Creating a parity of esteem between Further Education and Higher Education, or between ‘vocational’ and ‘academic’, is often suggested as a good idea to improve skills shortages, achieve levelling up and promote economic growth. As Wales establishes a Commission for Tertiary Education and Research and Keir Starmer signals that Labour policy will look again at skills policy with the creation of ‘Skills England’, as a sector we must ask how best FE and HE can work more closely together. If change is coming, will this be incentivised or even forced upon institutions?
Of course, there has never been as clear a divide between FE and HE as some commentary on HE would suggest. We’ve seen FE embrace HE delivery much more quickly than we’ve seen the reverse in recent years – incentivised through relatively higher funding for HE, and through incentives to address HE cold spots. There are many FE colleges on the OfS register, with many more delivering HE through franchise arrangements and Institutes of Technology. We’ve also seen a rise in HE institutions working with FE neighbours to deliver a more regionally joined-up approach to skills-centred education, with some HE institutions going even further by delivering FE-level education themselves.
University College Birmingham is already an institution that could be described as Tertiary – we have been a full university since 2012 (not a university college, despite the name), and have around 6500 HE students, plus 500 HE apprentices. But we value our FE roots, and have 2000 FE students, with plans to open a sixth form centre from 2024. We maintain our FE provision for lots of reasons – most significantly because it’s an important part of our institutional mission. We’re not alone with several other Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) with activity across FE and HE, all with different structures and approaches such as the Open University, Nottingham Trent University, University of Salford or Hartpury University. Their activity may encourage more HE in FE, but there are few incentives the other way.
