In theory a quieter week with Parliament in recess and many schools and colleges on half-term but as usual it’s not quite worked out that way.

Let’s start with the big political news first where four education related developments stand out. First, it’s now been confirmed that the Budget will go ahead as planned on 11 March. Confirmation of this came in a tweet from the new Chancellor, pictured studiously at his new desk this week surrounded by Treasury papers. Levelling up of course remains the current catch phrase and schools and colleges in particular will be eagerly watching to see what benefits, if any, flow from this when it comes to funding.

Second, following last weekend’s Ministerial changes, a number of new Ministers, including those at the DfE, have also been settling in behind their new desks and scouring their in-trays. They, like the Chancellor, have not been short either of advice or interest. Nick Hillman’s tips for engaging with new Ministerial teams and David Hughes’s letter to the new FE/Skills Minister are both good examples.

Third, there’s been some fascinating economic data released this week with average wages and employment up but so too the number of self-employed and zero-hours contracts. Is the labour market changing? The Resolution Foundation has a useful review of it all while the CIPD/Adecco Group and the RSA have reports out this week on current and future work respectively. Plenty of super forecasting here.

And fourth, the government has now confirmed its policy on skills and immigration following the recent report from the Migration Advisory Committee. Broadly it intends to roll out a points-based system, with points accrued for things like level of English, skills and salary level and job offer, to cover all visa applicants, EU or non EU, from 1 January 2021. Further modifications such as improvements to the sponsorship system and further details on the points-based system are promised, but the government has clearly been keen to get across two messages: the opportunity to reassert control of our borders and the need for employers to step up and train staff in future. Reactions, it’s fair to say have been pretty mixed with the CBI concerned about bureaucracy, employer surcharges and what happens to the self-employed and the NUS worried about salary thresholds and negative vibes. The FT’s assessment of likely winners and losers under such a system provides an excellent summary.

Finally a reminder of some of the other important education stories this week. They include reports on access and admissions and strike action in HE, the Industrial Strategy and sector issues in FE, and pay, funding and CPD in schools, all listed below. So not such a quiet week after all.

• ‘UK universities face pressure to reform admissions process.’ (Monday)
• ‘Large employers fail to spend apprenticeship money.’ (Tuesday)
• ‘Schools reducing funding breadth because of curriculum pressures, says Ofsted.’ (Wednesday)
• ‘Students hit by 14-day university lecturers’ strike.’ (Thursday)
• ‘Powerful antibiotic discovered using machine learning for first time.’ (Friday)

• Making the point. The government announced its new points-based visa immigration system due to apply uniformly to citizens from both EU and non-EU countries from 1 January 2021
• Labour Market outlook. CIPD and the Adecco Group published their Winter Outlook on the labour market pointing to employment confidence high in the public sector but with some employers reporting hard to fill vacancies especially in professional occupations
• Good work. The RSA in conjunction with Carnegie UK Trust launched a collection of essays from leading commentators examining the concept of good or quality work and how important this can be in improving productivity let alone general wellbeing
• Market moves. The Resolution Foundation reflected on the latest set of economic figures covering pay and employment highlighting some significant developments, not all positive 
• Early years apps. The government announced the winners of the competition to find leading educational apps that parents can use to help children reading and learning at home with the six winners, selected by an expert panel, covering learning games, listening books and a Phonics Hero

• This is your life. Wonkhe profiled the new Universities Ministers suggesting that she will stick pretty closely to Party lines
• Persuading the Minister. Nick Hillman, director of the HE Policy Institute (HEPI) listed six ‘rules,’ from ‘targeting your message’ to ‘focusing on key officials,’ that could help those in higher education wanting to engage with a new Minister and their team 
• Global appeal. UCAS published a final paper in its series of reports on last year’s university applications, looking this time at international applications which reached a record 141,000 applications largely from Chinese students, and with top London – based institutions the most popular choice
• Admissions and access. Universities UK reported on its recent survey of university applicants conducted as part of its Fair Admissions review in which two thirds of respondents acknowledged that the system worked well yet over a quarter backed some changes
• Access thoughts. The Centre for Social Justice think tank published its thoughts on university admissions in a new report, indicating some of the barriers faced by disadvantaged applicants, and calling among things for PQA, means-tested maintenance grants and a system of in-house ‘tutors’ to help students with their applications
• Dealing with disruption. The Office for Students (OfS) set out its guidance and advice for both institutions and students ahead of a further round of industrial action over pensions, pay and working conditions
• Town and gown. The UPP Foundation reported on its survey of local communities and the role of universities within them suggesting that many people were positive about the benefits of a university in their midst but noting that over a third, higher among working-class residents, had never visited their local campus 
• A and P data. CFE research published a new report for the Office for Students (OfS) on data use for access and participation ( A and P) pointing to consistency, quality and availability as issues and making a number of recommendations around monitoring and evaluation to improve its effectiveness
• Postgrad fees. Oxford University announced that it was to hold a debate on the cost of the registration fee, currently worth £75, required for postgraduate courses, with critics claiming that it was putting off some applicants and appeared elitist

• Meet the Minister. The TES heralded the arrival of a designated FE/Skills Minister following the appointment of Gillian Keegan MP to the post 
• Dear Minister. David Hughes, chief executive of the Association of Colleges (AoC) welcomed the new FE Minister in an open letter, suggesting she’d arrived at an opportune moment for the sector, and highlighting funding, special needs, apprenticeships, Augar and the College of the Future as key priorities
• IoTs. The government invited Expressions of Interest (EoIs) for those eligible to submit bids for a second wave of Institute of Technology (IoT) ahead of a new two-stage competition due be launched later this year
• Supporting local communities. The Education Secretary wrote to College leaders urging them to submit bids to the government’s Towns Fund scheme which offers support and investment for local skill provision and other activity 
• Industrial Strategy. The independent Industrial Strategy Council reported on the progress of the Industrial Strategy two years on, noting it was not yet operating with the necessary ‘consistency, coordination or scale’ and calling for a Strategy refresh
• Taking the Pulse. The FE Trust for Leadership reported on the recent Listening Post exercise undertaken by the charity OPUS which brought together a series of forums for staff and students to reflect on the health and wellbeing of the FE sector around such themes as community, wellbeing and capacity
• Devolution deals. The TES reported on figures which showed that the devolution of the adult skills budget had led to a drastic drop in the number of funded providers, with independent providers particularly sharply hit
• Disadvantage attainment gap. The Nuffield Foundation announced that it was working with the Education Policy Institute to develop a measure that could be used to understand more about how socioeconomic disadvantage affects attainment for 16-18 year olds

• School funding. The Chief Inspector’s concerns on school funding were widely reported, in particular the impact of funding shortages on three aspects (SEN, curriculum breadth, and teacher workload) as Ofsted continued to consider how far funding issues should feature in inspections
• Short-changed. Four teaching unions wrote to the Teachers’ Pay Review Body claiming that government proposals to increase starting pay would leave many other teachers, especially the more experienced staff, short-changed and schools generally short of staff, arguing instead for a return to a national pay approach
• Future tables. The government released new guidance for awarding organisations planning to submit qualifications as Technical Awards for first teaching from Sept 2021 and on performance tables in 2023 
• Regulatory changes. Ofqual updated its general conditions of recognition of awarding organisations (AOs) following recent consultation, with measures to ensure AOs present fee information in standard format and are explicit about the recognition of prior learning among other things
• CPD works. The Education Policy Institute published a new report on continuous professional development (CPD,) commissioned by the Wellcome Trust, and indicating that based on trials from Ambition Institute among others, high-quality CPD, compared with other interventions, can have a positive effect on both pupil attainment and teacher retention
• Help on hand. Ofqual continued its build-up to this year’s exams by highlighting the sources of help available for those struggling with or supporting those with exam anxiety

• “Cracking on with preparation for my first Budget on March 11. It will deliver on the promises we made to the British people – levelling up and unleashing the country’s potential” - @RichiSunak
• “Parents urged by ministers to encourage children to use digital exercise books” - @DailyMail 
• “After 22 years as a teacher I firmly believe that 99% of what actually matters is how passionate, knowledgeable, open-minded and dedicated teachers are. Put good teachers in positive working environments and everyone wins” - @StephenDrew72
• “Could the Iliad and the Aeneid become an optional part of the Oxford classics degree?” - @nicolawoolcock
• “The best predictor of whether someone will have a happy life as an adult is whether someone was happy when they were a school child – that’s much more important than the grades they get @RichardLayard on making happiness a key goal” - @theRSAorg
• “Cardiff University looking to reimburse commuting students for travel costs if lectures are cancelled due to striking staff. I like the sound of that!” - @EducationCSU
• “For all its great potential, technology is a tool not a solution’- @JISC

• For richer or poorer. Only a few people consider themselves to be well off, more people consider themselves generally to be either not well off or in the policy phrase: ‘just managing.’ This week The New Statesman published a fascinating article outlining some research from academics looking at groups in London and outlining what features typically point to them being poor, comfortable, wealthy or rich. For example those who are surviving comfortably tend to have a mortgage, savings, eat out modestly once a week, have low-cost gym subscriptions and employ a cleaner. Those who are more comfortable have two holidays a year, shop at Waitrose and M/S and have a financial adviser. The wealthy have five holidays a year, stables for the horse and a personal pilates instructor

• “Today is a historic moment for the whole country” – the Home Secretary burnishes the government’s new immigration system
• “We have always tried to make the Committee accessible to the many, rather than the chattering-classes few” – Education Committee Chair Rob Halfon MP explains the approach of the Committee
• “By splitting it up, no agency, no civil servant, no minister has a responsibility to think about universities as a single coherent sector. That is worrying” – Professor Andy Westwood considers the impact of splitting up the universities and science brief
• “The plural of anecdote is not evidence” – Nick Hillman, director of the HE Policy Institute (HEPI) and former Ministerial Adviser offers advice on how to engage with a new Minister and their team
• “I really hope that when it comes to policies and resources, you have an open door” – David Hughes, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, welcomes the new FE Minister
• “People in FE are resilient by and large because we’re dealing all the time with a pressured, challenging environment” – coping skills needed in FE as reported in FETL’s Listening Post exercise
• “If the government is serious about its levelling up agenda, a renewed focus on vocational training would be an excellent place to start” – an Guardian editorial reflects on issues around apprenticeships

• 70. The number of points needed to be eligible to apply for a visa under the government’s new immigration system, as set out by the Home Office 
• £512. Average weekly pay in the last quarter of 2019 according to latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS)
• 56%. How many people feel universities/colleges should only make offers after people have received their academic results, according to a survey conducted for Universities UK by Savanta ComRes
• 74. The number of universities likely to be affected by strike action over the next two weeks, according to figures quoted by the University and College Union (UCU)
• 123. How many FE colleges have now signed up to the Association of Colleges’ Mental Health Charter, according to the latest figures from the AoC
• 73%. The number of disadvantaged 16-18 year olds now studying in colleges, according to data reported by the AoC
• 25. How many hours a week many young carers spend looking after loved ones according to new research from Action for Children

• FE Week/AELP Westminster debate on SME apprenticeship funding (Tuesday)

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