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‘ofsted’

Apprenticeship upturn need not be a predictable shift away from helping those in most need

Last February, when Skills Minister Anne Milton was faced with a 41 percent fall in apprenticeships starts since the levy was introduced, she bravely told me she expected to see an upturn by September. “I will be told by my officials that I shouldn’t say this, but I’m going to say it anyway,” she said. […]

Opinion

Management apprenticeships continue to soar as Milton ‘thrilled’ with rise in starts

Management standards are continuing their reign as the most popular apprenticeships, according to the first statistics for 2018/19 published by the Department for Education this week. The team leader/supervisor had the most starts of any standard in the first quarter of the year, while three other management standards were among the 20 most popular. They […]

News

Six UTCs received ESFA bailouts totalling £1m last year

Six university technical colleges received bailouts from the government totalling almost £1 million last year, with the ESFA’s funding chief warning she doesn’t want to create a “culture of dependency”. The funding is given in “exceptional cases … where additional funding is absolutely necessary to stabilise the school’s finances and ensure minimal disruption to pupils’ […]

News

College in £1.4m legal battle with Nigerian state unblocks staff access to FE Week

Highbury College has unblocked access to FE Week on its internet servers following heavy backlash from government officials and the national media. The Portsmouth-based college pulled the shutters down on this newspaper’s website last week following an exposé about its ill-fated venture in Nigeria. But the fallout from the attempt to suppress the media coverage […]

News

Colleges will put learners on inappropriate courses without funding increase, warns Ofsted boss

Colleges are likely to increase the amount of courses that “attract the most learners” but which don’t offer “real long-term life prospects” if funding isn’t increased, Ofsted chief inspector has warned. Amanda Spielman appeared before MPs on the public accounts committee this afternoon, during which she was asked about the impact of cuts of the […]

News

College claims Institute of Technology bid ‘not in jeopardy’ despite Ofsted grade three

A college that has plummeted two Ofsted grades from its previous ‘outstanding’ has insisted its bid to open an Institute of Technology is “not in jeopardy”. Swindon College was rated ‘requires improvement’ overall and in five out of eight headline fields, in a report published today and based on an inspection in December. It was […]

News

New Learndirect owner wins £20m in ESFA contracts

Learndirect has started to win government funding to deliver skills training again, after its new owner secured more than £20 million worth of European Social Fund contracts. FE Week understands that the nation’s former largest FE provider won the funding, which is used to deliver employment and skills support to disadvantaged people, in four different […]

News

Top-performing college owed £500k pulls out of Saudi Arabia programme

A college has terminated its contract with the controversial Saudi Arabian Colleges of Excellence programme due to “on-going delays” in receiving payments resulting in an alleged £500,000 debt. Dudley College, rated ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted, began work with the Saudi government in 2011 and has taken part in various ventures in the country over the last […]

News

£2m bank charge for college clearing debt with bailout

A cash-strapped college has spent almost £2 million of the bailout cash it received from the government on bank charges – although it has actually saved money. Stoke on Trent College successfully bid for a reported £21.9 million from the Department for Education’s restructuring facility in September. According to its recently published 2017/18 accounts, £1.93 […]

News