apprenticeships | FE Week

Ofsted watch: Mixed results for FE providers

It has been a varied week in the FE sector, with three providers receiving ‘good’ grades from Ofsted while three others were told they require improvement. The education watchdog also published four monitoring visits, where two providers were found making ‘significant progress’. Good news came in for the Open University and the University of Sheffield, […]

AAC Awards 2019 winners crowned

The country’s best apprenticeship providers, employers and champions have been honoured at the Annual Apprenticeship Awards 2019. More than 500 people celebrated the winners at a glittering gala dinner at the Annual Apprenticeship Conference, held in Birmingham. This is the second year of the awards. Organised by FE Week and the Association of Employment and […]

Blow your own trumpet and shake off your victim mentality, providers told

FE providers have been urged to “blow their own trumpet more” after research found they have developed a “victim mentality” because they have been “unfairly blamed for deficiencies in a highly complicated system”. A study, conducted by the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) and the Further Education Trust for Leadership (FETL), found that […]

Incentivise the apprenticeships that actually boost productivity

Apprenticeship funding mechanisms should be weighted to favour those standards that boost employability and earnings, argues Nicole Gicheva The best apprenticeships provide an alternative entry route into employment to academic education. They make it easier for people to reskill and change career. High-value apprenticeship programmes also increase skill levels, enhance productivity in firms and in […]

Employers having control over UK skills policy is ‘rhetoric, not reality’

The government should move away from its “unhelpful” mantra of “employers in the driving seat” in UK skills policy because this is “more rhetoric than reality”, new research has suggested. The phrase was coined with regard to further education in the latter years of the Coalition government – 2010-2015. However, the study has found that […]

Apprenticeship quango launches Quality Strategy with aspiration that no apprentice starts without an assessment body

Employers should have access to at least one end-point assessment organisation (EPAO) before apprentices start their programme, the body responsible for apprenticeship standards and assessment has said today. The “best practice” recommendation, made in a new ‘Quality Strategy’ unveiled by the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education today, has been made despite there currently being […]

Scrap funding rule that stops providers from transferring their unspent levy, says UEL

A university has called for the scrapping of an apprenticeship funding rule that stops them from using unspent levy funds to support local businesses. The University of East London delivers apprenticeships to large employers, but after missing out on a non-levy allocation they have to turn small employers away. One solution would be to share […]

Damning Ofsted visit finds provider not knowing who its apprentices are

A training provider has been heavily criticised for not knowing accurately enough who their apprentices are, in an Ofsted monitoring report which rated it ‘insufficient’ across the board. Poole Hospital NHS Foundation Trust was today accused of failing to understand what constitutes a “high quality apprenticeship programme”. Ofsted found that managers are “unable to provide […]

DfE department responsible for apprenticeship policy has hardly any apprentices

The division responsible for running and promoting apprenticeships within the Department for Education employs the lowest proportion of apprentices across the whole department. Of the 519 people working within the DfE’s Higher and Further Education office, fewer than 10, which is less than 1 per cent, are apprentices. It is not clear the exact number […]