An International Comparison of Technical Education Funding Systems

This Education Policy Institute (EPI) report gives a comprehensive comparison of technical education in England and the UK with other developed countries. It shows that the education system is still placing too much emphasis on academic pathways for young people. The research considers how far England is behind leading nations, and what reforms would be […]

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      string(338) "More than half of students who attend University Technical Colleges (UTCs) - which take in pupils from the age of 14 to 19 - are dropping out between the ages of 16 and 17, according to this Education Policy Institute (EPI) report. It says   the government scheme for technical education is costing ..."
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      string(386) "... local and national skill needs. With UTCs only focusing on ages 16-18, this would give them an opportunity to deliver differentiated, specialised, high-quality technical education. This should allow UTC students to progress to higher levels of technical education in Institutes of Technology, National Colleges, university, or other providers ..."
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      string(415) "More than half of students who attend University Technical Colleges (UTCs) - which take in pupils from the age of 14 to 19 - are dropping out between the ages of 16 and 17, according to this Education Policy Institute (EPI) report. It says   the government scheme for technical education is costing hundreds of millions of pounds and failing to deliver good results for students."
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      string(1187) "retention, it is not clear that students are benefiting from a 14-19 education. With provision starting at age 16, UTCs should focus on delivering high-quality existing technical qualifications and eventually the new ‘T-levels’ – relevant to local and national skill needs. With UTCs only focusing on ages 16-18, this would give them an opportunity to deliver differentiated, specialised, high-quality technical education. This should allow UTC students to progress to higher levels of technical education in Institutes of Technology, National Colleges, university, or other providers, should they wish to pursue further study. Better measures are needed that account for the technical-oriented provision of UTCs. Improved destination measures are needed that also account for the characteristics of students, so that the particular intakes of UTCs can be taken into account. WEB LINK UTCs: Are They Delivering For Young People And The Economy?Keywords UTC, University Technical Colleges, young people, economy, students, technical education, government scheme "
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Leadership

UTCs: Are They Delivering For Young People And The Economy?

17 Oct 2018

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      string(328) "This DfE report discusses the post-16 skills plan, which proposes to develop a framework to support young people and adults in sustainable skilled employment, and provides an evaluation of what is needed to provide better work placements for young people in technical education.
Leadership Briefing 11.12(132)"
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Leadership Briefing 11.12(132)"
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Leadership

Work Placements: A Call For Evidence

7 Jul 2017

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      string(409) "... a distinct technical and vocational route through the education system may help reduce dropout and disengagement. The report calls for greater competition among academic and technical education providers. It also says that employers should work more closely with technical and vocational education providers to ensure the curriculum is relevant to ..."
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      string(371) "... technical and vocational education and the core subjects, a VocBacc for example, to sit alongside the existing Ebacc measure.· LEPS should report directly to a technical-vocational commissioning unit in the DfE with recommendations on skills and education needs in their local areas. LEPS should be required to engage formally ..."
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      string(662) "This Policy Exchange report warns that many students are suffering from the lack of an alternative to traditional academic studies and that a distinct technical and vocational route through the education system may help reduce dropout and disengagement. The report calls for greater competition among academic and technical education providers. It also says that employers should work more closely with technical and vocational education providers to ensure the curriculum is relevant to future jobs and incorporates high quality instruction to industrial-level standards.
Leadership Briefing issue 7.06 (78)"
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      string(5643) "investment or partnership, after a specified timeframe should result in relocation of students to alternative providers in line with identified need and demand for technical-vocational education in the local area.· Ofsted should integrate requirements around the inspection of IAG into its inspection framework for schools.· DfE should consult and report on options for a form of reporting system for providers failing to meet their statutory duties with regard to IAG, to ensure effective monitoring of IAG provision on an on-going basis.· Government should explore and report on options for incentivising non-school education providers to enter into the provision of IAG.· The DfE should increase the number of non-GCSE subjects that are allowed to count in headline accountability measures for schools at key stage 4.· The DfE should introduce a new baccalaureate-style performance measure for attainment in high quality technical and vocational education and the core subjects, a VocBacc for example, to sit alongside the existing Ebacc measure.· LEPS should report directly to a technical-vocational commissioning unit in the DfE with recommendations on skills and education needs in their local areas. LEPS should be required to engage formally with SSCs, local authorities and chambers of commerce on both sectoral and local skills and education needs and to disseminate their recommendations to all educational providers.· Notwithstanding other required reforms to the system of IAG, schools should be required to compile, update and provide to the local authority an annual list recording 1) the awarding body, 2) the name and 3) the level of all technical/vocational qualifications offered in their curriculum. In their capacity as managers of local provision, local authorities should be required to collate these lists, highlighting discontinuities and dead ends in level progression between institutions and qualifications, and feedback a reconciliation list to those taking commissioning decisions around technical-vocational provision and also to all local education providers for dissemination to students in IAG.· Individual units on the QCF should no longer be offered to students at key stage 4 and schools should focus instead on offering coherent qualifications to learners.· The DfE should reinstate an element of payment-by-results for students at the end of ks5 where some portion of funding is held back if learners fail to successfully complete their programme.· Funding rules should be changed to impose a higher threshold on school sixth forms around retention. Students dropping out at the end of as year should attract only partial funding for that year. Schools with sixth forms should not automatically receive half funding after 6 weeks and this limit should be raised.· Government should re-define all apprenticeship training programmes as being level 3 programmes of minimum three-year duration to send clearer signals to employers and potential trainees about the value and nature of apprenticeship and to encourage expansion of apprenticeship volumes. Other training programmes of a lower level or lesser duration should be given an alternative designation and a distinct brand.· A technical-vocational education commissioning unit should take commissioning decisions around necessary technical and vocational provision in regional areas, to be informed by relevant labour market intelligence.· DfE should review the situation with regard to early teaching of ks4 subjects in earlier key stages to ensure that other education providers are not disadvantaged.· The schools inspection framework and handbook should be revised by ofsted to incorporate inspection requirements around the specific demands of vocational and technical education, taking the handbook for the inspection of further education and skills as a model. New requirements should at a minimum address provision in employability skills, independent advice and guidance and the quality of facilities and staff involved in the delivery of specialist provision.· Where fe colleges make direct provision for students at key stage 4 they should be inspected, with regard to that provision, on the same basis as other ks4 providers, to include inspection of aspects such as spiritual and moral development etc.· Information on success, retention and achievement rates for all 16-19 providers should be published in the annual DfE performance tables. This information should be accurately represented by disaggregating one- and two-year programmes of study. Dropout rates should be highlighted separately for one- and two-year programmes.· Information on school leaver destinations at both ks4 and ks5 should be published in the annual DfE performance tables.· The DfE should change the rules on studio schools to allow for possible conversion of existing vocationally-oriented schools to studio schools under defined circumstances.· Further requirements on colleges wishing to make direct entry provision to young people from age 14 must ensure:· That the college has dedicated staff to meet the specific pastoral needs of young people in this age group· That provision should be coherent and integrated, constituting a distinct and supported programme of educational activities for young people in this age group.ActionNotesAuthorR ChimaDate CreatedJanuary 2013Enquiries to:raspal.chima@yahoo.co.uk(Authoring Unit)Month / YearPage 1 of 1©Birmingham City Council"
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Leadership

Building A High Quality Technical And Vocational Route Through The Education System

23 Jan 2013

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      string(320) "Professor Sonia Blandford is Founder and CEO of Achievement for All and one of the UK’s leading practitioners of education.  Sonia is passionate about raising the aspirations and improving the attainment of all children and young people regardless of their background or needs. In 2016, she was named on ..."
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      string(328) "... a new social justice fund to support organisations that help the hardest to reach.I welcome his call for a comprehensive UCAS-style portal for technical education, skills, FE and apprenticeships. There is clearly a lot to be done by government, change-makers, schools, colleges, employers and us all as ..."
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      string(383) "Professor Sonia Blandford is Founder and CEO of Achievement for All and one of the UK’s leading practitioners of education.  Sonia is passionate about raising the aspirations and improving the attainment of all children and young people regardless of their background or needs. In 2016, she was named on Debrett’s list of the Top 500 Most Influential People in the UK."
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      string(5653) "In recent years we have seen a big focus in education on the development of social and emotional skills and their importance for the achievement of outcomes beyond school. And as we start a new year, I reflect again on the centrality of skill development in building a ladder of opportunity that everyone can get on. I have always believed that there are other routes to sustainable success for those who do not want (or who are not seen as qualified for whatever reason) to study an academic discipline at university. If we leave aside the increasingly cheese-paring distinctions between academic and vocational education as we enter the third decade of the 21st century, I suggest that these routes include and intermingle, but are not limited to:Formal apprenticeshipsPreparatory learning-on-the-job Employment with a significant element of professional development built-inSometimes just sheer hard graft (although I would argue that one would not have to look too deeply into the biography of any individual who succeeded through graft to find an informal mentor, inspiring figure or advocate)My strong belief is that these routes are equally valid to the traditional school –to university–to workplace ideal. But am I correct? Are these other routes (and here I deliberately avoid the word alternative) equally valid? My answer is that, on this issue at least, I appear to agree with the views of some of our largest businesses and employers.There is an increasing number of major companies that actively promote case studies of high-influence individuals who have succeeded without following the traditional university route, aiming to motivate candidates and highlighting the possibility for success for employees for all backgrounds. To name a few, business and political figures from such backgrounds include:Former Prime Minister Sir John Major (now a great advocate of apprenticeships) who left school at 16 with three O-LevelsLord Sugar who famously also left school at 16Baroness Karren Brady, Vice Chair of West Ham FC and an advisor on Lord Alan’s The Apprentice showIt is surprising to me that we still find ourselves having to advocate and fight for parity of esteem and value for this way of learning. The ongoing need for this fight is especially baffling to me in the context of two key reports:The 2012 Richard Review, which highlighted from its first page that apprenticeships are a form of education in themselves and that no single means of learning suits everyone, and concluded that apprenticeships can increase young people’s sense of self-worth and bring whole-society benefits.The 2018 House of Commons Education Committee report, The apprenticeships ladder of opportunity: Quality not quantity, chaired by Rt Hon Robert Halfon MP, highlighted an urgent need for improvements, stressing that too many apprentices are not getting the high-quality training they deserve, and too many people, particularly the disadvantaged, are not getting the support they need to pursue an apprenticeship and get on in life.Halfon has spoken eloquently about how apprenticeships can play a driving role in achieving social justice (he is an advocate of the idea of the government guaranteeing every young person an apprenticeship if they want one), but has also pointed out that those from disadvantaged backgrounds still find too many barriers to undertaking an apprenticeship.His report calls specifically for a redoubling of efforts to recruit apprentices from disadvantaged backgrounds. This effort is recommended to include: the creation of bursaries; government action on the commitment in their last manifesto to cut travel costs for young apprentices; better incentives for small- and medium-sized businesses and social enterprises; and a new social justice fund to support organisations that help the hardest to reach.I welcome his call for a comprehensive UCAS-style portal for technical education, skills, FE and apprenticeships. There is clearly a lot to be done by government, change-makers, schools, colleges, employers and us all as educators, parents, carers or members of society, but we must not talk down the possibilities.If we take seriously and value entry-level apprenticeships and the fight for parity of esteem for routes into work, we must start by resisting and challenging outdated and inaccurate assumptions of a hierarchy of roles (jobs) and move to recognising and capitalising on the inherent value of each specific job to the individual and the company.When business leaders and researchers discuss the value of individual jobs to the overall mission of an organisation, the ‘JFK and the Janitor’ story is often used. The details of the story have become slightly blurred over the years, but the majority version relates that:In 1961, President John F. Kennedy visited NASA headquarters for the first time. JFK introduced himself to a janitor who was holding a mop and asked him what his role was. The janitor’s reply was, ‘I am helping put a man on the moon’.This story is plausible. NASA has a long-standing culture that recognises the importance of the input of every team member, regardless of hierarchy, in achieving complex outcomes. This is most famously shown in the response to the 1970 Apollo 13 crisis, where the combined efforts of individuals, from manual assembly workers to the most senior mission control staff, were deployed to save three men from almost certain death in space. Even amongst the Mission Control team at NASA, age and position were not factors in the group effort: the average age of the"
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Blog

It’s Time to Give Credence to Non-Academic Career Routes

28 Feb 2020