Nick Linford | FE Week

Festive wishes and New Year hopes

What a year it has been for FE and skills. Over the past 12 months we’ve had a General Election and seen the announcement of a 3m apprenticeships starts target by 2020, among plenty of other goings on. But with Christmas being a time to spend with loved ones and to enjoy festivities, some familiar […]

Ros Morpeth, chief executive, National Extension College

Wednesday, December 16, marks four years to the day that Dr Ros Morpeth returned to her post as chief executive of the National Extension College (NEC) to save it from obscurity. The 69-year-old first worked at the Cambridge-based distance learning college in the late 1970s and performed the same saviour task back then. Recognition of […]

ATL survey reveals 85 per cent of FE staff consider quitting their role due to workload

Nearly nine in every 10 FE lecturers and leaders have considered quitting because of their workload, a survey by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) shared exclusively with FE Week has indicated. The ATL is quizzing FE staff in the It’s About Time campaign, launched on November 20, and has found that 85 per […]

Trailblazer process ‘out of control,’ says government adviser Nigel Whitehead

Government adviser Nigel Whitehead warned that the Trailblazer apprenticeship process was “out of control” as he revealed fears national occupational standards (NOS) were in “danger” of being bypassed. The group managing director of programmes and support at BAE, and author of the government-commissioned 2013 Review of Adult Vocational Qualifications in England, said the system had […]

Ofqual clamping down on ‘rogue’ awarding organisations as investigators look at 40 cases of ‘non-compliance’

Ofqual boss Glenys Stacey has warned awarding organisations (AOs) that the qualifications watchdog is clamping down on “rogue” non-compliance — and is currently looking at 40 cases where action could be taken. In a speech at the Ofqual 2015 conference in Birmingham today, the chief regulator told an audience including representatives from 155 of the 160 […]

Skills Minister Nick Boles places college into administered status after eight-year deterioration in finances

Skills Minister Nick Boles has placed Amersham and Wycombe College into administered status after being warned of its “declining turnover and worsening bottom line since 2007/08”. Two advisers from FE Commissioner Dr David Collins’s office visited the 3,500-learner college in September and reported back a series of problems including falling student numbers as well as […]

Government lifts traineeship restriction on providers

Lead providers rated as requiring improvement and even inadequate by Ofsted will be able to deliver traineeships from next academic year, the government has announced. Currently, only outstanding and good providers can deliver the programme, introduced in 2013, although they can subcontract to grade three (‘requires improvement’) and non-inspected providers. But the government today said its grade […]

BIS report hails ‘substantial impact’ of FE on unemployed

A government report has hailed the “substantial impact” of FE in getting unemployed people back into work — and called for greater investment into provision for people looking for a job. The report published by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), was based on the experiences of unemployed people and used individualised learner record data […]

Competition opens for £15m of first new ESF contracts

Invitations to tender for almost £15m of long-awaited European Social Fund (ESF) cash were published today. Details of the first five areas involved in the first round were unveiled by the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) and ESF (and are available here) — more than four months after the previous 2007 to 2013 ESF contracts closed on […]