Each week I’ll be sharing my summary of what’s been reported in the education media (looking at publications such as FE Week and the TES). Would very much welcome your thoughts and comments on any of the news stories mentioned!
Traineeship figures ‘deeply disappointing’
FE Week reported that figures just released show that only 3,300 people started one of the government’s flagship traineeships in the 6 months since they were introduced in August 2013. This follows feedback from Ofsted head Sir Michael Wilshaw in November that uptake was ‘disappointing’.
The government has responded by stating that this statistical information ‘may not be reliable’, and that the programme ‘was off to a good start’.
The same data showed that the overall number of under-25 apprenticeships fell sharply from 93,300 last year to 49,100.
Department for Business, Innovation and Skills spokes-entities attribute this fall to the (now abandoned) requirement for apprentices to take out a 24 + Advanced Learning Loan to fund their learning. The number of 19-24 apprenticeships also dropped, from 82,000 to 76,000 ‘but the number of under 19 starts rose to 71,100 from 69,600, but still down on 2011/12’s 79,100’.
Have needless restrictions and layers of bureaucracy around the traineeships programme lessened its chances of making a difference? What can be done to prevent other government flagship reform programmes from suffering a similar fate?
Agency wants online delivery data
From the 2014/15 academic year, providers will have to tell the Skills Funding Agency how many of their courses are being delivered online through their Individual Learner Record (ILR) returns.
This rule comes a couple of weeks after the government’s Further Education Learning Technology Action Group (FELTAG) recommended that ‘10 % of all publicly-funded courses should be delivered online by 2015/16, with incentives to rise to 50% by 2017/18’.
As usual, the devil is in the detail, with providers stating the practicality of these measures, but questioning how they will define ‘delivered online’. For example, ‘If a tutor shows the whole class something they’ve found on YouTube, is it online delivery if the tutor emails them, but not if everyone’s sat in a classroom watching it all together?’
Lingfield reveals FE institute plans
We’re ‘months away’ from the introduction of a chartered status for Further Education providers, as proposed by Lord Lingfield.
The new Institution for Further Education has been given responsibility by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills for developing and launching the new ‘chartered status’ quality mark.
One of the proposals for the quality mark, which is cautiously supported by FE institutions, includes a possible fee of up to £10,000 for centres (a further financial pressure on them), to receive the chartered status, which would provide assurances about the professionalism and quality of the institution applying for it.
