FE Week Reporter | FE Week

Cake baking tribute to ‘wonderful colleague’

A cake baking competition helped raise more than £300 in memory of former head of Barnsley College music department Richard Tolson. It was judged by chair of the EnRich charity Josie Whiteley, Barnsley College assistant principal Dianne Murray and local baker and businessman Dr John Foster MBE. Other fundraising activities included a raffle, tombola and […]

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Digging in to create care home sensory garden

A Walsall College graduate who recently launched his own landscaping business helped create a sensory garden for elderly care home residents. Dan Higgins, aged 24, who finished a level three built environment course in July, started his own company called Re Space Landscapes with a £500 grant from the college’s enterprise hub. He installed a […]

‘Measure job outcomes as success — not just qualifications’ says UKCES

Success in the FE and skills sector should be measured by job outcomes and not just qualifications, the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) has recommended as part of a five-point plan to increase workforce skills. In its report, Growth Through People (pictured right), published today, the UKCES laid out “action priorities” for the next […]

Leps Network chair warns of closure after over-worked chief executive resigns amid lack of resources

The organisation that oversees the work of Local Enterprise Partnerships (Leps) is in crisis following the resignation of its chief executive, prompting a call for more funding. The Lep Network chair Alex Pratt, above, has written to all 39 partnerships to warn the network could close without more government support, and to announce that boss […]

Delay with finding new London Olass provider

The Skills Funding Agency (SFA) quest for a college to take on London’s £17m prison education contract is to continue past its December deadline, FE Week can reveal. Welfare-to-work provider A4e gave three months’ notice to the SFA in August that it was terminating its Offender Learning and Skills Service (Olass) contract for a dozen […]

Neet numbers down on-quarter and on-year

The number of young people not in education, employment or training (Neet) has fallen on-quarter and on-year. Figures for the period from July to September, released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), show that during the period, 954,000 16 to 24-year-olds in the UK were considered to be Neet. The figure represents a 0.1 […]

Cable warns principals of bleak funding future

Money for FE “will be scarce”, no matter who wins the general election, Business Secretary Vince Cable has warned. In a bleak speech which sounded at times like his farewell message to the sector ahead of what is expected to be a punishing election for his party, the senior Liberal Democrat told the Association of […]

Sector welcomes alignment plans for traineeships

Government moves to align traineeship rules for 16 to 18 and 19 to 24-year-olds have been welcomed by the FE and skills sector. Older trainees with level two qualifications will, from January, be able to enrol on the programme — like 16 to 18-year-olds. The change follows the government’s eight-week consultation on traineeships, which had […]