Jude Burke | FE Week

Festival of Learning winners 2018 winners announced

The Learning and Work Institute has announced the 35 award winners and highly commended nominees for the 2018 Festival of Learning. The winners and nominees have been selected in a wide variety of categories recognising, among other things, social impact, learning for health, tutors, employers and innovative projects. The awards were handed out at a special ceremony […]

Two Stoke studio schools will shut down

Two studio schools in Stoke-on-Trent will close by next summer amid dire problems with recruiting students. Stoke-on-Trent Studio College for Construction and the Built Environment (CaBE) will close this August, while its sister college for Manufacturing and Design Excellence (MaDE) will close the following year. These are the 25th and 26th of this type of […]

Queen’s birthday honours 2018: Who got what in FE and skills?

The FE and skills sector is well represented in the Queen’s birthday honours list this year, in which Ofsted’s chief operating officer has been made a Companion of the Order of the Bath. Matthew Coffey, who joined Ofsted in 2007 and was appointed COO in 2014, has made a “huge contribution” to the education watchdog, […]

UCU college strike action continues to win concessions

The University and College Union is continuing to win concessions in the current round of college strikes, as it gears up for an autumn of discontent on pay. Bosses at Capital City College Group reached a deal with staff to end a long-running pay dispute, just days after UCU members voted unanimously to escalate action […]

Hull College’s vast debts exposed

An impoverished college which took a £54 million bailout did so after declaring a deficit of close to £13 million in a single year. The revelation emerged from Hull College’s long-delayed 2015/16 accounts, which were finally published this week following pressure from FE Week. There have widespread demands for greater transparency on the college’s dire […]

Only a quarter of prospective T-level pioneers were successful

Only a quarter of the providers which applied to offer T-levels in 2020 were successful, and many of those left off the list are confused about why. Names of the 52 providers that will pilot the prestigious new technical qualifications were announced by the Department for Education late last month. A spokesperson told FE Week […]

Let’s not be so quick to plan a raid on the levy pot

Readers of FE Week will be familiar with the excruciatingly slow start to the apprenticeship levy reforms since last May. According to the Department for Education, employers spent just 10 per cent (£200 million out of £2 billion) of their levy contributions in the first year. Each month that three million starts target slips further […]

Londoners on less than the living wage of £19,890 can access free training next year

Adults in the capital who earn less than the London living wage will have their training fully funded from 2019/20. The commitment was revealed this morning at the launch of the mayor’s new Skills for Londoners plan. It follows an announcement made by Education and Skills Funding Agency last week that low-paid workers across the […]

Baker clause: providers asked for their experiences

Providers are being asked for their experiences of the controversial Baker clause, amid signs that schools are failing in their legal duty to open their doors to the FE sector. The survey, conducted by the AELP at the request of the Department for Education, asks providers about the impact of the legislation, which came into […]