York College
‘apprenticeships’
FE Week revisits the outgoing Workers’ Educational Association chief executive Ruth Spellman and finds her focused, as ever, on improving adult education. You could, very briefly, be disarmed into thinking Ruth Spellman is just an unusually sweet-mannered Londoner. The 68-year-old is standing over me in her upstairs sitting-room in Highgate, with piano music tinkling in […]
Profiles
A third of UK workers have not received any workplace training in the last five years, according to a new City & Guilds report which says there is an “urgent need” to review adult education. The Missing Millions report, based on regional labour market data and a poll of 5,000 working age people, has been […]
News
Hopes for a level 2 business administration standard were shattered today after the new boss of the government’s apprenticeship quango rejected a final plea from employers. Following years of repeated rejections under Sir Gerry Berragan, the trailblazer group behind the proposal was given a glimmer of hope with Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE) […]
Ten FE providers were awarded grade twos from Ofsted in a good week for the sector. However, the college for HS2 and an independent learner provider were both hit with ‘inadequate’ ratings. IT Skills Management Company Limited was one of the independent learner providers to receive a grade two after its first inspection by the […]
An adviser to the government’s apprenticeship quango has quit after FE Week found he had set up an assessment company and then broke official advertising rules. Lee Allsup, one of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE) route panel members, left the role this week and his new end-point assessment organisation (EPAO) has stopped […]
Apprenticeship subcontracting has more than halved since the introduction of the levy in April 2017, new FE Week analysis has revealed. The Department for Education released a new list of declared subcontractors for 2019/20 this week – updating the records for the first time in more than a year. It follows the launch of an […]
The government is consulting on plans to dump employers when it comes to external quality assurance of apprentices – and hand all of it to Ofqual within the next two years. The only exception would be for integrated degree apprenticeships, which would be overseen by higher education regulator the Office for Students. The move would […]
The number of apprenticeship starts in England plunged by 12 per cent in December, according to government figures published this morning. Provisional figures for December 2019, when compared to the same publication last February, reveal a fall of 1,900 in a single month. The analysis by FE Week shows starts for those under the age […]
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 […]
