AAC2022, Apprenticeships

DfE ‘will not be satisfied’ with upcoming apprenticeship achievement rates, top civil servant warns

Peter Mucklow has hinted there will be a big drop in national achievement rates this year

Billy Camden
Billy Camden
AAC2022, Apprenticeships

‘We need you’: Highlights from the skills minister’s opening speech at AAC 2022

Alex Burghart commits to increasing starts for young people and reducing burden for SMEs

Billy Camden
Billy Camden
Sponsored post

Introducing SQA Advanced Qualifications

SQA’s Advanced Qualifications are internationally recognised higher education qualifications at certificate and diploma level (levels 4 and 5).

SQA
SQA
Apprenticeships

Employer groups call on Sunak to reform levy funds in his spring statement

Many levy-paying businesses have found it challenging to use for their training needs

Will Nott
Will Nott
Colleges

Activate Learning and Lincoln College Group drop merger plans

‘I think what we felt with where we are at the moment, given those [previous] mergers, our group services…

Will Nott
Will Nott
Colleges

Conflicting principal views on Eton’s elite sixth form plans

The colleges will be designed to give disadvantaged young people who “have done well in their GCSEs the opportunity…

Will Nott
Will Nott


Adult education, Devolution

Tactical subcontracting deal abandoned in mayoral combined authority

Funding rules state ‘you must not subcontract to meet short-term funding objectives’

Billy Camden
Billy Camden
Ofsted

Ofsted downgrades new provider after ESFA apprentice pay tip-off

Frustration over blurred ESFA and Ofsted roles

Billy Camden
Billy Camden
Apprenticeships, EDI

DfE’s ‘bizarre’ BAME apprenticeships strategy

Plans to strengthen ethnic minority representation in campaign imagery and make use of ‘influencers’

Billy Camden
Billy Camden
Colleges, EDI

New national leaders announced but diversity concerns remain

The FE commissioner has previously said that the lack of BAME national leaders reflects the small number of of…

Shane Chowen
Shane Chowen
Ofsted

New apprenticeship provider jumps from ‘insufficient’ to Ofsted ‘outstanding’

“Going from the verge of the business going bust to an ‘outstanding’ is an incredible feat”

Will Nott
Will Nott
Skills reform

ESFA to seek bids for national strategic development fund rollout

Other providers can be part of local projects, but bids can only be led by colleges

Shane Chowen
Shane Chowen

Must read

Qualifications

Revealed: V Levels incoming as axe looms for BTECs

New qualifications set to launch as ‘third route’ between A-levels and T Levels

Shane Chowen
Shane Chowen
Politics, Skills reform

DWP will take over apprenticeships, minister confirms

Shifting adult skills and apprenticeships policy will give “bigger emphasis on skills”, Jacqui Smith claims

Anviksha Patel
Anviksha Patel
Colleges, Long read

Colleges on the frontline of a divided nation

As social media algorithms fuel intolerance and binary thinking, college staff increasingly find themselves dealing with the fallout. Jessica…

Jessica Hill
Jessica Hill
Colleges, Long read

Alun Francis, chair of the Social Mobility Commission

Deprived areas need vision – not victimhood – to level up, and Social Mobility Commission chair Alun Francis is…

Jessica Hill
Jessica Hill
Long read, Prison education

The prison that’s offering hope for a new life upon release

‘We’re saving people’s lives as well as turning them around’

Jessica Hill
Jessica Hill
Apprenticeships, Politics

Phillipson to exempt young people from level 7 apprenticeships funding axe

Education secretary makes ‘important concession’ amid backlash from other government departments

Billy Camden
Billy Camden