News

Recruitment drive as ESFA cracks down on compliance

The Education and Skills Funding Agency is bolstering its compliance and prevention teams amid high-profile cases of provider failure…

Billy Camden
Billy Camden
News

Milton reflects on her time as skills minister

Anne Milton’s tenure as apprenticeships and skills minister came to an abrupt end on 23 July when she resigned…

Billy Camden
Billy Camden
News

Brooklands future in the balance in £20m apprenticeship subcontracting scandal

A college’s future is in doubt after officials demanded it pays up to £20 million back to the government…

Billy Camden
Billy Camden
News

Meet the FE Commissioner’s new cost-cutting boss

Controversial minister Lord Agnew has been given responsibility for a new college financial warning system, as well as oversight…

Billy Camden
Billy Camden
News

‘Colleges still running out of money’, claims top ESFA official

A top director in the Education and Skills Funding Agency has warned that colleges are “still running out of…

Billy Camden
Billy Camden
News

Providers urge ESFA to U-turn on plans to collect delivered off-the-job training hours

The Association of Employment and Learning Providers is lobbying government to U-turn on its proposal to introduce yet another…

Billy Camden
Billy Camden


News

Lord Agnew to help with FE and skills brief at DfE

Yet another minister in the Department for Education has been given some responsibility for further education. It was announced…

Billy Camden
Billy Camden
News

Welsh college rapped by Ofsted

A Welsh college is to be suspended from recruiting apprentices in England after Ofsted found it making ‘insufficient progress’…

Billy Camden
Billy Camden
News

Commission calls for ‘demoralising’ GCSE English to be replaced

GCSE English in schools should be scrapped and replaced by a new qualification that could be sat at any…

Fraser Whieldon
Fraser Whieldon
News

ESFA suspends another 23 providers from recruiting apprentices

Twenty three more new training providers have received temporary bans on recruiting apprentices following early Ofsted inspections that found…

Fraser Whieldon
Fraser Whieldon
News

College to stay open as usual during ‘mammoth’ 15-day strike

Nottingham College has said it will be open as usual during 15-days of strike action by the University and…

Billy Camden
Billy Camden
News

Banks given £201m to clear college debts during area reviews

Colleges had over £200 million of bank debt paid off by the Treasury during the post-16 area reviews, but…

Billy Camden
Billy Camden

Must read

Skills reform

New law to bar ‘unsuitable’ FE leaders among skills white paper reforms

The government’s post-16 strategy has finally been unveiled

Billy Camden
Billy Camden and Shane Chowen
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