On 1 October 2020, TIGA, the trade association representing the video games industry, published an update on Parliamentary activity for the higher education sector.
TIGA’s summary of OECD Education at a Glance 2020 can be read here.
Guidance:
Updated guidance for further and higher education establishments on coronavirus can be found here.
Package of support for students who have to defer their studies
Department for Education
23 September 2020
Details on a range of opportunities to gain new skills, undertake work placements, additional learning and career development support.
Details
This document is for students who had planned to start higher education this year but who have had to defer until next year.
The package of support provides opportunities to:
- gain new skills
- undertake work placements in the public, private and voluntary sectors
- undertake additional learning
- get career development support
Coronavirus (COVID-19): test kits for schools and FE providers
Department for Education
22 September 2020
Guidance for schools and further education (FE) providers on the initial supply of coronavirus (COVID-19) home testing kits for pupils, teachers and staff.
Use of the NHS COVID-19 app in schools and further education colleges
Department for Education and Department for Health and Social Care
22 September 2020
Actions for schools and further education colleges when using the NHS COVID-19 app in education settings.
News:
Ofsted to be the single body responsible for the inspection of apprenticeship training provision at all levels
TIGA
30 September 2020
In a letter to Amanda Spielman, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, on the 28 September 2020, the Secretary of State for Education Rt Hon Gavin Williamson CBE MP announced that as of 1 April 2021 Ofsted will become the single body responsible for the inspection of apprenticeship training provision at all levels.
This will include responsibility for provision at levels 6 and 7 (degree and non-degree), in addition to Ofsted’s existing responsibilities. In the case of apprenticeship providers delivering higher education as part of an apprenticeship standard, the Office for Students will continue to provide Ofsted with relevant information to inform inspection judgements.
The letter can be read in full here.
Major expansion of post-18 education and training to level up and prepare workers for post-COVID economy
Prime Minister’s Office, 10 Downing Street and The Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP
28 September 2020
Prime Minister Boris Johnson acts to boost productivity and help the country build back better from coronavirus.
- Lifetime Skills Guarantee to give adults the chance to take free college courses valued by employers
- New entitlement to flexible loans to allow courses to be taken in segments, boosting opportunities to retrain and enhancing the nation’s technical skills
- PM acts to boost productivity and help the country build back better from coronavirus
The Prime Minister will today set out plans to transform the training and skills system, making it fit for the 21st century economy, and helping the country build back better from coronavirus.
Adults without an A-Level or equivalent qualification will be offered a free, fully-funded college course – providing them with skills valued by employers, and the opportunity to study at a time and location that suits them.
This offer will be available from April in England, and will be paid for through the National Skills Fund. A full list of available courses will be set out shortly.
Higher education loans will also be made more flexible, allowing adults and young people to space out their study across their lifetimes, take more high-quality vocational courses in further education colleges and universities, and to support people to retrain for jobs of the future.
These reforms will be backed by continued investment in college buildings and facilities – including over £1.5 billion in capital funding. More details will be set out in a further education white paper later this year.
The coronavirus pandemic and changing economy is why the Prime Minister is developing a long-term plan to ensure that, as work changes, people can retrain, upskill and find new well-paid jobs.
In a speech on Tuesday, the Prime Minister is expected to announce a new Lifetime Skill Guarantee. He will say:
As the Chancellor has said, we cannot, alas, save every job. What we can do is give people the skills to find and create new and better jobs.
So my message today is that at every stage of your life, this government will help you get the skills you need.
He will add:
We’re transforming the foundations of the skills system so that everyone has the chance to train and retrain.
Apprenticeship opportunities will also be increased, with more funding for SMEs taking on apprentices, and greater flexibility in how their training is structured – especially in sectors such as construction and creative industries where there are more varied employment patterns.
In 2000, over 100,000 people were doing Higher National Certificates and Diplomas, but that has reduced to fewer than 35,000 now. Those doing foundation degrees has declined from 81,000 to 30,000.
As a result, only 10% of adults hold a Higher Technical Qualification as their highest qualification, compared to 20% in Germany and 34% in Canada.
This is despite the fact that five years after completion, the average Higher Technical Apprentice earns more than the average graduate.
That is why the government is committed to making higher education more flexible to facilitate lifelong learning, and to make it easy for adults and young people to break up their study into segments, transfer credits between colleges and universities, and enable more part-time study.
This new arrangement will provide finance for shorter term studies, rather than having to study in one three or four year block.
The government is also committing £8 million for digital skills boot camps; expanding successful pilots in Greater Manchester and the West Midlands and introducing programmes in four new locations.
From next year, boot camps will be extended to sectors like construction and engineering, helping the country build back better and support our refreshed Industrial Strategy.
Earlier this year the government launched its free online Skills Toolkit, helping people train in digital and numeracy skills. This is being expanded today to include 62 additional courses.
£2.5 billion is also being made available through the National Skills Fund to help get people working again after COVID, as well as giving those in work the chance to train for higher-skilled, better-paid jobs.
PM’s skills speech: 29 September 2020
Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP
29 September 2020
Prime Minister Boris Johnson made a speech on the Lifetime Skills Guarantee.
There are many reasons to – for me I should say – to come here to Exeter College – the outstanding Further Education College in Devon.
You have a total of 462 courses – some which I tried this morning – from particle physics to cake decorating.
And you offer your students an extraordinary chance to skill themselves in everything from football coaching to specialist Devon cookery, industrial robotics, heavy vehicle manufacture and design.
And I am thrilled that you offer philosophy, and languages, and even classical civilisation – but this is the home of the practical, the hands-on, disciplines that are not only academically and intellectually challenging but which are also of immediate practical usefulness and relevance to the world we live in.
And I don’t just mean useful for individual jobs and livelihoods.
All of us in this country need you to have those practical skills – we need those practical skills collectively, as a society and as an economy – more than ever.
And so today I want to set out how this government will offer a Lifetime Skills Guarantee to help people train and retrain– at any stage in their lives – and enable us not just to come through this crisis, but to come back stronger, and build back better.
Our economy has been shaken by COVID, and in the hand-to-mouth scrabblings of the pandemic the shortcomings of our labour market – and our educational system – have been painfully apparent.
In the last few months I have been touring labs where people, many of them young, are working flat out on testing samples – testing for the disease, testing for the efficacy of potential vaccines, testing the tests.
And it is hard work. It requires endless patience, and good hand-eye coordination.
It also requires an excellent grounding in lab techniques and in the science – and every time I have been fascinated to find that a sizeable proportion of the technicians are from overseas.
And though I welcome that, because it is one of the glories of our education system that it attracts so many people from around the world, we have to face the fact – that at this moment when we need them so much, there is a shortage of UK-trained lab technicians, just as there is a shortage of so many crucial skills.
We are short of skilled construction workers, and skilled mechanics, and skilled engineers, and we are short of hundreds of thousands of IT experts.
And it is not as though the market does not require these skills. The market will pay richly.
The problem is one of supply – and somehow our post-18 educational system is not working in such a way as to endow people with those skills.
And look I don’t for a second want to blame our universities. I love our universities, and it is one of this country’s great achievements massively to have expanded higher education.
But we also need to recognise that a significant and growing minority of young people leave university and work in a non-graduate job, and end up wondering whether they did the right thing.
Was it sensible to rack up that debt on that degree? Were they ever given the choice to look at the more practical options, the courses – just as stimulating – that lead more directly to well-paid jobs?
We seem on the one hand to have too few of the right skills for the jobs our economy creates, and on the other hand too many graduates with degrees which don’t get them the jobs that they want.
And the truth is we’re not giving anywhere near enough of the right kind of training or support to the fifty per cent of young people who don’t want to go to university, and so we’re depriving them of the chance to find their vocation and develop a fulfilling, well-paid career.
And so the result is business isn’t happy; the economy is under-productive; and many working adults are stuck in jobs without much future when they are hungry for new opportunities.
So it is time for change, and for radical change.
Let us begin by admitting that part of the problem is that not every FE college is as superb as Exeter College.
We need to invest in skills, and we need to invest in FE.
That is why we are putting £1.5 billion into upgrading and improving colleges across the country, fixing the leaky ceilings, bringing forward £200 million this year.
The facilities here are awesome. I tried them myself this morning. And improving all FE is part of our levelling up agenda to ensure that the same quality applies everywhere.
And as everybody knows, you can’t acquire skills in the classroom alone. You need to learn on the job, to build up the muscle memory and not just the theoretical understanding.
So I can announce today that we will be expanding apprenticeships, reforming the system so that unspent funds can be used more easily to support apprenticeships not just in big companies, but in the SMEs where there is so much potential for job creation.
And we want many more of these apprenticeships to be portable – so you can take them from company to company.
Suppose you are in a small start-up making videos for Youtube, and the project ends – so you’ve got to move to another such small company. Under our plans, you will be able to take that apprenticeship to your new employer and it won’t die with the end of the contract.
But if we are going to reform our post-18 education, we must go much further. We’ve got to end the pointless, nonsensical gulf that has been fixed for generations – more than 100 years – between the so-called academic and the so-called practical varieties of education.
It’s absurd to talk about skills in this limited way. Everything is ultimately a skill – a way of doing something faster, better, more efficiently, more accurately, more confidently, whether it is carving, or painting, or brick laying, or writing, or drawing, or mathematics, Greek philosophy; every single study can be improved not just by practice but by teaching.
So now is the time to end this bogus distinction between FE and HE.
We are going to change the funding model so that it is just as easy to get a student loan to do a year of electrical engineering at an FE college – or do two years of electrical engineering – as it is to get a loan to do a three year degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics.
The Augar review highlighted the complexity of the funding system, the bias that propels young people into universities and away from technical education. It is time to end that bias.
We will give FE colleges access to the main student finance system, so that they are better able to compete with universities; not for every FE course, but for a specific list of valuable and mainly technical courses to be agreed with employers.
And in the coming years, as part of our Lifetime Skills Guarantee, we will move to a system where every student will have a flexible lifelong loan entitlement to four years of post-18 education – and suddenly, with that four year entitlement, and with the same funding mechanism, you bring universities and FE closer together; you level up between them, and a new vista of choice opens up.
I want every student with the aptitude and the desire to go to university to get the support they need, but I also want all young people to be given a real choice in life, and not to feel there is only one route to success.
At the moment many young people feel they have to go for the degree option. They feel they have only one chance to study, and to borrow. They might as well go for the maximum, and get a degree.
Under our plans you could go for a one-year technical qualification and launch yourself at life – or you could do that, and then go to university later on. You have the choice.
And it will be easier for older people to borrow to do courses locally – and to study and train part-time – to acquire the skills that can transform their lives.
And of course we need this nimbleness now, this flexibility to acquire new skills, because COVID has massively accelerated changes that were already happening in the UK economy, whether in retail or in restaurant chains.
And while the government is building on our furlough scheme,
And we’re devising ever more imaginative ways to safeguard jobs and livelihoods, including the Winter Economy Plan, which Rishi Sunak the Chancellor announced last week,
Alas as Rishi said, we cannot save every job.
But what we can do is give everybody, give people the skills to find and create new and better jobs.
Of the workforce in 2030, ten years from now, the vast majority are already in jobs right now. But a huge number of them are going to have to change jobs – to change skills – and at the moment, if you’re over 23, the state provides virtually no free training to help you.
In fact we have seen a haemorrhage, in the last 20 years, in adult education – a million fewer than there were.
We are going to change that right now. We are expanding the digital boot camps – where you can learn IT, whatever your age, replicating our highly successful training camps in Manchester and Birmingham in four more locations.
Above all, from next April, we will introduce a new funding promise. As part of our Lifetime Skills Guarantee, we will now fund technical courses for adults equivalent to A level, all of which teach skills that are highly in demand.
They’ll give anyone who left school without an A-Level, or equivalent, the qualifications they need when they need them, when they need them, helping people to change jobs and find work in the burgeoning new sectors that this country is creating.
So suppose you work in retail or hospitality, and you think you are going to need to find a new job. And before COVID people were already shopping more online, and already sending out for food. But the crisis has compressed that revolution.
So let’s imagine that you are 30 years old, and you left school without A levels, and you are thinking you could find a job – you were in retail or hospitality – you could find a job in the wind farm sector in the north east, or in space technology in Newquay, or in construction here in Exeter, or retrofitting homes so as to reduce carbon.
You might see a job for yourself on one of the vast engineering and infrastructure projects that this government is leading: a surveyor or a rail technician. You might want to work in adult care. Crucial sector for our country.
You have a huge range of options – in theory – but you need that technical knowhow, you need that A-level equivalent qualification; and we will fund it. We will give you the skills you need.
The British economy is in the process of huge and rapid change, driven by the internet and the possibilities of remote communication.
But as old types of employment fall away, new opportunities are opening up with dizzying speed – vast new sectors in which this country already leads or can lead the world.
And over the last few centuries there is no other country that has shown the same adaptability, the same ingenuity in matching the demands of new technology.
But for the last few decades, alas, we have been hamstrung as a country
by a lack of investment in infrastructure, in science,
by our antiquated planning system
and by our failures in technical education.
And this Government is putting that right
We’re making unprecedented investments in infrastructure – and doubling the investment in science and technology from £11 billion to £22 billion a year by 2024.
We’re changing the planning rules so that it’s easier to provide homes for young families and for businesses to grow and invest.
And we’re transforming the foundations of the skills system so everyone has the chance to train and retrain.
And this combination of reforms will tackle the fundamental problems in our economy of productivity and growth
helping the country to invent new industries and contribute to humanity’s great challenges, from fighting pandemics to achieving net zero carbon emissions.
Above all, it will make this country, our United Kingdom richer and it will make our country fairer.
So my message today is that at every stage in your life, this government will help you get the skills you need.
Through our Lifetime Skills Guarantee,
we’ll upgrade Further Education colleges across the country with huge capital investment;
we’ll expand apprenticeships, making it easier to get a high quality apprenticeship, and connect them better to local employers who know where the jobs of the future are going to emerge;
we’ll fund free technical courses for adults equivalent to A level, and extend our digital boot camps;
we’ll expand and transform the funding system so it’s as easy to get a loan for a higher technical course as for a university degree, and we’ll enable FE colleges to access funding on the same terms as our most famous universities;
and we’ll give everyone a flexible lifelong loan entitlement to four years of post-18 education — so adults will be able to retrain with high level technical courses, instead of being trapped in unemployment.
And this long-term plan – learning from what has worked around the world – will finally enable our amazing country to close the gap with other countries that in this one respect have had – or thought they had – the edge on us when it comes to skills and technical education. They thought they had the edge on us for 100 years. Well we have the talent. We have the potential. All we need to do is give people the chance.
And yes we face a once a century pandemic but now is the time to fix a problem that has plagued this country for decades.
Now is the time to end the pointless, snooty, and frankly vacuous distinction between the practical and the academic.
And now is the time to give everybody – with this Lifetime Skills Guarantee – give people of all ages the means and the confidence to switch and get the skills they need.
And now is the time for all of us to begin to build back better.
Committee Chair Robert Halfon comments on Prime Minister’s speech on the Lifetime Skills Guarantee
Education Committee
29 September 2020
Commenting on today’s speech by Boris Johnson on the Lifetime Skills Guarantee, Chair of the Education Committee, Rt Hon Robert Halfon MP, said:
“Today’s speech by the Prime Minister demonstrates a real commitment to the role of adult education and skills in our country’s economic recovery. The removal of the age cap for free level 3 courses and more flexible higher education loans have the potential to open up opportunities for people who previously may not have had the chance to benefit from further learning. The Education Committee’s current inquiry into adult skills and life-long learning is looking at how we can tear down barriers to participation. The Government must now make sure that learning throughout life is made as easy as possible. It must be truly open to people from all backgrounds. This will be vital if we are to tackle social injustices and plug our country’s skills gaps.”
The Education Committee is currently carrying out an inquiry into adult education and life-long learning. This morning, the Committee took evidence from Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills Gillian Keegan MP.
New chair of the Skills and Productivity Board confirmed
Department for Education
29 September 2020
Education Secretary Gavin Williamson appoints Stephen van Rooyen as chair of the Skills and Productivity Board.
Education Secretary Gavin Williamson has today (29 September) announced that Stephen van Rooyen will be the new chair of the Skills and Productivity Board (SPB).
The SPB – which was first announced in October 2019 – will play a central role in driving forward the government’s ambitious FE reform programme. The Board will provide expert advice on how to make sure the courses and qualifications on offer to students across the country are high-quality, and aligned to the skills that employers need for the future and that will help grow our economy after the coronavirus outbreak.
Stephen van Rooyen has been selected as Chair of the SPB due to his extensive business experience, and as a thought leader in technology, engineering and communications. In Stephen’s current role as EVP and CEO, UK and Europe at Sky he has been a strong advocate for apprenticeships, launching ambitious schemes across technology, journalism and business functions.
Education Secretary Gavin Williamson said:
“I’m delighted to announce the appointment of Stephen van Rooyen as the chair of the Skills and Productivity Board.
“Stephen has a wealth of experience across the technology, engineering and communications sectors and will be able to share his vital insight and leadership with the panel. He also a keen and proud champion of apprentices, having taken Sky’s apprenticeship programme from strength to strength.
“He will lead an expert panel who will provide important advice on how to tackle the nation’s skill challenges. The board will play a key role in helping us to rebuild our economy post-Covid-19 and deliver our bold skills agenda. I look forward to working with him to level up opportunity across the country ensuring people have the skills they need to progress.”
Stephen van Rooyen, EVP & CEO, UK and Europe at Sky said:
“Given the pace of change in business and in workplaces today, and the economic challenges of COVID, the new Skills and Productivity Board has a key role to play in developing our skills economy for current and future generations. It is a privilege to contribute, and I’m looking forward to working with the panel and the government to drive this important agenda
“The work of the SPB will be carried out by a panel of five leading skills and labour market economists, supported by Department for Education officials. The panel will undertake independent research and analysis in response to questions set out by the Secretary of State and Chair. Applications for panel members closed earlier this month and appointments will be made in due course.”
The government’s forthcoming FE White Paper will set out detailed plans to build a high-quality further education system – one that unlocks potential, levels up skills and boosts opportunities for people across the country.
Return of students to universities statement
Department for Education
29 September 2020
Secretary of State Gavin Williamson addresses the House – Oral Statement to Parliament.
With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement regarding the return of students to universities.
Throughout this pandemic, our priority has always been to keep young people as safe as possible while they continued to learn.
It is this commitment to learning and skills that has led the Prime Minister to announce today that, through our Lifetime Skills Guarantee, we will upgrade Further Education colleges across the country with huge capital investment; we’ll expand the apprenticeship offer; we will fund valuable free technical courses for adults equivalent to A level, and extend our digital bootcamps.
We’ll expand and transform the funding system so it’s as easy for a student to get a loan for a higher technical course as for a university degree. The government will give everyone a flexible lifelong loan entitlement to four years of post-18 education — so adults will be able to retrain with high level technical courses, instead of being trapped in unemployment.
At the beginning of September we saw the successful reopening of our schools and colleges. Universities have been working just as hard to make campuses as safe as possible, including through enhanced cleaning measures, social distancing on campus and changes to timetables to stagger and manage attendance on site.
We have now seen the new intake of first-year students who are beginning a new chapter in their lives at university, together with those who are returning to carry on their studies.
I know this will not be the start that any of them would have wanted or expected and I would just like to say that I am pleased to see both Universities and students have followed the guidance in a responsible way, putting themselves, friends and the local community in a safe place and out of harms’ way.
Students, as well as the wider community, accept when we are living in a global pandemic we have to operate in a society with restrictions but I do not believe that we should look to inflict stricter measures on students or expect higher standards of behaviour from them than we would from any other section of society.
The decision to keep universities open and all of our students learning has been a result of an enormous team effort throughout the higher education sector.
We have drawn on the expertise of the HE taskforce that we set up, and we have been providing robust public health advice and regular updates to the sector to help them to plan carefully to keep students and staff as safe as possible.
As with all our education settings, we will continue monitoring the situation closely and will follow the latest scientific advice, adapting policies as the situation changes.
I know there has been some anxiety about the impact safety measures will have on the Christmas holidays. Students are important members of the communities that they chose to study in.
We expect them to follow the same guidance as their local communities. We are going to work with universities to make sure that all students are supported to return home safely and spend Christmas with their loved ones, if they choose to do so. In this context, it is essential we put in place measures to ensure this can happen while minimising the risk of transmission.
Where there are specific circumstances that warrant it there may be a requirement for some students to self-isolate at the end of term, and we will be working with the sector to ensure this will be possible, including ending in-person learning early if that is deemed to be necessary. My department will publish this guidance shortly so that every student will be able to spend Christmas with their family.
Where students choose to stay in their university accommodation over Christmas, universities should continue making sure they are safe and well looked-after.
Of course it is inevitable there will be cases of Covid occurring in universities, just as there are in our wider communities and the constituencies that we represent. But Mr Speaker, we believe that universities are very well prepared to handle any outbreaks as they arise, and we have been working with the sector and Public Health England to make sure that they have every support and assistance they need should this happen.
I have been impressed by the steps that our universities have been taking, working hand in glove with local authorities and local public health teams to safeguard students and staff. All our universities have local outbreak plans, and all of these have been discussed with local Directors of Public Health.
It is essential that we continue to allow our students to have face-to-face teaching wherever possible, as part of a blended learning approach. I have heard the Opposition call for all learning to move online. While online learning is a highly effective part of the learning experience, there are many courses – including medicine and dentistry, as well as the creative arts – which require a face-to-face element.
That’s why our guidance, published on the 11th of September, set out a tiered approach in Higher Education.
Tiers enable a balance of face-to-face and online learning within the context of the COVID risk, and will operate alongside local restrictions that are placed on the wider community in the area the university is in.
I would now like to mention the latest position regarding testing for students. We have been working with DHSC to make sure that the testing capacity is sufficient and appropriate for universities and I am sure you will be aware that DHSC has now launched the NHS Covid-19 app.
The Department for Health and Social Care continues to make more testing available and the vast majority of people can get a test locally. DHSC is also increasing the number of local testing sites and laboratories, adding new Lighthouse laboratories in Newport and Charnwood to the national lab network as well as additional walk-in centres being planned.
Mr Speaker, while we know that testing capacity is the highest it has ever been, we are still seeing a significant demand for tests. So like any other member of society, it is vitally important that staff and students at universities only get a test if they develop coronavirus symptoms or if advised to do so by a clinician or public health official.
I’m aware that going to university can be a stressful time for some students – many of whom will be living away from their family and friends for the first time in their lives. This year there will undoubtedly see added pressures because of the disruption and uncertainty caused by the pandemic and we must be mindful of how this will affect mental health and wellbeing of students.
Many universities have bolstered existing mental health services, and offer alternatives to face-to-face consultations. Once again I would like to thank staff at universities and colleges who have responded so quickly and creatively to the need to transform these essential services.
We have asked universities to provide additional help and practical support to students as well. And I am pleased to say Mr Speaker that universities are making sure students that are isolating are properly cared for and can access food, medical and cleaning supplies if needed. Student accommodation and support services will be a vital resource if any student has to isolate, and for students generally during this difficult period.
As well as providing support for those in halls of residence, we will make sure students who live in houses of multiple occupation away from campus, will still have access to advice and support if they need it. Universities are also able to call on £256 million provided by the government for hardship funding for students who have to isolate.
Mr Speaker, this Government has taken a conscious decision to prioritise education. We know how fundamental a good education is to opportunity, to aspiration and to social mobility.
That is why we opened schools, and why over 99.8% of schools are now open, delivering education to our children. Delivering education and the opportunity to go to university is equally important for those youngsters who have left college or left school as well.
We cannot eliminate all risk, but we will not condemn a generation of young people by asking them to put their lives on hold for months or years ahead.
We believe that universities are very well prepared to handle any outbreaks as they arise and I commend this statement to the House.