More than half of providers are failing to meet targets for collecting data about the employment status of their learners, figures released by the government have revealed.
The figures in the latest Individualised Learner Record (ILR) have revealed that 50.3 per cent of providers (481) missed an Information Authority (IA) target of 0.6 per cent for the number of learners for which they do not hold employment status information upon enrolment.
The sector as a whole, against the 0.6 per cent target, in fact had 8.2 per cent as “unknown” or “not provided”.
The target was for the halfway mark of the current academic year, but the result could mean that the employment status of tens of thousands of learners is not clear.
However, Steve Hewitt, strategic funding, enrolments and examinations manager at Morley College, said there was no consequence for failing to hit the target.
“The reason some [providers] are missing that target is there’s nothing that happens to us if we don’t provide that information,” he said.
“While they would like 0.6 per cent, the fact is, it’s 8.2 per cent which still isn’t bad for 1m learners.
“For the 50 per cent who are above that target there is no actual comeback.”
Despite the lack of information on learners upon course starts, the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) will, from next year, still be expecting providers to keep track of learners after they have completed courses by providing learner outcome and destination data.
Mr Hancock told FE Week: “Of course there’s always measurement issues around data, and I think that they’re important to resolve. But in a sense they are the means to the end.
“The end is holding colleges, schools, sixth from colleges to account for what they achieve for their students.”
In 2012, FE Week revealed that 40 per cent of providers sent data about apprentices to the Information Authority with details of employment status missing.
This led to calls by the then Shadow Skills Minister Gordon Marsden for the SFA and National Apprenticeship Service to do more to encourage providers to give a full picture.The SFA declined to comment.
We are coming towards the end of the second year of an inspection cycle where knowing the destinations of your learners was supposed to be a prominent factor in making judgements about outcomes. Reports for GFEs are often ‘sketchy’ about this while it is far easier for sixth form colleges (where the bulk of learners traditionally head for HE) or independent learning providers (where apprentices should remain in employment)to obtain data on what ex-learners are doing. My prediction for next year is for more relevance to be placed on destinations during inspections. They are a source of information that require systems to be put in place and cannot be done overnight. However, come inspections from October 2014, there will have been sufficient time elapsed to have improved that data capture. It doesn’t help, however, when Ofsted remove the field about destinations from their SSA data capture form ‘what colleges need to prepare in advance for inspection’ (the old B12 form). It sends the wrong message that this is not an expectation to be provided? One tip from my experience of colleges who are doing well with this is to get the staff who taught learners to be the prime source of follow up, rather than a support function or an external company. In an ideal world a provider should be able to say that ‘95% of learners on course X achieved related jobs or progressed to higher level qualifications’. Remember that an early leaver progressing to a job in related industry is a positive and should not be forgotten (especially if you follow it up by trying to convert it to an apprenticeship which I have seen done in hospitality at one large London college).
We have made great strides in collecting the employment status when learners join our service. However, we are dealing with a high volume of mandated learners who simply disappear – making it extremely difficult to obtain information after they have left our Service. We post out forms for learners to complete so we have evidence to claim the Job Outcome payment but we get less than 10% of them back.