Nick Linford | FE Week

Top ten: FE Week most read news in 2017

FE Week is known for investing in high quality investigative news and with three and a half million page views it’s been another record year. The news team has published 811 articles since January and here are the ten most read. ‘Shocked’ staff sent packing as huge apprenticeship training provider goes bust One of the […]

Non-levy tender: let’s have an investigation and recount

Nobody could have predicted that the ESFA would accidently award non-levy apprenticeship funding to a company that went bust months ago. Although the DfE is tight-lipped and presumably red-faced, there must surely be an independent investigation into how this slipped through the due diligence process. Conversely, that some high-quality colleges and training providers will see […]

Colleges’ Ofsted bounce-back should be acknowledged

Three weeks ago we reported that by the end of the last academic year, college performance had dipped to its lowest level, as measured by Ofsted. The proportion of the nation’s 188 colleges graded ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ languished on 69 per cent, over 10 percentage points below other provider types. How quickly things have changed: […]

ESFA ‘postpone’ results of second attempt at non-levy apprenticeship tender due to ‘high volume’ of applications

After extended delays and ultimately an aborted first attempted at a tender for funding apprenticeships with small employers (non-levy), the second attempt by the Education and Skills Funding Agency has been ‘postponed’. This evening the ESFA told providers more time was needed to evaluate a ‘high volume’ of applications and was unable to say when […]

Best of AoC Conference 2017

Best of AoC Conference 2017 supplement | Click here to download Colleges in spotlight like never before The AoC annual conference, coming the week before the budget, was never going to offer anything from the government in the way of new policies or addition funding So we will have to wait until next Wednesday to find […]

Post-16 funding inequality has consequences

Nick Linford considers the extent to which poor college performance can be blamed on government interference and a lack of investment. If Ofsted inspection reports are to be believed, we should be very concerned that the college sector has been going downhill for three years in a row. This week we’ve crunched the figures and […]

London’s biggest college group just got bigger

London’s biggest college group has spread itself even further across the capital with another merger, and it is looking at yet more growth with an institute of technology. The Capital City College Group formed in August 2016 when City and Islington College merged with Westminster Kingsway College, rated grade one and two respectively. It also includes […]

Principal resigns as college made aware of “allegations of mismanagement”

The principal of Bishop Burton College has resigned amid “allegations of mismanagement”. Jeanette Dawson OBE is understood to have informed the college of her decision over the weekend, and staff have now learned of this. The college, rated ‘good’ by Ofsted in January, provided a full statement this afternoon to FE Week, when asked for […]

Employer-ownership isn’t compatible with social justice

We now know that the first three months of the new apprenticeship funding regime went as badly as some were predicting. The Department for Education’s response to FE Week suggested it was unfazed by the 61 percent fall in starts, although requests for an interview with the minister Anne Milton went unanswered. But the DfE […]