The Gov hits the breaks on ABS and to pay parity for Educators to School Teachers | FE Soundbite Edition 757

Welcome to FE Soundbite Edition 757, August 3rd, 2024: The Gov hits the breaks on ABS and to pay parity Educators to School Teachers.

This is the weekly e-newsletter and e-journal by FE News: ISSN 2732-4095. We know life is busy, so here is a snapshot of the latest announcements and epic thought leadership articles, from sector influencers and cool thinkers across FE and Skills this week on FE News

Gavin’s Reflective Perspective

Sooo the Government has hit the breaks on ABS... The Advanced British Standard... launched on a T Level celebration week, is not going to see the light of day. So that was all a bit of a waste of time then and brain capacity to work out how to deliver that!

Another biggy this week is a blow, not just to pensioners on their Winter Fuel Allowance.. but to College (and Training Providers) on recruitment. Particularly around Educators in FE and Skills having the same pay parity to School Teachers. School teachers are getting a 5.5% payrise, Educators in Colleges and Training Providers... erm are not!

£10k pay gap between Educators and School Teachers

The AoC has been lobbying for a while now on Educator pay... to be lined up with teachers... but the new Gov hasn't taken the hint. Teachers (eg in schools) have received a 5.5% pay rise... when the school teachers are on their hols. Educators in say a Training Provider, who are probably still working over the 'summer holiday' period... will not. You can see a slow train wreck happening here. You can work for less pay.. and substantially less holiday in a College or Training Provider, or in a school... but with kids. I mean are kids that bad that people need a £10k pay difference to work with them?

As AoC's David Hughes highlighted "Colleges face significant staff recruitment and retention problems, mainly because of the £10,000 pay gap with schools which is likely to widen, making it increasingly challenging to run the high value technical courses". Stepping back a bit... this is even worse for Independent Training Providers, who often can't afford the rates of pay compared to a college, let alone a school. You can see a crisis coming here!

Parity of Pay... but do we need to think about Parity of Professionalism and brand?

The average person in the street, knows what a teacher is...but do people outside the sector know what Educators, Lecturers, Tutors, Trainers, Assessors... End Point Assessors are or do?.. or Are? I think they'd know what a University Lecturer does, even if they didn't go to Uni.

So do we need to look at the brand of Educators... and most importantly, do we need to look at the professionalisation side of things in FE and Skills compared to schools with Educators? Eg continual professional development, set quals to be achieved before they are able to teach or work with learners? Will this increase costs? If you want a dual professional... eg expert in say Plumbing, also to be an Educator, or a CyberSecurity expert, or AI expert... to also have an educator... the sector is going to really struggle to recruit and retain the expertise to deliver top notch courses, by top notch experts. So something needs to be addressed here!

Total plug... but this is what we are thinking about at the FE + Skills Collective... this and more on how to equip our Educators and Leaders: Bridging Policy and Pedagogy: Preparing educators and leaders for a stronger skills system" with ETF and FE News

Exclusive Thought Leadership

Our Top 3 Thought Leadership Articles This Week

Firstly, Thriving not just surviving: Creating a personal road map to wellbeing By Mark Solomons, is CEO of Welbee

Secondly, Keir Starmer launches Skills England to repair ‘broken’ training system: What can we learn from Wales? By Yusuf Ibrahim, Assistant Principal at Cardiff and Vale College,

and Finally, Is it time for a maths GCSE designed for adults? By Stella Dudzic, Director for Curriculum and Resources at MEI.

This Week, We Have Also Had Some Other Epic Exclusives!

How will Labour Transform our Employability Services? By Scott Parkin FIEP, Group Chief Executive, Institute of Employability Professionals (IEP)

Dive deep into audience engagement and ensure the best campaigns for your college or university By Adam Herbert, CEO and Co-Founder, Go Live Data