Author: FE Week Reporter

new governors’ chair has been appointed at the Association of Colleges after John Bingham stepped down following six years at the helm. The Yorkshire-born telecommunications and IT specialist has been replaced by Carole Stott, chair of governors at London’s City Lit. Association chief executive Martin Doel said: “A great deal has been achieved in the […]

Providers and employers could be set to lose funding for qualifications in a clampdown on awarding organisations that don’t register to an official learner record service. The Skills Funding Agency wants all Ofqual-recognised awarding organisations to sign the Personal Learning Record (PLR) Awarding Organisation Agreement. It told them all in September last year they had […]

FE providers will no longer be penalised for learners on benefits leaving a course because they have obtained a job. The Department of Business, Innovation and Skills, (BIS) announced that when working out Qualification Success Rate calculations, they would no longer include those who leave their learning early to enter employment, therefore not achieving a […]

Newcastle College has been branded “Scrooge” after refusing staff a nationally recommended 0.7 per cent pay rise. The University and College Union (UCU) likened the college to the tight-fisted Charles Dickens’ character and called it “mean-spirited” for telling staff they would not get the salary boost — suggested by the Association of Colleges (AoC) for […]

A principal has taken a Yorkshire college from an “inadequate” to a “good” Ofsted grading after downsizing staff and laying out “clear objectives”. Peter McCann transformed the reputation of Kirklees College over 18 months and when the quality watchdog recently re-inspected they found all eight areas of the curriculum to be “good”. Under his leadership […]

The deadline for Individual Learner Records (ILR) returns could be brought forward by three weeks in 2013 to the third week of October, the Information Authority (IA) has announced. The authority board met after a consultation that considered the merits of bringing forward the final 2012/13 ILR deadline by seven weeks, to September 27. ILR […]

As many as 162 people face losing their jobs after the government’s confirmation that the Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS) will no longer receive funding. LSIS announced it had “no alternative” but to begin a managed exit from its delivery of improvement services for FE and the skills sector. Chief executive Rob Wye told […]