Sir Michael Wilshaw has been accused of a “smear” against the FE sector, after the chief inspector insisted that he was standing by his controversial criticism of some providers.
Speaking at CentreForum last month, the head of Ofsted said that when he was head at Mossbourne Academy in Hackney, most of the students who had failed to reach academic targets ended up at “a local FE college, usually a large, impersonal and amorphous institution, and did badly”.
He added that “educational provision, for the many children who do not succeed at 16 or who would prefer an alternative to higher education, is inadequate at best and non-existent at worst”.
Members of the Policy Consortium, a group of 17 leading figures in the FE sector, voiced their “concern and surprise” at his remarks in an open letter, asking him to clarify his statements.
A reply from Sir Michael, published on the Policy Consortium website, reiterates that too much post-16 provision is “poor”. “During my time as chief inspector I have witnessed first-hand some excellent FE provision. However, this doesn’t controvert my fundamental message that, like secondary schools, the FE sector as a whole needs to improve,” he writes.
In response to the latest letter from Sir Michael, Policy Consortium member Mick Fletcher voiced his disappointment that the chief inspector was “standing firmly by his comments about the sector”.
“If these comments were made in an off-the-cuff answer, Sir Michael might be excused for not choosing his words with sufficient care; but they were not,” he writes. “They were made in a prepared speech that can still be read, unaltered, on the Ofsted website. They were even highlighted in the speech as one of three acute challenges facing our education system. Moreover, they were set in a speech that made no reference at all to the excellent provision made by hundreds of colleges and other FE providers. Instead, he chose to smear FE colleges as a whole with a dated and un-evidenced personal anecdote.”
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