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Path: Home > Advocacy > DfES> Foster Review

The Foster Review

A NIACE Response to the 10 Key Questions from Sir Andrew Foster's review of the future role of FE colleges

Published: August 2005

NIACE welcomes the chance to comment on the ten key questions Sir Andrew Foster has identified as central to his review. However, we note with real disappointment that whilst two of these questions address, explicitly, issues affecting younger learners, there are none that focus on the role colleges play in meeting the needs of adults. Yet eight in ten of learners engaged in the sector are adults, fifty per cent of taught learning hours are for adults, and two in three of the jobs of the next decade will be filled by adults. There is no doubt that an effective strategy for meeting the current and future learning needs of adults – both in relation to the workplace and in wider community settings – will be central to colleges’ roles in the next decade.

NIACE’s Director, Alan Tuckett, addressed a number of the factors that will need to be addressed in a think-piece commissioned by the Review – and the governing bodies of NIACE endorse the proposals contained in it. In addition, NIACE established an independent enquiry into adults in further education colleges (with Mary Heslop in observer status), which made an interim submission to the group. The enquiry’s final report will be published in October. It is likely to argue that further education colleges have three key roles in addressing adults’ needs:

to secure access to employability (including skills for life; ‘first steps’ and progression to level 2);
to support workforce development (supporting employers and employees in and outside the workplace in developing skills, knowledge and understanding to enhance business success and sustained employability);
and to create and sustain cultural value (for individuals and communities, and to support social policy goals from elsewhere in government).

As a result, we recommend that Sir Andrew considers an eleventh question which explicitly addresses adult concerns:

“How should the interests of adult learners be best served and protected in the review of the purposes of further education?”

We believe adult learning to be a vital matter for the education system and for the Government, and that the role played by the further education colleges in the provision of wide and diverse learning opportunities for adults is also vital to the aspiration for an educated, informed skilled and fair society. Further education colleges make by far the most significant contribution to remedying the deficiencies of our present systems of initial education. The parameters and problems which they face are well known. However much improvement is introduced through Government policies and priorities – and we recognise that much is being achieved – it remains the case that close to 50 per cent of school-leavers do so without adequate qualification or preparation for the world of work, and that this major deficit has existed for generations. Its impact grows ever more crucial in our present levels of awareness of the needs of an advanced economy in the 21st century, and the needs of disadvantaged and under-achieving adults are arguably as important to that economy and our society as is the demand for a better level of return from the school system.

Despite the size of adult participation, adult students’ interests are largely invisible in the policymaking that shapes our systems and in the concerns of politicians, most institutional heads, our opinion formers and media commentators. Since the cohort of young people entering the labour market over that period is only large enough to take one-third of the new and replacement vacancies, adult skills will be ever more critical to economic success. The capacity of the further education system to continue to attract sufficient numbers of adult learners, many of them with low levels of confidence and motivation, is therefore a key issue and a key question.

It is worth pointing out, perhaps, that of Sir Andrew’s ‘Early Impressions’, as reported by him to the LSDA Conference in June, the ascribed ‘Positive Features’ of the FE system, the vital social and economic purpose, the good links with local community, the adaptiveness to national and local demand, as well as the committed staff and the positive feedback from learners, might all be described as being under the control of the colleges. These are part of the mission of good colleges. On the other hand, many of Sir Andrew’s ‘Concerning Features’ (overheavy regulatory and accountability structure, underdeveloped capital resources, fragmented qualifications arrangements, and concern over funding – even multiplicity of objectives) are much less so. These matters derive from the superstructure which successive governments have found necessary to create. The FE system undoubtedly has faults, but these issues cannot be ascribed to it. We would want to suggest that the disaggregation of these concerns is as important as the identification of them.

In response to Sir Andrew’s ten questions NIACE offers these responses.

	What is the main purpose of further education colleges? NIACE’s formulation of the main (but not the only) purpose of further education colleges is that they should be the primary public provider of vocational education to young people beyond the age of compulsory schooling, and to adults; and should consequently make effective learning to that end accessible to all who can benefit.
	How would you simplify and clarify the management and accountability system? Colleges need to be regarded as part of the strategic development of England’s educational system, rather than simply providers of services. They are significant civic institutions and their role in the identification and meeting of local need should be substantially recognised in planning and funding arrangements, with suitable and adaptable safeguards.
	How would you improve the Learners’ experience? The record of most of FE in terms of learner satisfaction, as measured by thr Learning and Skills Council, the Association of Colleges and colleges’ own surveys and reflected in inspection results from Ofsted and ALI, is good. Most colleges are good at student support. There is clearly need for continued improvement of teaching, especially in particular curriculum areas, and there are important issues around professional development which are recognised again in Question 8, but a very important and necessary reform which would have major impact on success rates and therefore on satisfactory learning experiences is in the area of our present qualifications structures and assessment systems. A responsive, flexible, adaptable, modularised, credit-based qualifications framework is a pre-requisite of an intelligent and effective system.
	How would you strengthen and improve college engagement with employers? This is a two-way street and there are responsibilities here on employers and employers’ organisations as well as on colleges. The point made above about qualifications systems is crucial here too. Colleges cannot respond fully to employers, nor employers adequately specify their requirements, within a cumbersome and rigid qualifications system which is not fit for purpose. There are excellent examples of college-employer collaborations, despite the difficulties: good practice needs to be identified, promulgated and rewarded. Nevertheless, too little of the focus of current FE provision is on the needs of employers and on employees in work. That focus needs to be re-balanced not least by enabling colleges to offer flexible and just in time learning solutions to companies’ problems.
	How would you drive quality improvement for colleges? Through a rigorous analysis of the current arrangements for initial teacher training for FE, followed by the adoption of an equally rigorous ‘licence to practice’ monitoring system for participating institutions. Through an inspection system which is developmental and supportive in its intentions, which places heavy emphasis on self-improvement through properly monitored and evaluated self-assessment and which draws its underlying philosophies from the kind of approaches being developed and practised by the ALI. And then by conspicuous national celebration of identified success.
	How would you develop corporate governance for colleges? College governance needs radical reform – present arrangements are too hit-and-miss. The model needs to reflect the importance of the colleges in their local communities, and Governing Bodies should be representative of diverse and informed local (and sub-regional) interests. Partnerships with industry, with higher education, with local government, with schools, and with community organisations are likely to remain important to the work of the colleges, even within re-defined missions, and should be reflected in the governance arrangements. Regional economic development, through Regional Development Agencies and/or regional LSC offices must also be represented. There may be value in the exploration of ‘group governance’, in which a number of colleges in, for instance, a specified urban area worked under the direction of a single Governing Body.
	How would you develop esteem in the FE college sector and build its reputation? If the status of vocational education and vocational qualifications were higher, the reputation of FE would follow. There are major issues here of history, culture and class. FE needs more recognition for the things it does well and more responsibility for developing its role and its strengths. Here again, the development of a more responsive and flexible qualifications system, which is so urgently needed, is crucial: it would transform both success rates and image.
	What are the most important aspects of college “workforce needs” that must be attended to? There is need for new approaches to professional development for the FE sector, both in recognition of the need to remedy existing deficiencies and of a changing role. Initial teacher training for FE is a neglected area: there is little or no practical training in the HE arrangements for teachers who are the main national workforce for vocational education. The CPD initiatives of Success for All and the work of the Centre for Excellence and Leadership point encouragingly to the difference that focused intervention can make. But there is a cultural challenge in making FE staff development learner centred and curriculum driven, whilst also developing stronger links with employers. Professional development budgets in colleges are generally too low, and have been so historically. There is a case for hypothecated funding over a fixed period, with national models for initial teacher training for continuous professional development and to end the pay gap between FE and schools.
	What role should FE colleges play in developing the vocational pathways described in the 14-19 White Paper? The FE system is the location of vocational expertise in the education system. Notwithstanding the need as identified in the previous question for more robust and directed workforce development, FE curriculum expertise should be recognised in the partnership arrangements made between schools and colleges. For most school pupils, these are going to be new approaches to teaching and learning, with greater emphasis on practical skills and with stronger links with employment. Innovative curriculum should be encouraged. It is vital that 14-19 vocational education is not seen as the second-class route: the inspection services should have a clear monitoring role here. If the pattern of too many old style link courses is repeated, this work will not succeed.
	How do we develop leadership of the sector, as well as leadership of colleges? There are issues of leadership, both in the colleges and in the sector, and too often the sector sounds defensive and under-confident. But too often politicians and policy makers criticise the sector for a lack of focus – yet it is the diversity and flexibility of its offer that makes it, in Ruth Kelly’s admirable phrase ‘the engine of social mobility’ for young people and adults alike.

Click here for more details on this consultation (this will take you to the DfES website):

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