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Thousands of students failed to achieve the A-level grades required to confirm their university placements in 1999, but 330,000 course places remain vacant. Students should carefully consider these vacancies and opt for the most appropriate course for their individual needs as this is likely to be the foundation for their future career path. Students are advised to remain calm and not feel under pressure to make a decision on course options. They should consult their teachers, who may be able to persuade the university to admit students who failed to make the required grades.

Byline: Steve Hook A techie at heart, the truth is I'm also a marketer (there, I've said it). But even for me, the BYOD hype cycle has reached new heights. [...]

A House of Lords report states that the National Apprenticeship Service (NAS), set up to convince more firms to offer apprenticeships, will be effective only if it is allowed to approach employers directly, without the intervention of the Train to Gain brokers.

A report by the House of Lords' economic affairs committee recommends that apprenticeships be put under the purview of a single minister to enhance focus on work-based vocational training.

Most of the top Apprentice of the Year awards for 2008 were won by women, two of them in traditionally male-dominated areas, namely aerospace and pharmaceuticals.

Students are expected to avail of the Train to Gain program from 2010 initiated by the British government. The scheme will provide employers with Government-subsidized training for their staff.

Plans to give workers in the U.K. the right to request time off work for training are expected to boost adult education numbers. The proposed scheme will be applicable to every employee after more than 26 weeks of service.

Momotaz Begum admits that joining an adult learning course helped build her self-esteem as well as helped learn new skills from among members of the group.

Colleges are examining the possible options that can be adopted to keep under-16s separate from adult students. This is to protect and ensure their safety from untoward incidents that could be committed adult students.

College unions are concerned about the possible marginalization of Muslim students due to the Government's intention to tackle terrorism. They are worried that a Government consultation on this issue is likely to fuel more social divisions and make Muslim students a focus of negative attention.

A report reveals that women from ethnic communities need to be included in education for the communities to overcome poverty. It is suggested that cultural barriers to women's education in certain ethnic communities need to be appropriately addressed for the purpose.

An Ofsted report has rated the Stockport College as outstanding in several areas including leadership, management and quality of provision. This is a remarkable recovery for the college after being rated as one of the worst in the country in 2001.

Several readers' questions and the answers provided to them by the Health and Safety Executive on some health and safety issues encountered in colleges are presented. They deal with various issues including whether risky sporting activities should be avoided, and who is to be held responsible for accidents on campus.

Bridgewater College won the top award at the annual Beacon Awards or further education for its most innovative approach to education. The college had made learning science interesting to students by introducing a course in forensics, a subject currently popular among teenagers.

The University and College Union (UCU) and other unions have decided to hold protests outside colleges over an offered pay rise of 2.5% for lecturers and non-teaching staff in colleges. Members insist that they should be paid on par with schoolteachers.

Members of the health and fitness industry will take part in national consultations to review occupational standards among sports and fitness trainers and enhance colleges' role in fitness training.

Peter Tavernor, principal of Manchester College of Arts and Technology, will move to the rank of 'super- principal' after the merger of his institution with City College Manchester on August 1, 2008. The Manchester College will be the second-largest further education institution in the U.K., with a budget of Pounds Sterling 130 million.

The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) is encouraging bright students to move into higher education through the traditional GCSE and A-level qualifications. The move is aimed at having employees with higher-level skills to cope with the increasing globalization of the workplace.

The City of Bristol College has apologized to Gary Baird and paid a fine for the accident that occurred in the motor technology center that left him maimed for life.

The personality traits besides educational qualifications that employers look for during interviews for new employees are put forth.

FE colleges are faced with the need to accommodate an increased number of teenagers, owing to the Government intent to provide compulsory education or training to children till 18 years of age.

An offer of pounds sterling 50 gift vouchers to Christmas shoppers to spend on college courses could be an ideal and useful alternative to retail gift vouchers.

The intention of three conferences to look closely at the past issues of adult education in order to enable an effective vision for the future is presented.

The launching of the Music Centre, a music training centre that offers accredited courses to those wishing to pursue a career in music, is presented.

A 2007 Conservative Party report that promises students a greater voice in how public money is spent and to abolish the Learning and Skills Council if they come to power is discussed.

An opinion by lecturers that forcing students to continue in education till 18 years of age might not be beneficial to them but counterproductive is presented.

The merger of three London colleges to form a single significant further education (FE) institution is discussed. It is considered a forerunner of a trend of such large super-colleges.

The efforts made by a college head to effectively transform two failing schools as the first initiative in the Government's academies program are discussed.

The building of the vocational training campus in Sheffield College is being designed in such a way to make maximum use of the windy site. Three wind turbines are being installed in order to use wind power to keep the building's energy costs at a minimum, along with plans to use solar panels as sources of alternate energy and usage of stored rainwater for flushing purposes.

A plan to completely modernize England's colleges by about 2014 has resulted in colleges investing billions of pounds in building work through their own resources and grants from the Learning and Skills Council (LSC). Colleges that are carrying out such major improvements have raised their performance in terms of recruitment, retention, achievement and quality.

Colleges in the UK faced the biggest outbreak of strikes in the modern further education sector in May 2005 as funding problems cast a shadow over the latest pay talks with the Government. Paul Mackney, general secretary of the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education, expressed fears of a national strike as the goal of pay parity unless ministers intervened in the pay deal.

Colleges fear widespread cuts to basic skills courses including schemes for students with learning difficulties and disabilities due to funding shortage from Learning and Skills Council for 2005-2006. An inquiry is carried out to look at the present demand for adult education, long-term trends, successful schemes to widen participation and the concerns of colleges.

Controversial lecturer and head of the centre for professional learning at Canterbury Christ Church university Dennis Hayes in April 2005 was elected vice-president of lecturers' union Natfhe. Hayes would automatically be president after one year and the last to hold the post before the union merges with the Association of University Teachers (AUT).

The National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (Natfhe) will join others in their battle against the British GovernmentEs plans for public-sector pensions. Natfhe will ballot college and university lecturers for strike action in the midst of campaigning for the general election, in protest against plans to increase their retirement age from 60 to 65 years.

The Learning and Skills Council (LSC) faces the challenge of extracting four million pounds from a network of organizations, which distributed cash to hundreds of training outfits running learndirect courses. It is believed that most of the money is owed in 'clawback' where learndirect provision has fallen short of what was planned at the time the LSC funding was given.

Northern Ireland is planning to fund key skills for tackling poor literacy and numeracy problem affecting its population. For this purpose six key skill qualifications at Level 1 to 4 are introduced that include communication, application of number, information technology, working with others, improving own learning and performance and problem-solving.

The president of Natfhe, Sam Allen, is accused of over-claiming 1,000 pounds sterling as expenses from the union. He has denied any financial irregularities and is seeking legal advice for facing the allegations.

The Tomlinson education reforms recommend full-time places for pupils in colleges from the age of 14. Association of Colleges (AoC) claims that the government should make legal changes for allowing these pupils to leave school two years before completion of compulsory education.

The issue of equal rights will be at the center of the Learning and Skills CouncilEs (LSC) thinking with the creation of a national advisory group. The equality and diversity committee will tackle issues such as race, gender and disability and work alongside the LSCEs other communities, including those for youth and adult learning.

The Tomlinson report in its landmark 14-19 reform inquiry recommends that the pay gap between college lecturers and schoolteachers be closed. The issue of pay parity is included in a list of requirements that need to be addressed if the reportEs main recommendation, namely the introduction of a four-level diploma to replace the General Certificates of Secondary Education (GCSEs) and A-levels, is to work.

The Education Secretary Charles Clarke has warned that colleges will have to find new ways of raising funds if the expansion of further education is to continue at the current pace. Private-sector cash is required to make up a funding shortage for commitments already made by the Department for Education and Skills and colleges should prove that they are the best place to spend corporate training budgets, if they want to expand further.

FE's bureaucracy tsar revealed that bad management by civil servants rather than red tape is the main problem for colleges. Sir Andrew Foster, the man appointed to investigate bureaucracy in FE, believes that improvements in management should be made within the Department for Education and Skills and the DfES should make a clear statement about its relationship with the Learning and Skills Council that the public can understand.

The outgoing chairman of the Learning and Skills Council (LSC), Bryan Sanderson, has blamed civil servants for much of the bureaucracy in colleges and has called on the Government to cull at least 110,000 jobs across all its departments immediately. He described his disillusionment with the civil service since joining the LSC in 2000 and his comments have revealed a deep discontent with the direction taken by Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The Learning and Skills Councils (LCS) have asked the colleges to slash their budgets for September 2004, as the council does not have enough cash to meet funding commitments. The LSC and the Association of Colleges have acknowledged that the colleges recruiting more students than expected are the main reasons for the cash crisis.

Union activists in the UK introduced a record number of employees into workplace training in the year since April 2003. The number of workers signing up for courses increased from an average of 4,000 a year to 8,000 in 2003, since learning representatives got the legal right for free time to help colleagues get along the training courses.

Newcastle College, Kingston University, Tyne and Wear Learning and Skills Council, and the TyneWear Partnership have joined forces to set up the GBP1.7 mil Newcastle Aviation Academy. The aviation engineering academy at Newcastle Airport will see its courses counted towards a full degree in aeronautical engineering.

According to inspectors, not enough Welsh college students are getting the qualifications they enrolled for. This comes despite the fact that standards of student achievement in Wales have increased, with 15% of colleges getting a grade one for student achievement and motivation in 2001-2002, vs 14% in 2000-2001.

According to the Further Education National Training Organisation's chief executive, David Hunter, further education colleges should be wary of striving to become universities. According to Hunter, colleges must focus on developing the skills the economy actually requires.

According to a survey by the Learning and Skills Council, employee s are not trained thoroughly enough to cope with new working methods. As a result, they are not as effective as they could be, which, in turn, is damaging the effectiveness of UK businesses.