FE Week Reporter | FE Week

Landmark decision on under-16s

Colleges will be able to directly recruit full-time 14 to 16-year-olds for the first time from the start of the next academic year. Earlier this month, FE Week exclusively revealed that the Skills Minister Matthew Hancock had written to two members of the 14 to 16 College Implementation Group, confirming that from September colleges could […]

Success rate report errors continue

The government’s Data Service has today, Thursday 13 December, published inaccurate Qualification Success Rate (QSR) reports for the second year running. Providers use the reports to support the interpretation of their success rate results. Several colleges were quick to spot problems after the reports were made available for providers to download this morning, forcing the […]

LEPs get go-ahead to grant charter status

The government has given Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) “sign-off” on granting colleges and training providers chartered status. Skills Minister Matthew Hancock told FE Week that LEP approval was needed for providers to be given the stamp of quality. His decision has been criticised by the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), which said it […]

LSIS funding to cease as chair plans legacy strategy

The government has confirmed the Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS) will stop receiving funding from August 2013. The news led LSIS to announce it had “no alternative but to begin a managed exit from its delivery of improvement services for the further education and skills sector”. Dame Ruth Silver, former principal of Lewisham College and […]

One in four adults ‘struggles’ with maths

One in four adults has the maths skills of a nine-year-old or worse and struggles with the most basic everyday sums, new research suggests. The government last week released a 425-page report based on a Skills for Life survey that tested the maths and literacy abilities of 16 to 65-year-olds across England. It shows that […]

Exclusive: Colleges given green light to recruit full-time 14 and 15 year olds

FE Week can exclusively reveal that the Minister for Skills (above) has written to two members of the 14-16 College Implementation Group, confirming that “from next September we will now make full time 14-16 enrolment available as a new avenue” for FE and sixth form colleges. Matthew Hancock made this landmark decision in his letter dated 6 […]

Neil Bates, CEO, Prospects Learning Foundation

When he was 24 Neil Bates was married and wanting to start a family. He saw decades of job security ahead of him at the civil service where he’d been for two years securing providers to retrain the unemployed. But there was something missing: the chance to make a real difference. So, spotting a job running a […]

AELP members respond to Richard Review with ‘anger’

The Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) today responded to the Richard Review of Apprenticeships. See their response in full below: The Richard review of apprenticeships has now hit the streets and unlike most reviews asserts that it has to be accepted on an all or nothing basis. That condition alone makes it impossible […]

Learner voices at heart of 157 Group publication

The 157 Group has published ‘a collection of ten learner voices’, compiled in collaboration with the National Association of Specialist Colleges (Natspec), on the experiences of students with learning difficulties and disabilities in further education. Click here to download. Chief executive of Natspec, Alison Boulton, and executive director of 157 Group, Lynne Sedgmore, write in […]