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‘apprenticeships’

Parliament debate on apprenticeship funding reform

Proposals to use the tax system to fund apprenticeships won tentative approval in a House of Commons vote organised by FE Week. More than 120 people from across the FE and skills sector attended the debate on the government’s three proposed apprenticeship funding reforms, with the option of employers recouping the costs of training through […]

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Underpaying apprentice bosses face increased name-and-shame threat

Underpaying apprentice bosses will be publicly named and shamed under government plans to make it easier to clamp down on rogue businesses. Employment Relations Minister Jo Swinson has announced new rules as part of efforts to toughen up enforcement of the National Minimum Wage (NMW). The clampdown, which will come into effect from October when […]

News

Serving the apprenticeship time

It’s just over a year since the minimum duration rule was applied, meaning most apprenticeships would have to last at least a year. Phil Hatton looks at whether the rule offers the quality assurance it was hoped for. I was one of the two authors of the first NVQ back in 1987, which really changed […]

Opinion

Apprenticeship guidance plea despite growing application numbers

Guidance on apprenticeships needs a “no-holds-barred” review, NUS president Toni Pearce has claimed despite official figures indicating application numbers rocketed more than 30 per cent last year. She spoke out with statistics from the National Apprenticeship Service (NAS) showing that 1.4 million applications were made online last year — an increase of 32 per cent […]

News

Answering the apprenticeship funding question

With the government looking at a “radical” overhaul of the way apprenticeships are funded, Neil Carberry looks at the key considerations for any such changes. Apprenticeships are a remarkable link between our economy’s pre-industrial past and its globalised future. In the Middle Ages they were a contract between master craftsmen and workers. Apprentices learned the […]

Opinion

Why not vocational education straight after GCSEs?

The annual schoolgates spectacle that is GCSE results day usually brings with it much media interview talk of A-level plans and uni hopes, but Andy Gannon picked up on a rare, but welcome namedrop for vocational education this year. Those of us who work in FE know the value of vocational pathways through education. We […]

Opinion

Apprenticeships director to step down

England’s apprenticeship boss, David Way, has announced that he is to step down at the end of the month. The executive director of the Skills Funding Agency’s apprenticeship division will be leaving after 38 years in the employment and skills sector. Mr Way, a married father-of-two, has overseen an expansion in the number of apprenticeships […]

News

Beware the apprenticeship ‘silly season’

Apprenticeship stories in the wider media of late have made hay about young people turning their backs on university and instead considering vocational learning. However, as Lynne Sedgmore explains, such promotion of an ‘FE versus higher education’ divide could be doing more harm than good. There has been a sudden spate of stories recently about […]

Opinion

Former AoC president takes governor post at college mauled by Ofsted

A former Association of Colleges president has become City College Coventry’s new governors’ chair after a disastrous Ofsted report resulted in the Skills Funding Agency calling for “fundamental changes”. Maggie Galliers, who was the association president for 2011/12, was unanimously voted into the post and joins new interim principal John Hogg in a revamped leadership […]

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