Rewiring skills means connecting the wires: the role of place in higher education
The Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE) promises a different way to pay for education. From January 2027, eligible learners will be able to use student finance for modules as well as full qualifications. Funding will be calculated by credits rather than simply by years of study. In principle, someone could gain a higher technical qualification, work for several years, and return to build towards a degree.
That is a significant change to the how learners learn as well as the architecture of student finance. But it raises harder questions: how might those separate episodes of learning add up to a coherent pathway, from Level 3 and above? And who should shape it?
This was the central tension at a recent roundtable convened by the LEI with the Department for Education (DfE) and skills leads from Mayoral Strategic Authorities (MSAs). Everyone could see the potential of the LLE and Higher Technical Qualifications (HTQs). Yet many of the institutions best placed to connect learning with local jobs have had little reason, until now, to plan for this as part of an integrated through life journey.
MSAs have largely been funded and held accountable for adult skills at Level 3 and below. Higher education finance, qualifications and regulation sit within national systems. Colleges and universities make their own decisions about what they can afford to offer. Employers have immediate workforce needs, while adult learners need courses that fit around work, caring responsibilities and the cost of living. Each part of the system has its own logic. None is responsible for the complete pathway.
The roundtable made clear that this is a problem of capacity as well as design. Several authorities were candid that their awareness and preparation for the LLE are limited. They are also navigating urgent questions about youth unemployment and the future of 14–19 education. Asking them to take on formal powers to approve or license HTQs immediately would add another responsibility before they have the information or resources to use it well.
But it would be equally mistaken to leave higher technical education to develop without them. MSAs know where employers are investing, which residents are missing out, and how transport, childcare and local provision affect participation. West Yorkshire is already developing pathways linked to mass transit and retrofit. The North East has worked with employers and providers on an HTQ action plan. In the West Midlands, work on a med-tech qualification with Pearson showed what can happen when local demand informs national qualification development.
These examples point towards a more useful role for MSAs: helping to shape and connect provision, rather than necessarily approving every qualification. That means bringing employers, colleges, universities and awarding organisations around a shared account of the skills a place needs - and checking whether residents can actually reach the opportunities it identifies.
A credit-based loan is not the same thing as transferable credit. The LLE may enable a learner to finance a module, but that does not guarantee another provider will recognise it later, so that it will count towards a qualification. Nor does a digital badge automatically create a route from Level 3 into higher study. If learners are expected to step in and out of education, colleges and universities will need clearer progression agreements and more consistent ways to recognise prior learning. Otherwise, flexibility in finance could leave learners holding fragments of study that do not fit together.
There is a similar gap between making loans available and making learning accessible. MSAs were quick to point out that for adults on low incomes, borrowing remains a serious decision. In a rural or coastal area, the desired course may not run at all because a provider cannot recruit enough learners to sustain it. Employers may be willing to pay for some training, including through the Growth and Skills Levy, while individuals fund other elements through the LLE. Those combinations could open opportunities for cost sharing, but someone must make the options understandable and workable for employers and learners.
This is where national and local responsibilities need to meet. DfE can provide clear information about the entitlement, usable local data, and quality rules that support collaboration between providers. It can explore how HTQ development responds to local evidence without producing qualifications recognised only in one area. MSAs can use their convening power and growth plans to identify gaps in provision, broker employer involvement and connect devolved adult learning to higher level opportunities. Providers must then make credible commitments about where a learner’s credits can take them.
The test should be what happens to people, rather than how many modules are sold. Can an adult move from Level 3 training into a technician role and continue to progress? Can an employee gain new skills without abandoning work? Can someone take learning completed at one institution to another without starting again? Can residents in places with thinner provider markets access the same opportunities?
Rewiring education and skills will not be achieved by moving every power to an MSA, or by changing the student finance system alone. It requires the national and local parts of the system to make decisions together about provision, progression and support. The LLE supplies a potentially powerful new connection. The work now is to ensure it leads somewhere.
