Setting young people up for success – College sector report: The Children’s Commissioner’s School and College Census

In 2024, I used my data powers on schools and colleges for the first time, conducting a census to better understand the support that educational establishments offer children. This report is the third in this series. The first, The Children’s Plan, examines what whole system reform could and should look like. The second, The Children’s Commissioner’s School Census: Special and Alternative Provision examines how non-mainstream providers, like special schools and alternative provision, offer support for their pupils. This report focuses on England’s colleges, with a particular interest in how colleges support their students.

Colleges are very different institutions to schools, but share many of the challenges. Like schools, colleges are carrying growing responsibilities and student need. Like schools, colleges operate in the context of local services stretched beyond their capacity. Colleges are supporting a third of our young people, including many students with complex needs, while working hard to prepare students for a changing employment landscape and world of work. 

Across the country, the barriers young people face outside the education and training environment need to be addressed so young people can access learning and training on equal footing, no matter where they live. The challenges look different, certainly – rural colleges in particular told my office about their struggles with transport, while I heard from some urban colleges about the difficulties caused by growing needs. The solutions, too, may well look different regionally, but must be united by a national ambition to break down the barriers to education. 

One of the crucial reforms across the entire education system is that the places that educate children should know more about them. It is crucially important for post-16 institutions to know their young people to be aware of their barriers to education and help prepare them for life after education. My office heard from colleges time and again about the difficulties caused by delays in information sharing between other institutions and colleges, with colleges left to pick up the pieces afterwards.

As I called for in The Children’s Plan, better data and joined-up services are essential to stop young people “falling through the gaps”. Especially important in the transition from school to college where information sharing can help young people get the best start to the next phase of their education. Strong cross-system collaboration between schools, colleges, universities, employers, health services and local authorities is crucial. This is why in the Children’s Plan I called for a unique identifier and digital platform to facilitate this collaboration.

We must always listen to young people about their experiences of post-16 pathways, and what young people say they need for a successful move into adulthood and work. Colleges are one crucial part of this journey, and they need to be properly funded to meet this challenge.

There is so much we can learn from colleges. Young people in college may be caring for family members, working long and unsociable hours to support themselves and their families. They may be newly arrived to the country. They may be navigating the care system. They may just want to get in, get their A-Levels, T-Levels, or BTECs or soon to be V levels, and get on with their lives. Regardless of who walks through their door, my office heard about how colleges build strong relationships with their young people and provide the flexibility, safety and opportunity for many to thrive.

The too narrow focus on schools in education policy has meant the needs of young people in post-16 education across the country have often been neglected. Data, policy and programmes must give more attention to those aged 16 to 18 in further education and training institutions. It is a diverse sector and government needs to do better to capture, publish, and disseminate attendance, outcomes and what works evidence for young people aged 16 to 18 in an accessible way.

As the government implements its post-16 skills and education White Paper reforms, we must remember these can only succeed if the needs of all young people are accounted for, to ensure all young people can access and navigate post-16 pathways and get the support they need to succeed.

I know that young people care deeply about getting a good job. In many of my surveys and listening exercises with young people, going on to secure good quality employment has been their biggest concern. This report has been written and published at a time of profound concern about their ability to do just that, with attention paid to youth unemployment and the NEET rate of under-25s.

The ambition to reduce NEET rates across the country will require us to tackle the structural and wellbeing barriers our young people face – and colleges are rightly recognised as part of the solution. Yet too often, rather than the wider system learning from them, colleges are asked to mop up after systemic failures elsewhere. When thinking about supporting young people’s needs, there is now rightful pushback to the simplistic idea of ‘put it on the school curriculum’ as a policy lever, but too little attention is paid to the burdens placed upon the FE sector and skills policy. In the future, the pressures placed on colleges must be met with support, policy attention, and funding. Across the entirety of a child’s life, in every interaction they have with state services, we must continue to strive for a coordinated and joined up system across all of education, health and social care. Nothing less is sufficient to meet the needs and aspirations of the nation’s children.

A note of thanks: Thank you to the college leaders and staff who completed the survey and those who spent time with my office to discuss the challenges they are facing and the support they are offering their young people.