News

Counselling pensioner Robert a winning learner

A 79-year-old who counsels people with mental health issues and a 22-year-old who has started a charity to promote…

FE Week Reporter
FE Week Reporter
News

Parties respond to adult learner manifesto recommendations

Leading political figures responded on behalf of their parties to calls from the National Institute of Continuing Education (Niace)…

FE Week Reporter
FE Week Reporter
News

Colleges under fire over Gazelle’s £3.5m

A month-long FE Week investigation into multi-million pound funding of Gazelle by UK colleges has resulted in criticism that…

Nick Linford
Nick Linford
News

Skills Funding Agency job cuts ‘ideological’

A programme of job cuts at the Skills Funding Agency has been attacked as “ideological” by MPs who warned…

Nick Linford
Nick Linford
News

Pay cut fears for apprentices

Fears have emerged that government proposals to streamline “difficult” minimum wage rates for apprentices could lead to lower pay….

Nick Linford
Nick Linford
News

Progression payment for traineeships

The government has launched a long-awaited consultation on moving to a new traineeship funding system in which providers are…

Nick Linford
Nick Linford


News

Full-time learner concerns lead to EFA review on planned hours

Fears that a new planned hours system of funding 16 to 19 study programmes was being misused have prompted…

Nick Linford
Nick Linford
News

Commissioner points at leadership hitting staff morale

FE commissioner Dr David Collins criticised leadership styles at two colleges and said staff morale was being hit, his…

Nick Linford
Nick Linford
News

Ofsted sees ‘insufficient progress’ at inadequate Lesoco and Stockport

Two colleges branded inadequate by Ofsted last year have both emerged badly in the latest of three monitoring visits…

Nick Linford
Nick Linford
News

Copycat claim after Labour lays out youth plans

Labour has been accused by Skills Minister Matthew Hancock of copying Conservative Party policy with proposals to drop JobSeekers…

Nick Linford
Nick Linford
News

Match Clegg’s ‘cradle to college’ pledge, sector demands

Labour and the Conservatives have been urged to match a Liberal Democrat promise to protect education spending “from cradle…

FE Week Reporter
FE Week Reporter
News

BIS publishes summary reports from FE Commissioner visits

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has today published summary reports of FE Commissioner Dr David Collins’s visits…

FE Week Reporter
FE Week Reporter

Must read

Colleges, Long read

Resilient Ricketts: How Brooklands was saved from going broke

The story of a college’s fight for survival after a subcontracting scandal left it on the brink of insolvency

Billy Camden
Billy Camden
Politics

Exit interview: Why Robert Halfon quit ‘the best job in government’

Halfon tells FE Week he ‘did all he could’ after leaving skills minister role

Shane Chowen
Shane Chowen
Apprenticeships

National apprenticeship achievement rate rises to 54%

Slight increase leaves sector way off government target

Billy Camden
Billy Camden and Shane Chowen
Apprenticeships

Apprenticeship growth pilot cash would reach just 15 ITPs

Providers need to start at least 15 apprentices on the chosen standards to be eligible for extra funding

Shane Chowen
Shane Chowen
Apprenticeships

Treasury announces £3k top-up for 13 ‘growth sector’ apprenticeships

Training providers will have to deliver a minimum number of starts to access the cash

Shane Chowen
Shane Chowen
Apprenticeships, Politics

DfE set to surrender £60m apprenticeship cash in 2023-24

Just 2% of total ring-fenced budget expected to be handed back to Treasury

Billy Camden
Billy Camden