Category: Education

The statement made by Robert Halfon, the Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education, in the House of Commons on 29 March 2023.

Today, as part of phase 2 of the post-16 qualifications review of English qualifications, we have published an update to the final list of qualifications that overlap with wave 1 and 2 T-levels, to include qualifications that overlap with health and science T-Levels. These qualifications were included in the provisional list published in May 2022 but confirmation was not included in the final list published in October 2022, due to the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education’s review of the outline content of the health and science T-levels. This review has now concluded. Today’s update adds 28 qualifications to the list and as previously stated these will have 16 to 19 funding removed from 1 August 2024.

The removal of funding from these qualifications follows rigorous assessment by independent assessors and an opportunity for awarding organisations to appeal their decisions. The awarding organisations who will have funding removed from these 28 qualifications have been notified, as have the Federation of Awarding Bodies and Joint Council for Qualifications. My Department will also engage with further education providers on this matter.

T-levels are rigorous qualifications that provide a great progression route into a range of occupations in the health and science sector. They are based on the same standards as apprenticeships and have their content set by employers. Students that take a health and science T-level are well placed to progress into careers in the sector, including as health professionals, technicians and researchers.

We have backed providers with significant additional revenue and capital funding so that they are well prepared and have the resources to deliver T-levels to a high standard. We have made around £400 million available to improve buildings and buy state-of-the-art equipment. We recently announced a short-term 10% uplift in T-level revenue funding to help providers as they transition from study programmes and scale up and a new £12 million employer support fund to help providers deliver quality industry placements. This comes alongside a range of practical support measures that we have put in place to support providers to implement T-levels, including investing over £31 million in the T-level professional development programme (TLPD) to provide free training and support to FE providers, teachers and leaders to successfully plan and deliver T-levels.

The changes to post-16 qualifications at level 3 and below are designed to ensure that our qualifications system provides a ladder of opportunity for young people from all backgrounds. T-levels are a key part of that ladder of opportunity, helping young people climb rung by rung toward a fulfilling career. The T-level transition programme provides a high-quality pathway onto T-levels.

In addition to T-levels, students will also benefit from a range of choice in order to access careers in the health and social care and science sectors. This will include high-quality reformed qualifications at level 2 designed to support progression to apprenticeships, further study, and employment. At level 3, students will also be able to choose to study a health and social care-related qualification as part of a mixed study programme.

I am pleased that we have taken this next step in ensuring our post-16 qualifications system provides young people with the skills employers need and which are fit for the future.

The speech made by Robert Halfon, the Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education, at the Mansion House in London on 28 March 2023.

The speech made by Robert Halfon, the Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education, in London on 27 March 2023.

Introduction

Thank you, Ambassador [Miguel Berger, German Ambassador and Patron of German Industry UK] for that introduction. I’m delighted to be here today, in such good company, to talk about my favourite subjects: apprenticeships and skills education. I want to explain why they are valuable to the United Kingdom and to me – and what we are doing to ensure their value is widely recognised.

German technical education

Let me start by saying that I love German technical education – whether that’s the dual system or full-time vocational schools. Presenting technical routes alongside academic ones from adolescent means there is no false hierarchy between the two. There is less snobbery about studying for a technical or vocational role, one that will advance industry and, by extension, the economy. And there is no hesitancy about showing the world of work to younger teenagers – an environment they are expected to take seriously, but where they’re also taken seriously too.

When I visited Germany in 2018 I found it inspiring. 14 year olds on placements with local companies, getting their first taste of the real working world and the respect that comes with skilled labour. Being shown the iterative process of building their understanding and technical abilities simultaneously.

I remember asking businessmen at the Chamber of Commerce why they were providing placements. After all, there was no financial incentive to host these youngsters.

I was met with incredulity.

“What do you mean, why?”

“We must do this, it’s for the next generation!”

So ingrained is the German sense of civic duty to pass on an understanding and respect for industry, they didn’t understand the question.

I truly admire that meshing of business and education culture.

“Eine Symbiose” you might say.

A common acknowledgement that one feeds the other, and both benefit.

The figures speak for themselves.

More than 40% of young Germans’ highest qualification is a vocational one. And more than a third of these are Higher Technical Qualifications. Around a quarter of our young adults have a vocational qualification as their highest, with only a quarter of these being a Higher Technical Qualification.

Just 8% of your young people are classified as not in education, employment or training. And the German vocational education system opens up many more career paths than equivalents in other OECD countries, because it’s been developed hand-in-glove with local industries for many decades. This results in your exceptionally low unemployment rate for school leavers, of just 3%. Overall youth unemployment in Germany was just 5.7% in January this year, the lowest in the EU.

I want the United Kingdom to have a piece of this pie. I have championed apprenticeships throughout my time in Parliament – for their social good as much as what they can give to commerce. Having been Minister at the start of our skills reforms in 2016, it’s great to be back in government to see them bearing fruit.

Apprenticeships and the Skills Revolution

In the last half decade we have revitalised the apprenticeships system in England, alongside establishing Institutes of Technology to provide prestigious Higher Technical Qualifications. We’ve also introduced T Levels, a new high-quality Level 3 qualification for 16 year olds. With time spent in the classroom and on industry placement, these new courses emulate some aspects of your dual system. Responsibility for education is devolved to the governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and they too are committed to delivering high quality skills education and apprenticeships.

Whenever I talk about skills education, I present my vision through the Ladder of Opportunity. It’s a framework for what we need to build a robust technical education system, to raise skills levels and boost economic growth. Crucially, the ladder must bring progression opportunities to the most disadvantaged in society, so they can reach the top to enjoy sustainable, skilled, high-waged employment.

I won’t take you through the whole framework, but I’ll focus on those parts that have driven our reforms and my enthusiasm for apprenticeships.

Social justice is a key pillar of the Ladder of Opportunity, one that holds the whole thing up. I don’t know what the discourse is like in Germany, but here we can spend too much time talking about ‘social mobility’. I think this can have class connotations, suggesting that those who are ‘mobile’ can pull themselves up by their bootstraps to get on in life. Social justice is about bringing opportunities to the people who need them most.

The most disadvantaged, who may not have done well at school, and may not have good connections at home – or even a steady homelife. People to whom the education system must bring opportunities, because no one else will. The bottom line is that no one should feel their circumstances leave them unable to improve their skills and employment prospects.

Apprenticeships are an excellent conduit of social justice. They have a clear progression path, which can be built on to reach degree-level expert roles. Apprentices earn while they learn, without acquiring student debt. And as well as introducing learners to an industry, apprenticeships also introduce them to an employer. In Germany, 74% stay on at the firm where they did their apprenticeship. This rises 82% in manufacturing, 87% in construction, and a whopping 96% in public administration.

I think this is an often overlooked part of apprenticeships’ unique value. For those without guidance or connections to where they want to work, it is so important. That is why we provide additional funding to employers and providers who take on apprentices who are young, have disabilities, or were cared for by the state. And this year we’ll raise the apprenticeships bursary we provide to care-leavers to £3,000, to help cover living costs that are usually met by family.

One rung of the Ladder of Opportunity is the quality of skills education – something we set-out to raise with our reforms. In the early 2010s we had lots of people doing ‘apprenticeships’ that weren’t worth the name, devaluing the brand for both learners and employers.

To reinvigorate apprenticeships we went back to basics. What skills were employers seeking? What training had fallen away, and what was newly needed? We worked closely with industry to answer to these questions and design new apprenticeship standards. We now have over 600, carefully constructed to meet employers’ needs. They are rigorous and challenging for learners, to build respect on all sides for the programme. As in your technical education routes, the standards are complemented by a thorough end-point assessment, where apprentices must demonstrate full competence in their role.

Training is now delivered by registered providers that are regularly inspected to ensure quality is prioritised. And we’ve put apprenticeship funding on a sustainable footing through the Apprenticeship Levy, increasing investment to £2.7 billion by 2024-25.

Another a key rung on the Ladder of Opportunity is to champion apprenticeships and the skills employers need. We still have to get the word out about what we’re doing and why. While some established companies have a fine tradition of nurturing apprentices (much like the civic duty I mentioned earlier) many newer businesses don’t recognise their relevance. It’s key that we engage these, so the programme can fulfil its purpose to supply people with the skills needed right now.

We’re particularly keen to get small and medium enterprises (or SMEs) onboard, who are more likely to employ younger apprentices and those from disadvantaged areas. We’re doing this by heavily subsidising the costs of training and assessment for their first 10 apprentices, exempting those below age 25 from National Insurance employment tax, and reducing these companies’ administrative hiring burden.

Future challenges

I believe our skills education reforms were long-over due. Skilled workers drive productivity, a problem we have struggled to solve. Your economy remains 19% more productive than ours.

But the need for an alert, flexible education system, that responds to the shifting jobs market, has become ever more acute. We are all part of a more competitive, global skills market. The way we work has changed, particularly in the last two years. The Fourth Industrial Revolution has already created new jobs and rendered others obsolete, making career change inevitable. The skills required today may not be the same as the skills needed tomorrow.

We want our apprenticeship standards to keep pace with what’s required of workers. So we’ve asked the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education to prioritise developing and reviewing the standards most crucial to meeting our future skills needs. This includes apprenticeship roles that support our target to decarbonise all sectors of the UK economy by 2050, so we can become ‘net zero’. By the end of this month [March 2023] about 15 per cent of published standards will have been revised to reflect these needs.

We’re also keen to promote new solutions for workers wishing to change careers, and employers wishing to retrain or upskill employees to fill skills shortages. Our Skills Bootcamps are free, sector-specific courses that last up to 4 months, with a job interview at the end. In the 2021-22 financial year, 16,000 people participated in Bootcamps. They are a different approach for matching workers to skills gaps, and cover training in construction, digital, and green economy skills – such as heat pump engineering. We hope to expand these opportunities through the skills devolution measures just announced in the Spring Budget.

Just as we’re still refining our apprenticeships programme, I know you are not resting on your heels either. A key solution for both of our countries in this new, dynamic system is reforming the careers advice we provide.

Careers empowerment is the first rung on the Ladder of Opportunity – the first step into the world of work. We owe it to young people to arm them with good information on what they can to expect at the end of their schooling.

I know that in Germany, job coaches from the local Agency for Employment get to know pupils in the technical lower secondary schools from age 12-14. This helps them, with the school, to build a path forward for each pupil, be that full time TVET [technical and vocational education and training] or an apprenticeship.

I am determined that careers information here becomes quality-assured, and always includes work experience, apprenticeships and other skills options. To help students find their path in life, we need to engage with them early, as you do, clearly presenting their routes and requirements for heading onwards and upwards.

We’re also reforming the structures that have previously siloed technical and academic education. In a couple of years students will be able to apply for apprenticeships on the same online platform as university courses. From 2025, our Lifelong Loan Entitlement will allow flexible, modular student finance that facilitates lifelong learning, to respond to the economy’s changing demands. Our broader vision is to develop a one-stop-shop, where citizens can explore all their career and training options at any point in their lives.

Conclusion

As you can tell, we still have a way to go to build a globally competitive UK skills education system. But we are grateful for the useful example and generosity of spirit you have shown us. Whatever waves have crashed around Britannia in the last few years, those interested in this area have never lost sight of the work to be done, and of what we can learn from our neighbours. Most recently a group of our officials visited North-Rhine Westphalia to discuss technical education implementation with the regional Chamber of Commerce.

You’ll be hearing shortly from Sir Michael Barber, who has been advising our government on the skills reform programme. I was delighted to read recently that Sir Michael sees this is as a moment when the stars are aligning for apprenticeships. We have a Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Education Secretary (the first to hold a degree level apprenticeship) and a Skills Minister (yours truly) who genuinely want to prioritise skills education across government. I’m glad to be in the right place at the right time to see this through, and will continue to look to your country’s globally-recognised “gute Praxis” in order to do so.

The speech made by Robert Halfon, the Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education, on 23 March 2023.

Hello everyone. I’m sorry that I can’t be with you today as planned, as I’m in Parliament for the Lifelong Loan Entitlement Bill.

Please accept my apologies – because I couldn’t be more enthusiastic about the brilliant work you do. I talk a lot about the Ladder of Opportunity. It’s a framework to support everyone, but especially disadvantaged people, to gain valuable skills and qualifications to enter good employment. Such progression should be a widely held aspiration. But low attainment and lack of confidence often hold people back from making a start. You are doing the real groundwork, helping those at the very bottom of the ladder take their first steps to build their capabilities.

And this is alongside supporting 1000s more to gain essential skills for life, work and further learning.

All progression is good progression – whether a person aspires to an apprenticeship, better reading ability, or improved mental health and community participation. All of these outcomes hold tremendous value, for society and the individual. You help to bring them about.

For me Adult learning has 5 pillars: Community Learning, Careers, Adult learning for Jobs, the Lifelong Loan Entitlement, and Skills Devolution.

I’ll talk about our offer to those who complete your courses and want to do more. But I will return to the intrinsic social value of your work, and how we’ll protect it in our future plans for adult education.

Community Learning and basic skills

Firstly, I want to acknowledge your dedication to the communities you serve.

One area of your work, Community Learning, plays a vital role in helping adults of all ages and backgrounds gain skills, confidence and motivation. Getting reluctant people to step forward to enrol is not easy, particularly if they struggled in school or employment, or don’t speak good English. Your enthusiasm welcomes them in and persuades them to stay. Social justice, a key part of the Ladder framework, is about bringing opportunities to the people who need them most. I want to thank you for everything you do to help change people’s minds about what they can accomplish. I have seen this in practice in my own constituency of Harlow, where community education was moved to the local library, which became a state-of-the-art centre for adult learning.

Alongside its social value, your work provides a vital stepping-stone to further learning, training and employment. This includes the delivery of the English, maths and digital skills that everyone needs to navigate adult life – a key demonstration of the value of Adult Community Learning in combatting unseen disadvantage.

National Careers Service

A lot of your work is about building people’s confidence, helping them to realise their potential, and signposting them on where to go next. I’m sure many of you have close links with your local National Careers Service advisers, who are based in jobcentres and other community settings.

A quick reminder of what the Service offers! It is relevant to many of the adults on your courses. Anyone can use National Careers Service online, but this in-person support is specifically for adults with recognised barriers to finding work – such as those with special educational needs and disabilities, single parents or the low skilled. These career advisors are trained to work with adults; they are skilled at identifying their potential and motivating them to succeed. They help customers to build a career and skills action plan for their short, medium and long term goals.  Your learners may have already been referred, but it’s always worth asking if they’ve heard of the service or considered using it.

The National Careers Service celebrated supporting one million adults into a job or learning outcome in 2022. I’m really keen that it lives out its purpose to connect disadvantaged adults with the skills and jobs they need to succeed. We are currently considering its future focus, and there will be opportunities for you to share your views on how the Service can effectively provide appropriate support.

Adult Learning for Jobs – Free Courses for Jobs & Skills Bootcamps

The Multiply numeracy programme, announced in 2021, has so far reached almost 10,000 learners. We know the need is out there, and we want to reach far more, which is why we’ve boosted funding up to £559 million over this parliament. I am grateful for your response since the launch, and your crucial role in bringing learners to schemes like this – helping them take their first steps in skills that most of us take for granted.

It’s really important to me that when people want to change career or boost their earning power, there’s a broad eco system of learning options available, offering clear rewards.

Free Courses for Jobs is an initiative to provide adult learners with valuable skills to fill jobs-market gaps. They do exactly as the name suggests, providing Level 3 qualifications that lead to higher wages and better work. They have proved popular, with over 35,000 enrolments between April 2021 and October 2022, significantly increasing the number of adults taking these Level 3 qualifications. We invested £95 million in these courses last financial year (2021-22), with further investment via the National Skills Fund announced at the Spending Review.

We’ve now expanded eligibility to include all unemployed adults, and those earning less than the National Living Wage. The qualifications available were chosen for their strong wage outcomes and key skills in high demand. The programme also includes shorter options to help workers progress in the labour market. If any of your learners are looking to upskill, retrain or switch sectors, please nudge them towards the Free Courses for Jobs qualifications list – it’s been handpicked with them in mind.

Another thing I must flag are Skills Bootcamps – specialised training that links learners directly to their chosen industry. These free, flexible courses of sector-specific skills last up to 4 months, with a job interview offered on completion. In the financial year 2021-22 (latest available data) 16,120 people participated in Skills Bootcamps. We hope to further expand these opportunities through the skills devolution measures announced in the Budget last week.

Skills Bootcamps have the potential to transform the skills landscape for employers seeking  career-changers. Once again, demand has been strong. There are now over 900 Bootcamps, including training in construction, logistics, digital skills, and those that support the green economy – such as heat pump engineering. We will continue to expand Skills Bootcamps, with up to       £550 million funding over 2022-25. Again, my message to you is that this could be the perfect opportunity for those ready to step towards a new career – particularly if they know their abilities but lack confidence at interview.

Lifelong Loan entitlement

Also, I want to mention the Lifelong Loan Entitlement, the vital fourth pillar of Adult Education, which I’m very excited about. This will unify Higher and Further education finance under a single system. From 2025, financial support equivalent to 4 years post-18 education (£37,000 in today’s fees) will be available for individuals to use over their working lives.

Now, a new student finance system might seem rather distant from the needs of your learners. But it will enable access in a way that hasn’t been possible before. Learning and paying by module will present new opportunities for those unable to commit to a long course. Unifying education finance under one banner will create a cultural shift in how vocational courses are perceived and accessed. Each learner’s personal account will display their remaining education finance balance, but also act as a portal to information to guide their learning pathway.  Like getting on and off a train, they’ll be able to alight and board their post-school education when it suits then, rather than being confined to a single ticket.

Our broader vision is to fully integrate the skills education our economy is crying-out for, into the formal systems that direct people towards and through the jobs market. Our eventual aim is a one-stop-shop, where all can explore their career and training options at any point in their lives

Devolving Adult Skills & learning

We don’t want to stand in the way of local leaders commissioning the adult education that’s needed in their area. That’s why we’ve already devolved approximately 60% of the Adult Education Budget to 9 Mayoral Combined Authorities and the Mayor of London. These authorities are now responsible for the provision of AEB-funded adult education for their residents, and allocation of the AEB to providers. We are committed to devolving further from 2025-26, and are already working with new areas to support their devolution deals.

And you’ll know from last week’s Budget that we’re putting Mayors at the heart of economic growth in their regions. We announced two Trailblazer devolution deals with Greater Manchester and the West Midlands. These Combined Authorities will work closely with government, FE providers and colleges, using all available levers to align their local skills offer with local needs. Further Education voices, such as yourselves, will be central in shaping this strategy – with a focus on sufficiency, capacity and clear curriculum pathways for learners.

Conclusion

I want to end by thanking Holex and everyone here for your continued advocacy for adult education, and your engagement with the Department. Dr Sue Pember has been a consistent champion of this important work – whether in the classroom or in local government, leading policy in my department or for you.

I’m particularly grateful for your responses to our consultation on funding and accountability. Funding reform necessarily includes looking at provision that does not result in a qualification. We recognise that individual learner journeys are different, and that a formal qualification is not always best for those furthest from the labour market. But we want to ensure this provision is the right choice for learners, and that it provides value for money and contributes to wider skills and employment needs.

We’ve listened carefully to the views of the sector. The core aim of the Skills Fund will remain progression to further learning and employment. But I hope I’ve made clear that we also recognise the wider benefits of adult learning – such as health and wellbeing, and stronger communities. The Skills fund will continue to support these aims, with more detail in our full consultation response later this year.

I hope you enjoy the rest of your day at this networking event. I look forward to continuing to work with you all to shine a spotlight on the transformative power of community education.