The government wants to shake up post-compulsory education in England. Tony Tysome and Phil Baty look at who stays and who may go
Post-16 education and training in England is facing "the most fundamental and radical review ever", according to Association of Colleges chief executive Dave Gibson.
Following ministers' announcement of a review of lifelong learning last month, the sector is preparing for a sweeping shake-up - smashing layers of duplication with a single funding body and a single quality assurance regime.
Underpinned by an all-embracing qualifications credit framework, plans include the abolition of the Further Education Funding Council for England and the Training and Enterprise Councils, plus the removal of school sixth-form and adult education funding from local authorities.
Quality assurance, which is conducted by the FEFCE, the Training Standards Council, Ofsted and the Quality Assurance Agency for higher education, could all be brought under a single regime.
Education secretary David Blunkett said he would publish in the summer "new local and national arrangements for the delivery of high-quality further education, training and workforce development to meet the skills and learning challenge".
The review was sparked by criticisms of the "incoherence and duplication of current arrangements", he said, and by a need to integrate plans for the University for Industry, with work by the Social Exclusion Unit on 16 to 18-year-olds and the Skills Task Force.
According to leaks, officials at the Department for Education and Employment have been asked by the prime minister's office to take a "fundamental look" at the funding and organisation of the structures.
The Local Government Association has warned its members: "The review may result in radical proposals to rearrange funding routes for all post-16 provision. There is speculation that the announcement may take the form of a white paper, with legislation to follow in 2001."
Mr Gibson said: "The changes could be very, very radical, and we would put it to government that they should be."
Funding
At a conference earlier this month, the first question the AoC asked its members was: "Should there be a single national body to fund and regulate post-16 education and training?" The AoC said yes.
Education and training in England is funded through three main channels - the FEFCE, the TECS and the local education authorities. The FEFCE administers Pounds 3.2 billion to about 440 further education colleges and sixth-form colleges, which provide vocational and academic qualifications, from basic skills to sub-degree level work. The college sector provides for 500,000 16 to 19-year-olds, as well as three million adults.
School sixth-forms educate 400,000 students, with more than Pounds 1 billion, and TECs receive Pounds 1.3 billion.
There are large disparities between these channels in the level of funding. The Department for Education and Employment's own study into comparative costs between TECs and colleges found that it costs a further education college Pounds 3,900 to deliver a National Vocational Qualification at level three (equivalent to A level), while it costs a TEC almost double that, at Pounds 8,600.
The TEC National Council, however, points out that TECs are local organisations responding to local needs and that costs can therefore vary significantly according to local circumstances. The TEC budget has also been progressively cut back from Pounds 3 billion in the 1980s.
Colleges have also criticised the inequalities between funding for schools sixth-forms and sixth-form colleges. FEFCE-funded sixth-form colleges are about 20 per cent worse off per capita than local government-funded school sixth-forms.
The Local Government Association, the FEFCE and the National Audit Office have all demanded a level playing field. Education minister Baroness Blackstone last year said that work was in hand to look at the scope for introducing common principles into sixth-form funding.
The criteria for funding, however, are also widely variable. "There is a plethora of different systems, different incentives and different rules for winning the money," said the AoC's director of further education development, John Brennan. "None of that helps deliver programmes in the best interest of the student."
School sixth-forms are funded simply on student numbers. Colleges are funded in tranches under a highly complex methodology that takes account of recruitment, retention and achievement.
Dr Brennan said: "It would be much better to have a single system to ensure that funding was delivered relevant to the programme, regardless of who was delivering it."
The AoC would like to see a simplified version of the FEFCE model adopted for all provision. Dr Brennan said: "The model is too complicated, but you can take the good elements - money up front to encourage recruitment, some funding to keep them going and an outcome element. These principles would attract a lot of support."
Under one option for funding being considered by ministers, a single national funding agency would be set up.
The LGA suggests all post-16 funding could be channelled through the new agency, which would either be appointed by the secretary of state or democratically constituted with representation from all sectors.
Inspection
Further education providers feel even more burdened by inspection, quality assurance and audit than their higher education counterparts.
On top of the main inspection regime, run by the FEFCE, they have to answer to inspectors from numerous awarding bodies, professional bodies, the Training Standards Council, Investors in People, Ofsted and the Employment Service.
Each agency has its own agenda, action plan, quality regime and inspection timetable, and none of them works together. In addition, the role of the Quality Assurance Agency for higher education in monitoring the quality of higher education in FE colleges is yet to be determined.
FEFCE inspectors work on a four-yearly cycle of visits, although the funding council is considering introducing fewer frequent inspections for top-performing institutions and more frequent visits for those with problems. Each college is required to produce a self-assessment report to determine the scope of inspections.
The Training Standards Council is the inspection arm of TECs, responsible for monitoring the delivery of modern apprenticeship programmes. Colleges have complained that one inspection for a handful of apprenticeships can involve up to 100 hours of work for senior staff.
Most colleges have achieved the Investors in People standard and are subject to re-inspection for re-accreditation every three years. Most are also involved in helping deliver the government's New Deal and are therefore subject to inspection from the Employment Service. Each of thousands of awarding bodies has its own quality-assurance code and inspection system. Colleges that provide education and training for 14 to 16-year-olds may also be inspected by Ofsted.
Planning
"The planning system is a nonsense," says the AoC. "There is no real planning at local level in terms of skills delivery. We need to shake it up."
Lifelong Learning Partnerships may pave the way. Set up through collaboration between the TECs, colleges and the Local Government Agency, the partnerships have already been warmly endorsed by the DFEE.
There is still confusion over the role of regional development agencies. Government guidance on RDAs' role in skills and training does not give the new bodies control over TEC and college funding or planning, but the RDAs will be expected to produce a skills action plan and will administer a skills development fund, worth Pounds 39 million a year nationally.
The Department for the Environment, Transport and the Regions has said it expects RDAs to work closely with further and higher education, TECs, local authorities and National Training Organisations, such as the Engineering and Marine Training Authority, to pool information and develop strategies that take account of national, regional and local objectives.
NTOs are new, independent, employer-led strategic bodies recognised by government. Their role is to collect and disseminate labour market information and alleviate skills shortages, provide advice on education and training, develop qualifications for work, and develop partnerships.
Some higher education leaders believe the government has made a mistake by apparently leaving universities and higher education colleges out of its post-16 sector.
David Wallace, vice-chancellor of Loughborough University, convener of the East Midlands Universities Association and a member of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals regional sector group, said: "It would be very useful to have a higher education perspective so that the review was not just about an isolated three-year window with unrealistic boundaries that do not connect up to anything," "Some universities are heavily involved in further education, and it would be unwise to leave them out of this," he added.
But AoC further education development director John Brennan disagrees. He said: "On balance, I think we would be content to leave higher education out of the equation - it tends to dominate the debates, and that is not helpful. If we are prepared to be resolute with TECs, colleges, local authority sixth-forms and adult education, it will be a major task in itself. We would need a decade or so before we got higher education involved." The Local Government Association has already warned that Mr Blunkett's announcement on the lifelong learning review makes no mention of the regional dimension.
It adds: "There is a danger that new arrangements may result in a lack of coordination and further duplication of provision."
The Association of Colleges has called for:
* A single national post-16 funding body for colleges, work in schools, training provision and adult education
* A common funding regime for all post-16 education and training, with common funding levels for similar work and parity of student support
* A single, independent inspection body covering further education, TECs, Employment Service and school sixth-forms
* A unitised, credit-based qualifications framework that will assist access and progression for all students within the context of a post-16 entitlement to publicly funded further learning
* A strengthened comprehensive guidance service.
THE WELSH REPORT
The blueprint for England is likely to come from the proposed Welsh model, set out in a report by the independent Education and Training Action Group for Wales.
Launched last month to near-universal party political support, the action plan would set up a National Council for Education and Training in Wales, directly accountable to the new national Assembly. Made up largely of business representatives, the national council would have "lead responsibility" for the "resourcing of all publicly funded education and training post-16".
It would ensure that education and training were directly linked to labour market information and local, regional and national skills needs assessments. New Local Community Consortia for Education and Training would "promote the integration of provision" and secure "genuine parity of esteem and treatment for academic, vocational and workplace training alike".
The plans would be underpinned by a "national credit-based qualifications and quality-assurance framework".
THE MOSER REPORT
The Working Group on Post-School Basic Skills, chaired by Sir Claus Moser, last month proposed a national strategy designed to attract millions of adults into "worthwhile study schemes".
The strategy's targets would include: n A radical increase in the choice of learning opportunities for adults
* National quality standards for all adult education and basic skills training programmes, a new curriculum, new training for staff, and better inspection regimes
* Substantial reductions in the number of adults with literacy and numeracy problems
* A new national test for literacy and numeracy
* Bringing in new information technology to motivate learners and improve courses.
The group said the strategy called for commitment and involvement from the government, local authorities, colleges, employers, and voluntary and community organisations.
THE PLAYERS
The FEFCE
The DFEE's policy review of the FEFCE, completed last month, concluded that "the government requires the continuation for the foreseeable future of the FEFCE's core functions, including allocation of public funding and quality assessment". A report on the review said that "in the medium term" the FEFCE should continue as an independent non-departmental public body, but "in the longer term the government should consider the merits of creating an integrated system of funding in order to rationalise present arrangements". The report says the FEFCE's powers are "for the most part adequate", but "if the opportunity arises, the government should consider strengthening the FEFCE's powers of intervention in respect of colleges so that the FEFCE can more effectively deliver government policy".
It also suggests the government should consider enhancing the role of the funding council's regional committees by giving them some executive powers. In the meantime the funding council should be invited to allocate a proportion of its non-core funding for "regional purposes".
TEC national council
The TEC National Council acknowledges and says it welcomes the fact that the role of TECs is likely to change as a result of the post-16 shake-up. But it is adamant that the government is not about to "throw the baby out with the bathwater" and abolish TECs altogether.
According to Mary Lord, the council's director of education and training, the government's review "points up opportunities for evolution towards a more coherent framework for a whole range of organisations to provide a system that is much more customer-focused".
This evolution must be carefully handled to ensure it does not disrupt progress towards achieving the government's national education and training targets, in which TECs have been heavily involved, she said.
TECs have always supported the idea of creating a more coherent set of arrangements for post-16 education and training, she said, and therefore welcome discussions about the possibility of setting up a single funding body and quality regime.
Such a move, however, should not mean a uniform approach to post-16 education and training. A national body would need to work with local or sub-regional bodies, possibly involving TECs, RDAs and lifelong learning partnerships.
"We would see the expertise we have in purchasing and quality assurance being prevalent in such bodies to support any new national agency. TECs are already changing so they are working in partnerships with a broader education and training remit," Ms Lord said.
University for Industry
According to its development plan, the University for Industry aims to "channel larger numbers of learners through existing providers, create a new distribution outlet for specially commissioned and endorsed high-quality materials, and stimulate new markets for learning".
UfI chief executive Anne Wright predicted last month that this would lead to creating demand for a million courses and learning packages a year by the year 2004. By that time the UfI, expected to be renamed Learning Direct, should be providing advice and information on education and training to at least 2.5 million people. The courses would be provided in local consortia as approved UfI learning centres.
Bids for learning centre status will be invited next month and 1,000 centres will be opened in March 2001 after initial pilots this October. This will provide outreach centres in pubs, housing estates, shops and football clubs.
TEC facts
* Set up in the late 1980s to bring greater coherence to training initiatives
* Modelled on US private initiative companies with a strong local focus
* Original Pounds 3billion budget cut back to Pounds 1.3 billion
* Cash used to buy more than 400,000 training places from providers such as further education colleges