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.
