York College
‘apprenticeships’
Colleges must all have access to funding for apprenticeships with smaller employers, according to the latest MP to weigh in on the non-levy tender debate. Jeremy Lefroy, the Conservative MP for Stafford, is the latest prominent voice to raise the issue in parliament after Newcastle and Stafford Colleges Group, which is in his constituency, was […]
News
The AoC wants colleges to be excluded from the government’s published progress data claiming it is based on school models and unfairly represents the delivery of FE. It has written to Damian Hinds asking him to intervene. On Thursday, the new Progress 8 results showed that the 17 colleges which offered direct entry last year […]
Apprentices left jobless following the collapse of outsourcing giant Carillion will not be paid after January, it has been claimed. Around 1,400 trainee bricklayers and carpenters have been left with uncertain futures ever since the UK’s largest employer of construction apprentices entered liquidation two weeks ago. They were being taught at the company’s skills division, […]
Taking fees for brokering apprenticeship funding is acceptable, according to correspondence from the Skills Funding Agency – as long as payments aren’t made directly from government funding. The government recently promised to crack down on brokering, which can see subcontractors charged up to five per cent of their total contract funding in commission to be […]
More than half of the 17,000 apprentices due to complete their course with Learndirect last year failed, as its achievement rate slumped a further 8.6 percentage points, FE Week can reveal. These latest figures now mean that nearly 25,000 learners have failed to successfully complete their apprenticeship at the nation’s biggest FE provider over the […]
Luton Sixth Form College has become the latest FE provider to lose its prized grade one status. It follows last week’s Ofsted Watch in which three other providers all fell from ‘outstanding’. Inspectors said that progress mentors at grade two-overall rated Luton, which teaches over 2,500 learners, do not have the “information that they require” […]
Just two of the 10 largest multi-academy trusts in England have fully complied with their new legal duty to allow training providers and colleges the chance to speak to pupils about technical qualifications and apprenticeships. The Baker Clause, an amendment to the Technical and Further Education Act, came into force on January 2, and requires […]
Peter Lauener will donate the £25,000 salary he will earn as chair of one of the UK’s largest college groups to a student hardship fund. Apparently one of the busiest men in FE, the former boss of the ESFA and the Institute for Apprenticeships, who currently leads the Student Loans Company, bagged himself yet another […]
Apprenticeship take-up since the introduction of the levy last May continues to slide, but whether this represents a longer-term problem is debatable. The CBI calls it “alarming”, which, given it represents employers, will be uncomfortable for the government. But if big employers are simply in the planning phase, as the skills minister suggests, the CBI […]
Opinion
