DIUS FE and Skills e-Newsletter

Audience: FE college principals/governors, independent providers, voluntary providers (all post-16 providers)

Christmas greetings from the Department for Innovation Universities and Skills.

We want to wish you all a happy Christmas holiday, so please click on the link below to view our excellent e-card designed by Patrick Caulwell and Anthony Zizzi, students from Matthew Boulton College, the winner of our e-card competition.

• View DIUS Christmas e-card

Audience: All with an interest in skills for employment – as users or providers

Have you ever wanted the opportunity to really question a Minister in detail about their policies? Here’s your chance to find out what it’s like!

Bill Rammell, Minister for Further Education, Higher Education and Lifelong Learning, recently took part in a live internet debate on skills and employment with Equal Works, the website of the Equal project. Viewers from around the country watched live via the web and sent in questions as the debate developed. The Minister tackled topics as diverse as basic skills, Level two qualifications, ICT and technology, asylum seekers and English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL.)

The debate has been archived and is available to download and watch via your computer at www.equal-works.com. Equal is a European Social Fund initiative which tackles discrimination and inequalities in the labour market, for those in work and those seeking work.

• Equal Works

Audience: : FE College principals, independent providers, school sixth forms, voluntary providers, teachers

Look out for an announcement in the new year of a new and innovative scheme which will give some of your outstanding 18-19 year old students an international opportunity of a lifetime. We will be inviting you to nominate those 18-19 year old students who show real initiative.

Watch this space for further information.

Audience: : FE college principals and training providers

The Department of Children, Schools and Families set out its plans for putting the needs of families, children and young people at the centre of its work in The Children’s Plan published on 11 December. This will be of interest to all providers in the FE system, particularly those delivering learning to young people.

• View The Children’s Plan

Audience: Anyone with an interest in the future of the FE sector

John Denham invited around twenty college Principals, a Governor, a private training provider and Rob Wye of the LSC to attend a scenario planning event over twenty-four hours in London over 11/12 December. The group reviewed the key factors that will affect FE in the coming years and developed four different scenarios to help them think about the future. Based on this, the group then identified a set of issues and themes that will be used to feed into a much wider event for the whole sector to be planned for February.

A report of the event will follow in the New Year and we will issue invitations to the second event as soon as possible.

Audience: College Principals, governors, senior managers, independent training providers

The FE Communications Gateway Panel is a sector owned group, chaired by Sally Dicketts, Principal of Oxford and Cherwell Valley College, that reviews draft publications from DIUS, LSC and DCSF. Drafts it has considered include:

• World Class Skills: Implementing the Leitch Review of Skills in England
• Framework for Excellence: How the framework will work
• 14-19 Diploma – Gateway 2 Guidance and Application
• Statement of Priorities
• A summary of Train to Gain – a Plan for Growth
• Adult Learning and Skills – Investing in the first steps

The Panel has welcomed policy teams’ openness in sharing key documents and their willingness to improve the way they communicate key policy messages to FE providers, and consider there has been improvement. But would you agree? Panel members are keen to hear from recipients of good and bad examples of important communications from DIUS, DCSF or the LSC. Contact Louisa McGeehan, who is helping promote the Panel’s work across the sector, at Louisa.mcgeehan@coi.gsi.gov.uk

Further information about the Panel including members and remit can be found at DIUS- further education-FE Communications Gateway Panel

• FE communications gateway panel

Audience: FE college principals and staff and training providers

Continuing their programme of visits to FE colleges and providers, Ministers have recently been to Matthew Boulton College and will be visiting West Nottinghamshire and Lewisham colleges in the next couple of days.

As part of his series of regional meetings with college principals and training provider chief executives, Bill Rammell is meeting a group of providers in the East Midlands Region on 17 December.

Audience: People working in Skills for Life/basic skills, literacy teachers and support staff, college staff, library staff, union learning reps, employers

Where can you sit back and relax with Josephine Cox, find out how Colin Jackson copes with life beyond athletics, or find out about Gordon Ramsay eating humble pie? With Quick Reads!

Quick Reads are fast-paced, bite-sized books by bestselling writers and celebrities for adults who have lost or never had the reading habit, or avid readers wanting a short, fast read. On World Book Day, 6 March 2008, ten brand-new Quick Reads will be published.

Quick Reads is a unique partnership between DIUS, the publishing industry and a wide range of educational organisations, offering adults the chance to develop a love of reading and improve their literacy skills. Colleges, libraries and workplaces around the country have been getting involved with Quick Reads since the Prime Minister launched them in March 2006.

To find out more, to get involved and to order your free promotional pack, visit the Quick Reads website.

Quick Reads 2008 is part of the National Year of Reading.

• Quick Reads
• National Year of Reading

Audience: FE college principals/governors, independent providers, specialist colleges, sixth form colleges, voluntary providers and national partners/stakeholders

You are invited to take part in a consultation to help determine the strategy and services for a new sector-owned organisation, formed through the coming together of the Quality Improvement Agency (QIA) and the Centre for Excellence in Leadership (CEL). The new organisation will take a comprehensive approach to whole organisation improvement, based on leading edge practice from within the sector and further afield and building on the work of QIA and CEL. It will also help the sector to develop its capacity, succeed in self-regulation and meet the social and economic challenges we face.

Your contribution now and in the future is important to the success of the new organisation. Why? Because it will be owned and driven by you - by the further education sector.

You can participate in the consultation by visiting the DIUS website.

• FE improvement consultation

Audience: FE college principals/governors, independent providers, school sixth forms, local authorities, voluntary providers and national partners/stakeholders

The DIUS Simplification Plan was published on 11 December, alongside the plans of all major government department and agencies, as part of the Government's drive for better regulation. The Plan includes significant information about the progress being made in reduction of unnecessary bureaucracy in the FE system, and sets out plans for 2007/08. Of particular relevance to further education are pages 14-16 and the simplification grid on page 22.

If you have any suggestions to further reduce further the level of unnecessary bureaucracy, we would like to hear from you. Please contact Bobbie McClelland Bobbie.mcclelland@dius.gsi.gov.uk