Whichever way you look at it, Sir Vince Cable and Shakira Martin make for an odd couple. One is a knight of the realm and former Cabinet minister; the other is a proudly working-class single mother who has carved out a reputation as a plain-speaking advocate for students’ rights as the National Union of Students’ vice-president for further education.
The two share one characteristic, though: a passionate belief in the power of FE to transform lives. Accordingly, the NUS has appointed Cable to head up its new research project, Students Shaping Further Education. Following a series of college visits across the country, they will draw up recommendations, which the union says will “benefit students, communities and the economy”.
Given the acrimonious falling out between the NUS and Cable’s party, the Liberal Democrats, over the rise in university tuition fees when the latter was the junior partner in the coalition government, the alliance is even more striking. But during a joint interview to mark the start of the project, Martin insists that Cable’s support for FE during his stint as business secretary - he famously claimed to have vetoed Conservative plans to kill off the sector in 2010 - made him an obvious choice.
She first saw him speak at an NUS event, she recalls: “What stunned me was when he said, ‘FE saves lives.’ I was like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ That alone was enough for me to say, ‘I need to work with this man.’
“Me and Vince are from completely different backgrounds, but we have one thing in common - that’s the love for FE, and understanding what FE has done for people. I think us being seen working together can bring a whole different type of audience. This isn’t a certain type of person’s sector; it’s a sector that is diverse - and there’s room for everyone.”
Cable’s attachment to the sector is deep- rooted. “I believe in FE,” he says. “My dad was a manual worker who did well and taught himself, and became an FE lecturer and taught builders at York Technical College. My mum was a factory worker but became a housewife, as you did in those days. And with postnatal depression, she had a very bad nervous breakdown. What saved her was FE - adult education, actually.”
‘Through the wringer’
Cable’s connection with FE continues to this day: he is a governor of Richmond Adult Community College and a life fellow at City Lit. Through the stories he hears from his brother, a lecturer at Farnborough College of Technology, he is also acutely aware of the financial pressures on the sector.
“I know it’s been through the wringer in recent years with cuts,” he says, “but that’s mainly because of this combination of deficit problems and ringfencing of large areas of other public spending.
“FE got squeezed. But I tried, whenever I could in government, to ensure it wasn’t as serious as the Treasury and others wanted it to be, and to give [colleges] new opportunities - particularly apprenticeships.”
Cable acknowledges that the voice of students is often “overlooked” in Whitehall: “There’s a temptation if you’re a minister, to talk to the [Association of Colleges]. They’re very good…but management will always have its own priorities. It’s ultimately the people who go through the system who matter.”
‘What stunned me was when he said, “FE saves lives.” I had to work with this man’
This concern is shared by Martin. Many of the area review meetings she has attended, she says, have been “really patronising” towards students: “I have to continuously remind people around the table that we’re talking about students, because the word is never mentioned. We are customers and we should be part of the decision-making process, which is not happening.”
Cable is concerned that the UK’s impending exit from the EU has taken politicians’ attention away from FE. He is also unsure whether FE being brought out of the former Department for Business, Innovation and Skills into the Department for Education will prove to be a positive move.
“Schools, for sentimental and other political reasons, tend to get first protection,” he notes. “And then universities shout very loudly, so who gets squeezed? That’s the battle we’re fighting: making FE not just relevant but high priority again.”
Transformative experience
When it comes to advocates for the power of FE, few are more passionate than Martin. She freely admits to spending a brief period in her youth as a drugs courier. It wasn’t until she had her first daughter in 2011 that she began to take education seriously: she enrolled at Lewisham Southwark College and went on to train as an FE teacher. It was her own teachers who opened her eyes to opportunities beyond the college walls.
“A couple of my teachers were the reason I went and did a teaching diploma,” she explains. “I’m not the usual type of student representative. But FE’s given me the confidence to know my worth. It gave me confidence to be in an environment where people don’t look like me, don’t sound like me.”
Martin may have moved on from her chequered past, but she has not forgotten the people in her community: “I know young black men lacking self-confidence who are doing things to make money that I don’t necessarily condone.
“They say, ‘Shakira, when you make it to Number 10, I’ll put down the scales.’ So I have no choice but to continue to champion and fight for the sector, for my community.”
Her ultimate ambition, she adds, is to become principal of the college that she credits with turning her life around.
Cable looks impressed. “You’re going into a tough career,” he points out.
Martin grins. “My whole life has been tough. It’s nothing I’m not used to.”
