Welcome to FE Soundbite Edition 712, 16th September 2023. Running to Standstill

This is the weekly e-newsletter and e-journal brought to you 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.

Have you checked out Running to Standstill?

This week I popped along to the Running to Standstill launch by my mate Prof Tom Bewick and Matilda Gosling.. at the RSA. I don't know about you, but it has felt like everyone in the FE and Skills sector has been running (very hard and for a long time), to stand still for a long time now... so this is a very cool report to check out.Tom and Matilda put together practically a book on the productivity puzzle, reflecting on 20 years of FE and Skills policy and some recommendations for the future. I loved it... full of data, insights, reflections and recommendations.

A piece here: ‘Running to Stand Still: Why decades of skills reform have failed to shift the dial on UK productivity & investment in training’

... and a reflection piece from Tom as well: Inside Story: What we learnt about two decades of Whitehall policy that has failed to shift the dial on improving UK productivity and skills.

Tom is also going to be joining us at the FE Collective and will be a part of the Progression, is there a better way section of the event on the 17th Oct.

20 Voices - did you check out the latest reflections of 20 years of skills?

This September, we are celebrating our 20th anniversary. This week we have have 20 Voices short videos... all from people with a leading role at the FE Collective event in Oct. These are very cool 'shorts' from different thought leaders and influencers reflecting on the past 20 years of skills and what they'd like to see in the future. This week we had:

Charles McIntyre CEO and Founder of Ibis Capital.

Jill Whittaker from HIT, with a cool view!

Paul Grainger from UCL and heading up the think tank for the G20.... recording from a folk festival.

Prof Deirdre Hughes

ETF's Dr Katerina Kolyva

We also had cool articles from my mate Louise Karwowski: Neurodiversity and the last 20 Years – the incredible transformation we have witnessed.

Cool exclusive thought leadership articles from this week

Have you checked out this article by Arden University: How can higher education better embrace neurodiversity? This is written by four experts from Arden: Finola Farrant, Emma Owen, Marta Jaksa and Fawn Lavina Hunkins-Beckford.

So we've all heard about ChatGPT, Bard.. generative AI... so what is NBP? Dennis Sherwood shares How to be creative using NBP, not AI ...

So what would you do with an extra 390 hours per year? Ben Harris writes an interesting piece for anyone that fancies an extra 390 hours a year: Innovation First: Embracing AI could save workers approximately 390 hours per year

A really interesting piece from Neil Wolstenholme, who asks an interesting question... Character: What Do You Do When Nobody Else Is In The Room? Neil discusses a recent interview, well end of the interview with Gillian Keegan to Aristotle.

Daniele Servadei asks: How young people can pursue a career in tech without attending university

Some articles or announcements you may have missed if you had a busy week:

Are on-campus food banks the new staple? Richard Foster Fletcher wrote: Can Generative AI Learn Social Nuances? A Look at Recent Research Exploring the Future of Social Learning and a really popular article this week was: Attracting the next generation of manufacturing talent

Knovia Group acquires leading education providers Paragon Skills and Tempdent and the latest ONS Labour market data found a Sharp rise in young people outside education and work.

FE Collective FOMO:

So we are now on the two week countdown for the cut off on buying tickets for the FE Collective... and we have under 20 VIP tickets remaining. So if you want to hear from global experts... many featured in FE Soundbite this week on AI, Investing in the Sector of the Future and Progression, is there a better way? To hear from them, but also have the opportunity to work with them as well.

Here are some discount codes for our FE Soundbite readers:

Voucher Code: GET25 - Use this promo code to get 25% off of general and VIP tickets

Voucher Code: GROUPSavings35 - Use this promo code to get 35% off of VIP tickets when booking 3 or more tickets

See you in October! It is exciting!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy FE Soundbite this week

Kind regards

Gavin O’Meara

CEO and Founder

FE News and FE Careers