FE Week Reporter | FE Week

Caution on Baker’s bold education change call

Lord Baker’s new book, 14-18: A New Vision for Education, sets out radical changes to the education system and includes contributions from several sector stakeholders. Maggie Galliers delivers her verdict on the book and evaluates the view laid out by Lord Baker. The central idea in Lord Baker’s new book is that the English education […]

Beatrix Groves, president, Institute for Learning

“I did it all back to front, upside-down and mostly part-time,” says Institute for Learning (IfL) president Beatrix Groves, known to friends as Bea, on how she ended up with a degree and a career in teaching. She came to the profession late, having “absolutely detested” the Catholic single sex secondary school she attended, where […]

Careers guidance is for life, not just for classrooms

The Education Select Committee’s review of careers guidance came to worrying conclusions about the quality of service being offered to young people, but, as committee adviser Dr Tristram Hooley points out, it’s not just schoolchildren who need good advice. Since the election major changes have been made to the careers education and guidance. These were […]

Call for education to ‘split’ at 14

Former education secretary and father of the national curriculum Lord Baker has called for a back-to-basics revamp of England’s education system. The Conservative peer outlined his view that 14-year-olds were given the choice of four pathways at separate institutions in his new book 14 – 18: A New Vision for Secondary Education. These are liberal […]

Redefine apprenticeships, says thinktank

Apprenticeships should be redefined as “intensive three-year training programmes” to help curb the 31 per cent A-levels drop-out rate, new research revealed. The Policy Exchange thinktank released a report with several recommendations and said there needed to be “a clear alternative route offering high quality technical or vocational provision”. It named apprenticeships as a “key […]

Critics hit out at A-level reform plans

FE groups across the sector have condemned education secretary Michael Gove’s proposal to overhaul A-levels. Mr Gove said from 2015 pupils will take exams at the end of two-year courses with AS-levels remaining but as stand-alone exams. A group of leading universities will play a bigger role in maintaining standards. But various teaching associations and […]

Contract suspended after ‘missing data’

A troubled provider’s £4.5m contract with the Skills Funding Agency has been suspended after “errors and missing data” were uncovered in its learner paperwork. Mymar Training Limited, which has indicated plans to close having failed to “secure sufficient funds for the future,” gave the agency incomplete and incorrect funding claims. The agency said the problem […]

Union blasts FE loans

The NUS has branded FE loans a “dangerous policy” and raised a number of questions over the new system ahead of its introduction in August. Its vice president and spokesperson on FE, Toni Pearce, said the new funding system could hit learner numbers. Ahead of an anti-loans day next month in which the NUS is […]

Kerrang radio on hand to launch music facilities

Midland students rocked out with Kerrang Radio to launch their college’s new music facilities. Dudley College teamed up with the national radio station for a live event hosted by presenter Matt Stocks, to promote the state-of-the-art resources at new training centre Evolve. The day included local bands performing in the college’s new theatre and a […]