HEFCE, the Higher
Education Sector, Skills
and Productivity
Nicola Turner
Head of Skills
#heskills
26 November 2015
What I will cover
1. Head of Skills – why this new role?
2. Green paper and HEFCE’s role in the policy
landscape
3. Vocational pathways through HE – degree
apprenticeships, choices for learners and
crossovers between HE/FE.
4. HEFCE priorities
Head of Skills role
Apprenticeships & Pathways
through HE
Productivity
Skills Strategy
Skills & Subjects
Cross-cutting relevance to
Teaching, WP, Research &
Knowledge Transfer
Apprenticeship: definition, varieties, providers
Government defines apprenticeship as follows:
‘An apprenticeship is a job, in a skilled occupation, that
requires substantial and sustained training, leading to
the achievement of an apprenticeship standard and the
development of transferable skills to progress careers.’
Higher Apprenticeship variations
Higher Level
Apprenticeship
Degree
Apprenticeships
• Delivered by FE or HE
• Can be UG or PG
• Funding from SFA,
employer, HEFCE, EU
• Standards & Employer
engagement
• Mode of study can be:
• block release
• intensive block release
• blended, distance
• 2 year accelerated models
up to 4.5 year
Strange bedfellows: HE and FE
• HEFCE funds and regulates 130 HEIs and also 200+ colleges who deliver
HE courses and receive direct funding from HEFCE
• HE/\FE space
• “Young people” still dominate the commentary
• Spending review adds pressure
• Looking local - agenda still unfolding (Area reviews & regional
devolution, Adult skills budgets)
• Part-time decline, HEPI publication “It’s the Finance, Stupid!”
• Underlines the need to work together, collaborate and partner
Levy – driving up demand, are we ready?
The UK skills challenge
By 2022, two million more jobs will require higher level skills.
More than one in five of all vacancies are ‘skills shortage’
vacancies – where employers cannot find people with the skills
and qualifications needed.
Furthermore, almost half of all businesses say they have staff
with skills and qualifications that are beyond those required; so
there are 4.3 million workers whose skills are not being used fully
at work.
UKCES Forging Futures Report 2014
Changing nature of employment
Change in occupation type 2012-2022, total employment ('000s)
Managers, directors, and senior officials
Occupation
Professional occupations
Associate professional and technical
Administrative and secretarial
Skilled trades occupations
Caring, leisure and other services
Sales and customer service
Process, plant and machine operatives
Elementary occupations
-600
-400
-200
0
200
IER estimates, from Working Futures 2012-2022, UKCES
400
600
800
1,000
1,200
1,400
George Osborne’s Productivity Plan
• “Employers in the driving seat”
Employer
led
Mismatch
of skills
• Hefce taking active role in developing
policy around boosting productivity
• “Mismatch of skills” says Jo Johnson
Hourglass
economy
Absorptive
capacity
Work
ready
graduates
Skills
gaps
Oversupply
• Work ready = soft skills
• Undersupply = ongoing STEM
shortage, Wakeham, Shadbolt
• What is a graduate level job?
STEM skills and HEFCE support
Hefce’s long term support for STEM skills
• Catalyst investment & STEM Teaching Capital Fund
• Funded projects in maths (Sigma), QSS (Q-Step)
November 2015
• Engineering Conversion Course pilot
• NCUB report into STEM placements just out
Looking ahead
• Independent reviews by Wakeham & Shadbolt
£200 million STEM Teaching Capital Fund
Anglia Ruskin University
University of Exeter
Build flexible workstations so
that a variety of subject
disciplines can be taught in
one place.
Equip labs with industrystandard technology and to
create virtualisati7on and
simulation labs
£5 million STEM teaching
capital investment and is
planning to invest £40 million
of its own funds
£5 million STEM capital plus
£5.3 million of its own funds
to
Aims to create additional 600
STEM graduates.
Aims to increase overall STEM
student numbers by 23 % over
the next 4 years.
Catalyst Fund Examples
£3.3m for technical routes through levels 4-7
in advanced manufacturing and technology
Green paper
•
OfS proposed- Stronger emphasis on students, tax-payers &
employers
•
“Responding to the marketisation of HE” but a lot already
happening
•
Productivity references including “mismatch of skills”
•
Social mobility – student confidence, social capital, regional
cold spots, proposed emphasis on outcomes rather than
access
•
TEF – HEFCE given task of creating metrics around
outcomes, lot of debate around graduate employment and
whether this can be an outcome of excellent teaching?
Priorities for HEFCE
• Develop first skills strategy since 2007
• Increase capacity amongst providers for more Higher and
Degree Apprenticeships
• Government have put employers in the driving seat for skills
• Influence policy on productivity and skills - Wakeham and
Shadbolt recommendations end January 2016, Engineering
Conversion Course
• Pathways through HE – Collaboration and effective partnership
with the sector and vocational bodies such as UVAC, NIACE to
develop effective pathways and the space between FE and HE
Thank you for listening
[email protected]
How to find out more
e-mail [email protected]
Twitter http://twitter.com/hefce
#heskills
web-site www.hefce.ac.uk
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