Futher Education Champions
Executive Summary
This report highlights how colleges in the Greater Cambridge Area are helping to tackle skills gaps in the workforces of companies across the sub region.
The report attempts to get underneath/beyond the rhetoric and see some of the excellent work which colleges in the Greater Cambridge area are doing with employers. This partly requires a change in mindset, especially from employers but also from wider stakeholders (e.g. funders; influencers; collaborators etc). For employers, it’s important to suspend judgement before asking the question: what am I looking for in a training provider? The following list may be a useful start:
- Expertise – in the right subject area
- Flexibility – to deliver training at the right time and place
- Guidance – to help the company make the right choices
- Follow though – to ensure there is some continuity from training to implementation.
For stakeholders it may be important to ask:
- What are FE colleges expected to deliver?
- Is the distinction between ’pre–work’ and ’in–work’ clearly made?
These questions will hopefully aid the reader in coming to their own view about the impact colleges in the GCP area have on their local business community.
This work is not meant to be in any way, an inspection report, or a commentary on meeting a particular standard. Rather, it attempts to cast a light on some good work being done by colleges in the GCP area in relation to employer engagement.
The case studies show that the further education sector has both the experience and resourcefulness to engage with industry, not just for government funded apprenticeships, or Train to Gain subsidised training but right across the spectrum of workforce needs – and often irrespective of who pays.
It is this ability to see beyond the short term need that puts colleges in a bracket of their own. There will always be small specialist providers who can turn around a training need, just in time, at the right price, when and where the employer wants; but when it comes to offering an integrated workforce development service – for short term and long term needs, FE is difficult to compete with. Moreover, several colleges actively work with private sector partners to deliver a more rounded service – identifying the training required – and providing an honest broker role so the company gets the most suitable delivery team.
Negative perceptions can hold fast even when there are good examples of colleges engaging with businesses in all the ways that businesses would like to be engaged. So why does the perception remain? Not all of the responsibility lies with business; the FE sector as a whole, and individual colleges specifically, have a duty to explain clearly to industry how they can help meet its needs.
Colleges have a responsibility to clearly relay to businesses what they can and can’t do for them. And where there are shortcomings, it would be much better to highlight them and then identify ways of improving the service, rather than ignore them and hope the ’good news’ will provide a sufficient counterweight (and funding stream!).
In short this report shows that "FE works". That needs celebrating, nurturing and building on for the future.
