FE News Podcast: #FutureofEducation News Channel

Ufi VocTech Trust launched their VocTech Challenge White Paper in April, at the EdTech Summit, with a £2m commitment for grant funding, best practice sharing and sector partnerships to unlock the potential of digital technology to help those most impacted by the digital divide to get the skills they need for work.

The initial “discovery phase” Challenge question to the FE community was “How can VocTech improve vocational outcomes for people most impacted by the digital divide and at greatest risk from the long-term impact of the pandemic on access to training and jobs? How do we then link those vocational skills to real employment opportunities?” A set of assumptions was published about the wider landscape Ufi had seen through their work during the pandemic and the desk research that they had undertaken. But the most important thing was to talk to people about their own lived experiences.

Ufi undertook three months of consultations with learners, employers, and education providers of all kinds, to try to uncover what the big issues were for them. Participants were asked, what, in their direct experience, were the underlying needs of learners and employers? How can VocTech help with these needs? How can VocTech improve vocational outcomes / the working lives of those who need it most? And what could Ufi, either alone or with partners, do to reduce the digital divide?

At the end of the process, a Green Paper was published focusing on the key findings:

There was a lack of access to both devices and bandwidth and alongside that, learning design was not tailored to the devices that people were able to access content on
Learners most at risk of digital exclusion have real issues of confidence and motivation which are real barriers to getting started and sticking with their learning
Digital skills barriers remain prevalent, but are more complex than might be expected – not all young people are digital natives and not all older people lack digital experience
It is particularly difficult to deliver practical skills remotely, and social aspects of learning need to be built into VocTech solutions
The VocTech market is still a difficult one to introduce innovations into, and there is a need for champions in the sector to take a risk and adopt new approaches
Ufi’s mission is around vocational skills, so they were not in a position to address all of these issues. A subsequent White Paper was published with responses to the consultation, including the VocTech Challenge funding call and activities in partnership with other key organisations in the sector to address some of the wider questions.

They are now in full flow delivering on the commitments made in the White Paper, but it’s important to Ufi to continue to explore the themes that were uncovered, to see what’s changing over time, so they are working on a ‘one year on’ analysis of what change they have been able to catalyse or support.

The VocTech Challenge funding call applications are currently in the process of being assessed to make sure that Ufi funds those that are addressing the issue of confidence and motivation within their target learner group – finding out what really works for those learners most at risk of remaining disadvantaged by the digital divide. Ufi are looking for projects that really engage with users to find out about their underlying needs and they know that these user groups can have complex needs to help them gain the skills they need for work.

But the VocTech Challenge is about more than Ufi’s grants and learner needs. As part of the Discovery Phase for their Challenge process, Ufi spoke with teachers and educators across the sector to see what issues they were facing. It was clear that problems of confidence and motivation also applied to those supporting learners as they grappled through 2020 to learn new skills and work...

Future of Assessment: Adapting assessment – this year and beyond
Hosted by Gavin O’Meara and Zac Aldridge (Director of Qualifications and Assessments, NCFE), we invited Chris Tubbrit (Product and Content Development Manager, NCFE) and Mike Saunders (Head of Quality Improvement, York College) to discuss how the pandemic changed the way we assess and award qualifications – and what this means for the future. At NCFE, four principles shaped the changes they made to their approach - supporting learning progress, maintaining rigour and robustness, streamlining and supporting centres, and working in partnership for the benefit of learners. After seeing hundreds of thousands of learners succeed in an exceptional year, this show explored what new and innovative methods of assessment emerged as a result of Covid-19.
YouTube video player

The discussion also looked at the challenges and barriers still being faced by learners and institutions (including the well documented impact of learning loss), the successes that we saw, and how we can better collaborate as a sector to drive learner success. Ultimately, the sector (and the world!) was not ready for the seismic change that it experienced - how we can build systematic resilience into the education eco-system so we are future proofed for whatever comes out way?

#AntiRacismInAction: Higher Education with Oliver Young, Charles Egbu and David Mba
Episode 3 of 9 BFELG Livestreams #AntiRacismInAction - Making the Most of an Ethnically Diverse Britain, co-produced by BFELG and FE News, was aired today Monday 18th October.

The Episode, #AntiRacismInAction: Higher Education, was special in that it featured Professor Charles Egbu and Professor David Mba, two eminent academicians who are *Black and who are leaders of Higher Education institutions in the UK. Black Vice-Chancellors and Black Deputy Vice-Chancellors are very few and far between in UK Higher Education.

Professor Egbu is Vice Chancellor, Leeds Trinity University. Appointed in 2020, he is the first UK university Vice-Chancellor of African heritage. Professor David Mba is the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Research, Knowledge Exchange and Enterprise, University of the Arts (UAL), London.

In a sector where 25% of students are from Black communities, sadly, only 2.9% of university Vice-Chancellors/Principals (7 of 238) are Black. This situation is even worse than in Further Education where 8.1% (19 of 234) of college CEOs/Principals and 30% of students are Black. Very few board Chairs are from Black communities in both sectors and hardly will one find a Black leader in the senior hierarchy of regulatory bodies and organisations that provide both sectors with support. Black students are less likely to gain a place in high tariff universities or achieve a first or 2:1 degree. This cannot be right.

Introducing the Episode and the Guests, Oliver Young, Chief Diversity Officer, University of Exeter Business School, and a member of the BFELG stated unequivocally: ‘Anti- racism is the only way to cohesively advance our ambitions as a diverse and representative society. Anti-racism is a challenge we all need to take collective responsibility for, and address for our future generations.’

Racial inequalities are a significant issue in higher education. This was identified as one of five fundamental guiding principles of Advance HE’s Race Equality Charter (REC), formally launched in 2016. The Charter aims to improve the representation, progression and success of Black staff and students withing higher education.

In 2019, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) Report, ‘Tackling racial harassment: universities challenged’ uncovered ‘widespread evidence’ of racial harassment on university campuses and in November 2020 Universities UK (UUK) published guidance on tackling racial harassment in higher education. The guidance acknowledges that the higher education sector cannot reach its full potential unless it benefits from the talents of the whole population, and individuals from all ethnic backgrounds can benefit from the opportunities it provides. Importantly, the guidance acknowledges that racial harassment is just one manifestation of structural racism in higher education and points out that a wider programme of culture and policy reform is needed to tackle racism and racial inequalities of all forms.

There are currently about 79 institutional REC members, 17 of which are award holders. A recent independent evaluation (March 2021) of the REC identified the need for greater strategic senior manager and institutional buy-in for race equality.

Against this background, co-anchors Gavin O’Meara (CEO and Head of Digital, FE News) and Robin Landman OBE, and BFELG Executive Member, were in conversation with the featured Guests, exploring the particular Race Equality opportunities and challenges for the HE sector and their individual organisations and the specific HE system leadership actions necessary to make tangible and rapid progress.

David touched on his links with the BFELG and highlighted UAL’s Anti-racist Strategy. UAL is a collegiate university, specialising in arts, design, fashion and the performing arts. It is a federation of six arts...

The Cure for Policy Amnesia?
Edge’s Learning from the Past project aims to do exactly what it says on the tin, learn from past experiences. We often talk about the loss of policy memory or policy amnesia and our project aims to revisit past educational policy initiatives in England that have influenced and driven change across the education system in order to learn from them.

We have mainly focused on policy initiatives related to technical and vocational education, and those that have supported disadvantaged groups of young people, such as young people not in education, employment and training.

Since February 2021 we have published a series of policy reviews developed by Edge’s Emerging Researchers Network members. Each review offers a brief summary to support the understanding of policy context at the time and summarises what went well and what the challenges were. We aim to offer a neutral summary for the reader to draw their own conclusions. We also draw parallels with current policy initiatives where appropriate. The reviews are based on past policy documents, research evaluations and academic articles.

So far we have reviewed, for example, Connexions, Entry to Employment, Young Apprenticeships, Technical Vocational Educational Initiatives and Education Business partnerships.

Future reviews will include, for example, Train to Gain, the National Scholarship Programme and the Polytechnics.

For example, we have reviewed two very topical past initiatives that have direct relevance now;

Education Maintenance Allowance. and
The 14-19 Diplomas
The Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) pilots were launched in England in 1999 to raise participation, retention and achievement rates in post-16 education among young people from lower income families. EMAs offer financial incentives, including weekly payments and achievement bonuses, to young people. The pilots were subject to one of the largest evaluations ever commissioned in the UK, and positive impacts were demonstrated. EMAs were subsequently rolled out nationally in 2004 and remained operationalised in England until 2011, when they were replaced by a less generous post-16 bursary programme. EMAs continue to be offered to young people in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Over a fifty-year period, an array of youth employment initiatives has been introduced across the UK. For example, starting in the 1970s, the Youth Opportunities Programme (YOP) offered six-month work experience placements to the young unemployed. This resembled the current Kickstart scheme, although the latter offers wage incentives rather than a fixed training allowance. By the early 1980s, youth unemployment had escalated to such an extent that YOP was the destination for more than half of all school leavers entering the labour market. In 1983, YOP was replaced by the much larger Youth Training Scheme (YTS), which attracted an enormous £1 billion annual budget, with an emphasis on expanding training opportunities for unemployed 16-18-year-olds. In contrast, the current Kickstart scheme has a total budget of £2 billion to meet the needs of a much wider age cohort, namely unemployed 16-24-year-olds across Great Britain until March 2022.

The 14-19 Diplomas were announced in the 14-19 Education and Skills White Paper in 2005 but they never reached a full rollout. They were cut in 2010 when the Coalition Government took power. These middle track qualifications which could combine academic and vocational learning enabled learners to continue in further training, further studies as well as to enter employment. Diplomas were initially developed in 14 ‘lines of learning’ that were linked to industry sectors. (However, in 2007 the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) announced the development of three additional general education subject Diploma lines in Science, Languages and Humanities.)...

In episode 2 of the #VocTechFutures livestream, Ufi’s Patrick Dunn will be exploring how VocTech is being used to provide accessible, personalised and high-quality learning in the prison sector. As part of the session we will hear from two organisations delivering innovative VocTech solutions: Meganexus, who provide access to education and training technologies and content across the UK prison sector, and who are working with Ufi to bring learning into every prison cell in the country; and Niacro who are using VR to deliver immersive training in construction skills.

The discussion will spotlight how VocTech is being used to overcome the challenges of working in the prison environment and share insights into approaches and technologies that might be applied more widely. It will touch on how technology can improve access to learning in prisons, how learning can be better tailored and assessed to individual need using new technology, and how prisons and prisoners can use technology to find employment and career paths.

#FutureOfAssessment - Accessibility and Inclusion livestream Episode 2. This episode was hosted by Gavin O’Meara and Jessica Blakey (Assessment Design Manager, NCFE), we invited Gem Turner (award winning disabled lifestyle blogger) and Dan Howard (Director of Operations and head of EDI group, NCFE) to discuss the importance of accessibility and inclusion in assessment design and practice.

#AntiRacismInAction Episode 2: Employers and Employment with Grace Haynes, Amarjit Dhillon and Robin Ghurbhurun - Making the Most of an Ethnically Diverse Britain, was aired today, Monday 11th October and co-produced by BFELG and FE News

In a poignant and passionate introduction to the Episode, Grace Haynes, Head of People & Culture, Coventry City Council, said ‘Anti-racism means everything to me’. Juxtaposing racism to Covid 19, she also said that we might have to learn to live with the latter, but we must never accept living with racism. She called for collaborative action to fight to ensure that eradicating racism is at the forefront of everything that we do.

The Episode focused on #AntiRacismInAction: Employers and Employment. Co-anchors Gavin O’Meara (CEO and Head of Digital, FE News) and Stella Ngozi Mbubaegbu CBE, BFELG Executive Member, were in conversation with the featured Guests, Amarjit Dhillon, Turning Point’s Chief Information Officer also with accountability for Commercial Ventures, and Robin Ghurbhurun, Managing Director, further education and skills at Jisc.

Turning Point is a leading social enterprise with over 4,500 staff. It provides health and social care services that help over 100,000 people annually in over 300 locations across England, live they life they want. The organisation’s vision is to constantly find ways to support more people to discover new possibilities in their lives. Amarjit Dhillon belongs to a small group of business leaders brought together by Sir Ken Olisa OBE, Lord-Lieutenant of Greater London, and Dan Brown, Founder and CEO of Positive Transformation Group. The purpose of the small group is to create cross-industry sector support for the message of Anti- racism in the business community throughout the UK in support of the BFELG’s mission, working alongside Education.

With a staff of approximately 900, Jisc is the UK higher, further education and skills sectors’ not for profit organisation for digital services and solutions. It champions the importance and potential of digital technologies for UK education and research. Its vision is for the UK to be the most digitally-advanced higher education and research nation in the world. Jisc also welcomes customers from local government, public sector, non-profits and industry. Robin Ghurbhurun has been an outstanding supporter and advocate of the BFELG from its inception and Jisc as an organisation is also a strong supporter and ally.

Responding to questions, both Guests talked about their personal and respective organisations’ response to ethnic diversity, the steps they are taking to move forward on this agenda, their engagement with the BFELG and how the Corporate and Education sectors can work together. There were interesting observations about why given the ‘business case’ for ethnic diversity in corporate leadership - referencing the McKinsey Report 2020, Diversity wins: How inclusion matters, there appears to be very little progress in this area in UK plc.

Amarjit highlighted the important role of wellbeing practices to address the race agenda and how Turning Point as an employer is applying these practices in the workplace and with their our own apprentices and are working with training providers to support them to apply the same offering to their schemes.

Jisc has an interesting approach whereby Diversity & Inclusion and Race Equality are pursued as two separate strands of activity. Robin spoke about challenging staff recruitment, selection and development practice and also shared how the BFELG 10 point plan is being implemented across Jisc.

Watch the Livestream for Amarjit Dhillon and Robin Ghurbhurun’s suggestions for accelerating ethnic diversity in the workplace and their call to action to Employers!

How can VocTech support skills for work in FE?
In this first episode, Sarah Axon, from Ufi VocTech Trust will explore what VocTech is, how it is being used and the impact it is having on learning delivery.

Voctech are digital technologies that support vocational training and help improve skills for work. Voctech describes the digital tools which are used to teach vocational skills to adults: skills which will be used by the workforce in the workplace.

What’s the difference between edtech and voctech? Edtech is a generic term which covers all types of educational technologies used in all sorts of settings - schools, colleges, universities - for all sorts of educational purposes. Voctech is the specific application of edtech in a vocational context. While the basic technologies are the same, when applied in a vocational context for adults existing tools often need adjustment or redesign to ensure they work for adults in a work skills context.

Ufi is an independent charity which has been around for c 10 years. We believe in the power of digital technologies to change lives; only through the use of voctech will we be able to scale up and give wide access to skills training and tackle the UK vocational skills shortage. Our aim is to catalyse change across the UK to achieve the change in scale that we need in vocational learning for adults.

Grant funding projects which demonstrate how innovation in digital learning has an impact
Investing via our Ufi Ventures programme in order to help create a market in voctech
Working in partnership with organisations who have influence in the sector
Helping to build the voctech community and sharing knowledge
We’ve funded all types of organisations to demonstrate voctech in all types of innovative ways. In FE for example, there is some real innovation. Bracknell College is working with Century Tech to use AI to provide adaptive personalised learning pathways for students. Hereford and Ludlow College used augmented reality for their animal care course. The National College for Nuclear and Bridgewater and Taunton college used VR to create a safe place to practice skills for the nuclear industry. Ufi’s VocTech Directory is a great resource for exploring other examples of how VocTech is being used.

We understand the barriers to adoption of voctech in colleges. Resources – time and money are a real issue. FE colleges are really stretched. Government spending on FE has dropped by a third since 2010 (Institute for Fiscal Studies) and the budget for entire country is £3.5bn - less than the combined annual operating costs of Oxford and Cambridge universities. But the primary barrier has always been cultural – any change to how learning is delivered requires new skills and approaches, and that’s a challenge.

The pandemic forced a shift. Necessity became the mother of invention. During the pandemic technology ensured that learning and teaching could still continue. Our VocTech Now funding call provided immediate help to 11 FE colleges to help them make the transition. Some great work and creative problem solving emerged. CPD for staff is an ongoing issue and we are working with ALT to create a network of FE voctech professionals - Amplify FE.

The future? AI will undoubtedly help unlock voctech in colleges. When online, AI mediates almost everything – Google, Google Scholar, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Amazon, Netflix. And AI will play a great role in learning – which we are beginning to see. AI can create content powerful personalised learning - at scale. Data-driven approaches can also deliver push techniques, such as nudge learning and spaced-practice. If AI is the rocket, data is the fuel.

In future episodes the FE livestream will be looking in more detail at practical applications of VocTech and how they can be applied to FE.

Hosted by Gavin O’Meara and Janine Oliver (Head of Assessment Innovation, NCFE), we invited Olly Newton (Exec Director, Edge Foundation) and Isabel Sutcliffe (Independent consultant in Education and Skills) to discuss what assessment innovation means in practice and what the future holds, as we find new ways of working that meets the needs of learners and educators today.

NCFE is focused on exploring the future of assessment to ensure that learners have access to the world-class products and services that help them to fulfil their potential, not just in terms of academic attainment or employment outcomes, but also their wellbeing, mental health and happiness. In order to achieve this, we know we need to look at assessment used in a variety of ways and at different stages of the learning journey - from pre-programme diagnostic assessment, formative micro and milestone assessment, through to summative end-point assessment and beyond.

#AntiRacismInAction with Shaid Mahmood, Dr Sam Parrett OBE and Mandeep Gill
BFELG Livestreams #AntiRacismInAction - Making the Most of an Ethnically Diverse Britain, co-produced by BFELG and FE News was launched today, 4th October, with the first of 9 Episodes.

The launch episode was introduced by Shaid Mahmood, Chair of the Association of Colleges (AoC) and Chief Officer Transformation and Change, Leeds City Council who spoke powerfully about what #AntiRacismInAction means to him – personal accountability; common purpose; proactive, conscious, determined effort to tackle racism in all its multidimensional forms, and to eradicate it.

Co-anchors Gavin O’Meara (CEO and Head of Digital, FE News), and Robin Landman OBE, BFELG Executive Member were in conversation with the featured Guests, Mandeep Gill, Principal and CEO, Newham Sixth Form College (NewVIc), and Dr Sam Parrett CBE, Group Principal and CEO of London South East Colleges (LSEC). Both CEOs were early signatories to the BFELG ‘Open letter’ and both institutions have affiliated with the BFELG. Board Chairs, Stephen Howlett CBE, DL (LSEC) and Martin Rosner (NewVIc), are strong supporters and allies of the BFELG.

In a wide ranging conversation, Guests talked about their engagement with the BFELG, the particular Race Equality opportunities and challenges for the FE sector and their respective organisations, and touched on specific FE system leadership actions necessary to make rapid progress.

Mandeep Gill touched on why data no longer matters and honesty does. The never-ending cycle of looking at data, getting shocked into action, the data shifting slightly and people patting themselves on the back for a job-well-done, only to come back to the data (often a few years later), getting shocked… is not having impact.

Rather than the data, answer honestly the question: are we absolutely confident that we are treating each other fairly and respectfully? If not, then do something about it.

A topic of discussion was LSEC’s experience of developing a sustainable and long-term diversity and inclusion strategy which has led to the creation of their ‘Enough is Enough – Tackling Racial Inequality’ ten-year grants programme.

The idea behind this programme is to enable students and staff to develop their own projects, tackling issues that are important to them. The College Group has committed funding over a 10-year period; sufficient time to bring about real, lasting change.