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.