Gavin Williamson hoped for some significant attention when he announced the “tearing up” of Tony Blair’s 20-year-old target for getting 50 per cent of young people into university and his promise of a “German-style” further education system. He largely succeeded with a set of headlines and columns in the national media, including his description of an “absurd mantra” and a “target for a target’s sake”. 

The education secretary has been under significant pressure over schools, but on further and higher education, he and his fellow ministers have been on the charge. Michelle Donelan recently declared that “social mobility isn’t about getting more people into university” and that they are “recruiting too many young people on to courses that do nothing to improve their life chances or help with their career goals”. For Williamson and Donelan, this makes good politics.

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Tearing up targets

As David Runciman has pointed out, going to university (or not) is becoming one of the biggest divides in politics and remains the best predictor of how people voted in the EU referendum. David Goodhart added a more local dimension with his division between “somewheres” and “anywheres”. Having a go at either Tony Blair’s policies or universities is not going to do either Williamson or Donelan any harm. Nor does it matter very much that many of their alternatives - including higher-level apprenticeships or Level 4 and 5 qualifications - would all still have counted to the target that they are “tearing up”. 

But can they actually deliver the policies that might make a difference? We will see. After all, we know that Williamson is not the first to promise such change. Since Blair’s time in No 10, we’ve seen similar calls from Tory predecessors, including Damian Hinds and Justine Greening, and also from Vince Cable, Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn, too. Doing something is rather harder - not least as it is to keep the media and the public interested in the details of skills and FE reform.

Nevertheless, at some point, Williamson has to actually deliver on what they are promising. First, and most obviously, he needs to fund FE colleges properly. He will know that they have not done so in the last decade and that there are now very large gaps to fill. Second, he must strengthen higher technical education - the provision that often sits between FE and HE.

Augar called it the “missing middle” and Williamson must level up incentives and funding for colleges and universities and for individuals who require the same levels of support and to be studying in institutions with the same resources, investment and quality of teaching. That must apply for part-time and work-based students too.

Anything short of this will fail. Anything short of this will provide “lower-value” courses, experiences and outcomes. Anything short of this will contradict his claims and betray the people and places he is promising to help. If Williamson and his government are serious, then investment must start in the autumn’s promised White Paper and the spending review. 

That is about the system as a whole. The government must go further still if they want to have an impact on local economies and in the sectors that can drive them. This has been missing from both FE and HE policy and the Department for Education has been part of the problem. This also needs to change. In Germany, the vocational system relies heavily on local and regional government and on relationships with local chambers of commerce, trade unions and the longstanding networks between them.

Here, the DfE needs to find a way to let go rather than increase central control or direction. They need a system that allows new institutions to grow - institutions such as the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre in Sheffield where FE and HE have collaborated successfully with big employers and their supply chains. The AMRC also offers another important pointer for Williamson and that is to think about the importance of research and development (R&D). This means working closely with BEIS, UKRI, Catapult Centres, research institutes and, yes, universities, too.

He might not like the idea of putting more money into universities to help “left behind” places but bringing together FE, HE and R&D will stand the best chance of being successful. Not least as we know that the government is committed to more than doubling its spending to support “levelling up” and “place” - as set out in the new R&D roadmap. 

Applied research like this represents another “missing middle” in our economy and especially in less well-performing regions and places. As my colleague at the University of Manchester Richard Jones points out, “We need to break out of the trap that many of our towns and urban fringes have found themselves in, where low skills, low innovation and low productivity reinforce each other in a bad equilibrium.” 

He adds: “To break this cycle, we need to raise the demand for skills by attracting inward investment from technologically leading companies and driving up the innovative capacity of the existing business base, and create the supply of skills by a much more joined-up approach between further and higher education.”

Institutes of Technology are then, at best, only half of the answer to this problem. If Williamson really wants a “German-style system”, then he also needs to understand the impact and role of Fraunhofer Institutes as well as the close involvement of employers. 

So here’s a plan - or a set of tests for Williamson and the DfE

First, convince the Treasury that they must “level up” incentives and funding for FE and for higher technical education.

Second, join it up with R&D, working with BEIS especially on regional and industrial policy.

Third, step back and allow institutions and places to develop and shape new provision. 

There is also one final issue for Williamson and, ultimately, for those that succeed him. In 2017, the Institute for Government released a report called All Change looking at the constant chopping and changing of policy, targets and institutions. Among the very worst areas were regional governance, industrial policy and further education - all major issues for this government.

The report noted at the time that T levels would be the 29th major reform in FE since the 1980s. In the autumn, Williamson should resist taking this list into the 30s and instead concentrate on getting more funding, joining up to R&D and allowing colleges and universities to get on with it.

Andy Westwood is a professor of government practice at the University of Manchester