ESFA Update further education: 8 April 2020
Published 8 April 2020
Applies to England
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1. Latest guidance on coronavirus (COVID-19)
To support colleges and other further education providers affected by coronavirus we have updated the following guidance:
- Coronavirus (COVID-19): apprenticeship programme response
- Coronavirus (COVID-19): maintaining further education provision
DfE have also published guidance about COVID-19 in educational settings for staff, parents and carers, pupils and students on GOV.UK. Please check GOV.UK regularly for updates.
There is also guidance on the apprenticeship service about COVID-19.
2. Information: maintaining online delivery including via existing sub-contracting arrangements with AEB funding
On Friday 3 April DfE issued operational guidance on new arrangements and responses to questions for grant funded organisations delivering further education including general further education colleges, sixth form colleges, and other providers.
We would like to stress the importance of maintaining online delivery including via existing sub-contracting arrangements with AEB funding to support existing learners wherever possible.
We have reserved the right to clawback funds where it can be demonstrated that a grant funded provider has not sought to continue delivery wherever possible online or otherwise, either directly or for ESFA funded AEB through their existing subcontractors.
The consultation on future arrangements for subcontracting concluded in March and ESFA will be publishing a response at the end of May. We can’t at this stage offer a definitive line on changes to the subcontracting rules, but in light of the COVID-19 situation we do not anticipate any major changes for the 2020 to 2021 academic year.
3. Information: breaks in learning in the apprenticeship service for employers and training providers
We have produced a video that shows employers how to use pause and stop in the apprenticeship service to record a break in learning.
This video takes employers through the new measures relating to breaks in learning that were recently detailed in the apprenticeship programme response to COVID-19 document. In the video we describe why employers might want to pause or stop an apprentice record in the apprenticeship service, and how to do it.
We also explain the steps that training providers have to take to record apprentice “breaks in learning” through the individualised learner record, (ILR).