My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As we have been able to do with phonics and literacy-based subjects, where we have moved ahead quickly, we need that thinking from primary school age and all the way up. As wonderful as further education is—I know that it is—it cannot repair all the structural issues to do with maths within that year or two years of study. We all want that to happen, but we have got to think sensibly about how it will happen, because people who are Prime Minister and have been Chancellor find maths very easy, but perhaps the rest of us do not.
From a further education perspective, Grimsby Institute, where I worked for many years, is a fantastic college that works really hard with industry. It was a grade 1 “outstanding” college for many years and is currently grade 2. I know how hard the staff work and thank Ann Hardy, the chief executive officer, and her team for looking at new ways of doing things and innovating.
I also thank Peter Kennedy and his team at Franklin College, which is our sixth-form college. The week before last, I went to see “The Bridge”, a new facility that it has opened to recreate corporate ways of working so that its 16 to 19-year-olds and adult learners—and its staff—can work in a corporate, modern environment, preparing them for work. Franklin College has done all its renovations and new build without grant help; it has done that with really good financial management. That is really worth celebrating and shows how outstanding leadership and management can do great things in the community.
I say to the Minister that we know how fantastic further education is, and he knows that, but it cannot do everything, so we need to start thinking about how we can do things more creatively and more flexibly. As my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Paul Howell) mentioned, we know that many colleges go out and deliver in the community. Many years ago, Grimsby Institute worked on blended learning, making sure that there was online provision and that it was going out in the community. We need to think differently in the environment we find ourselves in, with more vacancies than people available for the work, skills mismatches and a lack of skills in areas that we need to move forward.
Absolutely, apprenticeships can be the answer, but, with respect, they may be a little too complicated at the moment, and standards can often restrain our ambition. We know that we need standards, but my concern is that while large companies can become involved with apprenticeships, what about our sole traders and small and medium-sized enterprises? They really are the lifeblood of our businesses and industries, but it is a real challenge for them to take on apprentices with that right support. We do need to look at that.
I have concerns about some areas of T-levels. The aspiration for high quality is good, but while T-levels came out of the Sainsbury review of 2016, which was looking at parity between vocational and academic routes, I do not believe that they have parity with A-levels. That is not because people might think, “Academic is better.” No, actually T-levels are perhaps more demanding than A-levels in many ways. When an “academic student” goes to study A-levels, they can choose two, three or four subjects, plus work experience, a work placement or employment, so when they have finished their A-levels, they can go to university, get an apprenticeship or go and work—they have all those options at hand.
However, for T-levels, similar to national diplomas, students have to decide, for example, that they want to work in the health and social care industry, and have to study that with an employer. But what happens at the end if they discover that it is not what they want to do, or they feel that they are better at something else? If T-levels or something similar were smaller and modular, with a similar amount of guided learning hours to A-levels, a vocational student could do health and social care, travel and tourism, and digital media, and
they could go and do some work experience as well. They could still build a T-level, but it would be multifaceted and very enjoyable. It would give vocational students much more choice about where they go from there, rather than just studying their health and social care level 3 T-level and that is it. They would then have to spend money later in life to do something else to go into another industry. I would like the Minister and his team to think about something like that.
The further education sector has always been the Cinderella of education but, along with schools, it is the kingpin to ensuring that this country can continue to be a powerhouse in future. I thank everyone in the further education sector, no matter what job they do—whether the cleaner or all the way through to the chief executive, and everyone in between. I thank them and appreciate their work, and I look forward to seeing colleagues again in the future.
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