Author: FE Week Reporter

‘Cushioning’ agreement with BIS limits worst of adult skills cuts to 24 per cent The Skills Funding Agency (SFA) has struck an eleventh hour deal to ‘cushion’ funding cuts at 24 per cent for the non-apprenticeship part of the adults skills budget (ASB), as opposed to a maximum of 32 per cent in their initial […]

A North East England college has tumbled from an outstanding Ofsted rating to inadequate, an inspection report published today (March 20) revealed. Darlington College was slapped with a grade four-across-the-board rating following the inspection that took place from February 9 to 13, with inspectors finding that managers and governors had failed to take action as the quality of […]

New “digital apprenticeship vouchers” will be introduced in 2017, the government confirmed today as sector bodies raised concerns about the impact further departmental cuts might have on FE. Documents released to coincide with Chancellor George Osborne’s Budget today revealed a little more detail to the voucher policy, which has essentially brought to an end a two-year […]

An inflation-busting 20 per cent rise in the national minimum wage for apprentices announced today by Prime Minister David Cameron and his deputy, Nick Clegg, has been welcomed by the FE and skills sector. The rate paid to apprentices will rise from £2.73 an hour to £3.30 in October, as the adult national minimum wage […]

The method used by other European states to recognise English apprenticeships relies on the doomed Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF), a senior civil servant has admitted. Angus Gray (pictured), head of the European Social Fund division at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) was giving evidence to the House of Lords EU internal market, […]

Careers advice should be “high up the agenda” in the next parliament, the House of Commons education select committee urged today in a review of its work over the past five years. The committee has published the eighth report of this parliament, which re-caps the work of the committee over the past five years. In […]