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‘ofsted’

Quality of apprenticeship policy suffers from ‘insufficient progress’

Two years ago FE Week exposed thousands of apprentices on standards without any approved end-point-assessment organisations. At the time, a former director of the DfE described the situation as “diabolical”. The chief executive of the ESFA, responsible for recruiting the end-point assessment organisations, was given a ticking off by the education select committee and then […]

Opinion

ESFA WON’T ban new apprenticeship providers with poor AEB provision found in monitoring visits

The government will not ban new apprenticeship providers from recruiting adult learners if they’re making ‘insufficient progress’ in that theme alone in Ofsted monitoring visits, after FE Week highlighted the grey area last month. Updated policy guidance was published this afternoon by the Education and Skills Funding Agency which has finally brought some clarification to […]

News

DfE plans National Colleges evaluation to avoid repeating mistakes with Institutes of Technology

The government is going to evaluate its troubled National Colleges policy to identify what has gone wrong with the scheme and help avoid the same mistakes in the rollout of Institutes of Technology. A tender from the Department for Education went live on Monday asking for a research company to take on the in-depth evaluation […]

News

DfE reopens £15m strategic college improvement fund before finalising first round

Colleges are being invited to bid for cash in a new round of the strategic college improvement fund – but it’s unclear how much is left in the £15 million pot. A pilot for the SCIF was run last year in which 14 struggling colleges shared £2 million (the winners of which can be found […]

News

Ofsted watch: A trio of ‘inadequate’ providers

It’s been a bad week for the FE and skills sector, with a trio of reports returning ‘inadequate’ grades and a major private university found to be making ‘insufficient progress’ in its apprenticeships. Elsewhere, two providers have seen their ratings go up from ‘requires improvement’ to ‘good’, while seven monitoring visit reports have been published. […]

News

Employers start to leave reviews on ESFA’s new Trip Advisor-style feature

The government has launched its Trip Advisor-style review tool to let employers rate apprenticeship providers, and Ofsted intends to use the data to inform inspections. The tool, called “what employers are saying”, allows employers who have registered apprentices on the apprenticeship service to feed back on specific aspects of their programmes. Employers rate training providers on […]

News

AoC: Top-slices should be higher for ‘risky’ subcontractors

Prime providers should demand a higher top-slice from “risky” subcontractors to reflect the extra work that comes with them, according to new subcontracting guidance from a leading FE body. The Association of Colleges’ guidance, published on October 22, tells main providers that “risk is a key assessment factor when determining fees and charges” and should […]

News

Providers warned their funding could be pulled following 3aaa staff and apprentice poaching

Multiple training providers have attempted to poach staff and apprentices from the now-defunct Aspire Achieve Advance using underhand tactics – and have been warned their own funding could be withdrawn because of it. Apprenticeship giant 3aaa was put into compulsory liquidation last week after it ceased trading on October 11 when the government pulled its […]

News

FE commissioner called for ‘urgent review’ to hold West Notts College leadership to account

The FE commissioner has criticised “serious corporate failure”, lack of oversight and a “financial crisis” at West Nottinghamshire College in a damning report. The intervention report, published today but written in back in August, warned the college’s board and then-principal Dame Asha Khemka had “overseen a serious business failure which will impact on the whole […]

News