Colleges and college groups should look to form larger “chains” if the sector is going to remain competitive in the next 20 years, a new report by the Social Market Foundation suggests.
The report, sponsored by the Further Education Trust for Leadership (FETL), looks at how the FE and skills sector needs to adapt over the next two decades. It envisions colleges forming “tech chains” - groups of colleges, independent providers and employers working under one brand - to out-compete UK and international providers using technologies that “erode the importance of ‘place’”, such as distance and virtual learning.
It also explains how Britain’s decision to leave the European Union could prove to be an opportunity for the sector, and calls for FE institutions to form deeper ties with employers to address the country’s skills needs.
Colleges could also become “local champions of social mobility”, the report suggests, as the UK cuts immigration and focuses more on developing home-grown talent in the wake of Brexit.
Competition and collaboration with schools, the apprenticeship levy, developments in educational technology, and Brexit are cited as four key market developments that will present “competitive threats to the sector”.
‘Real and growing challenges’
James Kirkup, director of the Social Market Foundation, said: “The people who chose to live and work and study where they grew up deserve a better deal than they get right now. They deserve more respect for that choice about how and where to live, and they deserve opportunities to learn and train. The sort of opportunities that a well-supported HE sector, working with enlightened employers in the context of sensible government policy, is uniquely placed to provide.
“Yet FE and skills faces real and growing challenges in the years ahead, and not just financial ones. Competition from HE and schools will grow, and the spread of educational technology will pose new questions for the sector.”
Dame Ruth Silver, founding president of FETL, said: “Given the compound turbulence faced by the sector in recent times, with its costly impact on community opportunities, tweaking the status quo is no longer good enough.
“The SMF makes the powerful case for the strengthening of this important sector and proceeds to scope the possibilities ahead for all to take further. This is strategic thinking in action, signalling possibilities ahead.”
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