FE Week Reporter | FE Week

Anger over threat to legal status of student governors

UNISON have published a press release stating that “last-minute amendment to the Education Bill could remove the legal right to staff and student governors on further education college governing bodies”. Click here for the full text The press release continues: “The amendment (83A*), which will be debated in the House of Lords today, was placed […]

Education unions join forces to lobby over pension cuts

A petition opposing pension cuts was delivered to the Department for Education (DfE) by all seven education unions this morning. The ‘Decent Pensions’ petition had more than 154,000 signatures from lecturers and head teachers. Sally Hunt, General Secretary of University and College Union (UCU), said: “They’re angry, they’re hurt and they’re also frightened.” Brian Lightman, General Secretary of […]

Short 12 week apprenticeships are off the menu

The government’s Data Service promised to publish apprenticeship recruitment figures for 2010/11 today at 9.30am. They did not disappoint, and in the spirit of all things short, within eight minutes FE Week published their analysis of the figures (click here). Whilst the supplementary tables show the number of 16 year-olds starting apprenticeships rose just 1% from […]

Unionlearn launch dyslexia awareness campaign‏

Unionlearn, the education arm of the TUC, is launching a campaign to help employers understand more about dyslexia. Events and assessments designed to help make workplaces more dyslexia friendly will take place during Dyslexia Awareness Week. An online survey carried out by Unionlearn found that over half of their learning support representatives said workers with a […]

FE Week hits over 100,000 views

Since FE Week launched in early September our website has had over 100,000 page views. On average that means 2,131 visits to our site and article reads per day! So far the FE Week team has delivered extensive coverage of key events, profiled influential figures, delivered exclusives and given expert advice. By reporting from behind […]

Sixth-form funding expected to fall dramatically in next three years

Sixth-form spending is expected to fall by 15.8 per cent in the next three years, according to a report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). The IFS estimates that the Department for Education’s (DfE) Deparmental Expenditure Limit (DEL) for sixth-form funding will drop from £2.4 billion in 2011-12 to £2.2 billion in 2014-15. The […]

Study on bureaucracy expected next month

A study on reducing bureaucracy in further education (FE) is due for release next month. The study, conducted by the National Audit Office (NAO), will examine the efforts of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) to reduce the bureaucracy faced by FE colleges. NAO say reducing bureaucracy is a […]

Skills Minister John Hayes meets Jaguar Land Rover apprentices

John Hayes visited Jaguar and Landrover apprentices as part of the ‘See Inside Manufacturing’ initiative earlier this week. The Minister of State for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning visited Halewood Operations to meet some of the company’s first qualified apprentices. Mr Hayes said: “By inspiring and training the new generation of highly skilled technicians […]

Free meals for hard-hit students at Newham College

Newham College is giving out around 1,500 free meals to students each week in a bid to tackle cuts in government grants. Managers have said that hundreds of learners would be unable to study at the college if they were not given luncheon vouchers. Denise Brown-Sackey, Principal of Newham College, said: “The lunch is making […]