Every Whitehall education minister: Vocational qualifications are too complex, there are too many. We're going to rationalise so it's easier for employers Mayors: Hold my beer

Ofqual's 'intervention' on exam cheating devices today would have been timely in 2020, not 2026. While the regulator discovers "smart spectacles", students are being aggressively targeted on social media with tech that, on current trends, Ofqual may or may not discover until the mid-2030s:

📢Breaking: Staff at City & Guilds have threatened legal and industrial action over redundancy plans from new owners PeopleCert feweek.co.uk/city-guilds-...

Absolutely heartbreaking. The only silver lining is that this is a solvable problem, but it will not solve itself without significant and sustained investment and attention from government. A new scheme over here or an apprenticeship tweak over there will not cut it.

Breaking: There are now over a million young people not in education, employment or training feweek.co.uk/youth-neet-r...

📢 It's UCU Congress next week! FE delegates will debate prioritising national bargaining over pay rises, ethnic minority representation in college leadership & a union subscription fee increase for higher-earning lecturers Here's @feweek.bsky.social's Congress preview feweek.co.uk/switch-focus...

Not a story I had on the flatplan at the start of the week, if I'm honest feweek.co.uk/gemma-collin...

Today's @feweek.bsky.social 👂We uncover the world of cheating tech targeting students behind the backs of regulators and providers 💷 New adult ed contracts have been paused after a legal challenge ⛓️‍💥SME apprenticeship support services at risk after post-Brexit cash cuts

News moves fast

Starmer and his team clearly feel there is capital in bigging up FE's working class credentials (and rightly so) in his political speeches - but it hits a sour note after real-terms funding cuts for 16-19 year-olds feweek.co.uk/starmer-to-g...

📖10+ years after the raising of the education participation age and the government is still trying to plug "anomalies" - this time it's seriously ill teenagers falling through the net Excellent investigation here from @annieiseating.bsky.social feweek.co.uk/seeking-more...

👀 A sneak peek at this week's @feweek.bsky.social front page Get our edition exclusives first with an FE Week membership (and fewer ads, plus other perks) For a free trial, use code LAUNCHTRIAL2026 at checkout: feweek.co.uk/subscribe/

Good morning! In this week's @feweek.bsky.social : 🤷Training providers have done the maths on apprenticeship units ... and the new funding rates don't add up 🤺 Two major contruction training bodies are locked in a trade mark dispute over 'skills passports'

I thought Skills England bosses got a fairly easy ride from the DWP committee this morning. Our live blog takes you through the highlights ⬇️ feweek.co.uk/skills-engla...

Fare well, Tim Apple. I will miss replying ‘good morning’ to you in your keynotes.

🚨Members at City & Guilds Foundation have voted in favour of an independent inquiry into the sale of its commercial awarding and training arms Trustees will "consider" their next steps feweek.co.uk/city-guilds-...

Good morning from Tokyo, where it's nearly 7am and I'm too excited to sleep. Only have three days here and a to-do list the size of JP Tower. Have you been? Send me recommendations

Artemis astronauts now sharing photos of the moon they have taken with their iPhones. The lights are switched off on the spaceship so they can take photos better.

At this point my major capitalist rebellion is skipping ads on podcasts

Good to see @feweek.bsky.social's Anviksha Patel digging into the data on cuts to prison education provision published earlier this week. Last year, North Sea Camp had 92% attendance at education, the third highest of any prison. Now its education provision has been cut by 58%.

"Prisons minister Lord Timpson stressed there were no cuts to the budget, but the cost of delivering education has increased significantly, causing decreases in education delivery hours." It's always fascinating how rapidly GOATS go native.

📖 New contracts have seen prison education delivery drop by a staggering 130,000 hours feweek.co.uk/revealed-pri...

‼️Breaking: Jail time for qualification fraudsters Sushil Kumar, Pradeep Sheregear and Jaspal Saini were convicted of fraud this afternoon in a "sophisticated" cheating scam in construction health and safety exams feweek.co.uk/earpiece-exa...

For over a million young people, the so-called 'September guarantee' is far from it @joshmellor.bsky.social investigates how tens of thousands of school leavers are falling through the cracks each year while councils admit they don’t know where many of them end up feweek.co.uk/missing-teen...

Coming up in this week’s FE Week: 🎯Apprenticeships achievements hit a high as new 70% target set 🚀Level 7 cut-off boom revealed as under-19 starts hit another low 😵September ‘guarantee’ missed over a million young people PROFILE: Bill Jones, Luminate Education Group feweek.co.uk/subscribe/

Good evening! Coming up in this week’s @feweek.bsky.social 🍨Defunded apprenticeships were good enough for government departments to hire right up to funding being withdrawn 🪓 Analysis of this week’s defunding & units announcements 🔍 We look at past attempts to encourage youth employment

Exclusive: The apprenticeships budget will rise to £3.3 billion in April, up from £3.1 billion. feweek.co.uk/apprenticesh...

APPRENTICECHIPS DEFUNDING LATEST: Training providers are being put on notice - there will be recruitment caps on defunded apprenticeships to avoid a rush on starts STORY: feweek.co.uk/dwp-caps-new...

2️⃣ Amongst all the news of apprenticeship cuts today, we learn the much-anticipated new level 2 administration standard will have an age limit feweek.co.uk/new-level-2-...

'Ministers have made the call that there is no such thing as an apprentice manager' From V Levels to defunded management apprenticeships, to multiple FE funding snubs - a week is a long time in FE and skills. Subscribe to @feweek.bsky.social now if you haven't already

🚨 Breaking: 16 apprenticeships will be defunded, including team leader, chartered manager and operations manager, among others, collectively representing about 35,000 starts across over 600 training providers, colleges and universities feweek.co.uk/apprenticesh...

Good evening! Coming up in this week’s FE Week: 💷 Principals react angrily to this week’s 16-19 funding snubs ✌️ Full roundup of V Levels, T Levels and BTEC defunding announcements ✍️ Jacqui Smith makes the quals case for the government, with reaction from @sixthformcolleges.bsky.social

“Four week ago today, I was at college. A plumber, learning how to plaster. Today, I’m in parliament as an MP … I truly believe anyone doing a job like mine should get a seat on these benches’l 👏👏👏 youtu.be/ETW5MUKuEj0?...

Overnight news: Level 3 quals defunding pushed back to 2027 as V Levels are rolled out feweek.co.uk/dfe-agrees-t...

Good evening! Coming up in this week’s FE Week: 📰Our #ATC2026 news roundup: from funding rule debates to an AI confession 🏫The children’s commissioner weighs in on colleges mopping up system failures elsewhere 🚕MP’s attack ‘unconcerned’ DfE on post-16 SEND transport

Proud editor moment seeing @jessjanehill.bsky.social’s byline and her @feweek.bsky.social investigation mentioned on today’s iconic Sunday Times front page

🚨 Breaking: Former NCG CEO Joe Docherty, now Lord Docherty, has been suspended as a Labour peer after it emerged he resigned from his college role after conducting sexual liaisons during working hours feweek.co.uk/joe-docherty...

👀 Happy to have a piece featured in this week’s @feweek.bsky.social summarising our response @ascl-uk.bsky.social to the NEET crisis: feweek.co.uk/we-need-a-14...

Coming up in @feweek.bsky.social: 📢 Major SEND reforms - full report and reaction ⏱️As NEETs rise, a potentially very popular apprenticeship is still on ice 👩‍🏫 DfE are clamping down on FE teacher training 3️⃣ Ahead of more announcements, we get underneath DfE's '900 confusing qualifications' claims

A 🧵with some charts - showing you cannot understand youth labour markets without understanding the role of education participation in the lives of 16-24 year olds. There are nearly as many 22–24-year-olds who are NEET (375,000) as 18–21-year-olds (399,000), with 16–17-year-olds just 63,000.

Reform UK’s Andrea Jenkyns has become the first English mayor to defund English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) courses. Ignoring the public consultation which opposed the move, plans were approved today and will kick in from 2027. feweek.co.uk/fundamentall...

Colleges are set to receive additional funding to improve maternity pay for their staff, the Department for Education has announced https://feweek.co.uk/dfe-to-fund-maternity-pay-improvements-in-colleges/

Is this a taste of Reform UK education policies? Should the taxpayer pay for non-English speakers to learn the language of the country they live in?

"Responding to the consultation, GLCCA noted that around half of consultation responses were from people “directly involved” in the sector, or experts and specialists, who are “more motivated” to raise concerns" feweek.co.uk/greater-linc...

Try telling someone in Germany that in England we’ve decided one year is far too long for lots of apprenticeships. They’ll probably assume they’ve misheard you. As Charlotte I think argues part of the answer is to stop calling everything an apprenticeship, other training has value too.

Rare to get an actual vox pop with a pothole

The good news is employers can still invest in these apprenticeships outside the levy - levy is a minimum not a maximum. Or there may be shorter courses that do the job that become eligible. Management & leadership is important. Doesn’t mean apprenticeships funded thru levy are answer.

Employers, dust off your CPD budgets ... feweek.co.uk/management-a...

Coming up in this week’s @feweek.bsky.social ❌Leadership & management apprenticeships are being targeted in drive to pivot towards young people 🤔April launch will only see ‘tight group’ of short courses 📖AoC urges sector to improve DfE gender guidance for college-age young people

This is what Pat McFadden wants to talk about on the Sunday shows in the morning ahead of National Apprenticeship Week. Unfortunately, as Peter Mandelson's deputy when he was business secretary, I suspect Keunssberg et al will have other ideas.