The private firm behind the new “National Institute of Education”

The Shard, where the National Institute of Education says it will hold some of its training

Is a private business about to make a killing from encouraging schools to use funding, via the government’s apprenticeship levy, to pay for professional development for teachers?

It certainly seems not beyond the realms of possibility after we did some investigation into the newly-, and perhaps misleadingly-, named “National Institute of Education”.

As Schools Week reported back in October, the “NIE” has been set up to “help schools to use the money they pay into [the government’s new] apprenticeship levy”.

Since April, multi-academy trusts with a wage bill of £3 million or more, schools with salary bills over that figure and local authorities, on behalf of their schools with lower pay overheads, have been paying the levy, which schools or trusts can then claim back by paying for apprenticeship training for their staff.