How does two student governors, a learner engagement strategy for every college, a national learner panel, new guidelines for SSLO's, OfSTED ensuring that colleges seek the learner voice, student committees and increased training for student representatives sound?

Hopefully, like me, you think all of that sounds pretty good because that’s exactly what the recent Further Education White Paper requires colleges and a variety of different agencies in the FE sector to put in place. The NUS FE campaign has spent the last year extensively campaigning and lobbying to get to this point and we've been working even harder since to make sure what the white paper says becomes a reality.

I’ll give you a quick timeline of how we’ve got here:

Sir Andrew Foster, a public services expert (and now Honorary Vice President of NUS since annual conference) was asked by the Department for Education and Skills to carry out a far reaching review into the future of the further education sector in an independent and objective manner

Sir Andrew started a huge sector wide consultation about his review. NUS work very closely with him to ensure students are having their say- we ran focus groups and one to one interviews, Kat Fletcher NUS President was interviewed by Sir Andrew, an NUS staff member was a critical friend to the response to the Foster consultation for the Learning and Skills Development Agency and we ran consultations on our website which received thousands of responses in the first few weeks of it being up.

Sir Andrew publishes his review of FE in 2004 and it has a real learner focus, making key recommendations about how colleges, the Learning and Skills Council, and the Government need to be more responsive to students

The Department for Education and Skills start work on an FE white paper. NUS puts together its ‘Loud and Clear: Embedding the Student Voice in FE’ document which put some more flesh on the bones of Fosters recommendations and made some more of our own about improving student representation and took this to numerous meetings with agencies in the sector but most importantly with Bill Rammell, the Minster for Lifelong Learning, and to civil servants to try and influence the impending white paper.

Students had their say at the NUS FE Lobby of Parliament on 15th February and NUS' Early Day Motion gets over 60 signatures.

Further Education White Paper is published in April

o where are we now?

There's not much of what is in the white paper that needs to be turned into legislation (which is good because we can all get moving on it a bit quicker) and to move the implementation of the white paper on, the Department of Education and Skills have set up a group, which NUS has been asked to sit on, to deal with the "Personalisation” aspects of the white paper, which includes the learner voice bits.

Two student Governors:

The new amendments of the Instruments and Articles for Governing Bodies (which is basically a bit like a constitution for Governing Boards) has been published for consultation and they say that every Governing board must have at least two student governors- which means that if this makes it through into the final document, which we have every confidence that it will, by 2007 when the new Instruments and Articles are published every Governing Board will have to have two student Governors instead of just one! We have also been lobbying for the 'student committee' that colleges a required to have, to be a student affairs committee of the Governing Board. NUS will be responding to the consultation which we will put on our website when it's completed.

National Learner Panel:

NUS have been working closely with the Learning and Skills Council and the Department for Education and Skills to expand this recommendation and set up a National Learner Panel as soon as possible. It’s a massive challenge to ensure that this is set up with the right structures to ensure its long term future and effectiveness. To shape the thinking around how the National Learner Panel (NLP) could work, what its mission and purpose would be, who would sit on it, what it would discuss, when it would meet and so on NUS and LSC hosted two exploratory conferences on June 12th in London and June 13th in Leeds with students from across the country of different ages studying a variety of different courses along with representatives from key partners in the FE sector that would have an interest in the NLP. They were a huge success and off the back of that a steering group has been set up with aim of setting up the first ever National Learner Panel by this November!!

Learner Engagement Strategies:

The White Paper requires every college to be "consulting students on major issues that effect their learning environment" and says 'Colleges and training providers will be expected to develop and implement strategies for involving learners'. NUS has written a draft learner engagement strategy based on best practice which students can take to their colleges to help them start developing their own strategy. However because we recognise that one model certainly doesn’t fit all, the learner engagement strategy will go out for consultation to the FE sector and most importantly students to ensure that it contains best practice from across the country and can cater for every colleges and providers needs. It’s really important that people feel they have an ownership over this document in order for active and effective strategies to be put in place, not just a couple of tick box measures. Visit www.officeronline.co.uk/fe to download a copy of our draft learner engagement strategy.

Increased training for student representatives:

We are continuing to lobby for a national programme that sets up, trains and quality assures course rep systems in FE colleges. These are essential to ensure that as the white paper says, there is "more learner representation in all aspects of the system from national policymaking to course content and delivery".

NUS are also looking to overhaul the current training that is provided for student officers and student governors.

New guidelines for Student Staff Liaison Officers:

Life Long Learning UK and NUS are going to be working together on this recommendation, we are meeting soon to move this forward

OfSTED:

The white paper says "We (the Government) will work with the LSC and OfSTED to ensure that these mechanisms are reflected in development plans". NUS recently had a meeting with OfSTED and we are working together to se how current inspection guidelines could be improved to incorporate a greater focus on learner voice.

It’s a really exciting time for FE students as these reforms start to be put in place. I don't necessarily agree with everything that’s in the White Paper, but the requirements on learner engagement are the best opportunity that students in the FE sector have ever had to influence their learning and their experience as students at college, regional and national level. I’m looking forward to working with our membership over the next year to ensure that students a leading the implementation of these reforms and making their voice heard loud and clear!

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