An integrated tertiary education system aims to align skills with local labour market needs. But it’s important that this isn’t at the expense of inclusive, flexible pathways, say James Robson and Paul Ashwin.
The direction of travel set out in the new Post-16 Education and Skills white paper is clear: England is moving towards a more integrated, place-based tertiary education system. This is both a significant shift in underpinning policy architecture and a moment of real opportunity to reshape how education and training serves learners, communities and regional economies.
At its core, the policy trajectory emphasises a deliberate move away from fragmented, market-based provision towards a co-ordinated, locally responsive system. This means stronger collaboration between further education (FE) colleges, higher education (HE) institutions, independent training providers and employers, all operating within a shared understanding of place.
The intention is to align skills provision more closely with local labour market needs while also responding to the wider social and economic context of communities. It ambitiously seeks to rethink relationships between institutions and move from competition towards collaboration.
However, we want to highlight three significant challenges that leaders face.
First, while the rhetoric of collaboration between FE and HE is strong, long-standing power dynamics between sectors, combined with residual marketisation and intensifying financial pressures, risk undermining equal partnership.
Universities may seek to expand further into vocational and technical space, using collaboration as a vehicle for institutional colonisation. Without clearly defined and mutually respectful institutional relationships, there is a danger that collaboration becomes extractive rather than genuinely co-productive. FE leaders will need to advocate for governance arrangements and partnership models that ensure parity of esteem, protect institutional strengths and foreground the needs of learners.
Second, the white paper’s ambitions for an integrated system are comparatively underdeveloped in relation to equity, social justice and access. While the language of ‘opportunity’ is present, it is often secondary to a dominant emphasis on economic growth. This creates a tension at the heart of the reforms.
On the one hand, there is a drive to co-ordinate provision in ways that support regional economic priorities; on the other, there is a need to ensure that all learners have access to inclusive, flexible pathways that reflect their aspirations, not just labour market demand.
Addressing this tension requires a genuinely systemic approach to lifelong learning, with FE at its centre. Leaders will need to ensure that equity, understood through the lens of meaningful lifelong access to learning, is not an afterthought, but a core design principle of emerging local systems.
Finally, there is a broader question about purpose. The current policy direction is clearly driven by a skills-led growth agenda. One difficulty is that it potentially reduces a complex and diverse tertiary system to a single economic function rather than explicitly working with multiplicity and ensuring economic and social, civic and personal purposes. Another is that the language of skills tends to portray education as a straightforward, risk-free process rather than reflecting how difficult and risky education can be for learners.
There is a clear challenge for leaders to hold on to the diverse purposes of education and their commitment to give all learners access to an education that can transform their lives. This means ensuring that educational considerations and questions are not subordinated entirely to economic imperatives. It also means creating space within local systems for provision that supports wellbeing, community engagement and personal development.
FE leaders have a critical role to play in shaping what tertiary integration looks like in practice. There is a clear need to engage actively with partners, advocating for equitable and balanced approaches, keeping the needs of learners and communities at the forefront, and drawing on and adapting examples of effective practices from around the country.
This article was originally published in the Summer 2026 inTuition leadership supplement. Find out more about inTuition, the sector journal for further education and skills.
Authors
James Robson is director of Oxford University Centre on Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance (SKOPE).
Paul Ashwin is professor of higher education in the Department of Educational Research at Lancaster University.
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