Colleges are anchor institutions that underpin local communities - Angela Foulkes

Colleges are anchor institutions; they underpin local communities inspiring young people and adults to achieve their ambitions.

Colleges support job creation and economic growth by providing a talent pipeline to employers and they contribute to social mobility by offering life changing opportunities to those from disadvantaged communities.

In England, approximately 228 colleges educate and train around 1.6 million students on a vast range of technical and academic qualifications from entry level to degrees.

At Sheffield College we teach and train approximately 13,000 further and higher education students and apprentices a year and work with around 1,700 employers.

Our country and region require a skilled and well-educated workforce to address five of the biggest challenges we face.

An ageing population and increased demands for skilled health and social care staff.

Britain’s place in the world and pressing skills needs following changing trade and migration arrangements with Europe.

Climate change and the transition to a greener society and economy requiring new skills, particularly in construction, manufacturing and transport.

Digitilisation with the rapid growth of data use including artificial intelligence.

Economic growth and productivity, including skills that address regional inequalities and enable people to retrain throughout their life.

Colleges must be part of the solution to address these and other urgent skills challenges. In order to do this, colleges need better investment.

An Institute for Fiscal Studies’ report, published in 2023, highlights that across all areas of education spending, further education and skills saw the largest spending cuts during the decade after 2010.

The report authors note that this has been a long term pattern. Essentially, when overall spending rises the further education sector receives the smallest increases. And when governments are looking to reduce spending, FE suffers the largest cuts.

Whilst there have been commitments by the government to provide additional funding in the years since, including in 2019, 2020 and 2021, the report flags that this has not been enough to reverse the real-terms cuts experienced by colleges after 2010.

In particular, adult education has taken a major hit. Participation numbers in government-funded learning have gone down by 49 per cent since 2004. This represents a huge missed opportunity to re-train and re-skill, particularly for the unemployed.

Only one in three adults self-report any participation in learning, which is the lowest level in 22 years according to the AoC. As we head towards a general election, there are several major asks that we have of an incoming government, as reflected in the AoC’s Opportunity England report.

We need a skills system that works for everyone where people of all ages can learn skills throughout their lives whether that’s via ongoing development or re-skilling.

We require a simpler funding system that provides long term stability and frees colleges from complex and burdensome administrative processes; this would ensure that we increasingly focus our resources on learning and skills development directly.

There is also more that we can do to support employers and learners, particularly regarding apprenticeships.

Currently, all UK employers with an annual pay bill of over £3m pay 0.5 per cent of it to a fund for apprenticeships. Whilst some employers find the Apprenticeship Levy scheme beneficial, others would prefer the flexibility to invest in other forms of training.

We need to change the system so that more small and medium sized employers – the majority of employers in South Yorkshire - are incentivised to employ apprentices. We know that employers want this but the system does not make it easy for SMEs to take this route. Apprenticeships are a great way to help employers achieve their ambitions and to support more young people to go further in their careers. We need employers of all sizes to recognise the talent of our young people and invest in their future workforce.

Last but not least, our people are our greatest asset. Teaching is a profession and should be valued.

Angela Foulkes is principal and chief executive of Sheffield College.