Leading in further education is bound up with challenges and uncertainties. Even before the disruption posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, the requirements of being a college principal were varied and complex. College leaders must navigate an evolving tranche of regulations, contend with acute competition and manage significant financial pressures. Such pressures may leave capable and experienced leaders wondering whether the “top job” is really worth it.
The challenges faced by further education leaders are well known across the sector. Supporting existing FE leaders is critical, but there is an equally pressing concern about where the next generation of FE leadership talent will come from. Here, there are considerable opportunities for further education to take the lead from other sectors and think about how it attracts and retains talent.
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There are already several initiatives that focus on developing college leadership skills, including programmes delivered through the Education and Training Foundation and the Said Business School. But we noticed a gap in the market for a programme that supports tier 2 college staff who aspire to be college principals or chief executives.
This is why the Collab Group developed a new leadership programme, specifically targeting college managers who have the potential to be college principals. We set the programme up to identify and equip the next generation of leaders with the skills needed to succeed.
Nurturing the college leaders of the future
Last year, we piloted the programme, and it proved to be successful in providing participants with a broad overview of the skills needed to manage a further education college. We are now rolling the programme out today to a record number of participants across the Collab Group college network.
At the heart of the programme is a commitment to leveraging current FE leaders’ skills and insights to inform programme participants’ professional development. This is facilitated through a programme of mentoring and shadowing in which participants can learn directly from the experience of current FE leaders. Alongside this, the programme facilities masterclasses that are centred around a range of pertinent issues including further education policy, diversity and inclusion, legal issues and aligning curriculum to the needs of the local economy.
Considering the unique contexts that further education colleges operate in, we have designed the programme to cover both general and specific elements that any leader of a college may encounter. We have done so by harnessing the insights of leaders with varied backgrounds representing colleges in different local contexts. This includes leveraging the ideas of those leaders who have emerged from teaching roles to those from industry who have broad experience in the commercial world. In respect to geography, we have been keen to differentiate between the challenges of managing a college within urban, rural or semi-rural settings.
We are also delighted that this year, NCFE has come on board as the programme sponsor. NCFE has demonstrated a proven commitment to supporting excellence in teaching and developing the further education workforce. Its insights will be hugely valuable as we roll the programme out across the Collab Group network.
The programme comes at an important time in the sector. The recently published Skills for Jobs White Paper shows that further changes and reforms are inherent in the direction of the FE sector over the next few years. Managing this change will require excellent leadership to ensure that the FE sector thrives into this decade and beyond.
Ian Pretty is chief executive of the Collab Group of colleges
