News

Short shrift for new-look Ofsted reports

Joy Mercer, AoC                    Jan Webber, ASCL Reports of inspections under…

FE Week Reporter
FE Week Reporter
News

Urgent reform to apprenticeships needed, says BIS Committee

An 11-month government inquiry into apprenticeships has recommended a host of changes, including “closer scrutiny, careful monitoring or even…

FE Week Reporter
FE Week Reporter
News

Skills Funding Agency ‘assured’ over Elmfield Training payments to Morrisons

A system of payments from the provider behind the UK’s biggest apprenticeship programme to the firm whose staff it…

FE Week Reporter
FE Week Reporter
News

Cash boost on out-of-favour qualifications

Funding for a host of politically unpopular workplace qualifications is set to rise, with payments for one course rocketing…

FE Week Reporter
FE Week Reporter
News

Provider challenges new-look inspection

One of the first Ofsted inspections under the new common inspection framework is to be disputed. Merseyside-based Central Training,…

FE Week Reporter
FE Week Reporter
News

Heseltine questions funding agency’s future

A wide-ranging report from the Tory grandee Lord Heseltine (right) questions the role of the Skills Funding Agency, instead…

FE Week Reporter
FE Week Reporter


News

New courses bypass the regulator

The government has allowed new adult English and maths qualifications to be funded without the usual approval of an…

FE Week Reporter
FE Week Reporter
News

Apprenticeship highs and lows

Apprentice numbers in engineering and construction have plummeted while management apprenticeships have rocketed 45 per cent. Engineering, based on…

FE Week Reporter
FE Week Reporter
News

New report critical of government’s education divide

The government’s departmental split over education responsibility has been branded “damaging and artificial” in a new report from the…

FE Week Reporter
FE Week Reporter
News

Lead provider that had £3.3m of Skills Funding Agency cash ‘ceases trading’

An Essex-based lead provider that was allocated nearly £2m of Skills Funding Agency cash last academic year has ceased…

FE Week Reporter
FE Week Reporter
News

Subcontracting probe uncovers ‘poor value for money’ management fees

An Ofsted probe into subcontracting has uncovered lead contractors charging management fees “as a way of generating income for…

FE Week Reporter
FE Week Reporter
News

FE Guild go ahead for Association of Colleges

The Association of Colleges (AoC) has won government approval to “take forward” its proposals for an FE Guild. The…

FE Week Reporter
FE Week Reporter

Must read

News

Case dismissed: Marples loses High Court claim against DfE

A judge has dismissed a multi-million-pound claim brought by former training boss Peter Marples and his family against the…

Shane Chowen
Shane Chowen
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