FE News Podcast: #FutureofEducation News Channel

Lack of Knowledge Puts Promising Potentials Off Police Work

68% don’t believe a career in the police force is accessible to all, almost one in five (18%) people aged 18-24 are put off pursuing a career in policing as they don’t know what job roles are available to them.

More than two thirds (68%) of UK adults don’t believe a career in policing is accessible to everyone. Even though the variety of roles are so broad in law enforcement, such as a police officer or constable, behind the scenes as an evidence technician or victim advocate, a custody officer or court reporter, 49% of people still believe it’s a career choice that’s only accessible to a certain group or type of person.

Half of all 18-24 year olds surveyed have never considered a career in the police force, with the biggest barriers to joining the profession being the perceived dangerous nature of the role (53%), along with a lack of knowledge on both what roles are available (18%) and the career progression (15%), according to research from The University of Law (ULAW).

To tackle this, ULAW have launched a Professional Policing (BSc) degree, allowing students to develop a comprehensive knowledge of possible careers in policing before having to apply, and providing them with a foundation for further study areas such as criminology and law.

FE News chat with Salome Verrell, Senior Tutor at ULAW, for more details about how they plan to support the The Police Vision 2025 to develop a professional police workforce, equipped with the skills and capabilities necessary for policing in the 21st century:

1. What is the best way for the police service to attract a representative mix of people with the right skills, knowledge and potential, behaviours and values to deliver this policing vision?
2. The police force has roles for many other positions than just Police Officers. To get the right mix between officers and staff, how can the police force attract new talent, and what are the best ways of finding out about other potential career opportunities within policing?
3. What are the benefits of creating a culture that values difference and diversity, which empowers individuals, and is more representative of the communities they serve?
4. For policing to innovate at the pace required, how can changes to the culture and leadership of the police service best be introduced?
5. Recent research has shown that 50 year careers are now becoming the norm, meaning that continuous professional development and lifelong learning are more important than ever. How can the police service support CPD whilst adding critical new skills to the police service?

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FE News chat with FE Commissioner, Richard Atkins about his role as the FE Commissioner, particularly how the majority of his role which is supporting and developing the 240 FE Colleges across the sector:

Richard explains that although his role is perceived to be all about dramatic college interventions with failing colleges, this is incredibly rare and only happens on a very small handful of minor cases. The majority of Richard's role is developing a consultancy support service for colleges to continually develop and improve the 240 FE Colleges that are incorporated.

Richard discusses the National Leaders of FE and National Leaders of Governance and the Diagnostic Assessment service rolled out by his team to over 60 colleges.

This is a free service to help high performing colleges as well as colleges that are struggling or looking to improve. Richard explains that it takes time to deliver long term sustainable improvements (it took him 7 years in his previous College Principal role) and he sees this as the norm for it to take time to deliver excellence.
Richard goes on to explore how we can continually support and improve the sector, whilst trying to remove the stigma of asking for help and support. He then goes onto give some recommendations from the best strategies and processes he has seen in colleges.
After hearing about all of the many support structures in place for FE Colleges, we then go onto ask Richard for his own views to see if a support structure should be in place for Training Providers.

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FE News chat with Dr Jay Derrick from UCL. Jay is a Senior Lecturer at UCL, IOE - Education, Practice & Society and Institute of Education. He is also a Senior Lecturer on an Engineering MSc encouraging lifelong learning and agile skill sets for engineers.
Jay discusses how to develop the foundations for learners and professionals to develop stackable skills to prepare for the jobs of the future or new roles that they will progress into.
We have also recorded another podcast with Jay discussing informal lifelong learning

FE News chat with Dr Sam Duncan from UCL about her recent research project called RABiT (Reading Aloud in Britain Today).

The funded project explored hundreds of adults reading aloud behaviours across England, Scotland and Wales and covered a wide range of ages, genders, ethnicities, faiths, educational backgrounds in both urban and rural locations to explore if there were any patterns or stark differences in adults reading aloud practices.

Sam explains the RABiT project, particularly the importance of documenting and analysing adult reading aloud practices.

Sam unpacks the research to explores when and why adults read aloud and why this is important and how this can change in different communities, context, languages or stages in a person's life.

Sam then explores the RABiT findings to investigate the potential impact that adults reading out loud has when looking at neurodiversity.

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#FutureofEducation - Dilemmas, dualisms and dialectics

FE News chat with Martin Doel to discuss his upcoming (20 Feb) valedictory professorial lecture for his Professorship at UCL, and is titled 'The Future of Education: dilemmas, dualisms and dialectics'. This is an extension on his first lecture on 'Defining FE'.

Martin thinks about the system of the future and learning from what the sector was looking at back in 2010 and when he was the Chief Executive of the Association of Colleges (AoC) and they were thinking about 'College 2020'. Instead of saying what the system will be over the next 10 years,

Martin asks: What are the key questions people might want to be asking themselves over the next 10 years.

Martin highlights questions like: should we collaborate or compete?, should Colleges and providers be specialist or generalist?, local or national?, for the system to be simpler or more complex?

Martin also explores the challenges of the now and the potential challenges of system of the future.

Martin's lecture on 'The Future of Education: dilemmas, dualisms and dialectics' is on the 20th February at UCL.

FE News catch up with Dr Jay Derrick to chat about informal Lifelong learning. Jay is a Senior Lecturer at UCL, IOE - Education, Practice & Society and Institute of Education.

Jay has a particular passion for lifelong learning and reflects on the many recent reports around the importance of Lifelong learning. Jay then goes onto discuss the importance of lifelong learning policy, particularly informal lifelong learning.

Jay unpacks the recent UNESCO report that quotes "Adult learning infrastructure as a central feature of a healthy democracy" and how the traditional infrastructure that was developed in the UK is becoming harder to access for adult learners.

Check out what Jay has to say about Lifelong learning and particularly the importance of informal lifelong learning.

FE News chat with Graham Griffiths, Director of Post Compulsory PGCE at UCL

Graham heads up a specialist PGCE FE teacher training division at UCL in London. We chat with Graham about FE teacher training and how the developments in policy have affected specialist FE teacher training.

We also discuss the challenge of maintaining CPD in the sector, developing a dual professionalism strategy for certain practitioner roles and the FE teacher Identity crisis... what do we call FE teachers, practitioners, coaches, tutors, trainers, lecturers, practitioners, educators?

Check out the podcast to hear what Graham has to say about FE teacher training.

FE News chat with Paul Grainger, Co-director of the Centre for Education and Work, and Head of Innovation and Enterprise for the Department of Education, Practice and Society, UCL.

We caught up with Paul just as he was preparing to jet off to Saudi Arabia for the 2020 G20 taskforce summit to discuss the future of work.

Paul discusses the future of work, particularly the influence of AI (Artificial Intelligence) and the skills required for the future.

He emphasises which skills that are required for the future to compliment AI and which areas of education that promote collaboration and creative skills to work alongside AI.

Previously a Principal of an FE college in Liverpool, Paul's research concerns local skills systems leadership, the complexities of regional training, skills and employment patterns, the potential impact of the 4th industrial revolution and transitions from education to work. He is a member of the G20 Task Force on the Future of Work.

FE News chat with Rob Bosworth, Vice Principal at Exeter College about what the college of the future could look like? Rob discusses blended learning, the pros of groups of learners gathering together to pedagogically discuss topics, to digital transformation and community based learning.