Jess Staufenberg | FE Week

How can we recruit more talented post-16 and FE teachers?

A new government website and marketing campaign won’t be enough to tackle rising staff vacancies, writes Geraint Jones We’ve seen a lot of justifiable hand-wringing of late about the crisis in teacher recruitment and retention. It comes after the latest government figures showed a worrying 24 per cent fall in applications to initial teacher training […]

How can student engagement with Ukraine go beyond a flag on Facebook?

College leaders are increasingly having to develop thoughtful responses to the Ukraine conflict and other highly politicised issues, writes Stuart Rimmer On a global scale the world looks east to the Ukraine conflict and the humanitarian fallout. But more locally in colleges, the conflict raises questions. How should we react and act? It has always […]

Martin Dunford, chair, Association of Employment and Learning Providers

Martin Dunford, chair and a co-founder of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, is retiring from the role. He reflects on the many policy shifts AELP has achieved over the years “So one day I got this fax through. It was a fax to the ten largest training providers to say, ‘Why don’t we […]

External staff groups helped me change my classroom

Collaboration with staff outside of your own FE provider is very empowering, writes Stacey Salt When I became a teacher I thought you had to be in a position of authority to drive change, and add creativity and innovation to the classroom and staff development. I have been an FE educator for six years. My […]

This is how to draw more HE students into FE

A personalised experience is the way to win over this emerging group of learners, writes Sali Midjek-Conway It’s more important than ever for FE colleges to think outside the traditional two-year post-16 pathway. Higher education is now facing huge changes and challenges to the way it operates. So what do we know about how higher education will […]

One bill was never going to solve our skills challenge

A long-term cultural shift is needed – so after the bill, we need a ten-year plan, writes Stephen Evans The skills bill is nearing the end of its journey through parliament and will soon become law. Where does this leave us? The purpose of the bill is to make legal changes to enact parts of […]

Rationing access to student loans will hit FE colleges harder than universities

Students without minimum grades also have a limited choice of other routes, write Andy Westwood and Ben Verinder Yesterday we got the government’s long-awaited response to the Augar Review, nearly four years after the review was published. Beforehand, ministers had briefed the introduction of proposed “minimum entry requirements” for access to student loans. These would […]

The skills bill could have been so much better

Both Labour and Conservative voices have been ignored by the government, writes Toby Perkins After the government blocked no fewer than 32 amendments to the skills bill, education secretary Nadhim Zahawi said it “will leave this place in a much improved state”. I have to disagree. It was weakened, and the skills bill could have […]

MP support for skills bill amendments is encouraging

Not accepting two amendments is a missed opportunity by the government, but there is cause for hope, writes Peter Aldous Readers will be all too aware of the significance of the Skills & Post-16 Education Bill and the wider skills reform agenda, and the impact it will have on colleges across the country. It’s a […]