IfA | FE Week

Diversity in FE Week: A look at how we’ve done

Twelve months after our first look at diversity and visibility within our newspaper pages, FE Week editor Shane Chowen looks at how we’re doing. When we published our first diversity audit last year, we said that as the sector’s only dedicated newspaper, we take seriously our responsibility to reflect and represent the diversity of the […]

IfA rejects level 2 business admin apprenticeship leaving employers ‘disappointed’ and ‘upset’

A proposal to create a level 2 business support apprenticeship has been rejected outright by the government, with officials claiming the standard is “not viable”, FE Week can reveal. In a move that has “disappointed” sector leaders, the Institute for Apprenticeships’ deputy director of approvals, Ana Osbourne, has written the trailblazer lead for the wished-for […]

PhD-level apprenticeships are a ‘perfect fit’ for today’s jobs market, says UVAC director

A university membership organisation has criticised those opposing PhDlevel apprenticeships, saying such resistance shows a “bewildering lack of understanding of higher education provision and contemporary skills programmes”. Writing for FE Week, Mandy Crawford-Lee, director of policy and operations at the University Vocational Awards Council, argues that “the whole concept” of knowledge, skills and behaviours or […]

DfE’s double standards over level 2 business admin apprenticeship

The Department for Education has been accused of double standards after it launched a recruitment drive for level 2 business administration apprentices on frameworks while refusing to approve an equivalent standard. Old-style apprenticeship frameworks will be fully switched off next year and replaced with standards, which the government constantly lauds as being of “higher quality”. […]

Despite the extra bureaucracy, ESFA right to require more data on every apprentice

This week the ESFA announced that, from August, apprenticeship providers would need to report the planned off-the-job hours for all new starts. With bureaucracy a constant bugbear in FE, it is rare that a new field is added to the Individualised Learner Record (particularly a late change) but this is an attempt to address stinging […]

IfA launches recruitment drive for more route panel members

The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education is looking for around 25 new experts to join its 15 sector-based route panels. The members are responsible for deciding the readiness of apprenticeship standards in development in the different sectors, reviewing and approving new standards and technical qualifications. The panels, created two years ago, decide what issues […]

As the wheels fall off plans for the first PhD level apprenticeship, have employers been ejected from the driving seat?

This week we reveal that an Institute for Apprenticeships sub-committee (that includes four board members) refused to approve the first PhD level 8 apprenticeship. Instead, they asked the full board to rule whether a PhD level is even “in the spirit of apprenticeship policy”. Four months on and the board is still in discussions with […]

Apprenticeship funding band reviews to include updated ‘affordability measures’ in wake of budget warnings

The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education is updating its ‘affordability measures’ when making funding band recommendations. Minutes published this week for their approval and funding committee, dated 21 March, say the Digital and Data Science Team “gave an update about work to improve the affordability measures, which will be further developed over the next […]

Public Accounts Committee to quiz top civil servants from DfE, ESFA and IfATE

An influential House of Commons committee will grill officials on the future affordability of the apprenticeships programme on Monday. The Public Accounts Committee will hear from the Department for Education’s permanent secretary Jonathan Slater, the Education and Skills Funding Agency chief executive Eileen Milner, the agency’s director of apprenticeships Keith Smith, and the chief executive […]