Yasemin Craggs Mersinoglu | FE Week

Ofsted should explain in their reports why they come knocking just before a merger

It is extremely rare to hear a college principal openly criticise Ofsted. So rare in fact, I felt it was only right to check with Andrew Cropley that it was ok to publish what he had said from a panel at the Association of College’s annual conference ‘hot topic’ session on “the balance between oversight, […]

Kendal College tops FE Week’s 2019 league table

Kendal College has been announced as the top college in FE Week’s annual league table for 2019. This year’s NICDEX rated 172 FE colleges across England in four categories: employer satisfaction, learner satisfaction, 16 to 18 positive progression and adult progression into work. The criteria is based on performance measures published by the Department for […]

AoC Student of the Year Award winners announced

A learner with hearing and speech difficulties who also works as a carer for his twin sister is among the winners of the Association of Colleges’ Student of the Year Awards 2019. The gongs, which include Young Student, Adult Student, Apprentice and Higher Education Student of the Year, were given out at the annual AoC […]

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: EDITION 297

Your weekly guide to who’s new and who’s leaving. Hetan Shah: Chief executive, The British Academy Start date: February 2020 Previous job: Executive director, Royal Statistical Society Interesting fact: He sits on a charity board which meets on the grounds of Windsor Castle. Daniel Fenwick: Assistant principal, DN College Group Start date: September 2019 Previous job: […]

Why colleges are choosing GCSE resits over alternatives

Colleges across the country have been entering more students for GCSE maths and English re-sits than government policy requires. The Department for Education’s condition of funding rule means all students in England aged 16 to 19 who have achieved a grade 3 in English or maths are required to retake the subject while those with […]

College to spend £250k paying off learner loans after subcontracting scandal

A college will pay off almost £250,000 in loans debt for 59 victims of a subcontracting scandal. FE Week revealed last week that the learners were being forced to repay thousands of pounds each for courses they did not complete. Hours after the publication of the investigation, which found that many workers did not know […]

City & Guilds buys another training provider

Education giant City & Guilds announced today it has acquired its second training provider in two years. Intertrain, a large provider for the railway industry, is the latest acquisition after Gen2, which claims to be the largest training provider to the UK civil nuclear industry, joined in May 2017. City & Guilds Group declined to […]

College WILL pay the cost of FE loans for victims of a subcontracting scandal

The college involved in a FE loan scandal has agreed to pay the cost of the debt in full, hours after it was exposed by FE Week. The investigation found 13 alleged victims of an advanced learner loans scandal were still being told that they must repay thousands, despite some claiming they did not know […]

Workers told to repay thousands for construction course they ‘did not take’

Grzegorz Bogdanski is being forced by the government to repay a £5,421 loan for an FE course he claimed he never started, or even realised that he had signed up for. The 34-year-old construction worker said that all those involved have “washed their hands” of his case and described the Department for Education (DfE) as […]