Author: Billy Camden

Rapid mass coronavirus testing has been hailed as a potential “game changer” for keeping campuses open and courses running, as trials get under way in colleges. A pilot that tests all students and staff, as much as once per day, began this week with the help of the army at the City of Liverpool College […]

Six “leading skills and labour market economists” have today been appointed to the Department for Education’s new skills and productivity board. Led by chair Stephen van Rooyen, an executive vice president at international broadcaster Sky, the team will aim to provide independent “expert advice” on how courses and qualifications should align to the skills that […]

Ministers are drawing up plans to extend a controversial cost-cutting advice scheme for schools into the FE sector. According to a job advert posted last month, the Department for Education is recruiting an individual to “scope and design a brand new programme of work” aimed at “strengthening efficiency and value for money in further education”. […]

The government is set to move closer to meeting a manifesto commitment to reform the higher education admissions process. Earlier this week, UCAS put forward two new “radical” options, one of which is a “post-qualification offers” model where all students, including those on technical and vocational routes, would be offered college and university places at […]

Less than half of the schools in the government’s multi-million pound network of careers hubs have met a target for providing “encounters with further and higher education”. A report published today by the Careers and Enterprise Company (CEC) shows that while more schools are meeting the eight Gatsby benchmarks for good careers guidance, progress towards […]

The education select committee has accused Ofqual of “burying its head in the sand” by ignoring repeated warnings in the run-up to this year’s disastrous exams, claiming the regulator instead chose to follow orders from ministers and “hoped for the best”. As well as questioning the independence of the regulator,  committee chair Robert Halfon also […]

Around 20,000 “unfunded” 16 to 18-year-old students are studying in colleges this year following a surge in enrolments due to Covid-19, according to the Association of Colleges. The membership body said that the number – caused by the Education and Skills Funding Agency basing college funding on lagged learner numbers – equates to around £120 […]

Ofsted has today published a summary of what they found during their first “interim visits” of colleges and training providers that are taking place this autumn. A total of 36 providers were visited between September and October – the majority of which (22, or 61 per cent), were previously judged as ‘requires improvement’. While the […]