FE Week Reporter | FE Week

Stop, start, sideways; that’s how adults learn

The jobs market of the future will be unrecognisable to most of today’s workers — education needs to grasp that to do best by its learners, says David Hughes, chief executive at NIACE. I’ve just returned from a fascinating week in Australia where I took part in a major conference on the future of work. […]

We face challenges, but it’s not all gloom

Speakers at the Association of Employment and Learning Providers’ (AELP) autumn conference in Leeds addressed a number of issues, including rising apprenticeship numbers and FE loans. Association chief executive Graham Hoyle explains. The autumn conference of AELP traditionally addresses the immediate challenges facing training organisations in the employment and skills sectors and the event in […]

Elmfield Training dishes out cash to Morrisons

The provider behind the UK’s biggest apprenticeship programme has defended handing over taxpayers’ cash to the firm whose staff it trains. Elmfield Training, which was allocated £41m by the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) for the current academic year, said it was “only right to share costs” of its programme with Morrisons. The payments — understood […]

Dozens of providers exempt from rule

Forty providers are exempt from funding rules that ban introductory apprenticeships where more than 10 per cent of learners are out of work, FE Week can reveal. The 40 were over the limit before its introduction this year and so were told to carry on — although they have been ordered to try to hit […]

Job losses as Skillsfinder UK Training goes in to administration

A national training provider with nearly £2.5m of contracts last year has gone into administration with the loss of 40 jobs. The move has affected the education of 450 learners handled by Birmingham-based Skillsfinder UK Training. The firm, set up last year, had contracts with lead providers Total People and Remit. It also dealt with […]

Review of FE teacher qualifications launched

Further education leaders have told of their concerns about new proposals for industry teacher training. A review of teacher qualifications for the FE and skills sector by the Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS) includes 19 proposals aimed at creating a simpler system. It is due in place in September next year. Among the proposals […]

Our future depends on how we teach FE learners

New FE proposals on teacher training have been formulated by the Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS) and are up for consultation. Toni Fazaeli, chief executive at the Institute for Learning (IFL), looks at what a newly-qualified teacher or trainer needs to know. We welcome the LSIS consultation on qualifications for new teachers and trainers. […]

Sharp criticism of ‘limited flexibility’ in the Innovation Code

Government measures to help colleges respond to local employment and skills needs have lost the “spirit” of the report that called for their introduction, it has been claimed. The Innovation Code, available for use from April this year, was a key element of recommendations that emerged from the Colleges in their Communities Inquiry last year. […]

SFA U-turn on performance tables

Nearly three months after the Skills Funding Agency was challenged over “mysterious” changes to college performance tables, it has told FE Week they will be reversed. In July, the Association of Colleges (AoC) alerted its members that “high grades” would no longer include a C at GCSE on the success rate data managed by the […]