Paul Offord | FE Week

Gove admits the UTCs experiment has failed

The key ministerial architect of the government’s fast-unravelling policy on university technical colleges has admitted the experiment has failed. Michael Gove, who launched UTCs in his former role as education secretary from May 2010 to July 2014, acknowledged in an article for The Times that “the evidence has accumulated and the verdict is clear” on […]

Grimsby Institute wins top AoC Beacon award

The overall Leading Light winner from the prestigious national Association of Colleges (AoC) Beacon Awards has gone to the Grimsby Institute. It was chosen by Baroness Sharp of Guildford, President of the AoC Charitable Trust from the 12 AoC Beacon Award 2016/17 winning colleges. Grimsby Institute had initially won the Beacon Award for Widening Participation in […]

Leave ESOL to the experts

We are morally compelled as a nation to do our absolute best to help immigrants who struggle with speaking English, to integrate smoothly into our rich melting pot of a society. It’s such an important policy area, in terms of helping secure jobs and preventing significant numbers of people from feeling isolated. That’s why I […]

Ofsted denies going soft on employers despite IfA notes

Ofsted has been forced to deny it would reduce its inspections of apprenticeships employer-providers to “samples”, despite the secret release of new guidance suggesting otherwise. According to briefing notes leaked to FE Week from a recent stakeholder event for the Institute of Apprenticeships, Ofsted is slated to “continue to inspect training providers and sample inspection […]

AoC: Membership fees overhaul consultation to avoid £1 million overspend

A consultation on the future of the Association of Colleges has set out plans for an overhaul of membership fees, to help prevent a £1 million overspend on its 2017/18 budget. The document was unveiled this morning as AoC chief executive David Hughes admitted to FE Week that it needs to reform to balance the books – […]

First ever procurement process for adult education budget contracts finally launched

The first ever procurement process for adult education budget contracts has finally been launched by the Skills Funding Agency. FE Week reported two weeks ago that the procurement process had been given the ministerial green light, from secretary of state for education, Justine Greening, and was expected to begin within days. The Skills Funding Agency […]

Government pushes for more over-60s apprentices

Over-60s are being encouraged to do more apprenticeships, in a new government report looking at how to boost employment prospects in later life. The report by the Department for Work and pensions, called Fuller Working Lives: A Partnership Approach, was unveiled this morning. It refers repeatedly to retraining opportunities for people aged over 45, and […]

IFS calls for minimum public sector workforce apprenticeship target to be scrapped

The new minimum target for public sector bodies to employ at least 2.3 per cent of their workforce as apprentices should be scrapped, a new report for the Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned. The key chapter of the of the IFS’s Green Budget, called Reforms to apprenticeship funding in England, reiterated fears that quality […]

Apprenticeship funding rule requiring 20 per cent off-the-job training ‘not going away’

Help is being offered to the government in an effort to define the minimum 20 per cent off-the-job training apprenticeship rule. Chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers, Mark Dawe, announced this morning in a webinar to members that they would be sending out a survey later today to find out how they […]