Recommendation 22

HM Government · verbatim extract Accepted

112. The Teacher Encounters programme, delivered through the CEC, provides opportunities for teachers to engage directly with employers to see and learn about the different career pathways relevant to their subjects and to observe how their subject is applied practically in business. Teacher encounters can take many forms, from two hours to multiple days, face-to-face, virtual or a mix of both. 113. Two test pilots took place in 2021/22 in Oxfordshire and Berkshire with evidence of positive impact. There was strong support among teachers, citing that the encounters help improve understanding of the range of jobs and routes into the workplace along with better insight into linking classroom learning to workplace skills. 114. Building on this early promise, the Department has invested, through the CEC, in a pilot year of teacher encounters, launched in January 2023 and delivered by Careers Hubs. Over 800 teacher encounters had taken place by the end of the 2022/23 academic year with a further 400 planned for delivery in September and October. 174 employers have been involved in supporting teachers to better understand their industries, skills gaps, recruitment practices and pathways and opportunities available. Careers Hubs are learning from early evidence from the pilot year to refine and improve activity. Curriculum resources developed as a result of the encounters are being collated and reviewed for a potential wider reach. 115. Teachers and employers have been very positive about their involvement in this work and will feed into the evaluation, due for completion in autumn 2023. We will carefully consider the evidence from this programme to inform future policy. 116. The Department has introduced the Taking Teaching Further programme. This has supported around 1,000 industry professionals to train as FE teachers since 2018, bringing those with relevant knowledge and industry experience into our colleges. The latest round of Taking Teaching Further is live, supporting FE providers to recruit and support industry professionals to retrain as FE teachers by providing up to £18,200 per recruit to cover the costs of a teaching qualification, mentoring support, and a reduced teaching timetable. We are also piloting a new £6,000 incentive for those teaching in some of the most hard-to-fill subject areas (digital; construction; engineering/manufacturing; and maths). 117. We are working with the sector to build the capacity of the further education workforce and develop dual professionalism in FE teaching by supporting providers to engage in a sustainable, two-way exchange with industry, fostering long-lasting networks with employers. 118. The £165m Local Skills Improvement Fund (LSIF) provides investment in the technical skills system to better support the needs of the local labour market and wider economy. This allows providers to bid for funding to support workforce industry exchange activities - including industry placements for FE teachers–which are in line with Local Skills Improvement Plan priorities.