Tackling youth unemployment and improving young people’s life chances through better access to education, employment and training is a main priority for the UK government.
Over the past five years the number of 16–24-year-olds categorised as NEET, not in education, employment or training, has continued to rise and now stands at nearly one million.
NEET growth is a pressing issue which has damaging implications for wider society and the UK’s economic prosperity, as well as for the young people who are directly affected.
As the leading learner management platform, we at Onefile are keen to do all we can to support further education colleges and training providers as they work to address the NEET problem.
So, we were extremely happy to welcome more than 30 FE colleges to Driving Colleges Success, our online event which encouraged college leaders to explore the NEET challenge together, sharing their ideas, experiences and best practice.
Hosted by Kelly Huntington, Onefile’s Director of Sales and Marketing, it included presentations on the reasons behind the increase in NEET numbers and what colleges are doing to re-engage those young people at risk of dropping out of the education and skills system.
Post pandemic impacts, poor mental health, economic pressures, school exclusion and attendance issues – plus a mismatch between aspirations and available pathways – are all drivers of NEET, explained speakers Maria Bowness and Amy Langford, directors with Milton Keynes College.
They went on to talk about the human and social cost of remaining NEET and how every successful intervention to re-engage young people with education and skills has a positive knock-on effect for the learner, their family and society.
Maria and Amy’s presentation explored the pivotal role colleges and other training providers play in re-engagement, and the collective power colleges hold to strengthen pathways into education, training and employment.
The session also featured a highly informative walkthrough of Ofsted’s new inspection framework, which has seen inclusion become a prominent, standalone part of Ofsted’s FE and Skills report card. Keynote speaker Gemma Hart, Director of Learner Experience at Tempdent, shared some early lessons emerging from the first inspections carried out using the revised Ofsted toolkit. Gemma explained how the terminology around measuring performance has changed and what steps colleges can take to ensure they’re inspection ready.
In an insightful Q&A session, event attendees from several colleges shared their experiences of supporting vulnerable learners, and what could be done to engage with those school leavers who have, for example, a history of poor school attendance.
FE colleges and other training providers are recognised for their extraordinary capacity to transform lives, which is why their input and insights are so crucial to this debate. And, as the leading learner management platform, we at Onefile are keen to know what more we can do to support them as they strive to prevent young people from becoming NEET.
Summing up the event, Kelly thanked attendees and speakers for their openness when sharing their thoughts and ideas.
She said: “What really stands out for me is how consistent the themes are and how different perceptions and perspectives actually make us look at the same things but in a slightly different way. The underlying message has to be that there is no simple answer but that there is huge value in shared understanding and experience.”
Most importantly, Kelly added, events like this reinforce Onefile’s role as a connector – a space where colleges can learn from each other and feel less isolated in what they’re facing.
Adding that Onefile would be running further customer-led online sessions, Kelly said: “Events like this and community collaboration mean so much. Ultimately when colleges do well learners do well, and that’s something we at Onefile see as a shared responsibility.”
Want to explore how Onefile could support your college or training provider to strengthen learner engagement, support inclusion and prepare for Ofsted? Book a discovery call with our team to see how Onefile can work alongside you to support better outcomes for learners.