York College
‘apprenticeships’
New Business, Innovation and Skills Select Committee chair Iain Wright (pictured) has called for “real controls and mitigating actions” on success rates cheating amid claims it was widespread within the FE sector. In an exclusive interview with FE Week, the MP for Hartlepool, who ousted former committee chair and fellow Labour politician Adrian Bailey in an MPs’ […]
News
The government paid a “one-off settlement” to write off the pension liabilities of a cash-strapped sixth form college as part of a deal to secure new owners and remove it from the public sector, FE Week can exclusively reveal. The Education Funding Agency (EFA) paid Hampshire County Council the undisclosed figure, believed to run into […]
Former FE funding boss Sir David Melville (pictured above) has become the latest high-profile voice to express serious concerns about the government’s handling of the sector. The current chair of Pearson Education Ltd and governor of Manchester Metropolitan University, who was chief executive of the FE Funding Council from 1997 to 2001, told FE Week of […]
The government has defended Trailblazer apprenticeships after official figures indicated there had been just 300 starts on the new employer–designed programmes in nine months. It is the first time uptake data on Trailblazers, listed in the latest Statistical First Release (SFR), has been released and it further showed the programme appeared to have stalled with […]
Funding may well be key to getting anywhere near the government’s 3m apprenticeship starts target for the period of the new Parliament, but ensuring quality teaching is behind the figures will also help achieve the goal. While money is clearly essential, understanding the pedagogy underpinning apprenticeships is highly important if we are to improve both […]
Opinion
The prevention of extremism is a wide-ranging concern that reaches into vocational education and training issue, a Selina Stewart explains. The statutory duty to prevent extremism will soon come in to effect. However, as independent learning providers (ILPs) will know, Ofsted has been inspecting for compliance with the Prevent duty for several months. Ofsted expects […]
Jonathan Wells makes the case for the end of preferential government treatment for GCSEs over Functional Skills Functional Skills (FS) are not the ‘easy option’, they are much more rigorous than GCSEs when it comes to application of skills, pass marks are significantly higher and the focus is on the application of basic skills in […]
Mapped out long-term career paths in technical or leadership roles are just some of the propositions facing apprentice at Sweett Group, Doulas McCormick outlines how and why such attractive professional offers are being put before earners and learners. The latest report from the UKCES talks of the Death of the Saturday Job, with more students […]
Dr Ann Limb presents five reasons to be cheerful about skills, devolution and localism over the next five years. I’ve worked with — and for — Conservative, Labour, and Coalition governments. It is from this perspective that I predict the next five to 10 years could be the most exciting, challenging, and potentially the most […]
