A new survey has been launched to gather views from employers and technical experts on how maths and English Functional Skills qualifications should be reformed.

It  is part of a “multi-stage” consultation process, first announced on January 14, that will be looking into how the qualifications should be transformed by 2018.

A spokesperson for Pye Tait Consulting, which is running the process with the Education and Training Foundation (ETF), said the new employer survey would not close until “late March”.

It asks more than 25 questions, including on whether those filling in the survey had heard of Functional Skills, or offered them to employees.

It also asks what they thought should be included in “the content” of maths and English Functional Skills “to make them more valuable to you as an employer?”.

Guidance for contributing to the reforms on the Pye Tait Consulting website said that ETF would also be conducting interviews separately until late March with “employers from different sectors and of all sizes”.

A second consultation with providers and other sector experts is also expected to run from mid-May until late June.

It comes after FE Week revealed on December 1 that the ETF had appointed Yorkshire-based Pye Tait Consulting, in partnership with the the Learning and Work Institute (formerly NIACE), to lead the consultation on its behalf, following a public procurement process.

The government had previously asked ETF to carry out a comprehensive review of English and maths Functional Skills, as reported in FE Week in July, that will lead to new qualifications being launched in 2018.

An ETF spokesperson added that it intended to present a report to Ministers by the end of August, with a view to the reformed qualifications being ready to teach by September 2018.

Visit www.etfoundation.co.uk/functionalskillsreform or www.pyetait.com/fsreform to find out more about the consultation.

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