York College
‘apprenticeships’
Readers of FE Week will be familiar with the excruciatingly slow start to the apprenticeship levy reforms since last May. According to the Department for Education, employers spent just 10 per cent (£200 million out of £2 billion) of their levy contributions in the first year. Each month that three million starts target slips further […]
Opinion
Highbury College has dropped two grades from ‘outstanding’ in an Ofsted report that brands its teaching “uninspiring” and raises concern over low attendance. The verdict was a serious blow to a heavily criticised leadership team led by Stella Mbubaegbu (pictured above), who maintains that the college has “already embarked on our journey back to ‘outstanding’”. […]
News
With all eyes on the 52 providers taking care of wave one of the T-level delivery in 2020, the process to decide which awarding organisations will get their custom might seem like a comparative sideshow. In fact, removing providers’ choice of awarding organisations is not only controversial, it is where legal challenge seems most inevitable, […]
Finding new work for apprentices left jobless in the wake of the collapse of Carillion cost the government around £3 million, a National Audit Office report has revealed. A total of 1,148 trainee bricklayers, carpenters and builders suddenly found themselves out of work when the outsourcing giant went into liquidation on January 15. A rescue […]
The Department for Education exceeded its own target for recruiting apprentices last year. Ever since the apprenticeship levy was launched last April, public-sector bodies have been obliged to make sure at least 2.3 per cent of their workforce start and apprenticeship every year. One year on and the DfE has met the target and then […]
Employers have used just 10 per cent of their apprenticeship levy funds in first 12 months since it was introduced. The education minister Lord Agnew admitted to parliament that between May last year and the end of this April, levy-paying employers “drew down £207 million from their apprenticeship service accounts for new starts”. This amounts […]
The new head of the Education and Skills Funding Agency is a very busy woman. And I’ve been offered just 30 minutes to find out all about her life and do a photoshoot. Simples. Poised on the edge of a hexagonal table in a small conference room, Eileen Milner sits in the eye of the […]
Profiles
The government is preparing to launch its consultation on the design and development of the revamped register of apprenticeship training providers. Employers and providers have been denied the opportunity to win a place on to RoATP ever since the third and most recent application window shut at the end of October. The application process has […]
Providers are being asked for their experiences of the controversial Baker clause, amid signs that schools are failing in their legal duty to open their doors to the FE sector. The survey, conducted by the AELP at the request of the Department for Education, asks providers about the impact of the legislation, which came into […]
