JL Dutaut

  • Testing times? Inside the reopening of colleges

    An Herculean effort has seen colleges deploy mass Covid testing to support a safe reopening. So how did it go, and what does the future hold? JL Dutaut finds out “I wasn’t coping at home although my teachers really tried with me.” Our dominant image of vulnerable learners amid this pandemic may be of children…

    12.30 Mar. 23rd, 2021 | Feature

  • Profile: Asfa Sohail. Principal, Lewisham College

    JL Dutaut meets a college principal for whom building resilience is a matter of building communities   How are you?  Good leaders ask this question often. The best stick around for the answer. But it’s their lot seldom to be asked the question themselves.  It’s one of the changes Lewisham College principal Asfa Sohail has noticed among her staff and…

    5.00 Mar. 17th, 2021 | Profiles

  • Profile: Rebecca Conroy, CEO, East Sussex College Group

    Challenging CEO stereotypes is one thing, but Rebecca Conroy’s relentless and contagious positivity must have an explanation. JL Dutaut finds out Chief executive. The title conjures up hard-nosed decision-makers in sharp suits. Google the words and still to this day the image results will return very few women. I’m happy to say that my experience…

    12.51 Feb. 16th, 2021 | Profiles

  • Profile: Ian Pryce, chief executive, The Bedford College Group

    JL Dutaut meets a longstanding college leader who thinks we could all benefit from taking the long view How does a leader navigate such times? A phrase keeps coming back to me that encapsulates our sector today: “the fierce urgency of now”. When Martin Luther King, Jr coined it in 1967, it was a call…

    10.05 Feb. 3rd, 2021 | Profiles

  • Profile: Dipa Ganguli, principal, Sutton College Adult Education

    Newly-honoured principal, Dipa Ganguli could teach us all a thing or two about keeping calm and carrying on, finds JL Dutaut If college leaders feel aggrieved at being an afterthought to so many ministers’ education announcements, then look no further than Dipa Gulgati for advice on how to stay calm and carry on. Take the…

    5.00 Jan. 19th, 2021 | Profiles

  • Profile: John Laramy, principal and CEO, Exeter College

    JL Dutaut meets a principal who is ideally placed to talk about building back better Exeter College has become a magnet for the government. Just over a year ago, Gavin Williamson visited to talk about T levels. He was back again in June, this time virtually, and six weeks ago it was the prime minister’s…

    5.00 Nov. 17th, 2020 | Profiles

  • Profile: Lisa O'loughlin

    The Manchester College principal, Lisa O’Loughlin explains her collaborative strategy to provide the city with routes out of deprivation. By JL Dutaut When Manchester mayor, Andy Burnham called this week for schools to be closed to create a “true circuit break”, it is safe to assume that, as with so many other politicians’ educational announcements,…

    12.00 Nov. 10th, 2020 | Profiles

  • Mark Dawe, CEO, The Skills Network

    The new head of the Skills Network reveals the family and personal influences behind his career to JL Dutaut Mark Dawe is a hard man to pin down. Just 18 months ago, the then boss of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) was opening the FE Week apprenticeships conference with critical comments about subcontracting. “Its…

    9.55 Oct. 27th, 2020 | Profiles

  • Access to post-18 opportunities is not a level playing field

    Ministers must come up with a new policy to allow 18- to 24-year-olds on universal credit to access free full-time education, writes Mark Corney During the last great recession – the financial crash of 2008 – many young people shielded themselves from a collapsing jobs market through participating in full-time education. The same is happening…

    8.55 Oct. 18th, 2020 | Opinion

  • Government must rethink reskilling and reboot short courses

    Those of us who have been offering free partial qualifications and short courses for years know how crucial they are, writes Kurt Hintz Not all of Boris Johnson’s “radical” changes to further education are that new. They’re welcome – but let’s get them right. His biggest announcement was that adults over the age of 23…

    5.00 Oct. 17th, 2020 | Opinion

  • Profile: Tina Götschi

    The principal of Ada, the National College for Digital Skills, talks to JL Dutaut about growing up on various educational faultlines and her attempt to close the UK’s digital skills chasm  Culture wars rage on social media. Our political consensus is fraught. Elitism, aspiration and social mobility define our public discourse while time and again…

    5.00 Oct. 13th, 2020 | Profiles