Billy Camden | FE Week

Colleges invited to bid for £65m Strategic Development Fund pilot – but must collaborate

A new fund that aims to force college collaboration has opened for bids today. Colleges can now tender to pilot the Strategic Development Fund, which was first mooted in this year’s FE white paper and backed with £65 million. It is part of the government’s newly named “Skills Accelerator” programme, which also incorporates local skills […]

Government consults on replacing ATAs with new ‘flexi-job’ apprenticeship scheme

The government has announced plans to withdraw its register of apprenticeship training agencies (ATAs) and replace it with a new one that is for specific sectors. A “register of approved flexi-job apprenticeship schemes” has been proposed by the Department for Education in a consultation launched today seeking views on how “flexi-job apprenticeships” should run. The […]

£36m bootcamp results delayed

The results of the government’s national skills bootcamp tender have been hit by a “very worrying” delay. Contracts were supposed to start from this month but training providers who bid for a slice of the £36 million up for grabs are yet to be told whether they have been successful. The Department for Education said […]

WorldSkills UK LIVE cancelled again – but national skills competitions return

The country’s biggest skills and careers event has been cancelled for a second year – but national skills competitions are back. WorldSkills UK LIVE, which takes place annually at the NEC in Birmingham, was called off last year owing to the Covid-19 pandemic. The continued uncertainty around large scale events has meant it also cannot […]

Call for new ‘baccalaureate’ to replace A-levels, BTECs, T-Levels and apprenticeships

A three-year ‘baccalaureate’ should be introduced to replace A-levels, BTECs, T-Levels and apprenticeships, a think tank has said. A new report from EDSK, released today, claims the dominance of A-levels has had a detrimental impact on the prestige of other options, while limiting the breadth of curriculum. It is the second instalment in a two-part […]

Colleges take adult education clawback battle to Downing Street

Colleges have called on the prime minister to intervene in the government’s “devastating” adult education clawback plans that risk courses being scrapped and redundancies. In a letter today, Association of Colleges chief executive David Hughes tells Boris Johnson that his “ambitious” lifelong learning agenda will be damaged by the Department for Education’s and Treasury’s “dysfunctional” […]

Prison education: Three days of strikes announced

Education staff at 49 prisons across England will go on three days of strike action in the coming weeks over Covid-19 health and safety concerns. University and College Union members will stage a one-day walkout on 26 April, followed by a two-day strike on 11 and 12 May. The union has warned that further industrial […]

‘Staggering’ number of college students ‘between one and four months behind’, AoC survey warns

A “staggering” three quarters of 16 to 18-year-old college students are performing below normal expectations and are between one and four months behind, research suggests. The Association of Colleges has also found that a similar number of adults (69 per cent) are below where they would normally be at this point in the academic year. […]

Colleges will need to do their own funding audits – ESFA rules

The government body responsible for funding assurance appears to have lost confidence in itself. The Education and Skills Funding Agency is requiring all external auditors to conduct a funding audit this year, before signing off on the annual college financial statements. News of the significant change came buried in the Post-16 Audit Code of Practice […]