IfA | FE Week - Part 5

IfA defends slowdown on apprenticeship standards

The number of new apprenticeship standards approved for delivery declined dramatically in March and April, FE Week analysis has revealed. The Institute for Apprenticeships only cleared four standards in April and 10 in March, down from 21 in February. The agency’s chief executive Sir Gerry Berragan (pictured) only launched its Faster and Better initiative in […]

Employers clash with Institute for Apprenticeships over FE teacher funding bands

The group developing three long-delayed FE teaching standards is in a bitter stand-off with the Institute for Apprenticeships, claiming the funding bands on offer represent just half what these standards would cost to deliver. The three standards, ranging between levels three and level five, have been in development since 2015. They were recently assigned funding […]

Anne Milton hasn’t met the IfA’s apprentice panel in its first year

The skills minister has still not met with the Institute for Apprenticeships’ panel of apprentices – more than 12 months after it was established. The panel, which first met last April, is made up of current or recent apprentices who discuss issues from the learner’s perspective and raise with the main IfA board. Shadow skills […]

Apprenticeship qualifications: no uptake under new rules

No employer groups have taken advantage of the Institute for Apprenticeships’ new rules for including qualifications in apprenticeships, FE Week can reveal. The IfA announced in February, as part of its reform programme to make the approval of standards “faster and better”, that off-the-job technical qualifications could now be included in apprenticeships – news that […]

IfA boss hits back at ‘vested interests’ against apprentice reforms

The Institute for Apprenticeships’ new boss has hit back at “vested interests” who he claims want to see the reform process fail. Sir Gerry Berragan was speaking today at an Ofqual conference for vocational education awarding organisations in Birmingham. He admitted that some criticism levelled at the IfA, which launched last April, was “fair”, but […]

Sir Gerry Berragan, Chief executive, Institute for Apprenticeships

The new boss of the Institute for Apprenticeships is not giving anything away. After 37 years in the military, Sir Gerry Berragan seems more comfortable dealing in facts than stories about his life. But this might be just the kind of discipline the organisation needs, after a year under a caretaker chief executive and a […]

New IfA boss reveals how he got the job

Sir Gerry Berragan only has two years as chief executive of the Institute for Apprenticeships because he did not go through a full recruitment process, he has admitted. A former IfA board member, he revealed that he was recruited in unusual circumstances during an in-depth interview with FE Week, published next week, and spoke candidly […]

Apprenticeship standards left in limbo by IfA red tape

Thirteen separate apprenticeship standards with approved assessment plans have been left in limbo for two or more months because their costs still haven’t been agreed, FE Week can reveal. It is understood that the holdup is the result of various new lengthy and complicated processes which came into force when the Institute for Apprenticeships introduced […]

BREAKING: Institute for Apprenticeships appoints board member as chief executive

The new chief executive of the Institute for Apprenticeships is military man Sir Gerry Berragan, who was previously unveiled as a board member. He was a career soldier for 37 years, finishing as adjutant general, responsible for all army personnel matters, serving between August 2012 and August 2015. Sir Gerry had been appointed the army’s […]