York College
‘apprenticeships’
A Skills Funding Agency (SFA) investigation has ruled that defunct training provider Elmfield did not receive funding it was not entitled to for Morrisons apprenticeships. A BBC Newsnight probe screened in October last year, supported with information uncovered by FE Week, raised questions about Elmfield’s dealings with workers at supermarket giant Morrisons. It was alleged […]
News
Ofsted’s former deputy director of further education and skills has been given the director’s role after Matthew Coffey was promoted, the watchdog has announced. Lorna Fitzjohn previously served as deputy director for FE and was more recently director for the West Midlands, a job she will continue with alongside her new role. She has also […]
Skills minister Matthew Hancock used a speech to a jobs and skills forum in London to announce 77 new tech level qualifications, taking the total on offer to 217. Mr Hancock addressed delegates at the European Jobs and Skills Summit —which was organised by the Institute for Public Policy Research and JP Morgan, and held […]
Control over WorldSkills UK and the Skills Show has been pulled together under a single organisation. Find a Future, which will be funded by the Skills Funding Agency (SFA), the European Social Fund, and commercial sponsorship, was launched today (April 1). The not-for-profit organisation has taken control of WorldSkills UK from the SFA and the […]
Community arts apprentice Joshua Gould has been named as Creative Cultural Skills’ Apprentice of the Year 2014. Level 3 apprentice Joshua, aged 18, works for Unit Twenty Three — a Norfolk-based arts organisation that runs events and provides office space for young artists. He was selected for the award given out by Creative and Cultural […]
Bulletin
Three years ago this month, the Wolf Report on the future of vocational education for 14 to 19-year-olds was heralded as a vehicle for radical change in the FE sector, writes Freddie Whittaker. Professor Alison Wolf’s 27 recommendations called for a huge shake-up in careers advice and qualifications, among other things, and her ideas were […]
Karleen Dowden outlines her attempt to persuade school leaders, at the Association of School and College Leaders’ two-day annual conference in Birmingham this month, why higher apprenticeships should figure highly in their careers guidance. With more than 1 million young people not in education, employment or training (Neet) and 51 per cent of businesses claiming […]
Opinion
Dr Mary Bousted’s route to the top job at the Association of Teachers and Lecturers was (ATL) entirely unconventional. This is no stereotypically duffle-coated, megaphone-wielding trade union leader. The former teacher and university lecturer always considered herself a trade unionist, but never imagined she would lead the ATL. Teaching initially in Harrow, West London, she […]
Profiles
West Nottinghamshire College has announced plans to shut almost half of the training centres it bought under last year’s Pearson in Practice deal. The college, which struck the deal with Pearson last spring for an undisclosed amount and now runs it under the name Vision Workforce Skills, wants to close centres in Romford, Newcastle, Bristol […]
