Author: Billy Camden

Learndirect has entered redundancy talks with an unknown amount of its staff. A consultation on job losses was launched on Thursday, and is directly linked to the termination of its ESFA contracts which will end in July. “We have entered a period of consultation with a number of colleagues,” a spokesperson for the nation’s biggest […]

Colleges have been warned that they could be stripped of funding if they do not comply with the government’s new careers guidelines. Updated guidance was published this afternoon by the Department for Education following the unveiling of the long-overdue careers strategy in December, which said colleges need to meet eight “Gatsby Benchmarks”. It states that […]

The Northern Powerhouse Partnership has today published a major report on how the region can close the education and skills attainment gap with the south. Chaired by former chancellor George Osborne, the organisation has a number of recommendations for improving FE. FE Week has pulled out the eight main findings. 1. “Bureaucracy” is to blame […]

Any former Carillion apprentice who is yet to find alternative employment following the collapse of the outsourcing giant will be paid after January, despite reports claiming this was not the case, the government has confirmed. A story by the Huffington Post on Monday claimed that the apprenticeships and skills minister Anne Milton had said payments […]

Colleges must all have access to funding for apprenticeships with smaller employers, according to the latest MP to weigh in on the non-levy tender debate. Jeremy Lefroy, the Conservative MP for Stafford, is the latest prominent voice to raise the issue in parliament after Newcastle and Stafford Colleges Group, which is in his constituency, was […]

The AoC wants colleges to be excluded from the government’s published progress data claiming it is based on school models and unfairly represents the delivery of FE. It has written to Damian Hinds asking him to intervene. On Thursday, the new Progress 8 results showed that the 17 colleges which offered direct entry last year […]

Apprentices left jobless following the collapse of outsourcing giant Carillion will not be paid after January, it has been claimed. Around 1,400 trainee bricklayers and carpenters have been left with uncertain futures ever since the UK’s largest employer of construction apprentices entered liquidation two weeks ago. They were being taught at the company’s skills division, […]

More than half of the 17,000 apprentices due to complete their course with Learndirect last year failed, as its achievement rate slumped a further 8.6 percentage points, FE Week can reveal. These latest figures now mean that nearly 25,000 learners have failed to successfully complete their apprenticeship at the nation’s biggest FE provider over the […]

Luton Sixth Form College has become the latest FE provider to lose its prized grade one status. It follows last week’s Ofsted Watch in which three other providers all fell from ‘outstanding’. Inspectors said that progress mentors at grade two-overall rated Luton, which teaches over 2,500 learners, do not have the “information that they require” […]