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11 May 2026

Author: Billy Camden

ESFA waters down apprenticeship oversight for new providers

The Education and Skills Funding Agency has softened its policy on allowing paused providers to start recruiting again. Since October 2018, Ofsted has conducted early monitoring visits of new training firms and any that are found making ‘insufficient progress’ are suspended from taking on new apprentices in line with ESFA rules. Providers have been unable […]

Treasury’s £111m traineeship boost is a giant leap forward

The proposed tripling of traineeship starts with a £111 million boost is perhaps the brightest piece of news for skills since the pandemic began, writes mark Dawe We may be kickstarting traineeships from a modest base, but a multiple of ten being applied to the budget for the adult cohort (18-24) is definitely a giant […]

Government urged to let adults return to class before September

FE sector membership bodies have joined forces to urge the education secretary to let adults return to training before September. In a letter to Gavin Williamson today, the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, Association of Colleges and HOLEX say that adult education providers cannot see why their training offer is seen to be less […]

SPONSORED: Key workers and award winners highlight the power of BTEC

On 25th June, we celebrated the outstanding achievements of learners, teachers, schools, colleges, training providers and employers in the UK and internationally at our tenth annual BTEC awards ceremony. Celebrating this year’s winners was especially poignant given the challenges presented by coronavirus with schools and colleges being shut, learning continuing at home and changes to […]

Ofsted to resume visits in September with published reports but no grades

Ofsted will start visiting colleges and training providers again from September – with letters about what the inspectors found to be published but with no grades. The watchdog will also carry out an additional monitoring visit to new providers that have an existing ‘insufficient progress’ rating, which will also result in a “brief” report but […]

Provider shuts its doors to hundreds of young engineering apprentices

A training provider has laid off all 30 staff and shut its door to hundreds of young engineering apprentices, FE Week can reveal. West Yorkshire-based Kirkdale Industrial Training Services Limited (KITS), an Ofsted grade 2 registered charity that is more than 50 years old, informed their staff and the government of the decision to close […]

DfE to pay employers £750 for every T-level industry placement

Employers will be offered cash incentives of up to £750 per student on a T-level industry placement from September, the government announced today as part of a “new package of support”. The funding, which will be paid to individual providers to then pass on to businesses, is planned to run just for the 2020/21 academic […]

Greater London Authority admin for adult education rises to nearly £5m

The cost of managing and administering the adult education budget for the Greater London Authority has shot up to almost £5 million – including £300,000 for a new learner survey. Mayor of London Sadiq Khan was criticised by college principals last year after he took control of the £311 million AEB for the capital but […]