Association of Colleges – Written evidence (YDP0041)

 

The House of Lords Public Services Committee has launched an inquiry into the transition from education to employment for young disabled people.

Link to call for evidence:

Call for Evidence - Committees - UK Parliament

 

The Association of Colleges

 

The Association of Colleges is the national voice for further education, sixth form, tertiary and specialist colleges in England. We are a not-for-profit membership organisation established in 1996 by colleges, for colleges. Our members make up more than 90% of the sector - educating and training two million people each year.

General

 

Question 1: What barriers do young disabled people face when leaving education and entering the job market and workplace? Does this differ between different conditions or disabilities, and if so, how?

 

Transitions from education to employment for disabled students can only improved by considering both labour supply-side factors – in this case the design of the education system – and labour demand-side factors – the design of the labour market. Colleges are providers of vocational education and so have a crucial role in terms of labour supply.

The role of colleges

There are more than 200 colleges in England and together they form an important part of the educational system for young disabled people. For instance, looking specifically at those who hold Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPS), of all children and young people who hold EHCPs, 16.6% were in colleges in 2022-23. Given that students usually learn in colleges for only 2 or 3 years, this implies that a very large proportion of each school year’s EHCP holders will become college students as they progress through their educational career. Colleges are not a peripheral part of the educational system for those with disabilities but very often represent the route of choice for these young people.

Learners with Special Educational Needs or Disabilities (SEND) form a higher proportion of the population in colleges than in schools: 17.3% of school pupils compared with 28.0% of college students funded under 16-19 funding. In some general FE colleges, the proportion of young people with SEND is much higher. Not all students with SEND are disabled but these figures demonstrate the importance of colleges to employment for young disabled people.

The courses that young disabled people study are extremely varied and include vocational courses like BTECs and T levels, academic courses like A levels, apprenticeships, foundation degrees, degrees, and lower level courses some of which are specifically designed for those with learning disabilities.

The role of the benefits system

Some young people with disabilities move straight from college into work. Others do not and so need to grapple with the benefits system, where they find that conditionalities can create significant barriers to their progress. The design of the benefits system presents barriers not only for adult students but for young people too, especially as young people with EHCPs can be aged 0-25.

One difficulty is that if students want to train for particular jobs, then conditionalities can mean that they lose benefits by doing so. Such barriers to accessing training and reskilling opportunities should be removed. The benefits system should support claimants to train for work, not prevent them. There should be an expansion of local partnerships between job centres, colleges and other education providers to strengthen local working.

A second difficulty is that specific restrictions around earning while in receipt of Employment Support Allowance (ESA) are disincentives.

A third difficulty is that benefits like ESA are difficult to obtain. Many disabled people describe the process as stressful. This means that once someone is receiving benefits they can be reluctant to risk moving away from benefits.

The need for a new statutory right to lifelong learning

Changes to the benefits system should form part of a new statutory right to lifelong learning consisting of two other components:

A statutory right to lifelong learning would benefit anyone wanting to reskill but could particularly help groups with low employment rates, like disabled people.

 

Qualification reform

Although colleges are a lifeline for many young disabled people, the structure of qualifications can present barriers and some current reforms risk introducing new barriers.

GCSE maths results for England for 2021-22 show that of 16-year-olds with SEND, 33.3% achieved Level 2 maths by 16, compared to 75.8% of students without identified SEND. GCSE maths achievement at 16 is different for students with different primary needs, for instance it is 40.9% for those with “autistic spectrum disorder” and 52.3% for those with a hearing impairment, however achievement is lower for every primary need than for students without identified SEND.

Only 47.2% of students with SEND have achieved Level 2 maths by the age of 19, the vast majority by re-sitting at college. As with the figures for the whole population, it is impressive that many students do achieve, but we can see that of the 66.7% of students with SEND who do not achieve by 16, only around a fifth achieve later.  This means that students are taking repeated and demotivating re-sits of an exam which did not meet their needs in the first place. The picture for GCSE English is similar. Current qualifications mean that not only do these students have weaker English and maths skills for daily life, there is also an impact on their progression onto other skills courses, including T Levels and apprenticeships, and ultimately on their options for employment. Qualification reform in English and maths is badly needed.

 

Meanwhile qualification reform is underway for Level 3 vocational qualifications where new T levels and other qualifications are being introduced whilst some older qualifications are withdrawn.

 

T Levels are intended to provide a technical alternative to A Levels at Level 3 for 16 to 18-year-olds. They do and will work for students with good GCSE grades (5/6+), where the necessary work placements can be accessed. The work placements themselves are an especially positive feature of T levels.

 

However, T levels will not meet the needs of all students currently working towards Level 3 vocational and technical qualifications. There are a number of challenges involved including staffing; delivery costs; the reliability of new qualifications; the volume of external assessment; the ability of employers to support placements; the viability of class sizes when there are different qualifications for different ages or routes; the quality of advice and guidance about new qualifications; lack of clarity about sequencing; and limited progression routes from T Levels to higher level vocational qualifications in some areas.  

 

The particular difficulty for students with SEND is that students need higher GCSE grades to access new Level 3 qualifications including T Levels, Alternative Academic Qualifications and Technical Occupational Entry qualifications. Current GCSE retake achievement means that students without the required GCSE grades may not be ready to progress to Level 3, after a one-year transition programme. Over 30% of students on Level 2 study programmes and over 25% of students on current Level 3 vocational technical qualifications have a disclosed SEND.  

 

At present there are 60,000 students studying on Level 3 vocational qualifications without having first achieved in English and maths. Patterns of achievement mean that disabled students are likely to be over-represented in this cohort. We are already seeing large numbers of students who do not progress from Level 2 T Level transition programmes on to T Levels themselves. This year’s Education Select Committee’s report about post-16 qualification reform noted the danger that young people left without suitable courses will become NEET (not in education, employment or training). The recent Protect Student Choice report paints a bleak picture of the potential numbers involved – 155,000 young people could be left without a study programme by 2026. The report describes the rate of change is ‘reckless’. A more sensible approach to reform would be to not allow defunding of any existing qualifications until the corresponding T Level has been successfully completed by at least two year groups. That would allow the impact to be understood.

 

The fact that many students do not achieve English and maths at Level 2 is already a barrier to their progression. Over-hasty vocational qualification reform is likely to make the barrier even higher and make transitions from education to employment more difficult.

 

 

 

Scope of the inquiry

 

Question 2: We have not focused this inquiry specifically on the experiences of young people with an Education, Health, and Care plan when they leave education and enter employment. What are your thoughts on this approach, and are there particular benefits or drawbacks to it? What other focused approaches could the inquiry take?

It is reasonable to look more widely because young people with EHCPs form only part of the population of disabled young people. Of students in colleges funded through 16-18 funding, 7.5% have an EHCP but another 20.5% have a declared learning difficulty or disability (a term understood in this context to include a wide range of conditions including sensory disabilities). Furthermore we know that thresholds for receiving an EHCP vary greatly between local authorities. This is a problem that the SEND reforms in the current National SEND and Alternative Provision Improvement Plan are intended to tackle. But these reforms are a long way from implementation, let alone impact, so having an EHCP is not a consistent measure of disability.

The majority of EHCPs are held by male learners. The figure has been consistently high and in January 2023 was 71.8%, so focusing specifically on young people with EHCPs would mean focusing more on male than female students. We also know that some conditions frequently do not lead to EHCPs being issued, but that adults with these conditions can have low employment rates, for example people with visual impairments.

 

Support for young disabled people

Question 3: How effectively do education systems provide careers advice, guidance and support which meet the needs and career aspirations of young disabled people? How could this be improved, and what examples of good practice are there in the UK and abroad?

In colleges we hear a good deal from students about the careers guidance they have received at school. We hear that schools are better at giving advice about academic than about vocational routes, perhaps because those are the routes that school staff themselves have taken. The ‘Baker clause’ requirement that schools should give pupils access to providers of vocational qualifications and training was strengthened by the Skills Act 2022. Compliance has long been identified as low. We hear that compliance continues to be low, including in special schools. This disadvantages disabled students as they are often not informed of options available to them. Accountabilities for the Baker Clause should be strengthened as its presence within Ofsted’s schools inspection framework does not seem to be sufficient.

 

Question 4: How far do employment support mechanisms such as Access to Work or Disability Employment Advisors meet the needs of young disabled people entering the job market for the first time? How could these services be improved?

Colleges report that students receive inconsistent advice from Access to Work about what can be claimed under what circumstances. The range of support that Access for Work provides is too narrow, for example interns on Supported Internships sometimes receive job coach support to carry their duties in the workplace but not support for job interviews.

 

Question 5: What are young disabled people’s experiences of the transition from education-based support to employment-related support? Do young disabled people face barriers to accessing support during this transition? Could these services be better linked, and if so, how?

The support young people need will vary enormously between individuals but guidance on writing Local Skills Improvement Plans (LSIPS) says LSIPs should “help employers and providers explore how they can work better together to unlock the full potential of learners with special educational needs and disabilities and thus help them progress into jobs that meet local skill shortages”. The SEND Improvement Plan points out that these aspirations complement other initiatives. Unfortunately, the first generation of LSIPs published this year are, in many cases, not specific about SEND. A local strategic document like an LSIP cannot plan successful transitions for individuals but what LSIPs can do is to foster the conditions and commitments for colleges and employers to work together.

 

Support for employers

Question 7: How effective are government programmes which support or encourage employers to employ disabled people, particularly young disabled people? Does this differ by condition or disability? How could they be improved?

Apprenticeships require significant reform to become more effective in supporting disabled young people into work. Since the apprenticeship levy was introduced there has been a drift from lower level apprenticeships to higher levels; and a drift from providing apprenticeships for 16-18 year olds to older age groups. This means that apprenticeships have become less effective in supporting transition to employment for young students with disabilities.

We need a fundamental rethink of apprenticeships – fully integrating them into the wider education and skills system, targeting at least 50 per cent of the levy on young people or those entering the labour market, and reviewing the levy, to look at where the money is currently spent. This would do much to support young disabled people’s transition to employment.

For young people with learning disabilities, the recommendations of the Maynard Review for making apprenticeships more inclusive should be implemented.

 

Question 7a: What steps could be taken to improve awareness and uptake of relevant government support schemes?

Question 7b: What actions could employers be taking without Government support? What barriers prevent them doing so?

The relationship between a young person’s disability and their ability to do any particular job is more complex than is the case for many protected characteristics. This means that the legal framework for tackling disability discrimination, though necessary and important, is insufficient to remove some of the structural barriers to employment. It would be beneficial to see wider use of the practice of ‘job carving’, already commonly used on Supported Internships. Job carving means redistributing duties between job roles to create roles suitable for, for instance, a worker with a learning disability in a laboratory.  Job carving does not require employers to be motivated solely by an intention to be inclusive; there are sound business benefits.

The National Disability Strategy has already proposed reviewing and strengthening the DWPs Disability Confident badge scheme. This should be prioritised and the use of job-carving should be promoted by the scheme.

 

September 2023