UCU members in FE! I'll be heading to congress in Harrogate next week. Will be lovely to see you all. My DMs and ears are open for venting about college bosses!

🗳️ Jo Grady could face a re-ballot over her position as University and College Union leader amid claims she broke campaign rules feweek.co.uk/watchdog-to-...

Watchdog to hear claims Jo Grady broke UCU election rules

The general secretary narrowly won the 2024 ballot by 182 votes

feweek.co.uk

🚨Breaking: A special funding uplift for T Levels has been slashed in half, DfE confirms feweek.co.uk/disappointme...

T Levels funding rate uplift halved

Decision comes weeks after the NAO revealed a £688m underspend on the total T Level budget

feweek.co.uk

Bit of a disappointing edu committee hearing from the Skills England bosses. We heard zilch on level 7 apprenticeship axing and there was no direct acknowledgement of chronic FE funding issues. Speed read on the key takeaways for @feweek.bsky.social coming soon...

FE Week@feweek.bsky.social · last yr.

📢Parliament's education committee is about to convene to quiz the leaders of new agency Skills England, followed by a training provider/apprenticeships panel We'll be posting highlights here during the session 🧵

📢Parliament's education committee is about to convene to quiz the leaders of new agency Skills England, followed by a training provider/apprenticeships panel We'll be posting highlights here during the session 🧵

What a jaw-dropping report from the FE Commissioner into the pay of Weston College's former principal Paul Phillips. £2.5 million of public money pocketed that was intentionally not disclosed to the government. All the while Phillips accepts an honorary Knighthood... feweek.co.uk/weston-colle...

Governors let £2.5m in undeclared payments to ex-principal

Paul Phillips was paid £1.8m in 2023, incl. a six-figure retention payment which his COO son ‘resisted’ paying

feweek.co.uk

Exclusive: Bridget Phillipson had to ask head Katharine Birbalsingh to ‘lower her tone’ and ‘allow her to finish her sentences’, official government minutes of a controversial meeting between the pair claim

'Lower your tone': DfE's account of THAT Birbalsingh chat

Government's minutes claim education secretary had to ask head to 'allow me to finish my sentences'

buff.ly

Good morning NEW from @tom-richmond.com with @smfthinktank.bsky.social today: 💷Around £430m could be saved if graduates were blocked from taking publicly funded apprenticeships ✋Grad ban funding should be redirected to younger and disadvantaged groups feweek.co.uk/1-in-6-appre...

1 in 6 apprenticeships taken by uni graduates

SMF report reignites calls for more radical apprenticeship spending restrictions

feweek.co.uk

Oof - big drop in GCSE English resit G4 pass rates for those taking the exam in November Suspect it may be related to the Pearson 2.0 issue Slight rise in maths pass rates

The @theifs.bsky.social do great work analysing education spending across the board. Here they show the £300m in the budget for FE will only deliver a real-terms freeze in per-student funding. feweek.co.uk/ifs-300m-boo...

IFS: £300m boost only delivers real-terms FE funding freeze

Demographic bulge, inflation, pay gap, high staff turnover and labour market demands create ‘perfect storm’ for colleges

feweek.co.uk