FE teacher training probe widened after ‘café placements’ scandal

A review has been escalated into an FE teacher training course after a string of damning investigations found certificates were withheld from paying students who were also put on implausible placements at restaurants.

The Office for Students (OfS) today announced it will examine the outcomes and associated amount of student loan tuition fee funding paid to higher education institutions delivering the level 5 diploma in education and training (DET).

The regulator’s probe will span the final three academic years the course was delivered: 2021-22, 2022-23 and 2023-24.

In 2024, the Department for Education replaced the course with the diploma in teaching (further education and skills) to “better align teacher training with contemporary educational needs and standards”.

The DfE and OfS have been cracking down on initial teacher training in the FE sector in recent years after finding “persistent” poor-quality provision.

This appears to be the first ever review of outcomes and payments for an individual HE course by the OfS.

Teaching placements in clothes shops

The sector-wide DET review follows alarming findings at the Applied Business Academy (ABA), which taught the course to around 2,000 students at campuses in Luton and Canary Wharf.

A key required element of the course was 100 hours on a teaching placement.

Investigators found only 6 per cent of placements for ABA’s students “appeared capable of satisfying the requirements” of the course, with trainees logging placement hours in non-educational settings including cafés, clothes shops, freight firms and building companies.

ABA went into liquidation in October 2024 while being probed by the OfS, avoiding potential “significant penalties”. None of the provider’s DET students received certification at the time of closure.

Concerns deepened following a separate OfS investigation into London-based Brit College, which enrolled a total of 1,174 students on the DET across five cohorts between September 2022 and September 2023, receiving over £5 million in tuition fees over that period.

None of those students have been awarded the qualification, an OfS report published in November 2025 revealed.

Investigators found similar placement issues to ABA at the Brit College, with trainees listed with “inactive” organisations and other firms with no clear link to education, like small local restaurants.

During the investigation, Brit College stopped offering student loan-funded higher education and left the OfS register of providers. It went insolvent in February this year.

Show me the money

It is not clear how many affected students at both ABA and Brit College, now saddled with student loan debt, have been able to complete their courses at alternative providers.

The DET course at both institutions was awarded by City & Guilds.

Based on the findings of the ABA and Brit College regulatory reports, the OfS said it is “now launching a review into outcomes for students and the associated amount of student loan tuition fee monies paid to institutions delivering the DET course”.

A spokesperson said: “The report is expected to include the amount of Student Loans Company tuition fee funding paid to institutions for the delivery of this course, the number of students registered to study this course at individual institutions and subsequently formally enrolled with relevant awarding organisations, completion rates, and the final number of certificates awarded at each institution.”

Without providing specific figures, the OfS told FE Week that providers in scope of the investigation have been chosen based on numbers of students enrolled on the course during the three years. Providers with a “small number” of students on the DET course have been excluded from the review.

Awarding bodies will not be in scope of the review as they are regulated by Ofqual.

The OfS has not yet set out a timeline for the review’s conclusions.