Windsor Learning Partnership
‘apprenticeships’
The controversial level 7 senior leader apprenticeship has again hit the headlines in recent days, after the education secretary questioned whether the £18,000 levy-funded MBA was “value for money”. The programme is traditionally associated with high profile universities running courses for executives in the corporate sector. But FE Week found it is an entrepreneur […]
News
A high-profile radio company that runs UK stations such as Kiss FM and Magic was among seven FE providers to receive ‘good’ ratings from Ofsted this week. But poor reports came in for four new independent learning providers, which all received ‘insufficient progress’ grades in early monitoring visits. Most of Bauer Radio Limited’s 220 apprentices […]
The Department for Education has revealed for the first time how the introduction of the apprenticeship levy in 2017 has led to a huge shift away from small employers. Apprenticeship starts with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have fallen 40 per cent, while starts with large employers rose eight per cent. One of the most […]
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 […]
The government has embarked on a very last-minute mission to find out if students could fail to secure the mandatory T-level industry placement. A tender to evaluate the controversial component of the new post-16 technical qualifications went live last week, with fewer than six months to go until students take their first class. The Department […]
New skills minister Gillian Keegan has pledged “significant funding” for additional small business apprenticeships in the “coming year”, the Association of Employment and Learning Providers has claimed. It comes a day after the Treasury confirmed to FE Week that Rishi Sunak’s budget did not include any new cash for apprenticeships despite the accompanying red book […]
Hopes for new apprenticeship funding have been swiftly crushed after the Treasury confirmed that today’s budget offers no extra cash for the programmes. In January, new boss of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education, Jennifer Coupland, called for an additional £750 million to prop-up small business apprenticeships. And optimism for the funding was raised […]
The chancellor has confirmed the Conservative manifesto commitments for FE, including a £1.5 billion boost to upgrade college buildings and a new £2.5 billion National Skills Fund for England. Rishi Sunak’s budget has also promised the government will “ensure that sufficient funding is made available in 2020-21 to support an increase in the number of […]
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 […]
Opinion
