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23 April 2026

Author: FE Week Reporter

Focus on traineeships as clock ticks down to scheme launch

The long-awaited traineeship scheme was in the spotlight at an Association of Colleges conference in Central London last Tuesday. More than 60 delegates from across the country asked questions about and discussed the programme, which will be available from September for 16 to 19-year-olds. Traineeships will prepare young people for work or an apprenticeship through […]

The right ingredients for a job

A catering and hospitality student has proved that he can stand the heat in the kitchen by landing his dream job at one of the UK’s top hotels. Nelson and Colne College student Jonathan Nadin, 19, will join the kitchen at Rudding Park in Harrogate, which was voted best hotel in the UK at the […]

VQ Day – Round-up

  Mark Harper MP, Aaron Freeman, National VQ Learner of the Year, and Skills Minister Matthew Hancock VQ Day celebrations kicked off with a ceremony and reception in the Houses of Parliament to recognise the achievements of vocational learners from across the UK. Lord Kenneth Baker, chair of the Edge Foundation, and Skills Minister Matthew […]

Employability lessons for traineeships

An OCR pilot in Kent is offering a group of 16 to 19-year-olds the same three-pronged approach as the government’s traineeships, writes Mark Dawe About 958,000 (about 20 per cent) of 16 to 24-year-olds in the UK were out of work in the first quarter of 2013. While this is lower than in some EU […]

Cultivating a change in careers provision

Millions of people today work in jobs that didn’t exist when their parents left education. It’s a new world that demands more coherent national and local careers provision, says Deirdre Hughes We are facing a significant economic challenge; there is high unemployment (especially among young people) at the same time as employers struggle to recruit […]

An investment that is well worth making

As a leader of a college judged outstanding by Ofsted, I was recently asked what pressures I faced from the structural changes to education and the harsh economic climate. David Lewis College is one of 60 independent specialist colleges (ISCs) in the UK providing day and residential FE to around 3,000 students with a wide […]

Bridging the skills gap through partnership

Barclays is determined that there should be more apprenticeships and that young people have the skills they need to be successful in work, writes Lynne Atkin. Figures for the early part of 2012 suggest that the number of 16 to 18-year-olds entering apprenticeships is declining compared with the same time last year. These figures highlight […]

From Cinderella to Alice in Wonderland

Establishing and maintaining structural and cultural change in FE is a huge task, a task that needs not only vision but will — and that will is lacking. We have always had the sufficient but not the necessary conditions for success. It is why hours of Institute for Learning professional development were never used to […]