Further Education

Kelvin Hopkins Excerpts

Wednesday 18th November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate because I have a long-standing interest in the FE sector. As Chair of the Education Committee, I am interested in ensuring that we drive through the apprenticeship programme, making sure that people have choices post-16 and tackling the productivity challenge in this country during this Parliament.

I am pleased to say that my Committee and the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee held a successful conference on productivity, which identified the need for an innovative FE sector. That is at the core of this discussion: we need to encourage innovation in the FE sector and to ensure that it is of a scale and scope that matches the demands of employers and professions. “Technical, professional and higher” is a good way of describing the FE sector that we need for tomorrow. I will make my contribution with that theme in mind.

We must ensure that apprenticeships have traction and that they have parity with academic learning. It seems to me that the gold standard award approach is absolutely right. The Government should extend that to make it a national apprenticeship award so that there is consistency across the field and a recognition that quality is the hallmark of a good apprenticeship scheme. We should encourage the FE sector to engage in that.

We need to think carefully about sixth-form colleges. The shadow Secretary of State suggested that UTCs and other things were excluded from the area reviews, but, actually, through the regional schools commissioner mechanism, they are not. There will be engagement. I think it would be extremely advantageous were we to allow sixth-form colleges to become academies and part of multi-academy trusts.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

I am pleased the hon. Gentleman has mentioned sixth-form colleges. As chair of the all-party group on sixth-form colleges and governor of a sixth-form college, I consider them to be the most brilliant institutions in the country. Will he use his influence to get the Government to create more of them?

[Neil Carmichael]

I am keen to use my influence, as Chair of the Education Committee, for a lot of things, and that is certainly one direction of travel in which I am sure we will be going.

We must ensure greater employer engagement, which can and should come through governance, and we have already seen changes bringing that about, but something else needs to happen: the education sector needs to engage more effectively and readily with the world of work. I mean not just businesses, but the professional sectors, such as the care sector. It is critical that we know how many people there are with the types of skills that are needed. We need to know more about how the labour market works, and the education system needs to know more about how skills and the labour market are developing. That interface is crucial, and I see it coming through in various changes in the FE sector.

We have a good example of that in my constituency, where Stroud and Filton colleges merged to create an innovative college structure with characteristics that colleges need to think about when going through the area review. The first characteristic is precise, strong and courageous leadership. It is critical that we articulate a vision about where our colleges should go, and that is best done by a leadership with the capacity and willingness to do exactly that.

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[Neil Carmichael]

I nearly made an intervention myself. I listened to the thrust, however, and obviously I agree that strong leadership should be combined with the good management of resources.

The second characteristic is an ability to embrace other mechanisms and other types of FE colleges within the wider framework of an overarching body. It is important to note here the success of UTCs being run in conjunction with an FE college. This is going to happen in my own constituency. We have a UTC, with a training centre making use of a decommissioned nuclear power station, that is bringing together the kind of training we need, specifically for renewable and nuclear energy. So we have to be more innovative in how we structure these things.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I agree entirely that we need to plan education to meet the economy’s needs, yet sixth-form colleges have been under such financial pressure that one quarter have had to cut STEM courses. Is that not a tragic mistake?

[Neil Carmichael]

It is absolutely right that we need to increase the number of STEM courses, as is happening in mainstream education. We need more young people taking STEM subjects, as it is central to our long-term goal of increasing productivity.

Is it wise to allow students and pupils to stop taking maths post-16? We must put that critical question on the table. There is an argument to be made about a post-16 national baccalaureate that contains maths, English, and either technical or further academic study, and it would help the FE sector generally if that option were brought to the table. As a country we have a big problem with maths, because we do not have enough people who are capable in that subject.

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[Caroline Nokes]

My hon. Friend is of course right. The best colleges are working with business and schools to make sure that when young people go into the world of work they are ready for it.

My constituency has no 16 to 19 provision in the state sector, which means that every single teenager is exported somewhere else to go to college. But that is great, because it gives me an opportunity to talk to college principals across the region. I may stray on to the territory of some of my neighbours today, but I have a broad perspective from many college leaders across the south of Hampshire. We are lucky: we have great sixth-form and FE colleges that have worked over the years to make sure that they are as efficient as possible. In many cases, they are as large as possible—they have worked hard to get more students through their doors—but big is not always best. What is crucial is that we have a range of colleges that provide different offers. The transition from school to college can be difficult for some young people, and we should not assume that just because a college is large, efficient and getting great results it will give the best outcomes for every student.

Peter Symonds college, which I was lucky enough to attend—a few years ago now—and Barton Peveril, two of the biggest colleges in the area, have brilliant academic records. They are some of the best in the country, but we also have Richard Taunton college in Southampton on the edge of my constituency, which is far smaller. It has only 1,250 students and it has specialised in attracting a broad and diverse range of students, many of whom have come from other institutions and found their home in a much smaller college, taking three years to complete their A-level education.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I am listening with interest to what the hon. Lady says about the size of colleges. Does she agree that one of the advantages of large—but not too large—colleges is that they give students a maximum choice of A-level subjects as well as unusual combinations of subjects that might best suit their needs?

[Caroline Nokes]

Of course what economies of scale and large colleges also provide are fantastic enrichment programmes, additional courses and provision that goes so far to prepare young people for the world of work—experiences such as volunteering in different parts of the world, the Combined Cadet Force and a wide range of sports. We desperately want young people not to drop off in their participation in sport at 16, but to carry on and make sure that they are fit and healthy for life. It is those enrichment programmes that I worry might start to fall by the wayside, but they are the very programmes that make sure that young people from the state sector have the same opportunities and chances when filling in their personal statements for university that we see in the independent sector. That sector has been great at ensuring that its young people have every advantage and are given a broad curriculum as well as experiences and activities. It is critical to keep ensuring that there is wider access to higher education, and it is imperative that students from the great sixth forms we have in Hampshire, which have a brilliant track record of getting pupils into Oxbridge, have exactly the same advantages when they are filling in their personal statements as those from the independent sector.

The area-based review under way in south Hampshire—the Solent-based review—has won an exclusion which, to my mind and to those of college principals, is significant: it does not include the in-school sixth forms. Way back in the 1970s, Hampshire introduced the tertiary model of education, but a few school sixth forms have lingered on, and indeed there have been some new ones. The area-based review will not look at those schools, and the principals of the colleges feel, probably rightly, aggrieved about that. They do not think it is fair. They already pay VAT, yet the schools do not. They do not have the opportunity to cross-subsidise. We all know that the funding for years 7 to 11 is protected and significantly more generous than the funding for 16-to-19 education. Within a school setting, it is possible to use the funding for years 7 to 11 to assist in the provision of A-level education, but the colleges do not have that choice. They are paying VAT, cannot cross-subsidise and now face this situation, about which they understandably feel pretty cross, because it is unfair on them, as they tell me.

We know from the Sixth Form Colleges Association that sixth-form colleges are out-performing school sixth forms. We know that they are helping higher numbers of more disadvantaged students, and we know that they are getting better results. In Hampshire, the colleges have consistently delivered high-quality education cost-effectively.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I strongly agree with the hon. Lady. In Luton, we have a relatively disadvantaged population, but simply because of the sixth-form college we have above the national average number of young people going to university.

[Caroline Nokes]

I commend the hon. Gentleman’s work as chairman of the all-party parliamentary group for sixth-form colleges.

To conclude, we all know that the average funding for 14 to 16-year-olds is £5,600 a year, but that it drops to £3,600 after 16. That means a reduction in contact time with teachers. That might work for young people preparing for university and learning about independent study, gaining skills that they are going to use in higher education, but it will not work for those with special educational needs or those who require additional support. It will not necessarily work for the students at Brockenhurst college in the New Forest, which has worked so hard to increase access to further education and keep young people with special educational needs in college and in education. For them, unsupervised study is simply not a realistic prospect.

I know that the Minister has probably heard more than enough from me, and will be preparing to respond with facts on funding and by telling us that we all have to learn to live within our means. I get that, I really do. I am not opposed to the area-based reviews, and having seen the issues at Totton college just outside my constituency, I know how important it is that young people have confidence in their college’s ability to provide them with a qualification at the end of their course, provided that they have worked hard enough to get it. I know that there is logic in exploring whether stronger partnerships or collaborative and strategic thinking might further enhance the effectiveness of the college system. However, how about a more level playing field for colleges that are already doing an outstanding job providing strong programmes of study and preparing young people for university, for apprenticeships and for the world of work?