Fraser Whieldon | FE Week

Learning to love the local when it comes to adult education provision

Are we really keen to see London, Manchester, Birmingham and the West Midlands with no powers over education and skills spending, asks Ewart Keep What are we to make of the apparent outrage at the Greater London Authority spending an extra £40k on a consultant to support an AEB consultation exercise, and at Alison Wolf’s […]

Investment and strategy needed to rescue UK from its low skills doldrums

A decade of cuts in training and adult education has led to millions of demoralised and underskilled working age people in the UK, says Kirstie Donnelly. To boost productivity and social mobility following Brexit, the government must face up to new and complex challenges, she writes. Across the UK, low productivity and growing skills gaps […]

City & Guilds reports 17.8m UK workers have outdated skills

A third of UK workers have not received any workplace training in the last five years, according to a new City & Guilds report which says there is an “urgent need” to review adult education. The Missing Millions report, based on regional labour market data and a poll of 5,000 working age people, has been […]

Ofsted struck fee deal to end legal challenge

Ofsted struck a deal to pay their own legal fees in return for the college for HS2 dropping their judicial review, FE Week can reveal. The watchdog does not yet know the extent of their legal costs but agreed to pay them in return for the National College for Advanced Transport and Infrastructure (NCATI) abandoning […]

Government to tender for college board recruitment and audit service

The Department for Education has announced it will be piloting a college governor recruitment scheme and board performance audits. The £110,000 ‘FE Colleges Governor Recruitment Services Pilot’ will pay for a single supplier to find at least 30 “effective leaders” to act as chairs, deputy chairs, and finance and audit chairs for colleges in “the […]

WorldSkills UK Centre of Excellence project aims to support 1,000 lecturers

The organisation behind the UK’s performance in international skills competitions is launching the WorldSkills UK Centre of Excellence project to train around 1,000 FE lecturers. WorldSkills UK has today announced the three-year project backed with £1.5 million from awarding organisation NCFE. Five training managers – fresh off mentoring WorldSkills UK competitors for various skill challenges […]

Government praise for ‘new and enthusiastic’ staff at council-run grade four provider

An FE Commissioner report published today praised a council’s response to a grade four from Ofsted, after the result “reinvigorated” their resolve to improve adult learning with “new and enthusiastic” staff. North Lincolnshire Council was referred to commissioner intervention after it was rated ‘inadequate’ in almost every area of a full inspection in June last […]

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: EDITION 307

Your weekly guide to who’s new and who’s leaving. Claire Foster, Principal and chief executive, Boston College Start date: Spring 2020 Previous job: Vice principal of curriculum and higher education, Grimsby Institute Interesting fact: She owns and runs a successful café bar, a family business on Lincolnshire’s coast Alex Warner, Principal, South Central Institute of Technology […]

Minister takes the wheel at HS2 college ‘in light of the severity of financial situation’

A National College surviving on government bailouts has been placed in supervised status after the FE Commissioner found it is now facing possible insolvency. The commissioner’s report into the National College for Advanced Transport and Infrastructure (NCATI) has been published this morning, as has a Financial Health Notice to Improve for the college, after it […]