Education Entrepreneurship Monthly – April 2021

Higher education. An open letter from Universities UK and others at the beginning of the month prompted the government to confirm 17th May as the date students could return to campus (i.e. not until the beginning of the next stage of lockdown easing). This came after the sector had already expressed considerable frustration about a lack of necessary support 

Many want to know why this is the case, when nurseries, schools and FE have all already returned to face-to-face teaching? And why was this decision taken despite the mounting survey evidence of the negative impacts of the off-campus/remote experience for learning, social life, wellness and readiness for graduate employment?

Students, it appears, have largely given up hope of getting any more face-to-face teaching this academic year according to the fourth and latest HEPI and YouthSight survey of how students are coping with pandemic conditions.

In March, the ONS Student Insight Survey had already indicated that as many as two-thirds of students may have experienced a decline in their mental health this academic year as social distancing, isolation measures and shut-outs have continued to plague a return to anything like normal campus life. 

Taking stock. In FE, a report from the Association of Colleges (AoC), based on a survey of 80 college responses, was published. All respondents suggested negative impacts for learning, while 75% indicated that their 16–18-year-olds were between one and four months behind compared with a normal academic year. Drawing on the survey’s findings, the Association called for a £1.5bn package of support to fund up to an extra year of study for those due to leave this year, and funded extra hours and support for those already in or about to join. 

To put this in perspective, the government’s current spending plans for catch-up across the board–from early years, through schools and up–hover at around £1.7bn - while the true need, according to the Education Policy Institute (EPI), is likely to be more in region of £10-£15bn. The level of shortfall means many of those young people who need catch-up/remedial provision the most will miss out, if not on access to support, then on quality. For private and third sector providers and responding entrepreneurs, the future is B2C.

Youth job market. The full impact of coronavirus and lockdown on young people has been masked by still-rising participation rates. This is a trend that the general decrease in youth employment opportunities during the pandemic will only have added to. The Institute for Employment Studies (IES) reports that the numbers of young people on payroll have fallen by 12.0% since the start of the crisis a year ago, while the fall for all other age groups has been just 1.4%. Its report also highlights that the numbers point to significant increases in long-term youth unemployment (defined as those unemployed for more than six months), which is now at its highest level in five years.

The government’s response has focused first on the introduction of incentives (enumerated in the last issue) to help stimulate demand for apprenticeships and traineeships, and second, post-18, on the Lifetime Skills Guarantee, which got underway this month. From next year, free access will be given to some 400 qualifications and skills bootcamps for eligible adults without a Level 3, funded through the National Skills Fund. 

News and Views

UK-based Guide Education raises £6 million for tech-based approach to teacher training (Finsmes)

UK Edtech Mindstone ‘compound learning’ tool achieves $2.2 million raise with Moonfire Ventures (Tech.eu)

La Salle Education, an online learning and assessment platform, completes £1m funding round for new Digital Tutor product (Ed Tranham)

Graduway named EdTech Company of the Year 2020 by CIOReview (Cision PR Newswire)

Angel investment in Scotland back to end-2019 level (DailyBusiness)

Will Zoom Apps be the next hot start-up platform? (TechCrunch)

The Creator Economy Boom: What it is, what’s driving it, and where it’s going? (Ollie Forsyth, Global Community Manager, Antler)

How are VCs handling diligence in a world where deals open and close in days, not months? (TechCrunch)

Fundraising: How long does it take to raise capital for a start-up? (BNN Times)

Startup 101: Knowing When You’re Ready For Venture Capital (Forbes)

Which founder would you rather be? (David Franel, Partner, Founder Collective)

Education Entrepreneurship Monthly – March 2021

Welcome to the March issue of Education Entrepreneurship Monthly from The Entrepreneurs Network – our monthly update covering news, views, research and events of interest to entrepreneurs in education. You can read past updates here.

Human capital. This month’s budget made it clear that the Chancellor is convinced that human capital is integral to economic growth. He announced a new scheme, Help to Grow, to encourage small businesses to adopt management best practices and take fuller advantage of productivity-enhancing software.

Under the scheme, business schools will deliver a ‘what-you-need-to-know’ curriculum and practical peer mentoring programmes. Businesses will also be able to benefit from free advice on efficiency-improving software. Unfortunately, the voucher discounts, just as entry to the mentoring programmes, are closed off to businesses with fewer than 5 employees.

As The Entrepreneurs Network’s Sam Dumitriu noted in his response to the Budget announcement:  “Management practices explain almost a third of the differences in productivity between and within countries. And pre-pandemic data suggests that if the UK’s 1.1m micro businesses doubled their uptake of key digital technologies, it would lead to a £4,050 average productivity for the millions of workers they employ.”

If you’re interested and want to take part, you can read a recent Policy Update which breaks down the specifics of the scheme for entrepreneurs.

In a Budget boost for Higher Education student recruitment, employers, and start-ups, the promised detail of a new Graduate Visa has also been published. From July, graduates with the visa will be able stay in the UK for two years after graduation. Employment of graduate talent right out of university will become much easier, with less need to worry about visas, which is a vital step towards unlocking an important talent pool from which to resource our economy.

The government’s initiatives in Further Education and Skills were met positively. The Chancellor confirmed additional funding for “high quality” work placements and traineeships for 16- to 24-year-olds; a doubling of cash incentives for employers to hire new apprentices; and a new fund for “portable apprenticeships” to better prepare those destined for portfolio careers and project-working. All measures that will be positive for college recruitment and revenue.

Schools. In the midst of a general disgruntlement among teachers about the pressures of Covid-related safety compliance and learning catch-up, many school leaders voiced disappointment that there would be no extra funding for schools beyond existing planned budget increases and catch-up schemes already announced by the government. 

Nevertheless, a budget total of £705m, with a focus on the disadvantaged, £200m for secondary schools to run summer school activities, and roughly the same more for the National Tutoring Programme, is not nothing, and the questions quickly turned to focus on how the money should be spent and intervention design. The latter was argued to be particularly important by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) in regard to the value or otherwise of summer schools, which if well-balanced and put together can bring gains for some pupils (up to two months’ progress in some cases).

To maximise the impact, Head of Policy Jonathan Key argued, programmes should utilise trained teachers for small group tuition (potentially adding the equivalent of a further two months’ of progress in the summer school context).

Feedback. According to the EEF Toolkit, ensuring pupils receive high-quality feedback by comparison can be transformative (+8 months). There is broad consensus that well-thought out and explained homework activities, which enable specific and timely feedback, are important, but how this relates to other aspects of good teaching and learning is less clear. It’s an area that teachers know is in need of improvement. An indicator of this was given this month in a TeacherTapp survey of over 8,600 responses. The question focused on the new technology applications they’d used over the past year, and the results reveal a strong inclination to make changes to the way they approach homework and feedback.

Exams and assessment. Finally, even as the new Education Recovery Tsar, Kevan Collins was highlighting the need for renewed effort in the area of formative assessment, and for restoring faith in assessment more generally, a great confusion was erupting over arrangements for this summer’s 14-19 exams. While the government confirmed that teachers will have lead responsibility for determining grades, based only on what students have been taught, and drawing on a range of evidence that includes mocks, coursework and optional exam board set questions, educationists largely concurred that we are walking into a minefield. Multiple checks will be built into the system, including peer checking in schools, sign-offs and exam board moderation support.

While Ofqual published teacher guidance and information for exam centres on how teacher-assessed grades should be determined and submitted, one HMC head nailed the problem with the whole approach: what if students from different schools/exam centres start comparing their experiences and questioning whether allowing these diverse approaches is fair? “Plans will be thrown into chaos if pupils are permitted to challenge not only the decisions themselves but also the basis on which they have been made,” he said. Meanwhile, a poll conducted by The Student Room Group found students not far behind: 52% thought that exam grades this year would not be fair to them. 
 

News and Views

What did the 2021 Budget mean for the UK tech sector and COVID-19? Executives, entrepreneurs and investors give their views. BusinessCloud.

A year into the pandemic: Reflections on how education systems responded & where we are heading. Brighteye Ventures.

To raise funds or not to raise funds? Vadim Rogovskiy, serial tech entrepreneur and investor. TNW.

The 5 main reasons VCs reject start-ups. RLC Ventures.

UK tech investment hits record levels as TechNation’s annual report voices concerns about the sector’s increasing reliance on foreign investment at later stages. Relocate Global.

Europe suffers from lack of late-stage investors. Over 80% of later stage tech venture capital in Britain comes from overseas investors. It’s a Europe-wide problem. Suranga Chandratillake of Balderton Capital in Growth Business.

vc:20 – The Twenty Minute VC, with Harry Stebbings. Inside the world of Venture Capital, Start-up Funding and The Pitch. Harry Stebbings.

How to become an entrepreneur. The John F. Kennedy University's Institute of Entrepreneurial Leadership re-envisions its traditional class as a free, open-source, interactive online learning experience with CurrikiStudio. Details here.

Education Entrepreneurship Monthly: February 2021

Welcome to the February issue of Education Entrepreneurship Monthly from The Entrepreneurs Network – our monthly update covering news, views, research and events of interest to entrepreneurs in education.

As the prospect of emerging from lockdown draws near, sobering reports from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) and The Resolution Foundation added their analysis of just how bad the economic impacts of Covid-19 have been – predicting lower than expected economic growth and a slow economic recovery. The British Chambers of Commerce and the IPPR contributed to wide consensus in support of extensions to the furlough scheme, loan guarantees, and targeted grant support, and concern that young people should not be overlooked.

Last month, the Government’s response the Augar review of post-18 education highlighted an entitlement to lifelong learning, provision aligned to employer needs, and ‘high-value’ courses (where incentives are aligned to encourage courses with good job outcomes). With reputational and revenue issues at the fore, an international education strategy update of a fortnight later stuck to core targets on student recruitment and income generation. Passing the task of figuring out what its provisions for quality improvement to the Office for Students (OfE), the Education Secretary expressed his wish that "higher education providers who do not demonstrate high quality and robust outcomes" should be subject to financial penalties and in extreme cases stripped of their degree-awarding powers. WonkHE summarised the proposals here.

The Government’s Further Education White Paper 'Skills for Jobs’ built on its previous efforts to counterbalance the degree route with a ‘high-quality’ technical one, and drew support from the Association of Colleges (AoC), the Collab Group, and the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP). Some remained sceptical, however, arguing that without increased funding, little would change. 

On a related note, the Public Accounts Committee reported on its inquiry into college finances in England, concluding these remained ‘fragile’ with a number of pressure points including Covid, pension, and VAT costs. Among its recommendations was a funding formula based on current rather than lagged data.

In summary, while the government's continued emphasis on quality improvement in FE and post-18 education and training are to be lauded, critics are right to point out that aspiration alone - with the regulatory pressures that tend to follow - without equal attention to implications for funding and financial sustainability, can, do and will continue to undermine even the best of aspirations. Here the indications are that necessary trade-offs are not being squared at cabinet level. In this instance, it's clear that the Treasury is not fully on board with the official government line on the importance of well-funded public services for a healthy economy, and DfE decision-makers habitually over-promising and under-delivering as a result.

In schools, whether, when and how they should re-open has become a matter of wide debate, coming to a head on the issue of teachers’ (and other frontline workers) being prioritised ahead of others for the vaccine. The government has stuck to its focus on the clinical case, saying only that, subject to the data, schools will probably re-open on or around 8th March (now confirmed).

Meanwhile, Ofsted published a new report on remote education, suggesting that despite concerns about accessibility and pupil engagement (especially for SEND pupils), schools had done better than might have been expected. The regulations for schools to publish on their website their remote education offer formally came into effect. Lending support for this policy emphasis, at the end of the period the government reported that the number of laptops and tablets dispatched since the start of the term had passed ~500,000. As I’ve commented in previous issues, readiness to deploy digital resources of high quality will in future be a key determinative of market growth, as also will teacher development. Relatedly, this month the government announced 6 new Teaching Hubs (making a total of 81) – intended to operate as local centres of excellence for teacher development. There are evidently some strong market drivers in play here.

News and Views

Without capital. Frequently seen as the default route for founders, venture capital isn’t the only route. Kjartan Rist, Founding Partner of Concentric, the London & Copenhagen-based venture capital firm, considers what bootstrapped firms have to teach us. 

Pitching at Series A. Phil Boyer, partner at Crosslink Capital, shares five tips for start-up founders who are ready to raise their Series A round. 

Venture capital funding reaches new heights. VC funding secured by UK Firms reached its highest level during Q4 2020 – more than double that of firms from France, which was the next most active European country. 
 

Education Entrepreneurship Monthly – January 2021

The return of lockdown offered a grim start to the new year. That the decision to shut schools and transition to remote learning came so late didn’t set things off to a good start with a teacher workforce already worried to exhaustion, compounding the likelihood of teacher attrition to come. In a move widely regarded by Early Years practitioners as baffling, the government also announced that childcare settings would, however, remain open, despite rates of infection among staff being similar. In an effort to get ahead of this, the PM pledged to double down on the government’s public-sector recruitment drive.

On the upside, the majority of schools, and a considerably greater number of parents, were better prepared for remote schooling after last year – not to say that managing children’s learning has been easy. Ofsted issued well-grounded and useful guidance for schools on what effective remote learning means in practice – worth a look if you’re in edtech and want to think about the challenges of adoption from the perspective of the school. Although the regulator has so far resisted pressure from the DfE to develop inspection criteria for rating the quality of remote learning, this will undoubtedly come round again.

In the meantime, take a look at the Education and Training Foundation’s Digital Teaching Professional Framework, which achieved another development milestone this month with the release of a tranche of new PD modules designed to support digital content creation and delivery. In an uncharacteristically enthused speech on the opening of #BettFest online, Nick Gibb extolled the Department’s partnership with Microsoft and Google to enable collaboration between 6,500+ ‘Demonstrator’ schools in the areas of resource-sharing, pupil progress monitoring, feedback and platform-based teaching delivery.

Returning to whether to close schools and embrace remote delivery, part of the PM’s reticence will of course have been due to mounting evidence of learning gaps, the mental health repercussions that have followed young people’s separation from their peers and communities, and rising inequity. Well documented in education research last year, the debate has overtaken Westminster in earnest this month, driving increasing numbers and accelerating the distribution of laptops to schools and underscoring that the degree of learning loss is so severe in places (and especially so in the north east) as to justify consideration of a fully funded repeat year.

On the mental health front, two important reports from CoSpace and The Prince’s Trust respectively, highlighted covid’s impact on family stress and the mental health of 16-25 year-olds.

There’s been much debate on what lasting impacts the pandemic might have on inherited models of education provision in almost every area. In relation to a couple of the issues in the public eye this month I want to conclude with a look at where entrepreneurial energies are going.

First, mental health. Prior to the pandemic, the task of providing more relevant, personalised, and engaging mental-health support for young people seemed a mountain to climb. Video content curators like Boclips worked the flipped learning concept with a view to use in blended learning. Perhaps because for many the idea of an app-based solution seems counter-intuitive for addressing the issues, direct to consumer offerings have been slower to emerge – social enterprise app MeeTwo got a head-start with help from the NHS. This month, start-up EmpowerU received seed funding to launch its highly personalized, tech-powered, social-emotional learning solution nationwide. A fledgling start-up, Quol, aspires to going even further, with accessible user-led, social influencer-presented quality video content and a focus on habit-forming positive behavioural change.

Second, catch-up and remedial. Paul Johnson of the IFS soberingly explained in an article for The Times (reproduced here) that when schools do return, teachers are going to face enormous challenges, likely for years to come, managing these disparities. In policy terms, it might very well serve us at this juncture to place learning progress on a ‘stage, not age’ footing. I commented briefly in the last issue on the promise of the National Tutoring Programme to assist schools with edtech and targeted tutoring: Ian Koxvold’s ‘what’s in store for 2021’ piece has thoughts to offer on this, among other developments, too and is well worth a read.

Third, childcare. Three initiatives that pre-date covid founded in the conviction that traditional models need a rethink, are now experiencing a boon. The first (from 2014) is Capture Education’s app for managing parent communications, which journals learning in accordance with EYFS requirements and manages the payments side too. In 2020 Capture added significant value for its nursery customer base by producing some great parent-facing content to support early learning at home. Second, Tiney are taking a fresh look at the potential of small group home-based education. Tiney has developed an excellent training, start-up and ongoing support package to attract a new breed of early years educators, and it’s definitely working! And third, there is Koru Kids, a new part-time Nanny agency who’ve figured out affordable local solutions for families/parents increasingly working from home, and are drawing significant scale-up investment.

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Entrepreneurship Education Monthly – December 2020

It's been a tough year for teachers. Last month new evidence that working hours (already lengthy by European standards) are now being stretched to unmanageable levels was submitted by Hayes Education Training. Since then, Oak National Academy has reported that as many as 90% believe their workload to have increased under COVID, for the majority substantially. According to an RSA survey, 66% have been angered by the lack of support from government. Teachers received validation from Chief Inspector Amanda Spielman in the Ofsted Annual Report, who expressed concern with the way in which schools had come to be regarded as the 'go-to solution' for society’s ills – even as Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced a pay freeze.

In face of these challenges, radical proposals for reducing workload and transforming the way schools work seem more important than ever. With delivery support from a number of private providers, the government’s National Tutoring Programme got off the ground last month to support disadvantaged students and their schools in the aftermath of the pandemic. Though the overall level of funding has in the end been disappointing, in the long term we believe that, to echo EEF CEO Becky Francis, it’s a partnership “which could make a significant contribution to efforts to close the disadvantage gap”. 

As inroads into the lower mid-market widen as a result of ongoing scale-up investment into online private tuition provision (Mobeus Equity Partners’ substantial follow-on investment in MyTutor; Supporting Education Group’s acquisition of toota; and Ananda/Downing/NESTA’s investment into Third Space Learning), there’s plenty of headroom for growth for school-based tutoring provision. (For an innovative model of how to approach the latter, take a look at Montreal-based Paper.)

As if to highlight the efficiency gains to be made from tech-based whole school solutions, Arbor Education joined The Key Group (including ScholarPack) last month, so tightening its already strong grip on the MIS switcher market. More recently dominant provider Capita SIMS was acquired by Montagu Private Equity. And alongside The Key Group, Kinderly nursery management made the finals of the Education Investor Awards, pointing to a similar need among preschools. Taking a wider view of the Edtech scene, it’s evident that positive impact for teacher workload remains a key criterion for success.

Online learning providers have gone above and beyond this year and it’s clear that without their resources, learning loss would have been much worse. Not to diminish these efforts, Teach First highlighted that the digital divide has worsened. In their Teacher Tapp survey report they reported that schools in the poorest areas of the country were struggling to provide the access and resources necessary to help pupils with online learning. The conclusion is obvious: government must increase the number of devices for schools and pupils most in need.

On a brighter note, KPMG reported that VC investment in European Edtech in general was on the rise. Getting in on the act, Fintech accelerator SuperCharger got its first cohort of Edtech entrepreneurs motoring and deep tech investors Brighteye VC announced a new fund for investing in Edtech start-ups.

In an indicator of the seismic shifts in the market this year HolonIQ’s MetaEduSummit report found there had been an increase and acceleration in direct-to-consumer offerings, as parents, students and workers seek learning support, upskilling and progression in the labour market. The trend continues among start-ups, for example, Arc Education and Scribeasy.

Notably, half of those at Seed through Series B on Holon’s European Edtech 100 list of the most innovative are worker or labour-market oriented, as entrepreneurs mobilise to the challenges of labour market entry, training and retraining, upskilling and outskilling. Reflective of these concerns, the government’s Spending Review committed significant funding to the Restart Programme and to the delivery of the Lifetime Skills Guarantee. Countering the fatalism of many, the Behavioural Insights Team published a useful report showing how deploying insights from behavioural and data science might open-up new job opportunities and equip jobseekers with the support they need by focusing on job goals rather than compliance with benefit criteria.
 

News and Views

A fair result: It was always inevitable that next year’s exam arrangements would involve a series of concessions to mitigating circumstances. As the government fleshed out what it had in mind, Ofqual offered this explanation, while hastily kicking off a consultation into the one bit it hadn’t been prepared for – giving advanced information about the content of exams to candidates.

Regulator Review: In a separate report on the progress of onscreen assessment, the regulator identified five equity-related issues inhibiting adoption at the country level, which would require significant additional funding to rectify. These are: (i) variance local network capability; (ii) variable staff competence and training requirements; (iii) tech resources; (iv) upgrades to security; (v) planning and implementation. 

Annual review: The Office for Students (OfS) published its Annual Review of HE in England focusing on the response to the pandemic and the rapid shift to online learning. It also scopes out priorities for the coming year that include building on that investment, raising the bar on quality and standards, and improving opportunities for mature students.

Education for entrepreneurship: Octopus recently released Spinning out Success, highlighting universities’ positive track records in turning academic achievement into entrepreneurial success. The report considers the innovative and thriving companies these institutions have supported and distils lessons about the nature and kind of support needed for them to spin out investor-ready businesses. 

Visa routes: The government opened a number of new visa routes of relevance to entrepreneurs seeking to make England their base of operations, including the Skilled Worker, Global Talent, Start-up and Innovator visas, under its new points-based immigration system. Good news for early-stage businesses hampered in their efforts to recruit the skilled people they need to grow.

European EdTech: HolonIQ released its ‘Europe EdTech 100’ annual list of the most innovative EdTech start-ups across Europe.

Education speak: Following a recent gathering of Edtech innovators and educators, Mindcet Edtech offered this useful summary of what to keep in mind when doing an investor pitch or seeking to persuade early adopters to trial.

Was this forwarded on to you? If so, you can sign up here. James Croft is Co-Founder and Head of Education at specialist corporate advisory firm Whitebeam Strategy. An experienced entrepreneur, James was previously Founder and Director of the Centre for Education Economics (CfEE) think tank. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Economic Affairs and a former editor of Investor Publishing’s EducationInvestor Global magazine. Connect with James on LinkedIn or pick-up Whitebeam’s #InvestEd feed on Twitter, where they track development, opportunity and investment in education markets around the world.