York College
‘apprenticeships’
Eight leading figures from the further education sector have been recognised in the Queen’s birthday honours. These include five OBEs, one CBE, an MBE, and a British Empire Medal – but no knighthoods or damehoods. One of this year’s recipients, Milton Keynes College principal Dr Julie Mills, said it was “great FE is being recognised […]
News
This week we report that the Department for Education will announce that the Office for Students, not Ofsted, will inspect the quality of all level 6 and 7 apprenticeships. It comes after FE Week exposed the fact that thousands of apprentices were at providers where Ofsted had to exclude them from inspection because they were […]
Opinion
A new apprenticeship provider that was suspended from recruiting learners last year has been rated ‘inadequate’ in its first full inspection, in what was otherwise an average week for the FE sector. The only other bad report came in for Prospects Training International Limited, which trades a Geason Training and was bought out in a […]
A national college is seeking partner organisations after struggling to recruit learners and scraping through 2017-18 with a government bailout of over half a million pounds. The National College Creative Industries (NCCI), which opened its doors in 2016, has become the second of the flagship institutions to require a Department for Education hand-out to sign […]
The government has already rejected one recommendation put forward by the Augar Review – by giving the Office for Students responsibility for overseeing thousands of higher level apprenticeships that currently go unregulated. FE Week revealed in November that firms offering level 6 and 7 apprenticeships without a prescribed HE qualification, such as a degree, had […]
A new provider that was allowed to recruit over 1,000 apprentices before being inspected has been found making ‘insufficient progress’ by Ofsted in a monitoring visit. Prospects Training International Limited trades as Geason Training and was acquired by Speedy, one of the UK’s leading tool hire services company, in a deal worth up to £26 […]
The body that regulates qualifications in England has added its voice to fears about the government’s plans for scrapping applied general qualifications including BTECs. Ofqual believes there is a “risk” that a barrier to student progress may be created if alternative choices to T-levels and A-levels are “unduly restricted”. It is particularly concerned about this […]
A university centre at the troubled West Nottinghamshire College has had to revise down its learner growth numbers by a massive 76 per cent. A report by local enterprise partnership D2N2 reveals Vision University Centre, based on the college’s main campus in Mansfield, is aiming to increase its number of students by just 140 in […]
A training provider has gone bust after being “hit hard” by the government’s apprenticeship reforms, putting nearly 40 staff out of work. FNTC Training and Consulting Limited, a provider rated ‘good’ by Ofsted and based in Southampton, was forced to close after suffering from losses of over £200,000 last year and ongoing losses this year. […]
