The reform of adult education and skills policy has been put front and centre by the government with the centrepiece being the Skills for Jobs: Lifelong Learning for Opportunity and Growth white paper. Published in January 2021, the paper sets out the long-awaited, longer-term plan for post-16 skills in the UK.
Reform is vital as the total public spending on adult education and apprenticeships in the UK has dropped by one-third over the past decade. The ‘blueprint for the future’ as described by the education secretary Gavin Williamson, introduces the Lifetime Skills Guarantee, which is designed to “allow everyone to access the education and training they need throughout their lives”.
“These are the skills that further education is perfectly placed to provide but we have historically not always made the best use of it,” according to Williamson. Higher education is often seen as the marker of educational attainment but despite the fact that the UK boasts plenty of world-class universities, a college course or apprenticeship can be a better option for many students.
The new policy seeks to place employers at the heart of defining skills needs in the local area with new courses offered by colleges that will be tailored to meet the specific requirements of businesses. A war chest of £1.5bn of capital funding has been set aside to improve the condition of further education (FE) colleges, £375m will be used for the government to deliver its contribution to the Plan for Jobs in 2021-22 and start delivering our Lifetime Skills Guarantee. In addition, a further £291 million has been earmarked to support 16-19-year-olds.
As of April 2021, the Lifetime Skills Guarantee provides around 11 million adults with the opportunity to study for free and choose from around 400 qualifications, such as engineering and social care, which are “designed to help them to gain in-demand skills and secure great jobs”, a government press release states.
The Guarantee is a key plank of the government’s ‘build back better’ narrative. “Adults who take up the free courses have the potential to boost career prospects, wages and help fill skills gaps while supporting the economy and building back better,” the release goes on to say.
The Lifetime Skills Guarantee is fundamental to enabling the UK economy to recover from the economic damage caused by the pandemic. According to education secretary Gavin Williamson, these free qualifications for adults are designed to let everyone “train, retrain or upskill throughout their lives”.
Under the terms of the Guarantee, from 2025 individuals will have access to a Lifelong Loan Entitlement, which is the equivalent of four years post-18 education. The aim is to make it easier so that access to a loan for a higher technical course is as straightforward as for a full-length university degree.
The aforementioned £1.5bn earmarked for the Further Education Capital Transformation Fund in a bid to address long-term under-investment in the FE estate. There were a large number of FE applicants for stage 1 of the bidding process.
The fund represents a welcome boost to the FE sector, especially given the latest College Key Facts 2021/22 from the AoC show that the sector accounted for around 1.7 million students in England in 2020. For too long, FE has been trapped between schools and higher education, vying for funding with the two, and too often losing out. This fund will readdress the balance.
Local Skills Improvement Plans (LSIPs) are to be developed between employers, FE colleges, as well as other providers and local stakeholders, in order to better mould the technical skill provision to local labour market needs in the UK.
The LSIPs position the FE sector as central as the country looks to recover from the pandemic and the government seeks to ‘level up’. That said, the Local Government Association while welcoming the “ambitious, long-term strategy for adult skills and lifelong learning”, has pressed the government to adopt a flexible approach “working with existing local partnerships that work best for the needs of different local areas”.
The government’s Lifetime Skills Guarantee will undoubtedly upskill a not-insignificant portion of the population, Therese Coffey MP, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, says. “Helping people get the skills they need is a central
part of our Plan for Jobs which is already supporting people of all ages into work as we build back better from the pandemic,” she explains.
However, the government’s white paper on adult education and skills represents a missed opportunity, according to Ben Waltmann, senior research economist and co-author of analysis of the reforms for the Institute for Fiscal Studies. “The recent White Paper contains many good ideas – mostly taken from the Augar Review – but is short on specifics and actual commitments,” he states.
Imran Tahir, research economist at the IFS and another co-author, acknowledges that there is a powerful case for reform, with “economic and technological changes […] likely to increase demand for new skills and retraining”. He adds: “The present system of support is horrendously complicated, creates arbitrary distinctions between further and higher education courses, and actually discourages flexibility and retraining.”
There is a suspicion that the white paper is short on details for adult education reforms. Although it builds on the ideas proposed in the Augar Review, Ben Waltmann, Senior Research Economist at the IFS, explains: “The government should have set out a clear sense of direction, but instead has kicked the can down the road, with most substantive decisions delayed awaiting further consultations.”
In terms of specifics, despite equivalent or lower qualification (ELQ) funding rules being an area where it is high time for action rather than words, the government has not committed to this – “just saying it will consult further at some point”, according to the IFS report.
Only time will tell if the reforms are successful in achieving their objectives. But it is clear that they are a step in the right direction with students benefitting from a wider choice of courses and qualifications that could be the key to landing a job.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/hundreds-of-free-qualifications-on-offer-to-boost-skills-and-jobs
AoCJobs, part of the Association of Colleges, connects teachers and support staff with schools and colleges for online job opportunities.