Support for post-16 providers to set up T Level Industry Placements

Tender description

Improving Technical Education is key to improving productivity and enhancing social mobility. The successful introduction of T Levels progressively from 2020 is central to this. At the heart of the T Level is the T Level industry placement. A student cannot obtain the T Level without having completed an industry placement. The placement needs to be for a minimum of 45 days. This presents providers who need to set up placements and broker the arrangements with employers with a considerable challenge as this is a significant ramp-up from the one or two weeks work experience they are more used to providing. In order to help them prepare, we will be providing funding of almost £60m to approximately 415 providers during the academic year 18/19 to support them to deliver Industry Placements from this September. Ensuring industry placements go smoothly in 18/19 is a crucial part of building credibility and trust in the T Level concept and brand. The pilot scheme we ran in 2017/18 indicated that a significant amount of upfront work is required to implement placements. To address this, the Education Skills Funding Agency will provide light touch support and guidance for providers but, to complement this, we would like to procure out for more intensive project management support for providers that need it. We will shortly be procuring through the Dynamic Purchasing System for an organisation to provide this intensive support to help providers deliver effective industry placements. There are two elements to the support we are looking for an organisation to provide: i. Spreading good practice through workshops; developing case studies; updating existing guidance, and providing feedback on lessons learned to the ESFA. ii. Providing intensive support to a proportion of the post-16 providers which will include helping them plan placements into the curriculum and advising on best placement models for particular circumstances, advising on preparing learners and engaging employers and providing advice on challenging student / employer situations such as placement breakdowns. We estimate that around 80 providers will need this additional support. Guidance has been produced and this will need to be updated by the successful organisation. It will also be required to spread good practice through workshops/events across England and to produce fresh case studies.