Nick Linford | FE Week

Sir Geoff Hall quits as foundation chief – Peter Davies to ‘pick up the baton’

Sir Geoff Hall has quit as interim chief executive of the Education and Training Foundation after just three months in post, FE Week can exclusively reveal. The foundation, the FE sector’s new self-improvement body, told FE Week that the former principal and chief executive of New College Nottingham and chair of the Information Authority, who […]

Serving the apprenticeship time

It’s just over a year since the minimum duration rule was applied, meaning most apprenticeships would have to last at least a year. Phil Hatton looks at whether the rule offers the quality assurance it was hoped for. I was one of the two authors of the first NVQ back in 1987, which really changed […]

Apprenticeship guidance plea despite growing application numbers

Guidance on apprenticeships needs a “no-holds-barred” review, NUS president Toni Pearce has claimed despite official figures indicating application numbers rocketed more than 30 per cent last year. She spoke out with statistics from the National Apprenticeship Service (NAS) showing that 1.4 million applications were made online last year — an increase of 32 per cent […]

Answering the apprenticeship funding question

With the government looking at a “radical” overhaul of the way apprenticeships are funded, Neil Carberry looks at the key considerations for any such changes. Apprenticeships are a remarkable link between our economy’s pre-industrial past and its globalised future. In the Middle Ages they were a contract between master craftsmen and workers. Apprentices learned the […]

Firms behind every other English college’s internal audit to become one

Two firms who between them carried out internal audits for nearly 50 per cent of England’s colleges in 2011/12 are to become one. Debt-laden accountants RSM Tenon, whose sector clients included Harrow College and Middlesbrough College, has been acquired by Baker Tilly. It was rescued in a ‘pre-pack’ deal, overseen by administrators Deloitte. It is […]

Why not vocational education straight after GCSEs?

The annual schoolgates spectacle that is GCSE results day usually brings with it much media interview talk of A-level plans and uni hopes, but Andy Gannon picked up on a rare, but welcome namedrop for vocational education this year. Those of us who work in FE know the value of vocational pathways through education. We […]

Department for Education warned about FoI response times despite ‘improvements’

The Department for Education (DfE) has been warned about its response times to Freedom of Information requests after it was monitored by the Information Commissioner’s Office. The commissioner’s office kept an eye on the DfE for three months from January and it was subsequently sent a letter about the number of outstanding responses that had […]

An argument to qualify

As the government does away with the legal requirement for defined teaching qualifications in FE, Noel Johnson discusses the problems that could arise as a result. After working so hard over the past 20 years to achieve recognised, legislated professionalism within the post-16 sector, it is disappointing (and worrying) to see government moving away from […]

Young people’s jobless figures draw union criticism for government

A tiny fall in the number of young people not in education, employment or training (Neets) has failed to impress union leaders despite leaving Skills Minister Matthew Hancock “heartened”. Labour Force Survey research shows the proportion of England’s 16 to 24-year-olds who were Neet between April and June was down on the same period last […]