Unison, the union representing support staff in colleges, wants to get FE colleges open and functioning smoothly as soon as possible. But they should open only when it’s safe for all staff and learners to return. 

The Department for Education guidance about what FE colleges and providers need to do to begin the autumn term has left many fundamental questions unanswered about how colleges can safely open. 

Still unresolved are details about the science behind the guidance, the practicalities of sticking to the recommendations and how a chronically underfunded sector can shoulder the extra cost of keeping staff and learners safe. 

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The DfE guidance begins by stating that it’s safe to open college sites more widely because the NHS test and trace system is up and running. 

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Yet it’s widely known that the system isn’t yet reaching a significant number of people who’ve tested positive for Covid-19, with some estimates suggesting a quarter of positives cases haven’t been contacted.  

Sadly, the reality is that FE support staff - who work in a variety of roles, including as IT technicians, cleaners, security and catering workers, and make up approximately half of all FE employees - are more at risk from the virus than the general population, because they are more likely to be older, to live in low-income households and to be from black, Asian and/or minority ethnic communities.

Without an adequate trace and test system, vulnerable staff are going to be sceptical about claims that workplaces are safe. If the science says otherwise, they should be able to see it. The guidance not only provides little evidence, it also hardly touches on the needs of this higher-risk group of workers. But we know from other sectors that where support staff such as hospital cleaners or porters haven’t been part  of Covid safety discussions, their outcomes have been poor.  

Where we hoped the guidance would provide clarity, unfortunately it’s vague and contradictory. It’s leaving colleges, which want to follow the rules and do the right thing, very confused.  

Use of PPE in colleges

The use of personal protective equipment has been a bone of contention for many areas reopening after the strict lockdown.   

In FE colleges staff have been advised that PPE won’t be necessary. They’re told learners will be in “bubble groups” and won’t be mixing inside colleges, with staggered start times the mechanism to keep them apart.  

The reality, however, is very different, as anyone familiar with colleges will know. With many hundreds of students moving around buildings, a staggered start won’t be enough to separate them.

Some jobs in the sector, such as learning support assistants, require staff to interact with learners in many different groups, so it’s unlikely they can be “allocated” to one particular group or bubble.  

The fact that there’s no specific guidance for them also raises serious questions about the lack of thought for support staff when the guidance was drawn up. 

Should a learner, support worker or teacher become ill with suspected Covid-19, the guidance advises masks should then be worn. But surely masks would be more effective if worn before they came into contact with the affected person? 

Confusion continues when looking at the use of masks on transport. It’s baffling that physical distancing and masks are legally required on public transport to the college, but on dedicated FE transport the guidance advises learners only to “space out as much as possible”.  

How practical work, an essential component of the curriculum in many FE subjects, should be delivered is given little attention. Staff such as science technicians have been developing protocols to deliver this vital part of the learning experience. But they’re in the dark as to how ministers plan to make it available for everyone. 

The cost of tackling Covid

Perhaps the most troubling omission is any idea how cash-strapped FE colleges can pay for measures to manage the Covid threat. 

Colleges have been hit hard by years of savage cost-cutting. They’ve suffered real-term cuts of more than 30 per cent in the past decade. Many were barely surviving prior to this crisis and yet the government has excluded colleges from the Covid catch-up funding given to the schools’ sector. 

Without similar measures, colleges will also struggle to deliver the additional support the government says should be given to the vulnerable and disadvantaged. 

Any notion that financial gaps can be plugged by using the 16 to 19 bursary funds are fanciful. Dipping into that limited pot to support remote digital education raises the question of what will happen to those who actually need the fund.

Colleges could and should be at the forefront of the drive to reignite the UK economy post-Covid. But to do this they need funding, clear guidance based on reality and a government that understands their plight. 

Without all this, the sector will struggle and a generation of learners will not reach their full potential.   

Jon Richards is head of education at Unison