Middlesex University partners with sixth forms

Middlesex University has formed a partnership with a group of top-performing sixth-form colleges, to accredit new higher education in FE courses. It will work with Hampshire’s Peter Symonds College, King Edward VI College in the West Midlands, Cardinal Newman College in Lancashire and Hills Road Sixth Form College in Cambridge on degrees in subjects from bioscience to social services. The university said it expects the colleges to offer lower-cost, local provision, which reflects the needs of their areas. Alex Day, director of adult education at Peter Symonds, said: “We all have ambitious plans to give more people from non-traditional backgrounds the chance to gain high-level qualifications, but we can also open the door to new partners in the future, who can make the most of the knowledge and resource we are building, removing their risk of going it alone as well as saving time and public money.”

FE Guild gets the go-ahead with #163;18.8m budget

Ministers have given the green light for the formation of an FE Guild, and have awarded it an annual budget of #163;18.8 million from August this year to March 2015. The guild will set professional standards and support continuous professional development in the workforce. It will be overseen by board members from colleges, private training providers, non-profit providers and adult education providers. Martin Doel, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, one of the organisations leading the guild’s development, said: “The guild, with an overarching remit around professionalism, embracing qualifications, standards, teaching and learning research, continuous professional development and enabling networks of providers, will provide a real one-stop focus for professionalism, leadership, management and governance.”

Association of Colleges elects new president

Michele Sutton, principal of Bradford College, has been voted the president-elect of the Association of Colleges. She will take up the role in August when the current president, Maggie Galliers, steps down. Ms Sutton has led Bradford College since 2004, building it up to become one of the largest colleges in the country and the largest non-university higher education provider in Britain. “I’m passionate about the value that further education colleges - whatever their size or type - bring to individuals, communities, business and the wider economy,” she said. “We have to continually develop the college offer and I’m looking forward to building on the work of previous presidents in vigorously promoting the sector, representing it to government and agencies, and communicating member issues and policy priorities back into the Association of Colleges.”