Category: FE & Skills

  • New heights in tertiary partnerships

    New heights in tertiary partnerships

    If we are serious about tackling the challenges posed by the Post-16 Education and Skills white paper, we need to rethink the relationship between our universities, colleges, and local economies.

    This is particularly important for institutions located outside the country’s major cities and conurbations – where the devolution agenda is somewhat more complicated.

    Beyond the city

    We all know that local economies depend on responsive, joined-up skills systems. Together colleges and universities bring proximity to communities and employers, backed up by research, innovation, and regional influence. And this is why meaningful collaboration between them really does matter, whether it is responding to the skills agenda; local devolution; the Lifelong Learning Entitlement; the need for more flexible and inclusive pathways into HE; local innovation ecosystems; and economic regeneration and regional productivity.

    There needs to be sector commitment that a better coordinated and more coherent system is required, particularly if we are to deliver on the government’s renewed national ambition for two-thirds of young people to have a higher-level qualification (Level 4 and above) by the age of 25.

    The UK government’s Post-16 Education and Skills white paper sets out a transformative vision for how universities and colleges should collaborate to build a more integrated and responsive skills system. FE will be encouraged to offer Level 4 and Level 5 courses targeting our regional priority sectors and needs, as identified with our Strategic Authorities through their Growth and Skills Plans. This has implications for universities, who will need to ensure there are pathways from these new courses into the curriculum, and for Local Skills Improvement Plan (LSIP) partners, with whom links will need to be strengthened. In short, we need to work regionally, and locally, to better align our offering with local employer demand and government Industrial Strategy priorities.

    In practical terms this means more employer-responsive co-designed curricula and new flexible pathways to help ensure smoother transitions between FE and HE, perhaps with joint qualifications and credit transfer systems. We must now be co-architects of a skills ecosystem that is agile, inclusive, and economically aligned.

    The case of Exeter

    The University of Exeter and Exeter College have cultivated a strong collaborative relationship over the past 25 years, deepening our partnership through a formal Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) established nine years ago and now in its second iteration. A fundamental driver for the relationship was the realisation that Exeter is an unusual geography in that it is the only UK city in which post-16 education is served solely by one Russell group university and one outstanding tertiary college. This has enabled us to take an experimental approach.

    At the heart of a successful collaboration sits ambition, the need, or even responsibility to drive social mobility and to make a difference to a place. Not just because of a policy, but because when HE and FE collaborate – it creates real synergy and a powerful force for change. The key to success, like most things in life – is people, but not just people, the right people at the right level in both the college and university believing collaboration is important. Dare we say it is also important, as an organisation, to know yourself, and to be clear about the purpose of each organisation – so that competition is minimised or eliminated. If your first thought is to monetise the partnership, it is likely to fail.

    Driving innovation

    Progress in FE-HE collaboration has often either come from more recent innovations such as degree apprenticeships, or through a need to work in new ways to deliver within regional funding streams. As a starting point, universities need to map and understand their local FE landscape to identify potential complementarities in skills provision, learner demographics, and employer relationships.

    This enduring alliance is anchored by high-level commitment and strategic alignment, for example, with senior university leaders actively participating on the college board. Such integration ensures shared vision and governance, shared accountability, and the blurring of traditional boundaries and silos.

    Our partnership here in Exeter extends across multiple initiatives, including joint sponsorship of the Ted Wragg Multi Academy Trust and the Exeter Mathematics School, as well as membership of regional initiatives such as the South West Institute of Technology, reflecting a shared commitment to educational innovation and regional development.

    A key feature of this collaboration is the development of thematic “escalators” – these are best understood as pathways that connect college and university expertise in areas such as digital, sport, and green technologies. They have led to the establishment of pathways from FE to HE and consistent curricula. New escalator activity is now happening in both civil engineering and health. These benefit students by providing levels of certainty and logical routes for progression and boost the local economy by attracting young people from the Devon community, who are more likely to gain employment in our local businesses after they graduate.

    The health escalator is particularly timely, aligning with current government priorities and offering new opportunities for joint programming and research. The sport escalator stands out as a model of success, enabling college HE students (validated by the University of Exeter) to progress athletically by playing for university teams, in partnership with local clubs. These escalators exemplify how the institutions are creating seamless transitions and shared platforms that benefit students, staff, and the wider community.

    Locally owned

    Our escalators began life as labour market tools developed collaboratively by the university, Exeter College, and Exeter City Council, following representation from local employers who had been unable to source the right skills locally for what were good, well-paid positions. This last point is important because this is not just about satisfying employer needs (which is challenging enough), but supporting social mobility, wealth creation, and retention of talent.

    Skills escalators enable FE and HE partners to target existing resources effectively and to identify and fill gaps in provision. Our initial data analytics skills escalator resulted in new FE courses at the college, new postgraduate degrees at the university, and several new degree apprenticeships. So successful was this exercise that we have recently repeated it with two new escalators focused on green skills and social care.

    Such skills escalators play to university strengths, especially their research and knowledge exchange. They also play to genuine FE strengths around employer-responsiveness and rapid curriculum change. You can read more about our skills escalators in the new Universities UK and Association of Colleges report – delivering a post-16 skills system.

    Getting civic

    Given their presence in the Post 16 Skills White paper, it is also worth referencing the role of our civic university agreements (CUAs). These have been around nationally for several years and have even had their own national impact accelerator. But to be truly impactful they need commitment and underlying operational capacity. In Exeter, our CUA brings together the University, Exeter College, the City Council and Royal Devon University Hospital (NHS), with skills, again, as a top priority – helping provide strategic oversight and governance to practical on the ground activity.

    We believe that CUAs, supported by FE-HE memoranda of understanding, can provide the strategic framework for tertiary education to succeed, with escalators helping us to deliver tangible change. But ultimately, an effective tertiary landscape will demonstrate responsiveness, progression, and continuity, and in doing so success will need to be measured through different types of metrics and the rewarding of collaborative labour-market driven provision, and not just individual institutional performance.

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  • Higher education should back a national digital skills wallet

    Higher education should back a national digital skills wallet

    Across the UK, millions of people struggle to prove what they’re capable of. From students juggling part-time work, to graduates volunteering in their communities, much of their learning sits outside formal qualifications and is effectively invisible to employers and institutions.

    That invisibility costs everyone. It holds back individuals who can’t evidence their abilities and employers who struggle to identify the right talent, and it also drags on national productivity.

    Last month the RSA and Ufi VocTech Trust published the final report of the Digital Badging Commission, From Skills to Growth: A Plan for Digital Badging in the UK. The conclusion is clear: the UK urgently needs a national digital skills wallet, linked to emerging plans for a national digital ID and built on open, interoperable standards. It would allow people to collect, store and share digital badges and credentials for their skills and capabilities that sit alongside their formal qualifications for a more holistic approach to education.

    This recommendation now aligns directly with the UK government’s post-16 education and skills white paper which commits to a digital-first, lifelong learning system and the development of a national digital identity infrastructure. The commission’s proposals are therefore timely, practical and well placed to support the government’s agenda.

    The missing infrastructure

    While individual institutions issue transcripts in pdf format, and some pioneer digital badges alongside them, there’s no shared infrastructure to make those records connected nor visible across different sectors. As education and work become increasingly digital, paper certificates should be giving way to verifiable, portable digital records, alongside digital badges and credentials.

    These are not just icons of achievement, but verified records embedded with information about who issued them, what they recognise and when they were awarded. Built on open standards, they can be issued by any organisation that follows the same open technical framework, ensuring compatibility across sectors.

    Globally, digital badges and credentials are part of richer digital profile infrastructures, including Comprehensive Learner Records (CLRs) and Learning and Employment Records (LERs). CLRs capture academic, professional and co-curricular achievements, while LERs extend this to employment history, creating a portfolio of verified experience. Both can be stored in digital wallets, secure platforms that give individuals control over how and when they share their data with employers or education providers.

    Together, these systems represent a shift towards lifelong, learner-owned digital records, combining qualifications, skills and experience into one trusted framework. This is precisely the direction outlined in the government’s white paper, which calls for a more joined-up and data-driven post-16 education landscape.

    The Digital Badging Commission’s modelling shows that a trusted digital credentialing ecosystem could unlock billions in productivity across the wider economy through faster hiring and retention. But the gains go deeper than economics: visibility of skills drives inclusion. It means every learner, whatever their route, can have their capabilities recognised.

    Keeping up with global trends

    The use of digital skills wallets and LERs is accelerating worldwide. In the UK, the idea of a skills passport is not new – in 2022, the Council of Skills Advisers, chaired by David Blunkett, proposed a Learning and Skills Passport, a modular, assessment-based record built over a lifetime, linked to Individual Learning Accounts. More recently, under the industrial strategy, government confirmed that Skills England will work with industry to develop such passports.

    Across Europe, the EU’s Digital Identity Wallet is being piloted in several member states ahead of full rollout in 2026. It will let citizens store and share verified digital credentials, from qualifications to identity documents, through a secure mobile app integrated with Europass. The system aims to make skills and qualifications transferable across borders, supporting the EU’s vision for a flexible, skills-based digital economy.

    The Digital Badging Commission is calling for interoperable skills wallets that begins as an evolution of the Department for Education’s digital Education Record (which will be rolled out to all school pupils from August 2026). It will initially hold GCSEs for school-leavers but could expand to become a lifelong, portable record – potentially linking to whatever comes out of emerging plans for a national digital ID.

    Here the white paper is welcome but incomplete. It describes an “education record app” focused on qualifications and support information, yet it does not set out how essential, non-accredited learning (workplace skills, volunteering, micro-credentials) will be imported. To avoid a two-tier system, the government should seize the chance to ensure one integrated wallet – rather than a separate “skills app” – so a person’s full skillset is represented, not just formal assessments. Not only that, but individuals should be able to choose what they share, and with whom.

    This directly complements the white paper’s ambition for a unified skills and qualifications framework, ensuring that learning follows the individual, not the institution, across life and work.

    Crucially, it must adopt open standards so that every education provider can issue records that align with it, and can be exported into a shared national wallet or interoperable proprietary ones. Degree transcripts from universities would no longer be in pdf format, but living records exported to the same technical rules as other credentials. A learner could move a verified transcript directly into a skills and qualifications wallet, combine it with badges from professional training or volunteering, and share it securely with employers anywhere in the UK.

    That interoperability matters. Without it, the Education Record risks excluding lifelong learning altogether. With it, we can create a single, trusted architecture connecting higher education, workplace learning and civic participation. For universities, it means the qualifications they issue remain visible and valuable in a joined-up system.

    What higher education stands to gain

    There’s a strategic choice here. Universities can either wait until government or private platforms dictate the standards or help design them now.

    By engaging early, HEIs can enhance their reputation and competitiveness by being seen as innovators in trusted digital credentials. This will strengthen their global profile and appeal to learners and employers seeking transparent, skills-focused education. They can provide better learner outcomes by meaningfully capturing students’ broader skills, placements and co-curricular learning, improving employability and lifelong learning pathways – taking the former Higher Education Achievement Record to its natural digital conclusion, and making lifelong learning tangible, rather than rhetorical, to students. Moreover, early involvement will mean a smoother integration with existing systems (VLEs and student records), reducing future compliance costs and avoiding disruptive retrofitting when standards are mandated.

    The post-16 white paper’s call for a coherent digital skills framework reinforces this opportunity for universities to lead, not follow, in shaping the standards and technology that will define post-16 learning.

    The obvious concerns are trust, quality and cost. Without consistent quality assurance, digital credentials risk being untrusted markers of skill. That’s why the Commission also calls for a national registry for digital credential quality assurance – a registry that defines standards, metadata requirements and approved issuers.

    Quality is not the enemy of flexibility in this case; it is the enabler of trust. If universities lead in shaping these standards, they can ensure rigour and learner protection are built in from the start.

    Adopting open standards in education and digital skills systems will not necessarily be straightforward, particularly in environments where legacy systems have been modified incrementally over years. For many institutions, both large and small, modifying student information systems and integrating open standards to bring them into line will require significant overhaul of systems, as well as underpinning investment in staff training.

    However, the implementation of the LLE is requiring all institutions to explore the extent to which their student record systems are fit for purpose, and this represents a real opportunity to think broadly about what systems will be required in the future.

    A call to lead, not follow

    The RSA once helped invent the modern exam system. Today we need the same leap of imagination for the digital age. If we want an inclusive, high-trust and high-skill economy, recognition must catch up with reality.

    Universities are uniquely placed to lead this transition, rooted in evidence, trusted by learners and central to the national conversation about growth. The question is not whether digital credentials will become part of our landscape, but who will set the standards and values that shape them.

    By engaging with open standards for degree transcripts and flexing VLEs to deliver digital badges, higher education can ensure that the national digital skills wallet reflects academic quality, learner autonomy and social purpose. In the wake of the government’s post-16 white paper – and with clarity now needed on integrating non-accredited learning – the timing could not be better. It’s an opportunity to turn invisible learning into visible value.

    You can download the Digital Badging Commission’s final report, From Skills to Growth: A Plan for Digital Badging in the UK here.

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  • Only radical thinking will deliver the integrated tertiary system the country needs

    Only radical thinking will deliver the integrated tertiary system the country needs

    The post-16 white paper was an opportunity to radically enable an education and skills ecosystem that is built around the industrial strategy, and that has real resonance with place.

    The idea that skills exist in an entirely different space to education is just wrongheaded. The opportunity comes, however, when we can see a real connection, both in principle and in practice, between further and higher education: a tertiary system that can serve students, employers and society.

    Significant foundations are already in place with the Lifelong Learning Entitlement providing sharp focus within the higher education sector and apprenticeships, now well established, and well regarded across both HE and FE. Yet we still have the clear problem that schools, FE, teaching in HE, research and knowledge transfer are fragmented across the DfE and other associated sector bodies.

    Sum of the parts

    The policy framework needs to be supported by a major and radical rethink of how the parts fit together so we can truly unlock the combined transformational power of education and innovation to raise aspirations, opportunity, attainment, and ultimately, living standards. This could require a tertiary commission of the likes of Diamond and Hazelkorn in the Welsh system in the mid-2010’s.

    Such a commission could produce bold thinking on the scale of the academies movement in schools over the last 25 years. The encouragement to bring groups of schools together has resulted in challenge, but also significant opportunity. We have seen the creation of some excellent FE college groups following an area-based review around a decade ago. The first major coming together of HE institutions is in train with Greenwich and Kent. We have seen limited pilot FE/HE mergers. Now feels like the right time for blue sky thinking that enables the best of all of those activities in a structured and purposeful way that is primarily focused on the benefits to learning and national productivity rather than simply financial necessity.

    Creating opportunities for HE, FE and schools to come together not only in partnerships, but in structural ways will enable the innovation that will create tangible change in local and regional communities. All parts of the education ecosystem face ever-increasing financial challenge. If an FE college and a university wished to offer shared services, then there would need to be competitive tender for the purposes of best value. This sounds sensible except the cost of running such a process is high. If those institutions are part of the same group, then it can be done so much more efficiently.

    FE colleges are embedded in their place and even more connected to local communities. The ability to reach into more disadvantaged communities and to take the HE classroom from the traditional university setting, is a distinct benefit. The growth in private, for-profit HE provision is often because it has a great ability to reach into specific communities. The power of FE/HE collaboration into those same communities would bring both choice and exciting possibility.

    While in theory FE and HE can merge through a section 28 application to the Secretary of State, the reality is that any activity to this point has been marginal and driven by motivation other than enhanced skills provision. If the DfE were to enable, and indeed drive, such collaboration they could create both financial efficiencies and a much greater and more coordinated offer to employers and learners.

    The industrial strategy and the growth in devolved responsibility for skills create interesting new opportunities but we must find ways that avoid a new decade of confusion for employers and learners. The announcement of new vocational qualifications, Technical Excellence Colleges and the like are to be welcomed but must be more than headlines. Learners and employers alike need to be able to see pathways and support for their lifelong skills and learning needs.

    Path to integration

    The full integration of FE and HE could create powerful regional and place-based education and skills offers. Adding in schools and creating education trusts that straddle all levels means that employers could benefit from integrated offers, less bureaucracy and clear, accelerated pathways.

    So now is the moment to develop Integrated Skills and Education Trusts (ISET): entities that sit within broad groups and benefit from the efficiencies of scale but maintaining local provision. Taking the best of FE, understanding skills and local needs and the best of HE and actively enabling them to come together.

    Our experience at Coventry, working closely and collaboratively with several FE partners, is that the barriers thrown up within the DfE are in stark and clear contrast to the policy statements of ministers and, indeed, of the Prime Minister. The post-16 white paper will only lead to real change if the policy and the “plumbing” align. The call has to be to think with ambition and to encourage and enable action that serves learners, employers and communities with an education and skills offer that is fit for the next generation.

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  • What is in the post-16 education and skills white paper for higher education?

    What is in the post-16 education and skills white paper for higher education?

    The government’s post-16 education and skills white paper is jointly fronted by the Department for Education, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, and Department for Work and Pensions – and is accordingly ambitious in scope.

    Spanning proposals to address the number of NEET young people to widening access to postgraduate study, the plans break down into three key areas: joining up skills and employment throughout the system including through Skills England and funding reform; reforms in the further education/college sector; and reforms in the higher education sector. It’s the last of these we are concerned with here.

    The headlines

    Introducing the white paper in the House of Commons, Secretary of State for Education Bridget Phillipson announced the critical information many have been waiting for: a commitment to increase tuition fees and maintenance loans by predicted inflation for the next two years, and to legislate to make the fee increase automatic in future.

    The white paper arrives against the backdrop of the government’s new target for two-thirds under-25 participation in higher-level learning, but that target itself is fundamentally about the stuff the government has been talking about from the beginning: tackling skills shortages to support growth; and offering more, and broader, opportunities for post-16 education and training.

    Within all of that higher education emerges as a critical “strategic asset” – but nevertheless in need of reform, summed up as follows:

    Our ambition is to have a more sustainable, more specialised and more efficient sector, better aligned with the needs of the economy.

    In practice, if the government were to have its way (and that’s a big if) the outcome would be a fair bit of sector consolidation, with a more stratified sector incorporating fewer highly research-active institutions, operating within a regional ecosystem in which different types of institutions coordinate around an education offer that remains competitive in terms of subject and qualification choice, but attentive to regional skills needs.

    What’s missing, arguably, is the heavy policy lifting to make that real. As the text of the white paper suggests:

    The changes outlined here mark the beginning of a journey. We want to continue working with the sector to consider how best we can support greater specialisation in the future.

    Critically, what is not included here is anything on the pointier end of financial sustainability ie management of institutional insolvency or a special administration regime – the working assumption is that autonomous institutions will be able to identify opportunities to innovate, whether individually or in collaboration. That may be true, but while the risks of specialisation outweigh the prospective rewards, the government can encourage all it wants, but institutions will most likely continue to recruit to the courses that they believe there is a market for.

    What there does appear to be is a generalised vote of confidence in the Office for Students (OfS) – no proposals to tear up the Higher Education and Research Act here. In fact, when the parliamentary schedule allows, OfS is set to get more powers, particularly to crack down on low quality – and will now become the regulator for all provision at level 4 and above. Critically, OfS’ definition of quality will be given teeth both in the form of permission – or otherwise – to increase fees or issue restrictions on growth in student numbers.

    All together now

    In terms of strategic ambition, there are five objectives for the sector: economic growth, a high quality experience, national capability via specific research and skills development, regional impact, and an increase in international standing. International, these translate into global standing, nationally to government goals on growth, security and skills, regionally to meeting skills needs through collaboration, and at provider level, to specialisation and efficiency.

    Providers are challenged to:

    specialise in areas of strength within a more collaborative system, with clearer roles for teaching- and research-intensive institutions with areas of specialist advantage, and stronger access and participation.

    The argument is that too many providers are trying to sustain too broad a base of offering to the same student demographics rather than focusing on their core strengths. From the outset, however, it is clarified that higher education providers are autonomous and “it is not for government to impose these changes.” So institutions will be encouraged to innovate, to specialise and to collaborate rather than obliged to, with OfS tasked with working out what might help.

    The sting in the tail, however, is that the government intends to use research funding to drive some of this differentiation in the form of a “more strategic distribution of research activity,” which essentially means concentrating research funding which will have the knock-on impact that those who lose out will be obliged to revise their business models.

    In theory this could mean greater efficiency in the research system with better cost recovery, and more sharing of grants, facilities, and equipment. The idea here is because of the close relationship between research and teaching specialisation in one will drive specialisation in the other. And, just to be sure, providers are asked to align incentives for academics for research excellence and teaching excellence and to diversify recognition for research performance to include mentoring, peer review, commercialisation activities and public engagement.

    Sustainable footing

    That commitment to inflationary fee and maintenance loan rises – baked in for the first two years, with the intent to make it automatic in the longer term via legislation when parliamentary time allows – covers all provision with the exception of classroom-based foundation years – these will stick at £5,670 through 2026–27 and 2027–28 at least.

    There’s a big caveat – future fee uplifts will be conditional on providers achieving a “higher quality threshold” via the OfS’ quality regime. This isn’t spelled out, but it is reasonable to assume given the recent consultation that this might be new TEF silver and gold.

    The long-standing debate on full cost recovery appears to be tilting in support of costs, which the paper recognises “may result in funding a lower volume of research but at a more sustainable level.” The ask for providers here is effective collaboration and shared resources (again), and a commitment to to cost grants accurately. There’s a wider interest in improving research grant cost recovery alongside this – mostly stuff we already know about (equipment funded at 80 per cent of costs, a higher capital equipment threshold, confirmation that matched funding from providers is not required for UKRI) but there’s also wider research into costs (including on the sustainability of PhD programmes) underway.

    Dual support will remain (QR funding will stay), but there will be a modification of what the government expects in return – the idea for research generally is to stick to three priorities: curiosity-driven, delivering government priorities (missions, the industrial strategy), and targeted commercialisation and scale up support. There’s more on streamlining bureaucracy, including improvements to the way the Transparent Approach to Costing (TRAC) is used for assurance.

    A single line says the government will seek to “better understand concerns” about the Teacher’s Pension Scheme, which is used in providers formerly in local government control and where costs are rising well beyond the capacity of institutions to address them (which the government already knows).

    But again, there’s pro for the quid, in the form of expectations of higher education institutions to deliver efficiency.

    We knew that government was worried about HE governance and its general capability to deliver strategic change and sustainable operating models, and so the white paper confirms, with signals that OfS will consult on strengthening its condition of registration on governance, and endorsement of the current Committee of University Chairs governance review, which will strengthen its (voluntary) Code of Governance.

    There’s a note of thanks to the UUK Efficiency and Transformation Taskforce, endorsement of plans to develop an efficiency maturity model, and a wish to see more visibility for good collaboration practice (hats off to N8 and the Midlands Innovation partnership).

    In turn, the government will help make the Student Loans Company more efficient, foster closer relationships between OfS and UKRI on regulation and the delivery of the broader strategic aims of government, and strengthen OfS financial monitoring of the sector. OfS will be delivering a reformed regulatory framework that is focused on “driving out pockets of poor performance.”

    Access and student experience

    Much of the section on access and participation is taken up with reiterating student finance arrangement – LLE, targeted grants – but there is also a basket of other ideas and proposals, including reform to OfS’ approach to access and participation to be (even) more risk-based, consideration of patterns of PhD participation and access to postgraduate study, and notes on student accommodation, harassment, the extension of the mental health taskforce for another year with a new student support champion, and the existing funding to tackle antisemitism.

    Higher education cold spots and contextual admissions will be the main topics of conversation at a task and finish group to be chaired by University of Derby vice chancellor Kathryn Mitchell bringing together sector experts, charities, OfS, and UCAS.

    There is a recap of the details of the Lifelong Learning Entitlement, with an emphasis that available provision will expand beyond the priority areas in future. As has been widely acknowledged, this removes the distinction between full and part-time study – it will be possible to study multiple courses and modules at the same time. And there is a reminder that even if you have used up your (four year full-time) allocation, there will still be money available for priority courses.

    On that, there are some indications about the relationship between the LLE and the Growth and Skills Levy – the former will allow students to draw down loans to take modular courses at level 4 or above, particularly in FE colleges, while the latter will allow employer funding for “short courses.” Curiously, the only mention of apprenticeships is in relation to a new form of short course provision dubbed “apprenticeship units” designed to tackle critical skills shortages, tacit confirmation, perhaps, that the apprenticeship model may be too unwieldy and too challenging to scale to deliver on those critical areas at the pace required.

    Finally – first announced in 2010 – there is movement on creating an Alternative Student Finance scheme for those who are unable or unwilling to participate in the main scheme (primarily those individuals who consider themselves subject to Sharia law), which will launch “as soon as possible” after the introduction of the Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE) in January 2027.

    About growth

    The strategic priorities grant (which is the bits of OfS funding that currently include the stuff on high-cost subjects) will be reformed – as highlighted in the last grant letter to OfS, and with the groundwork on data collection achieved via the reforms to HESES.

    Those of a certain vintage will recall the ability for students to leave their degree with a certificate (L4) after year one and a diploma (L5) after year two – there’s a consultation pending on making student support for traditional (level 6) degrees conditional on doing something similar. A part of the hope here is allowing transferability between providers, though there is nothing on facilitating this kind of transfer (something that English higher education has traditionally struggled with). This comes alongside the established focus on levels 4 and 5 in higher technical qualifications (HTQs) – the twist here is that OfS will be able to bestow HTQ awarding powers in the same way it does degree awarding powers (or, cynically, foundation degree awarding powers) – with the designation process for HTQ courses becoming more flexible.

    Providers get “clearer expectations” around involvement in Local Skills Improvement Plans (LSIPs), which will cover technical skills needs between levels 4 and 8. This will be supported by a market-monitoring function within Skills England which will spot gaps between supply and demand nationally and locally.

    There’s a restatement of some research announcements in this bit – the protection of overall funding, access to horizon europe, and the protection of curiosity-driven research (UKRI gets a strategic objective year), work with public sector research establishments, and the increase to the maximum stipend.

    On commercialisation and scale-up, some UKRI funding will pivot towards government priorities (as in the industrial strategy) and a rethink of the way innovation funding is used to drive growth. And universities are encouraged to develop civic plans that align with their strengths and priorities.

    Finally in this section we get some lines on international standing – again this is mostly restatement of stuff like the Global Talent Visa reforms, but adding a hint of a refresh to the International Education Strategy. Recruitment must be sustainable and not put providers at undue risk, and there will be tighter enforcement of visa approvals via strengthening requirements on universities.

    Quality

    Teaching quality remains a core agenda, with the paper noting that:

    Among students who found their university experience worse than they had expected, teaching quality was among the most commonly cited reasons. Improving transparency about course quality is essential.

    The government will “consider options” to increase the capacity of OfS to conduct quality investigations, with the hoped-for outcome being that it can respond more rapidly to identified risks. Again, when parliamentary time allows, OfS will gain additional powers to intervene in cases of low quality, including imposing limitations on student numbers.

    The plans consulted on last year, which would make larger franchise providers register with OfS in order to access funding, will go ahead – while OfS will prioritise franchise investigations ahead of getting strengthened statutory powers to intervene “decisively” on this issue including stronger powers of entry, and the ability to make interim sanctions. And there’s more to come on tackling abuse of the system by recruitment agents – sharpening up access to student finance, and reinforced investigative powers for OfS.

    White papers traditionally include a section on improving applicant information, and this one is no different: the government welcomes the offer rates and historic grades on UCAS, and wants to add graduate outcomes information and completion rates from Discover Uni to what is on offer there.

    The time-honoured system of external examiners – where academics from elsewhere assure the quality and standards of provision at a provider – is up for debate, with an evidence base being built on the “effectiveness or otherwise” of this approach to feed into an OfS programme of reform that will also include employer views as part of a wider look at degree awarding powers.

    And there’s a progress 8 style measure (basically something akin to learning gain) in the offing, with the government and OfS working together on this.

    Finally in this section, a section on freedom of speech on campus summarises the changes made to the measures in the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act, adding a note on the tension between these duties and a right not to be threatened, harassed, or intimidated.

    What happens now

    There’s a lot to digest in this white paper, with a lot of the proposals themselves requiring extensive action and further development – and we’ve not even covered the broader post-16 skills plans here, such as the new V levels. What’s missing though is a defined legislative agenda or timescale – indeed, this is not a traditional white paper in that it is not presented for public consultation at all. In that sense it is closer to what the Labour manifesto originally promised, which was a comprehensive post-16 education strategy, and it’s probably in that vein it should be read.

    With that in mind, it’s probably best to view the overall direction of travel as locked in – assuming this government can stick around long enough to realise some of its ambitions in practice. But there is still a great deal of work to be done to put flesh on the bones of these various proposals – and while some of these plans may go against the traditional sector grain, figuring out how to make them work in practice offers an opportunity to look again at what bits of higher education are critical to preserve – and what hitherto sacred cows can safely be allowed to slide into obscurity.

    Join the authors and the rest of Team Wonkhe at the Festival of Higher Education on 11-12 November in London where we’ll be digesting the government’s agenda for HE alongside a multitude of sector experts and commentators. Find out more and book your ticket here. 

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  • This is what greater collaboration between further and higher education in England should look like

    This is what greater collaboration between further and higher education in England should look like

    With the UK government’s focus on opportunity as part of its mission-led approach, ensuring equitable access to higher-level skills development and training must be prioritised across all education sectors.

    To address skills shortages and support social mobility, high-quality, place-based solutions must be embedded within a cohesive tertiary landscape. College-based higher education plays a pivotal role in this system, not as a second-tier option, but as an essential component of the HE ecosystem.

    For the many people who cannot (or choose not) to leave their local area due to financial constraints, work or family commitments, higher education must remain a viable and accessible option. This means providing alternative, innovative pathways that allow individuals to develop higher level skills within their communities.

    Many institutions are committed to social justice, but existing policy structures, funding mechanisms and an emphasis on market competition between higher education institutions and further education colleges weakens local partnerships and impedes the development of inclusive pathways into higher education. Further education and higher education share a civic mission to deliver skills and education which drives social mobility and economic growth. To fulfil this mission, institutions must shift from competing for students and funding, to collaborating meaningfully to widen participation and create an inclusive HE system.

    Sharing knowledge

    Collaboration must extend beyond student recruitment strategies to include shared resources, further co-developed curricula and the integration of expertise between institutions. An example of this is the partnership between Loughborough University and Loughborough College, where both institutions work together to enhance provision rather than compete. This collaboration includes the sharing of facilities and staff expertise, ensuring delivery of high-quality education with clear progression routes, while successfully addressing regional skills needs.

    However, to be sustainable and effective partnerships must be structured equitably. Each institution must be valued and respected for its unique strengths and share a clearly defined ambition for learners. True partnership requires trust, ensuring that both HE and FE partners collaborate as equals, aligned to their strengths.

    Government policies must actively incentivise collaboration rather than perpetuate competition. This requires:

    • Revised funding models; rewarding collaboration instead of duplication of provision
    • Integrated quality assurance frameworks; streamlining oversight to prevent excessive bureaucracy and misaligned standards
    • Regional skills planning; aligning provision with workforce needs through engagement with combined authorities, local enterprise partnerships and other education providers including schools and multi-academy trusts.

    Further education colleges and higher education institutions have different but complementary knowledge and expertise. The government’s recent announcement to invest £600 million into construction training underscores its recognition that FE colleges are well placed to deliver high-quality technical education at scale. The plan to establish ten new technical excellence colleges builds on the success of institutes of technology, where FE institutions take the lead in delivering skills training, supported by higher education institutions and employers.By reinforcing the central role of FE colleges, the government is acknowledging their deep-rooted connections to local economies and their ability to respond flexibly to employer needs.

    It is this strong employer engagement that is crucial to a responsive tertiary system. FECs excel in building industry connections and adapting swiftly to workforce demands. Integrating HE institutions into these partnerships expands progression routes, ensuring access to technical training and advanced/professional qualifications. This is particularly critical in sectors facing acute skills shortages, such as digital technology, green industries and STEM. Joint curriculum development between FE and HE, informed by employer needs, ensures that students acquire both theoretical knowledge and the practical skills required in their chosen fields.

    Flexible pathways

    Ensuring accessible education also requires more flexible, modular learning pathways, particularly for adult learners balancing study with work and family. Colleges and universities alike are seeing an increase in students struggling with mental health challenges, which can impact attendance and academic performance. More comprehensive wrap-around student support, together with flexible and locally delivered learning plus adaptable timetables, are already helping to improve student retention and achievement in many further education colleges.

    However, rigid funding structures often restrict more flexible modular approaches to delivery. Effective funding adjustments are needed to support lifelong learning, allowing students to build qualifications, including sub degree provision progressively rather than committing learners to long-term study upfront.

    While collaboration is the logical and necessary path forward, inequitable funding remains a real barrier. Universities receive significantly higher per-student funding than colleges, despite the crucial role colleges play in delivering higher-level skills. Addressing this financial imbalance is essential if colleges are to deliver, sustain and expand high-quality Level 4 and 5 provision, particularly in sectors critical to economic growth.

    A more integrated tertiary system is needed, one that values the contributions of colleges, universities and other providers without unnecessary division. If done right, this will result in win/win for all students, employers and providers. This is not about merging the sectors but making collaboration the norm, underpinned by policy that prioritises partnership over competition and facilitates local, equitable access to high level skills and development.

    Debbie McVitty’s recent article on evolution vs. transformation in higher education is highly relevant to thinking through the future for place-based partnerships. While some advocate radical change, others prefer an evolutionary approach that builds on existing strengths. In FE and HE collaboration, enhancing partnerships, refining policies and expanding successful local models is more practical. This would enable more cost-effective delivery of skills and knowledge, while ensuring resources are not wasted on competition for students. Given the financial strain so many providers are currently under, this would be hugely beneficial.

    With genuine collaboration and more equitable funding, we can build a better-integrated, place-based higher education system that widens access and drives economic growth – advancing social mobility and regional prosperity.

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  • Any possible tertiary future for England’s post-18 system must lean into college-based HE

    Any possible tertiary future for England’s post-18 system must lean into college-based HE

    The Lifelong Education Institute’s latest report – “Taking Higher Education Further” – shines a spotlight on the contribution of FE colleges to England’s higher education sector.

    In partnership with the Mixed Economy Group of colleges – a group representing the 43 colleges with a strategic interest in HE – we have explored the rationale for college-based higher education, analysed some of the barriers holding it back from expansion, and suggested ways in which policymakers could support its growth.

    The report could hardly come out at a more interesting time for FE/HE relationships. After a decade or more of relative stasis following the introduction of the £9,000 undergraduate student fee cap in England, the tectonic plates of post-18 education are shifting rapidly towards an as-yet-unknown end state. There are three key drivers behind this potential re-setting of the status quo between the college and university sectors.

    First is the dramatic shift in the financial situation of universities and colleges, with many higher education institutions now facing the sort of cost-cutting that further education colleges have endured for years and needing to come up with new, more efficient business models to sustain themselves financially. Following the consolidation of many smaller colleges into large groups, there are now several colleges with larger annual turnovers than smaller universities, and the balance of power between FE and HE is moving steadily away from the traditional template of senior/junior partnership.

    Second is the move towards universities having place-based strategies, with civic university agreements proliferating in all parts of the country. This has partly been driven by the rise in influential devolved authorities across England, and partly by the increase in take up of degree pathways in a range of public sector professions, such as nursing, policing, and social work, which are vital to local communities and tend to recruit from local populations.

    Rising cost of living pressures have also played their part, with commuting students becoming an increasingly important segment of the HE student market. The introduction of degree apprenticeships has also pulled many universities into much more active engagement with local employers and much more of a focus on local skills development. Colleges, which have always had fairly tight catchment areas, now find themselves working their patches alongside local universities, and in some cases, through the network of 21 Institutes of Technology, offering higher technical qualifications and high level short courses directly in partnership with HE institutions.

    Third, and most importantly, the arrival of a new government is rapidly moving the political paradigm away from competition towards collaboration. Education ministers have taken every opportunity since the general election to drive home the message that partnership, cooperation and coordination have now replaced markets, competition and institutional individualism as “the default way of working across all providers,” in the recent words of skills minister Jacqui Smith. We are promised a white paper this summer setting out a comprehensive strategy for post-16 education and skills, and at the same time a “radical” package of HE reforms which will also emphasise the role of HE in collaborating around local and national skills priorities.

    Is the future for England tertiary?

    HE/FE collaboration has tended to be relatively transactional and fluid in England, and there is no standard blueprint for forging partnerships. A small number of colleges can now claim to be tertiary institutions, having been granted degree awarding powers, although with the Office for Students having currently suspended the application process until August, it’s now far from certain how quickly this number will grow in future. There are four universities which by virtue of having absorbed a failing FE college have become tertiary – Derby, London South Bank, Greater Manchester (formerly Bolton University) and the University of West London. But this is the result of specific local circumstances, not national policy.

    Arguably, these institutions are a microcosm of exactly what the government is trying to achieve at a national level. Tertiary institutions are able to develop coherent progression pathways from basic to undergraduate level for students of all aptitudes, embracing both academic and technical education routes without competition between them. David Phoenix, vice chancellor of London South Bank University, has been an articulate advocate for this model, and his vision, as set out in his November 2023 report “Connecting the dots: the need for an effective skills system in England” has been highly influential in Labour-leaning circles.

    It’s possible the government will introduce much greater incentives for universities and colleges to consider merger, and even be prepared to act as “matchmaker” for reluctant or hesitant brides and grooms. It would certainly make it much easier to develop integrated apprenticeships, higher technical qualifications and Lifelong Learning Entitlement offers if there were more tertiary providers.

    The Taking Higher Education Further report is generally supportive of greater tertiary integration, but with several important reservations. To begin with, although most FE colleges are appreciative of the relationships they have with universities – mostly still based on validation agreements – there are many who are critical of the cost and in some cases one-sided nature of the partnership, with some having experienced the disruption caused by an HE institution deciding unilaterally to withdraw from the agreement. Another concern has been the proliferation of foundation years at many universities, which was seen as unwelcome competition for Level 3 students and met with dismay by many in the FE sector. This has abated considerably since the introduction of a much reduced fee cap for foundation years.

    While some institutes of technology have strengthened FE/HE relationships, others have struggled to bridge the gap between the two sectors. One aspect of that gap – the difference in pay and conditions between FE and HE lecturers – has proved particularly troublesome. But those institutes of technology which have been successful have demonstrated that joint working between FE and HE can be highly effective. Overall, despite the caveats, the FE leaders consulted as part of the research for the report were generally positive about the idea of working more closely with HE.

    In a political climate where economically relevant skills and wider access to job-related skills are now central to the government agenda, college-based higher education has both issues at its heart. The HE students who study in FE colleges are overwhelmingly, adult, very local and from disadvantaged backgrounds. The courses they take are typically directly related to opportunities in the local labour market and focused on career progression. Whereas the student loan system has tended to incentivise HE institutions to prioritise three year degree courses, FE colleges offer a much more incremental approach, with multiple entry and exit points and a high proportion of part-time and modular options. This could be a significant advantage as colleges prepare for the implementation of the Lifelong Learning Entitlement in 2026–27.

    In summary, the report is a plea for government to give more support to the expansion of HE in FE, but is not in any way antagonistic towards the HE sector. The aim is to strengthen the relationship between colleges and universities, not to weaken it. As the foreword says, “Working together, colleges and universities can open up accessible opportunities and make a real difference to people’s lives.” In this, FE and HE share a common purpose.

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  • How do you get from skills planning to effective learning provision?

    How do you get from skills planning to effective learning provision?

    For countries, regions and organisations across the UK and globally linking learning and skills has been a perennial problem. Employers and governments talk about skills gaps and shortages and look to education and skills providers to plug them. If it were that simple, gaps would be plugged already – so what gets in the way? And how might we create the conditions to overcome challenges and build a system that works?

    Through the Regional Tertiary Pathfinders programme the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) worked alongside enterprise and skills partners and colleges and universities to take a “learning by doing” approach to finding out how Scotland’s tertiary education and skills system can be made more responsive, more integrated, and better able to support regional economies.

    Seven pilot projects operating in the North East and South of Scotland helped us do just that, providing a real-world opportunity to learn from their work to deliver quick improvements. We are grateful to all the people in colleges, universities and regional organisations that have been involved along the way.

    The projects are delivering changes in their curriculum, course offer and marketing materials which will have positive impacts for learners, improving the information on which they base their choices, smoothing and supporting learner journeys and pathways, and enabling them to progress into key areas of employment in the region or beyond.

    Working regionally and as part of the programme, the education partners involved – three colleges, three universities and a tertiary institution – have been able to test how best to deliver ‘“next level” collaboration and together determine how best to achieve a shared local understanding of issues and needs.

    The programme has also enabled us to test what collaboration across the two halves of tertiary provision might look like. Too often people think tertiary means merging colleges and universities – it might, but there are other models. We’ve been able to see new forms of shared governance develop, pursuing a greater emphasis on a systems approach which moves to lower, blur or remove some institutional boundaries.

    Learning from experience

    As one of the Pathfinder participants told us: “Defining what is different about the approach is important, it’s not just a talking shop; it’s about getting things done and meeting the needs of our young people and industry and for the region.”

    The programme has been rich and multidimensional, providing insights at a project, regional and system level. I can only provide a flavour of the learning here with much more specific and practical learning contained in the reports, videos and other resources published on the Scottish Funding Council’s website.

    At a programme and system level the factors for success have been:

    Creating the right conditions for collaboration. It is important to have the right governance structures to facilitate effective collaboration with clear roles and responsibilities for development and delivery. It is also crucial that senior leaders provide the authorising environment for the work and are seen to be actively involved and supportive.

    Working together differently. This was made possible by focusing on joint curriculum development, shared resources, and regional agreement on shared priorities. It enabled institutions to collaborate to create more effective learner pathways, courses and information products. Examples from the programme demonstrate how deeper, sustained partnerships between colleges, universities, and employers contributed to more dynamic and responsive education models, providing benefits to both learners and the regional economy.

    Different models of collaboration. Formal institutional agreements emerged and provided long-term stability, while informal partnerships allowed for flexibility and adaptability in responding to emerging regional demands – and both provided opportunities for collaborations to grow and deepen into new curriculum areas.

    Skills planning partnerships operating to influence the successful development of learning provision. It is vital that there is a clear and coherent approach to accountability so there is clarity about the roles and responsibilities of various stakeholders within existing regional and local partnership planning fora in developing and delivering regional skills priorities and associated provision.

    Improving communication channels and formalising responsibilities ensures all partners understand their contributions to skills planning, enabling more effective alignment between educational pathways and regional economic needs. To enable more cohesive skills planning across sectors and partnerships, educational institutions should be empowered to lead skills responses – effectively using their brokering role to plan across multiple local authority areas and partnerships within a region.

    Supporting long term success

    Spreading and sustaining impact will be important as we move from programme to business as usual. Some key features which support both project and longer-term success include:

    Inter-regional collaboration: A consistent feature across all projects was the collaboration between institutions in different localities, aligning their programmes and resources to serve the broader region. This approach has not only reduced duplication but also created more cohesive learning pathways. Expanding this model to other sectors and regions offers the potential to improve coordination, ensuring consistent and accessible educational opportunities across local authorities.

    Recognising the role of the project co-ordinator: The project co-ordinator played a critical role in ensuring project success by facilitating collaboration, engaging the right stakeholders, and maintaining continuous progress. The success of this role demonstrates its potential to be scaled and adapted for use in other projects, ensuring smooth facilitation of partnerships and sustained momentum in multi-institutional collaborations.

    Data sharing and collaborative analysis: Several projects benefited from data-sharing agreements that allowed institutions to analyse application and enrolment data together. Shared analysis helped align recruitment strategies, improve learner outcomes, and enhance marketing efforts. The model of using shared data to drive collaborative insights and decision-making can be scaled to other institutions, sectors, or regions, offering a framework for improving alignment between educational programmes and market needs.

    Cross-institutional dialogue at multiple levels: A key feature of projects was regular dialogue between senior leaders, heads of departments, and professional service teams (including recruitment, admissions, and marketing). This dialogue enhanced collaboration at multiple levels, ensuring that institutions were aligned in their goals and activities. The multi-level dialogue model can be adopted by other institutions aiming to build closer working relationships across departments and leadership levels.

    Sustaining collaboration

    My list for enduring skills partnerships includes:

    • Developing a shared understanding of how to work together within the learning, skills and economy regional planning structures.
    • Avoiding over-reliance on individual relationships, which can be put at risk due to staff turnover. Take a systems-based approach instead – there is a role for the Scottish Government and SFC in creating the conditions for the system to work effectively.
    • Recognising there is an institutional cost associated with co-ordination and appropriately resource the partnership element of the work.
    • Having a dual focus on doing things together and maintaining the relationships that underpin joint delivery.
    • Obtaining meaningful buy-in from leaders at all levels, to enable and encourage staff to take the time required to build relationships and explore opportunities for deeper collaboration.
    • Discussing and agreeing attitude to risk – how open are partners to exploring and testing innovative solutions?
    • Including regular review points (as built into the Pathfinders programme) where partners step back and review, reflect and adapt together.
    • Facilitating better liaison with employers. For example, encourage more industry engagement in curriculum for a wider range of work-based learning opportunities.
    • Improving data sharing, e.g. Create central data sharing agreements to reduce institutional burdens, and have overarching tracking data for all.
    • Continuing to ask the questions:
      1. How far will our proposals meet learner, employer and societal needs?
      2. To what extent will they enable us to cope with increasingly tightening budget settlements?

    A project lead told us: “What makes the approach successful is being really clear about what we’re trying to achieve; using action plans for delivery means people own the actions and the outcomes; they can see that the outcomes will make a real difference to learners, college staff, employers and employees and make life easier for business providers in the region.”

    We want colleges and universities across Scotland to be inspired by what we’ve learnt through this programme and to use the Pathfinders resources to see what is possible. I hope the lessons learned (things to do, and things to avoid!) can be used to roll out a new approach more widely. The Pathfinders are an example of policy making as bottom-up, action-based research.

    The full suite of Pathfinders reports is now available Regional Tertiary Pathfinders – Scottish Funding Council.

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  • Degree apprenticeship delivery needs strengthening to realise their potential

    Degree apprenticeship delivery needs strengthening to realise their potential

    Degree apprenticeships have, ten years from their introduction, stimulated innovative models of delivery and nurtured productive relationships between employers and education and training providers.

    Their rapid growth has, however, invited questions as to whether they are the right instrument for introducing young people to the workforce, or whether Apprenticeship Levy funding would be better spent elsewhere. To consider and evaluate degree apprenticeships, the Edge Foundation in collaboration with colleagues from the Universities of Bath, Huddersfield and Oxford, conducted nearly 100 interviews with large employers, SMEs, education and training providers, degree apprentices and policymakers.

    Our research confirmed degree apprenticeships represent a unique confluence of theoretical higher education and practical skills and promote both academic achievement and workplace competency. Our primary finding was, however, that there is considerable heterogeneity in delivery of these programmes. This flexibility is degree apprenticeships’ greatest asset; it simultaneously, however, increases their complexity.

    Aligning employer needs

    Our research found numerous examples of pragmatic, trusting partnerships between education and training providers and employers. As one education and training provider told us:

    I was able to bring my employer partners with me to the university […] So it’s been great to sit down and […] say “what is it that is missing?” […] And them saying “can you do this? Can you do that?” […] so I can truly say, from the heart, this is for the first time, we are truly, truly, employer-driven.

    However, it remains challenging to engage the full spectrum of employers. Employers engage in these initiatives primarily out of a concern for workforce development, striving to support employees’ professional growth while addressing existing or upcoming skills shortages. However, despite their significance in the UK economy, engagement with SMEs remains challenging.

    Trailblazers, for example, that design apprenticeship standards, have struggled to engage and represent the needs of SMEs. Resource-poor businesses like SMEs often struggle to realise an immediate return on investment for their input. The process is resource intensive, and even with employer and input from regulatory bodies and sector-specific organisations, there is tension in whether professional body requirements can keep pace with modern workplace practices.

    Diversity in delivery structures

    The delivery of degree apprenticeships varies widely even within the same sector, with different patterns of block study, virtual or face-to-face sessions, workplace experiences, placement rotations, and assessments. We heard from apprentices whose learning environment was entirely virtual, featuring asynchronous methods such as recorded lectures and digital resources, to fully in-person models with collaborative project work.

    Concerns about coordinating theoretical elements with workplace roles remain a high priority, with regular communication between employers and tutoring staff viewed as essential. Nonetheless, there is some evidence of excellent integration of learning with workplace practice and, as one education and training provider told us:

    we have huge amounts of anecdotal discussions from employers about the very real, not just skills and talent impact, but the business benefits that students are bringing.

    Positively, degree apprentices experienced learning outcomes and developed skills that surpassed typical undergraduate levels, and many apprentices and employers recognised they had significant advantages in employment for their present and future careers.

    Support systems for apprentices

    Employer mentors’ relationships with apprentices are varied, with providers offering different types of mentorship, from personal tutors to skills coaches. The coordination of tripartite reviews – involving apprentices, employers, and education and training providers – acts as a critical connection among all stakeholders. Apprentices also frequently reported they had formed important and supportive relationships with other apprentices, particularly those who were attached to large employers, where structured support networks were often in place – another area of divergence between the apprentices’ experiences of large and smaller employers. Nevertheless, despite apprentices with SMEs being less likely to have access to similar collegial groups of apprentices at similar career levels, they often praised their employers and team members for offering a supportive and nurturing environment for their development.

    Repeatedly throughout our evidence, stakeholders of all types stressed the importance of effective communication as key for helping learners to see the connections between their work and their academic study. But this could be highly resource intensive, and we found ETPs were not confident in the sustainability of their provision. Education and training providers report that much of their activity around degree apprenticeships is compliance-driven, often overwhelmed by complex auditing and reporting processes that intersect with internal monitoring mechanisms, requiring considerable additional resources, administrative structures and staff. These multiple bodies can sometimes measure quality in incompatible ways. These burdens were significant enough that some education and training providers questioned the feasibility of continuing to offer degree apprenticeships.

    The long-standing challenge of work-related learning, that features throughout vocational programmes, is ensuring the on- and off-the-job training work seamlessly together. Degree apprenticeships certainly exhibit instances of good practice here. But our research also highlighted the great deal of variability in delivery of degree apprenticeships. The linchpin of the quality of learning on a degree apprenticeship programme is directly related to the quality of collaboration between employers, education and training providers, and apprentices.

    Employers and education and training providers in particular should work together to share and implement best practice and ensure that the content of the taught elements and the apprentice’s learning on the job connect and relate to each other as regularly and deeply as possible. Likewise, allowing increased flexibility in the apprenticeship standards, as we have seen in places such as the Netherlands, would allow degree apprenticeships to keep better pace with the rapidly changing economy and workplace practices.

    Finally, we have learned that despite degree apprenticeships offering brilliant opportunities for people to both begin and develop their careers, their success rests on enough opportunities being available in the first place. This requires reducing barriers that hinder the engagement of education and training providers, employers and apprentices. Notably we have found the administrative burdens in relation to accountability on the part of education and training providers, and the management of DAs, as well as the ability to transfer levy funds, on the part of employers, are all persistent barriers to wider engagement.

    With degree apprenticeships coming under scrutiny following the government’s announcement to broaden the Apprenticeship Levy into a Growth and Skills Levy, articulating their strengths and identifying where challenges lie is key to securing their sustainability and ongoing success.

    You can read the full research findings from Degree apprenticeships in England here or sign up to attend the online launch event 10.00-11.30am UK time on Tuesday 28 January.

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