Windsor Learning Partnership
‘apprenticeships’
An investigation is being carried out by government officials into apprenticeship giant Aspire Achieve Advance, after claims made by a whistleblower. FE Week revealed last week that Ofsted’s latest inspection of 3aaa – which holds the largest ESFA apprenticeship allocation – had been declared “incomplete” following intervention from the Education and Skills Funding Agency. We can […]
News
The Department for Education has drawn criticism for not knowing whether more than a third of its apprentices were new or existing civil servants. As of May 10, the department had 186 employed apprentices. Through a freedom of information response, the DfE revealed that 76 of these were existing civil servants and 36 were new […]
The 10 per cent apprenticeship contribution rule for non-levied employers remains a lively issue. It is frequently cited by training providers as a barrier to engagement, and the calls for its removal by leading sector bodies such as the Association of Employment and Learning Providers and others remain strident. An air of suppressed anticipation awaited […]
Opinion
Steve Frampton will be the next president of the Association of Colleges, taking on the reigns from Dr Alison Birkinshaw in August. We chatted to him about his career to date, and how he came to be so committed to including the student voice in decision-making. As chair of his school’s student council in the […]
Profiles
A follow-up review of apprenticeships has been launched by the National Audit Office, which will focus on whether the reform programme is delivering value for money. The NAO is requesting submissions, with a key theme being whether the Department for Education is ensuring that the system is not being abused by stakeholders. This comes after […]
A second delay to when the Institute for Apprenticeships will take responsibility for T-levels has been confirmed. According to the institute’s business plan for 2018/19, published today, it only expects to have agreed a “full implementation timetable” for taking on the new technical qualifications by next March. It was originally meant to take control of […]
Ofsted’s latest inspection of Aspire Achieve Advance – which holds the largest ESFA apprenticeship allocation – is “incomplete” following intervention from the Education and Skills Funding Agency. The inspectorate had at first confirmed on June 20 that it had inspected the provider, which is commonly known as 3aaa, in May and that nothing was amiss. […]
The entire senior executive team at Learndirect Apprenticeships Ltd (LDA) along with 18 other senior employees have today quit to work for PeoplePlus Group, the firm that had only recently had a purchase offer rejected. The unexpected mass exodus of 22 key staff has been met with a furious response from the Learndirect Group, calling […]
It’s been a week of contrasting fortunes for university technical colleges, as one is rated ‘good’ and another ‘inadequate’ in their first ever inspections. Elsewhere a genuinely new apprenticeship provider has been making ‘significant progress’ in one of the areas under review, in one of four monitoring visit reports published this week. UTC Oxfordshire received […]
