Blog Archives: August 2017

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The second non-levy tender is a bureaucrat’s dream...

By Nick Linford, Writing exclusively for NCFE, Thursday 31 August 2017

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After a delayed, expensive and ultimately aborted exercise, the ESFA is having another go at tendering apprenticeship funding allocations for providers working with small (non-levy) employers. Up to £650 million is available over the 15 months between January 2018 and March 2019, and around 1,800 eligible organisations will be offered a crack at getting their hands on some of it.

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Coming around again

By Esme Winch, Managing Director, Wednesday 16 August 2017

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The pace of apprenticeship reform continues steadily, with the recent relaunch of the non-levy apprenticeships tender. Following a stalled attempt earlier in the year, which was hugely oversubscribed, the Department for Education (DfE) has taken a breather, reset the clock and issued a new bidding round. The admission that the first round didn’t go to plan has been anticipated for a while, but it shows some acceptance from the DfE and ESFA that the first round was flawed. There are also some critical differences between the tenders which may have some bearing on who gets a contract or not.

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Vocational qualifications: do they make the grade?

By Andrew Gladstone-Heighton, Policy Leader, Wednesday 16 August 2017

Andrew Gladstone-Heighton

With August sharp becoming one of the wettest months of the year, the Department for Education (DfE) released their own deluge of information and documents, in time for us in the sector to wade through and pick out anything of value. One of the many things released was the long overdue DfE/Frontier report: Economics Assessing the Vocational Qualifications Market in England.

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T-Break

By Esme Winch, Managing Director, Wednesday 16 August 2017

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Just over a year ago, the Post-16 Skills Plan was published, and the government committed to a hugely ambitious reform of the technical education system. The plan proposes a complete overhaul of the technical education system, and the timescales for implementation always appeared ambitious. It was therefore no surprise that Skills Minister Anne Milton announced a one year delay to implementation of the first T-Levels, which will now be phased in from 2020-22. The announcement was a welcome one. Department for Education (DfE) staff have been increasingly stretched in the past few years, with a vast array of changes to action and a string of new ministers. It is clear that staff are taking time to understand the complexities of the changes, and previous timescales would be impossible to meet.

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No wrong path for learners collecting results

By Rachel Hopkins, Marketing Officer, Wednesday 16 August 2017

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Scotland has begun to lead with way with many students receiving their exam results and the rest of the UK will follow suit by the end of August. Anxiously biting their nails, students and pupils may think they can just about see their future unfolding before them like a yellow brick road. If only it were that simple. In a show of solidarity to those who think their future success is hinged on the results they have, or shortly will receive, and the choices they make in the immediate aftermath, the more worldly-wise are letting them know this is not necessarily so. A wave of social media support has begun in the form of the hashtag #NoWrongPath. People from around around the country are sharing their own less than linear paths to success. They show twists, turns, back steps and full circles that aren’t so obvious when all you can see is the end result.

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The results are in – Employer Qualification Perceptions Survey

By Kievah Wallace, PR and Social Media Officer, Thursday 10 August 2017

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The introduction of the Apprenticeship Levy has catapulted the role of the employer in further and higher education into the spotlight like never before. Employers are now integral to the development of new apprenticeship standards, to ensure that learners are equipped with work-ready knowledge and practical skills to meet the sector specific needs of the job they wish to enter. Ofqual recently published their employer qualification perceptions survey with the aim of understanding what employers think about qualifications both when hiring new employees and when investing in training and upskilling staff. Conducted by Pye Tait, the survey asked over 2,000 employers in England for their views on vocational and technical qualifications and assessments.

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