York College
‘apprenticeships’
The controversial new legal agreement, that employers will have to sign with the Skills Funding Agency to run new apprenticeships, has been unveiled. FE Week exclusively revealed last September that businesses would for the first time have to sign strict contracts with the SFA – rather than just with providers, as the sector had expected. […]
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The key ministerial architect of the government’s fast-unravelling policy on university technical colleges has admitted the experiment has failed. Michael Gove, who launched UTCs in his former role as education secretary from May 2010 to July 2014, acknowledged in an article for The Times that “the evidence has accumulated and the verdict is clear” on […]
The Digital Apprenticeship Service (or DAS) is due for launch later this month, but will be renamed the ‘apprenticeship service’, FE Week can reveal. In an email to employer groups, seen by FE Week, the Department for Education said: “The name of the new service through which employers will plan, manage and pay for their […]
The Institute for Apprenticeships will charge apprenticeship assessment organisations for external quality assurance of new standards – despite Ofqual keeping the service free. Speaking during a webinar on Monday (January 6), Peter Lauener, shadow chief executive of the IfA, said that it was acceptable for the Institute to charge for the service because “the principle of […]
The overall Leading Light winner from the prestigious national Association of Colleges (AoC) Beacon Awards has gone to the Grimsby Institute. It was chosen by Baroness Sharp of Guildford, President of the AoC Charitable Trust from the 12 AoC Beacon Award 2016/17 winning colleges. Grimsby Institute had initially won the Beacon Award for Widening Participation in […]
Public funds cannot be used to pay brokers’ fees, the Skills Funding Agency has officially ruled. In its final rules for apprenticeship funding published this week, the SFA has at last clamped down on the sorts of shady dealings which have seen private bodies and brokers cream off millions of pounds via commission fees. The […]
Ofsted has been forced to deny it would reduce its inspections of apprenticeships employer-providers to “samples”, despite the secret release of new guidance suggesting otherwise. According to briefing notes leaked to FE Week from a recent stakeholder event for the Institute of Apprenticeships, Ofsted is slated to “continue to inspect training providers and sample inspection […]
Two of the country’s most senior educators have called on the government to produce a coherent national strategy for teaching English to immigrants, and put a stop to wasteful competition between different ministries and departments. At present, responsibility for English as a second language is split between the Department for Education and the Department for […]
Garry Phillips describes how his college pulled itself back from financial difficulty and an Ofsted ‘inadequate’ rating, following an intervention from the deputy FE commissioner. Ealing Hammersmith and West London’s College has appeared in FE Week several times over the last few years – and not always for the best reasons. The college found itself […]
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