The Foster Review

The main recommendation of the overview relating to employers is as follows:

FE colleges must improve their services to employers – through improving both the pool of recruits and their responsiveness to specific local and regional employer needs. In turn, employers need to think more systematically about their future needs and different models of partnership should be developed to enable FE colleges to respond to them. The Leitch Review of Skills is looking at skills needs to 2020 and will be making recommendations in mid 2006. The Government should consider what further action should be taken to improve engagement between colleges and employers when it receives this advice.

The Foster Review found that, despite many achievments (see Beacon Awards below), FE colleges were not having a comprehensive impact.

The following is extracted from the Foster Review summary, and items of key interest for employers are highlighted.

The way forward in resolving this shortfall includes:

• an appetite to catch up with competitive international economies
• a consequential core focus on skills and employability
• increasing the pool of employable people and sharing with other providers the role of enhancing business productivity
• acquiring an identifiable brand evolutionary, not revolutionary
  change
• learning from the strategic and management arrangements of other public services, both in the UK and abroad
  

And, in common with other public services, putting the ‘user’ at the
centre of policy and practice. Turning ‘Learner focus’ from words into actions will involve:

• ensuring that all intending students receive impartial advice,
• developing financial incentives to steer students onto courses valuable to the economy,
• strengthening learner advocacy at national and local LSC level, and college level,
• offering greater choice, not only between courses but amongst learning modes
• and, in relentlessly streamlining qualifications and learning pathways
  

To fully realise its potential, there must be a quality imperative.

At locality level:

• underperformance by courses and a persistent minority of colleges cannot be tolerated
• a staged approach to intervention including contestability is needed clarity at locality level will be served by a clear and separate commissioning role built around local LSCs
• greater collaboration amongst locality providers to operate in the best interests of learners specialisation, as in Centres of Vocational Excellence and Skills Academies, should improve retention, results, value for money and industry support
• and the benefits of specialisation can be passed on to learners through a ‘Hub and Spoke’ approach to delivery
• the development of learning centres, initially located in regeneration areas, where competitive providers can
  outreach training into disadvantaged communities following contestable processes
  

And, nationally:

• seeing FE as a purposeful system, rather than as a bounded sector
• within government, the disadvantaged ‘middle child’ experience of FE between schools and HE needs to be repaired
• as the strategic architect of UK education, DfES should provide a coherent and managed framework spanning schools, FE and HE
• a national learning model is needed so that FE’s role is constructively colocated alongside HE and schools and the effect of new initiatives is anticipated.
• the funding methodology should draw on the national learning requirement and its local components ensuring that learning activity is rewarded for impacting on those requirements
• less centralisation and moves towards greater self-regulation
• LSC’s ‘agenda for change’ should be supported
• simplified inspection achieved through the merger of the Adult Learning Inspectorate and Ofsted
• an improved inspection methodology that focuses on learner experience, value for money and the coherence of the locality’s learning offer and impact

Within the FE system, there needs to be new collective attention to:

• converting collected information into useful systemic intelligence
• in particular, the development of a new suite of value for money indicators, using a national agency to develop them
• addressing the problems – and possibilities - of a casualised and ageing workforce and the need to improve vocational and pedagogic skills through comprehensive workforce planning
• and, there is a perennial need to invest in the next generation of college and national leadership

 The Beacon Awards 2005-2006

The Beacon Awards for FE Colleges were announced yesterday. The Programme aims to:

• recognise imaginative and innovatory teaching and learning practice in colleges 
• draw attention to provision which encourages students to confront problems and issues creatively
• highlight the breadth and quality of education in colleges throughout the UK
• support learning and continuous improvement through the dissemination of Award-bearing practice
• raise awareness and increase understanding of colleges'  contribution to and role within the UK economy

The following colleges won prizes in categories of particular interest to employers:

The LSC Award for College Engagement with Employers
Award Winner: Bridgwater College
Highly Commended: College of North West London and Newcastle College

The Department for Employment and Learning Award for College Engagement with Employers (NI)
Award Winner: Upper Bann Institute
Highly Commended: Fermanagh College

The ELWa Award for College Engagement with Employers (Wales)
Award Winner: Coleg Sir Gar

The NEBOSH Award for Teaching Programmes in Occupational Health, Safety and Environmental Management
Award Winner: Deeside College
Highly Commended - Lewisham College

17 November 2005