Good news for FE colleges has been in such short supply for so long that the proposals for changes to technical and professional education have been greeted with unrestrained enthusiasm. Not only does the Post-16 Skills Plan set out a clear role for college-based technical education - largely sidelined in favour of work-based learning for the past 30 years - but the promise of extra funding to bring teaching hours in line with international competitors seems to have been speedily endorsed in the Budget. Taken with the ambition for colleges to lead on the regeneration of higher technical education it seems that several Christmases have come at once.
Careful examination, however, suggests that the changes may not be as dramatic as they seem. The cost of implementing the Sainsbury reforms, when fully rolled out in 2021-22, is given as £500 million. This sum will cover the cost of increasing taught hours on technical programmes from 600 to 900 per year - undoubtedly a radical move. Assuming that this is the only claim on the extra monies, though, enables one to work out the scale of the government’s ambition.
The Skills Plan in practice
The basic cost of educating a full time post-16 student is £4,000 per year. Technical students cost more, perhaps £5,000 on average. So the cost of increasing taught hours by 50 per cent as planned must be in the region of £2,500 per full time student. The extra £500 million is therefore sufficient to increase the funding of around 200,000 students, or an intake of 100,000 per year.
There are currently some 70,000 17-year-old students studying technical qualifications at level 3 each year - about 15 per cent of all those studying at level 3 or 11 per cent of the whole age cohort. A move from 15 to 22 per cent of the level 3 cohort is significant; but whether it is a revolution depends on where these students come from.
Some argue that they will come from students currently undertaking A-level programmes, many of whom stay in the sixth form because of lack of information about alternatives. It seems unlikely that this will change. Schools have a strong financial incentive to hang on to their students as the failure of so many university technical colleges and studio schools to recruit viable numbers clearly shows. If one adds the prospect of school losing 10 per cent of their brightest pupils to grammar schools, the pressure to maintain viable sixth-form numbers at all costs can only grow.
More likely is a fall in the numbers of 16- and 17-year-olds undertaking apprenticeships, as new funding arrangements reduce the incentives for employers to recruit younger learners. There are currently perhaps 30,000 or so young people starting a level 3 apprenticeship each year - transferring a significant number from the work-based route to T levels might be good for colleges but at best neutral for technical education.
It doesn’t look like boom time for FE colleges
The most likely outcome is that any growth in technical education will be at the expense of applied general courses, which are mainly offered in colleges. The government may force the issue as it is already committed to reviewing the place of applied general qualifications, and may even remove the option altogether. There are almost twice as many students achieving an applied general qualification each year as there are achieving technical qualifications, so there is scope for growth from this quarter. But such a transfer would be of limited benefit to colleges and of modest impact overall.
A key consideration is whether the redesign of college courses undertaken by around 5 per cent of the age group would have any significant impact on the prospects for the growth of higher technical and professional education. It seems unlikely. A more important consideration is likely to be the competing development of higher-level apprenticeships. For a student, the prospect of receiving a wage and paying no fees for an apprenticeship has to be more appealing than building up debt on a college programme, and many commentators see the apprenticeship levy as decisively improving the incentives for employers to offer such opportunities. In such a context any growth in higher technical courses from modest increases in the number of 18-year-olds with TPE qualifications could be more than offset by switching to higher apprenticeships. This could be no bad thing for individuals or the economy, but it doesn’t look like boom time for FE colleges.
Mick Fletcher is a researcher and writer on FE policy. He is also a member of the Policy Consortium. To read his full report for NCFE on the reforms to technical and professional education, click here.
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