels and T-Levels. Students will still be able to choose from a range of high-quality qualifications, which will include T-Levels, A-Levels, BTECs and other applied general qualifications. Students will be also able to take applied general qualifications, including BTECs, alongside A-Levels as part of a mixed programme.
• With reference to the potential impact of reducing the number of qualifications on disadvantaged students, in his letter Mr Zahawi said that ‘no young person will be left without a clear and high-quality qualification progression route’.

The assurances in Mr Zahawi’s letter have been given a cautious welcome by sector representatives. However, it will be interesting to see how the apparent continued availability of many BTECs and other applied general qualifications will impact on the future take up by students of T-Levels.

ESFA ANNOUNCES THAT EXISTING NATIONAL AEB CONTRACTS WILL BE EXTENDED FOR A FURTHER YEAR

In section 8 of the ESFA update published on 30 March, it was announced that there will be no new National Adult Education Budget (AEB) contract procurement process for 2022/23. Instead, National AEB contracts procured in 2021/22 will automatically be rolled over to the end of 2022/23. This has proved to be controversial since several established providers failed to be awarded AEB contracts in 2021/22 and therefore will not receive AEB contracts in 2022/23. This has led to accusations that the ESFA has used the 2021/22 tender process as a means of achieving a ‘hidden agenda to shrink the private provider market’. There seems to be some evidence to support this in that the number of providers with a direct ESFA AEB contract has fallen from a peak of 208 to a new low of 88.

EDUCATION AND TRAINING FOUNDATION (ETF) DEVELOPMENTS

• Grant cuts: At the end of March, the ETF announced that the DfE has cut its grant funding to £16.8 million in 2022/23, down from around £21 million in 2021/22. The cuts impact particularly on Basic Skills, Essential Digital Skills, Practitioner Research, Advanced Practitioner, SEND FE Workforce Development and Outstanding Teaching, Learning and Assessment programmes, some of which will now be put out to tender by the DfE.
• Round 5 of the Taking Teaching Further (TTF) programme: The ETF has announced that the fifth round of applications for the TTF programme has opened. Providers can apply funding worth up to £18,200 per recruit to help cover the costs of their staff obtaining the Level 5 teaching qualifications and associated mentoring while they are on the programme. The TTF programme has previously focussed on supporting providers recruit staff to teaching posts in the 15 Institute for Apprenticeships and technical Education (IfATE) technical routes. However, in Round 5, the ETF has also introduced a ‘core skills’ stream which they say will help support the recruitment of ‘experienced business and industry professionals’ to teach technical subjects. These are areas that colleges say they are experiencing significant staffing recruitment problems, mainly because salaries offered are uncompetitive compared to those offered in other sectors. Applications for Round 5 are open until 15 December, with additional support for those on the programme provided until July 2024.
• Partnership with the Institute of Directors (IoD) to offer Board Reviews: The ETF already provides a range of FE governance support programmes and has now announced a new partnership with the IoD to offer board reviews. The reviews are intended to help colleges and other providers to meet their new obligation to undertake regular external board reviews, as set out in the2021 Skills White Paper, the 2021 Skills and Post-16 Education Bill and in current 2021/22 Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) funding agreements. The reviews will evaluate the effectiveness of boards and help to ensure the continuous improvement of both their own performance and that of the colleges they serve. The ETF says that the design of the service has been informed by the draft guidance on external governance reviews and example of best practice in governance published by the DfE. Further details of the service will be announced shortly, and expressions of interest can be made via the ETF website.
• ETF Chief Executive stands down: David Russell has left his role as ETF Chief Executive. The ETF has announced that its deputy chief executive, Jenny Jarvis, has been appointed interim chief executive while the ETF board carries out the recruitment process for a permanent chief executive later this year.

LATEST DFE DATA REVEALS LOW APPRENTICESHIP RETENTION AND ACHIEVEMENT

Updated DfE data published on 31 March has revealed that 41.2% of all apprentices dropped out of their programme in 2020/21. This drops to 47.0% for apprentices on the new standards-based programmes and represents a further deterioration in retention when compared to previous years. Framework-based apprenticeship programmes are in the process of being replaced with new standards-based programmes and since almost two-thirds of apprentices in 2020/21 were on standards-based programmes, the high drop-out rate is of even more concern. The data also shows that the overall achievement rate for all apprenticeships in 2020/21 was 57.7%. However, this drops to 51.8% for apprentices on the new standards-based programmes. (For the main differences between framework-based and standards-based programmes see here).

The commentary published by the DfE alongside the data says that care should be taken when comparing the retention and achievement rates in 2020/21 with previous years due to the effects of the pandemic. The commentary also says that the impact of the transition from frameworks to standards is also a factor, since ‘standards are designed to be more demanding than traditional frameworks’. However, a DfE spokesperson admitted that ‘more needs to be done to improve apprenticeship retention and achievement rates’.

DFE ISSUES STRATEGIC GUIDANCE TO THE INSTITUTE FOR APPRENTICESHIPS AND TECHNICAL EDUCATION (IFATE)

Meanwhile, on 23 April, the Minister for Skills and Apprenticeships in England, Alex Burghart, issued Strategic Guidance on the government’s priorities for IfATE, which include the following:

• Increasing participation by young people in all levels of apprenticeships.
• Addressing issues that are leading to high apprenticeship drop-out rates and improving apprenticeship achievement rates.
• Supporting the DfE in its work on ‘mapping progression routes’.
• Reviewing apprenticeship standards at Level 2 and Level 3 in order to help assess whether the current offer ‘meets the needs of career starters across all sectors’.
• Making proposals to the DfE ‘on how some standards might be flagged as particularly suitable for career starters, so that young people, employers and providers are much clearer about their potential’.

FE UNIONS SUBMIT 2022/23 PAY CLAIM TO THE AOC

FE staff pay in England has fallen by more than 35% in real terms since 2009 and, for example, FE teachers’ salaries are now at least £9,000 less than that of school teachers. To address this a ‘Respect FE’ campaign has been launched, part of which involves seeking to improve the pay and conditions of FE staff.  On 31 March, the University and College Union (UCU), along with other unions representing FE staff in England, jointly submitted a formal pay claim for 2022/23 to the AoC. The claim is for a 10% pay increase on all points with a minimum uplift of £2000, for all colleges to become Living Wage employers, for significant improvements in staff workloads, an agreed national policy on guided learning hours, more administration staff, agreed class size recommendations and wellbeing protocols, such as working from home agreements including boundaries for contacting staff by email or phone. Of the FE staff who took part in branch meetings, 91% voted to take industrial action in support of the claim, although there has to be a statutory postal ballot on taking industrial action, including strike action. The AoC has described the staffing crisis as the ‘worst in decades’ but said that colleges are facing enormous financial challenges and that UCU’s demands were ‘not affordable’. FE unions are expected to commence negotiations with AoC next month (May), which both sides admit will be difficult to resolve without additional government funding.

SOCIAL MARKET FOUNDATION REPORT SAYS THAT CAREERS ADVICE IN SCHOOLS IS ‘SOCIALLY PATTERNED’

On 1 April, the Social Market Foundation (SMF) think-tank published a report entitled ‘Fulfilling its potential?’. The report claims that careers advice in schools is ‘socially patterned’, meaning that schools in wealthier areas almost without exception tend to steer children towards higher education, while schools in less affluent places are more likely to steer them towards vocational options. This, says the SMF, risks entrenching inequality and social division. The report goes on to say that some young people are denied the broadest possible range of information about their future options, and there was a need for a ‘levelling up’ of careers provision to make it fairer. For example, says the SMF, in many schools, students are required to create a UCAS account, whether they intend to apply to university or not. Key points from the SMF report include the following:

• Experiential information’ (information from friends, family, colleagues, current students or apprentices) is viewed as more reliable, up-to-date, and fundamentally more trustworthy than official sources.
• Despite legislation to try to put vocational options on an equal footing, going to university remains the default option for the majority of teachers and parents.
• External careers services, for example that provided by the Careers and Enterprise Company (CEC) can also be ‘socially patterned’.

Recommendations in the report include the following:

• A full range of apprenticeship opportunities should be listed on the University and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) website alongside information on universities and degrees.
• Schools should be better incentivised to improve their initial advice and guidance (IAG) provision, for example, by giving this a much higher profile in Ofsted inspections.

A full list of recommendations can be found in chapter 8 of the SMF report. On 29 March the DfE published a Schools White Paper. Section 65 of the paper includes proposals for changes in the way careers information and IAG is provided in schools in England, which are supported by the SMF report’s findings.

SKILLS MINISTER ANNOUNCES THE LAUNCH OF THE NEW UNIT FOR FUTURE SKILLS

Speaking at an event held at the Policy Exchange think-tank on 4 April, Alex Burghart, the Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills in England, announced that the ‘Unit for Future Skills’, mentioned in the recent Levelling Up White Paper, will be launched later this month. Mr Burghart said that the Unit is a key part of government reforms designed to help ‘create a more employer-led skills system with local leadership coming from employer representative bodies’. Dr Burghart also said that the unit would be ‘cross-government, would be publicly accessible and will produce information on local skills demand, future skills needs and the pathways between training and good jobs’. The DfE has indicated that the unit will eventually take over the work of the Skills and Productivity Board. Dr Burghart can be seen making his speech at the Policy Exchange on YouTube here.

SHOULD FEWER MORE YOUNG PEOPLE GO TO UNIVERSITY, OR EVEN MORE?

During his Policy Exchange speech, Dr Burghart referred to the continuous expansion of HE, often at the expense of vocational and technical education. He controversially said that although he was no enemy of HE in principle (he holds a PhD in Anglo-Saxon history), he thought that fewer undergraduates in 10 years’ time ‘could be a good thing’, particularly if it meant that more funding would be available for developing the technical and vocational skills needed by local employers and the wider economy.

The following day (5 April) David Goodhart, the Head of Policy Exchange’s Demography, Immigration, and Integration Unit, who chaired the event at which Dr Burghart spoke, published an article in the online magazine ‘UnHerd’, in which he supported Dr Burghart’s comments. He wrote that ‘the university lobby likes to characterise such talk of fewer young people going to university as privileged people kicking away the ladder. But the truth is that the ladder is leading nowhere for a substantial number of undergraduates who are doing second rate courses for which there is no labour market demand, while technical education has been allowed to wither’.

Sir Tony Blair, when in office, set a target for 50% of all young people to go to university. By 2019 this target was achieved and exceeded. Never slow to engage in public debate, on 21 April, Sir Tony announced the publication of a new report from the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, entitled, ‘We Don’t Need No Education? The Case for Expanding Higher Education’. The report calls for a new target of 60% of all young people going to university by 2030 rising to 70% by 2040. Sir Tony claims that reaching this figure would boost the economy by 5%. However, some observers have pointed out that although well in excess of 50% of young people now go to university, there has been no discernible improvement in productivity relative to that of our international competitors, nor has there been any significant reduction in the need to recruit skilled workers from abroad. Sir Peter Lampl, Chairman of The Sutton Trust, (a pressure group for improving social mobility) also warned that if these new targets were adopted, the taxpayer would inevitably end up meeting the cost of the increase in the number of student loans that would never be repaid.

UUK REPORT ARGUES THERE ARE MORE GRADUATE JOBS THAN GRADUATES TO FILL THEM

Several recent reports have claimed that too many graduates leaving university have been unable to find graduate level employment and that, as a result, they have found themselves working in jobs that do not require degrees. A report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), says that 14% of the UK’s workforce are overqualified for their current jobs, including graduates working in non-graduate occupations. The DfE is now consulting on reforms that could be construed as seeking to constrain the continuing growth in the HE numbers, such as requiring minimum GCSE and A-Level (or equivalent) grades, restricting unconditional offers and banning ‘conditional unconditional offers’ outright.

Presumably in an attempt to counter the DfE’s proposals to restrict the numbers going to university, to rebut the arguments that degrees can be poor value for money and argue against the claim that too many graduates have been unable to obtain graduate-level jobs, on 11 April, Universities UK (UUK) published a report entitled ‘Busting Graduate Myths’. UUK represents university vice chancellors and is said to also be a powerful political lobby group with direct access to alma mater ministers. The report says that the UK has more graduate-level jobs than it does graduates to fill them and predicts that labour market demand for graduates will remain strong for the foreseeable future. In support of this, UUK turns the OECD data above on its head to show that 27% of the UK workforce are classed as underqualified for their current jobs, with these including non-graduates filling graduate-level job roles. The report also refers to Office for National Statistics (ONS) data which says that although the number of UK workers in managerial and professional occupations (which are defined as graduate-level jobs) has risen from 11.1 million in 2004 to 15.9 million in 2020, in that year around 1 million graduate-level jobs remain unfilled. The report goes on to say that in 2020, during the pandemic, the number of UK workers in managerial and professional level employment rose by 647,200, while those in lower-level roles fell by 817,000, and that those in graduate level jobs were less likely to have been furloughed. The report also says that, according to the Institute of Student Employers, demand for graduates remained high during the pandemic and is now 20% higher than before the pandemic, a trend likely to continue into the future. This, says the report, means that in order to meet the anticipated increase in labour market demand for graduates, ‘the UK government must invest in a sustainable long-term funding solution for higher education’.

However, some observers have pointed out the report makes little mention of the apparent mismatch between the skills that graduates are leaving UK universities with, and the skills needs of employers and the wider UK economy (particularly vocational and technical skills), a gap which appears to be increasingly being resolved by the recruitment of skilled graduates from abroad.

IFS PUBLISHES RESEARCH ON THE LINK BETWEEN DEGREE CLASS AWARDED AND SUBSEQUENT EARNINGS

On 20 April, the IFS published research on the financial benefits associated with different levels of degree classification. The general conclusion from the research (which was commissioned by the DfE) is perhaps unsurprisingly, that by the age of 30, graduates with degrees with higher classifications generally earn more than those with degrees with lower classifications. The IfS research says that, for example, by age 30:

• The average earnings difference for those gaining a first-class honours degree compared with those who obtained an upper-second class degree (2.1) is 4% higher for women and 7% higher for men.
• The average earnings difference for those gaining 2.1 compared with those gaining a lower-second class honours degree (2.2) is 7% higher for women and 11% higher for men.
• The average earnings difference for those gaining a 2.1 compared with those who obtained a third-class honours or pass degree is 15% higher for women and 18% higher for men.

The research also says that earnings premiums for a higher degree classification vary hugely by subject. For some subjects, degree class matters a lot for future earnings, while for others it appears not to matter at all. For example, men and women studying law or economics, getting a 2.2 rather than a 2.1, results in earnings that are more than 15% lower, whereas there is no significant difference for those studying education or English. The research goes into more detail and analyses the difference in earnings at age 30 from achieving higher degree classifications by subject and degree of university selectivity. This shows that:

• Degree class achieved seems to matter most for those attending the most selective universities and studying subjects where future earnings are highest. This would suggest that access to ‘elite jobs’ is governed not only by what you study, but also what university you study at and how well you do there.
• Achieving at least a 2.1 at more selective universities results in a higher earnings premium.Both men and women who obtained a 2.2 from selective universities (e.g. Oxford, Cambridge and the London School of Economics) earned 20% less on average at age 30 than those who achieved a 2.1. At the least selective universities the differential in earnings fell to 6% for women and 8% for men.
• There are stark gender differences in the earnings premium for those achieving a first-class honours degree at a selective university.At these universities, the average earnings premium for gaining a first-class honours degree versus a 2.1 is near zero for women, but very large, at around 14%, for men. This suggests that proportionately fewer high-achieving women go on to high-earning jobs.
• There has been a long-term trend towards graduates gaining very much higher classes of degree in all subjects and at all levels of university selectivity. However, there has been no parallel increase in corresponding earnings premiums.This could be explained by a general lowering of academic standards relative to the class of degree awarded.

GOVERNMENT STRATEGIC PRIORITIES FOR HIGHER EDUCATION IN ENGLAND IN 2022/23

On 31 March, Nadhim Zahawi, the Secretary of State for Education in England and Michelle Donelan, the Minister of State for Higher and Further Education in England, wrote two joint letters to the Office for Students (OfS) setting out the government’s priorities for HE in England in 2022/23. These are as follows:

• Higher Education Strategic Priorities: This letter includes reference to the ‘Levelling Up’ agenda, the Lifelong Loan Entitlement (LLE) and its flexible modular approach to learning and facilitation of credit transfer, the increased emphasis given to technical qualifications at Level 4-6, degree apprenticeships and Institutes of Technology (IoTs), driving up quality in HE, including tackling unacceptable poor quality provision through appropriate regulatory action and robust revisions to the Teaching Excellence framework along with published Ofsted style ratings for each institution, addressing problematical admissions procedures and ensuring that the statutory requirements for freedom of speech on campus are complied with.
• Higher Education Strategic Priorities Grant: This letter outlines the changes to HE grants and strategic priorities for grant expenditure in 2022/23 compared with 2021/22. The Strategic Priorities Grant (SPG) has been increased by £56 million for 2022/23. This is in addition to income generated through student fees and paid to universities directly by the Student Loans Company (SLC). A capital grant totalling £450 million is also being made available spread over the 2022/23 and 2023/24 academic years. In addition, £4 million is being made available to support Ukrainian students in the UK. The letter says that the OfS should continue to prioritise revenue and capital expenditure on subjects that support the NHS and wider healthcare policy, science, engineering and technology and other subjects that help meet specific labour market shortages and needs, and to further accelerate the growth of degree apprenticeships and the expansion of Level 4 and 5 vocational and technical qualifications (VTQs).

RISING INFLATION WILL RESULT IN STUDENTS PAYING HIGHER INTEREST ON THEIR LOANS

The interest rate on student loans in England is, at present, calculated by adding 3% to the Retail Price Index (RPI) measure of inflation. Students are charged interest for the whole duration of their studies and the interest accumulated is included in their first loan balance statement in the year after they leave university. After graduation the interest rate is linked to their pay. Graduates who earn £27,295 or more begin to repay their loans with interest added at RPI+3%. Those who earn £27,295 or less are charged interest equivalent to RPI. They do not make repayments until they earn above that amount, but the accrued interest over that period is still added to their loan balance statement. For current students and graduates with post-2012 student loans, any balance left unpaid on their loan balance statement will be written off after 30 years. This will be covered from public funds.

In March, the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which is the main measure of inflation, stood at 7. 2%. However, RPI inflation, which is used in calculating interest on student loans, stood at 9.0% (see here for the difference between the CPI and RPI). Any increase in the RPI is reflected in the loan interest rates students are charged 6 months later. Using the 9% RPI in March means that graduates and other students in England who have taken out loans to pay for their studies (including FE Advanced Learner Loans) will be paying 12% on their loans from this September. An analysis produced by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IfS) on 13 April, says that a very high-earning recent graduate on more than £49,130 a year with a student loan statement balance of £50,000 will be paying around £3,000 extra in interest charges over the six months from September 2022 until March 2023. For a graduate earning below the £27,295 earnings repayment threshold, although not making any loan repayments, the six months of higher rates will mean that around £2,300 interest will be added to their loan statement balance.

From September 2023, the student loan interest rate will be fixed at the RPI level (the +3% will be scrapped) for both current and future students, but from that date they will be required to repay their loans for up to 40 years rather than the current 30 years, before any outstanding balance on their loan statement is written off. Meanwhile, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) predicts that RPI (and therefore student loan interest rates) will be below 3% in 2024. In addition, the DfE has also suggested that in the future, the loan repayment system could be tweaked to even out future ‘wild swings’ in interest rates.

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY LAUNCHES FOUNDATION COURSE FOR DISADVANTAGED STUDENTS

Cambridge University has announced that it will fully fund a one-year residential foundation course in arts, humanities or social sciences for 52 students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Those who successfully complete the course will be able to join degree programmes in these subjects without having to apply again. A spokesperson for the university said the programme is part of its commitment to increase diversity and to encourage students who may not have been able to reach their academic potential due to their personal circumstances, such as those who have been in the care system, those who have been estranged from their parents, those from low-income households or those who have attended schools which have traditionally not sent many students to highly selective universities. Prospective applicants are required to apply though UCAS by 25 January 2023 and the university says that students will be selected after undergoing ‘rigorous interviews and assessments’. Students who do not want to continue studying at Cambridge after the foundation year, or do not reach the required level of achievement, will be supported to find places at other institutions.

NEW GUIDANCE ISSUED ON THE RISK OF RUSSIAN CYBER-ATTACKS

The invasion of Ukraine by Russia has heightened the prospect of Russian state initiated cyber-attacks designed to disrupt UK organisations and infrastructure. These could include educational institutions particularly, but not exclusively, involved in sensitive technical research. In 2017, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), which is part of the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), published guidance on the risks in using ‘cloud-enabled products where the supply chain includes hostile states, such as Russia’. The guidance included a recommendation that UK government departments, particularly those with responsibility for national security, should ensure that they weren’t using Russian products such as Kaspersky antivirus software, which could be embedded with sub-routines that may enable access to crucial databases. Russian law places legal obligations on Russian companies to assist the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) in any way required, and the pressure for them to do so clearly increases in a time of war. The NCSC says that it is continuing to assess the overall level of technical threat resulting from Russia’s actions, and whilst it has no evidence that the Russian state intends to suborn Russian commercial products and services to cause damage to UK interests, ‘the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and it would be prudent to plan for the possibility that this could happen’. On 20 April, the NCSC, along with the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) and partner ‘Five Eyes’ agencies in the US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, issued further updated advice on the threat to critical infrastructure from Russian state-sponsored cyber criminals.

AND FINALLY…

Overheard in a basic numeracy one-to-one tutorial…

Teacher: ‘If I gave you 2 cats and another 2 cats and then another 2 cats, how many cats would you have?’

Student: ‘Seven!’.

Teacher: ‘No, listen carefully. If I gave you two cats, and another two cats and another two cats, how many cats would you have?’

Student: ‘Seven!’.

Teacher: ‘Let me put it to you differently. If I gave you two apples, and another two apples and another two apples, how many would apples you have?’

Student: ‘Six!’

Teacher: ‘That’s more like it. Now, let’s try the first question again. If I gave you two cats, and another two cats and another two cats, how many cats would you have?”

Student: ‘Seven!’

Teacher: ‘How on earth do you get to a total of seven cats?!’

Student: ‘Because I’ve already got a cat!’

Alan Birks – April 2022

As usual, the views and opinions expressed in this newsletter are not necessarily those held by Click.
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