Nick Linford | FE Week

FE minister writes to colleges about COVID-19 response

This evening the apprenticeships and skills minister, Gillian Keegan, wrote to all FE and sixth form colleges in England. Read the letter in full below, or download it from here. Dear Colleagues, I wanted to take the time to write to you and thank you for all of your hard work and continued commitment during […]

Cashing in on MBA apprentices: CMI income rockets as CEO pockets £66,500 bonus

It is boom time at the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), a charity with a turnover last year of £15 million, where thanks to the invention of the apprenticeship standard is set to see income more than double this year and its chief executive has received a £66,500 bonus. CMI is approved to end-point assess seven […]

My notes ahead of select committee session on the apprenticeship levy

The education select committee held their first session yesterday with what it called a “discussion around the complexity of the levy, its impact on smaller businesses (non-levy payers) and the use of the levy to fund higher level apprenticeships”. You can watch the session here. As one of the witnesses, I prepared some analysis and […]

Revealed: DfE finds small employers now account for just 27% of apprenticeship starts

The Department for Education has this morning published “analysis looking at the impact of the introduction of the apprenticeship levy on employers engaging with apprenticeships”. The analysts found: “Apprenticeship starts have become more concentrated in large employers, since the introduction of the levy. “Apprenticeship starts were most likely to occur in large employers (those with […]

Profile: Gillian Keegan

Apprenticeships and skills minister and Chichester MP Gillian Keegan could be a win-win for the Conservative Party. She hails from the country’s ‘most Labour seat’, was a 16-year-old shop floor apprentice, and has a masters-level business intellect. Gillian Keegan, the new apprenticeships and skills minister minister, strikes you as the sort of MP that […]

MBA apprenticeship faces cull as Williamson ‘unconvinced’

The education secretary has demanded a review into the controversial MBA apprenticeship “to safeguard the integrity of the apprenticeship brand and value for money of the levy.” The letter, sent today from Gavin Williamson to the new boss at the Institute for Apprenticeships, Jennifer Coupland, sets 1 June as a deadline for determining whether the […]

New Boris adviser would ‘take a flamethrower’ to adult education policy

Professor Alison Wolf is now working three days a week advising Number 10 on FE policy ahead of the Budget next month. In October she critised “target-led policy”, called for the introduction of adult education “lifetime allowances” and said the Department for Education should step aside because “you have to put far more of the […]

Apprenticeship starts nosedive 18 percent in November

The number of apprenticeship starts in England crashed by nearly 20 percent in November, according to government figures published this morning. Starts fell just four percent between August and October, but provisional figures for November when compared to the same publication last January reveal a fall of 5,200 (18 percent) in a single month. The […]

Johnson government a thumbs up for FE investment but sad to lose Marsden and Milton

The huge 80 seat majority and return of the Conservative Party to government now puts the spotlight on Boris Johnson’s FE and skills manifesto pledges. Significant sums of additional funding for the sector will, we are promised, form part of the government’s next budget. From 2021 there will be, the manifesto says, a National Skills […]