York College
‘apprenticeships’
A group of budding engineers from North Shropshire College (NSC) made a pit stop to the Williams Martini Racing F1 Factory. The 14 learners, who all study either engineering or mechanics, visited the advanced engineering section of the factory, learning how employees with the racing team use their scientific knowledge to solve everyday problems. They […]
Bulletin
Angry providers have slammed the government’s failure to fully fund all their apprenticeship growth requests as “appalling” and “destabilising”. The comments were made by respondents to an FE Week survey carried out in the wake of the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) announcement on 5 February explaining how the money would be portioned out. The funding […]
News
The Skills Funding Agency’s decision to slash funding rates for a popular level three apprenticeship framework has been labelled a disaster. It was announced on Wednesday that the IT, Software Web and Telecom Professionals apprenticeship framework would be cut by about £2,000 from 1 April. The SFA has not reduced apprenticeship framework rates since 2012/13, […]
Providers have been left waiting, as the Skills Funding Agency admits to having “fully committed” the budget for the Apprenticeship Grant for Employers (AGE) facility for 2015-2016. AGE 16 to 24 supports businesses that would not otherwise be able to recruit 16 to 24 year olds into employment through the apprenticeship programme. The facility works […]
The number of notices of concern issued to FE providers by the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) has more than doubled in the last year, FE Week can reveal. A total of 75 notices have been issued since 2010, with 53 per cent of these being given out in 2015 alone. Only 24 per cent were […]
One of the largest providers of apprenticeships has asked the Skills Funding Agency for permission to give cashback to employers, prompting the agency to say it would have “grave concerns” about any such arrangement. In an email about Trailblazer funding, dated 22 December and released to FE Week following an FoI request, JTL Training asked […]
Nicky Morgan, the Education Secretary, has made the controversial decision to only part-fund providers’ 16 to 18 apprenticeship growth requests, FE Week understands. The revelation comes less than two weeks after many providers were left short-changed after the Skills Funding Agency announced on February 5 that £25m additional funding would be available for 16 to […]
The Government has come in for criticism after rejecting attempts to ensure representatives from FE providers and trade unions sit alongside employers on the new apprenticeships policing body. Labour tried unsuccessfully on 11 February to get a clause inserted into the enterprise bill, which would have ensured the Institute for Apprenticeships, which will monitor standards […]
The Prime Minister has spoken this month about plans to give governors more freedom over prisoner education budgets, as part of a keynote speech on wider prison reform. Alexandra Marks looks at how this could affect the FE sector. It’s great to see the Government supporting prison education from the very top, as it has […]
Opinion
