The number of 16 to 18 apprenticeships offer from employers could fall as a direct result of proposed reforms, the House of Commons Education Committee has heard.
A panel of sector experts told MPs on the committee that the government’s decision to re-design frameworks in consultation with employers and route funding through employers, rather than providers, would increase the quality of apprenticeships.
But they also warned reform proposals, which further include an “enforced” employer’s fee for 16 and 17-year-old learners, could put employers off.
The comments came on Wednesday (December 10) with the committee investigating apprenticeships for 16 to 18-year-olds.
Paul Champion, assistant principal for work-based learning at Chesterfield College said: “I think they’re going reduce the number of people trained — I think they’re going to squeeze the opportunities for young people to get those skills, because they need to get them in business.”
Steve Radley, director of policy and strategic planning for the Construction Industry Training Board agreed, saying reforms “could cause smaller firms to walk away”.
He added: “You’re getting small firms to focus on dealing with bureaucracy whereas they should be left to deal with what they do best which is driving up the quality of the experience.”
However, Federation of Small Businesses policy adviser for education and business support Dan Hooper said he would be prepared to accept a reduction in number in exchange “for the increase the quality”.
He added: “The government doesn’t seem to have a clear vision of what happens when the Trailblazers end and employers then take control of the standards.
“Small businesses will be cast aside, therefore the quality wanted and expected from small firms won’t be there.”
FE consultant Mark Corney warned against the effect the “enforced fee” would have when it was proposed in a technical consultation in March. At the time, Mr Corney told FE Week the move would “kill off apprenticeships for 16 and 17 year olds”.
He added: “Why would you think imposing any charge whatsoever on 16-year-olds will increase employer demand?”
Nevertheless, the panel also warned former Education Secretary Michael Gove’s reforms to the English GCSE syllabus could have a knock-on effect on apprenticeships.
All learners who have not gained a GCSE maths or English grade C by the age of 16 must work towards it alongside their chosen post-16 programme.
However, UCU general secretary Sally Hunt said: “The new English GCSEs focus more towards literature — 19th Century literature and Shakespeare — for students who’ve already struggled with GCSEs, that’s creating a barrier.”
Kate Stock, managing director of Smart Training, agreed, saying: “We already have an alternative programme, it’s called Functional Skills and it’s much more relevant to the actual workplace the learner is in, and it works.”
Skills Minister Nick Boles has stepped away from his predecessor Matthew Hancock’s decision to scrap Functional Skills, and is currently considering a rebrand.
No date for the committee’s next hearing has been set, and the results of the government’s technical consultation, due around a month ago, are yet to be published.
The Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) has expressed “real concerns” about the government’s creation of a new company to support careers advice in schools.
Stewart Segal (pictured below right), AELP chief executive, said the careers company, proposed by Education Secretary Nicky Morgan (pictured below let) on Wednesday (December 10), risked adding to the “complexity” in the skills system.
His concerns were echoed by the Association of Colleges (AoC), which warned the company might not be a “silver bullet” on the issue of careers advice, and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), which said the measure “did not go far enough”.
Ms Morgan said the employer-led independent body would help schools fulfil their statutory duty to offer careers advice by brokering relationships between schools and employers.
She said the company “will encourage greater collaboration between employers and schools, helping schools and colleges access a wealth of experience to inspire young people about the possibilities of the world of work”.
“This will benefit young people across the country and ensure they leave school fully prepared for life in modern Britain,” she said.
However, Mr Segal said AELP would prefer to see a larger-scale solution to the problem of careers advice.
“We have real concerns about the creation of this new company adding to the already widely acknowledged complexity in the skills system,” he said.
“Our long-standing position is that England should have an integrated all-age service with the Department for Education and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills presiding over a single structure built around the services of the National Careers Service (NCS).
“We are pleased that there is a renewed focus on careers advice for 12 to 18-year-olds but it must be customer-focused and not cause confusion for schools.”
The company will form a £5m investment fund to support its work and is expected to be funded initially through the £20m set aside by Chancellor George Osborne in this year’s autumn statement, although it is not clear how much of that funding will be used.
Richard Atkins (pictured right), AoC president, said careers education in England was “broken… but it’s unlikely that there is any single silver bullet that will ensure every young person receives effective careers education”.
“We therefore look forward to working with the careers company, the NCS and others to form an alliance to redress the current failing system,” he said.
Dr Mary Bousted (pictured left), ATL general secretary, said: “While this is a useful addition to the landscape of careers guidance, it doesn’t go far enough. ATL has consistently called for face-to-face careers support for pupils in schools.
“This announcement suggests many ways for employers to become involved with schools, but it is not clear that there is funding for independent careers advice as and when pupils need it.”
The company will be chaired by Capgemini UK chair Christine Hodgson and Career Development Institute (CDI) president Karen O’Donoghue will form part of the national advisory groups for the company’s board.
Ms O’Donoghue said: “If the new company has a brief to review the potential to ensure a genuinely all age, all stage careers service, delivering professional career guidance services then this must be a positive move.”
‘Good to see government action’
Deirdre Hughes
Deirdre Hughes, chair of the National Careers Council
It is good to see the Government taking action in recognition that more needs to be done for young people and families when it comes to accessing and receiving careers advice.
Now much will depend on how this newly announced organisation will be shaped and delivered at a national and local level.
Let’s not underestimate — young people’s life chances are at stake if Government gets this wrong.
John Cridland
Confederation of British Industry director general John Cridland
The new careers company has the potential to make a big difference, and we look forward to working with Christine Hodgson and her team.
Every young person should have access to good support and advice, whatever their background.
Ultimately, this new body will be a success if it uses its power to look across the country to find and tackle local areas where young people are not getting the support they need.
A Hampshire sixth form college principal has blamed falling learner numbers and local competition for financial problems forcing it to look at a merger.
Mr Mucklow visited the 3,370-learner college, which was deemed by Ofsted to require improvement in March and has a current Education Funding Agency (EFA) allocation of £5.4m, in October after concerns were raised about a lack of improvement since it was issued with a financial notice to improve in the spring.
He warned the college, which also runs adult provision with a £2m Skills Funding (SFA) allocation and through subcontracting, faced an “immediate” crisis with the SFA seeking to claw back funding allocated for 24+ apprenticeships never delivered.
Mr Gaston said: “You could always see that this college was swimming against the tide a little bit. The college was graded inadequate by Ofsted in 2011 and when you are working in a very competitive market, that isn’t going to be on your side.
“We have a falling year 11 cohort. We are expecting a 12 per cent drop in the next five years, and Hampshire has its own unique situation in terms of the number of providers.
“Within a 12-mile radius of Totton, there are six post-16 providers, either sixth form colleges or general FE colleges and at the same time there is a new sixth form provision being built in Salisbury, where a lot of our learners come from.”
“We believe a merger with one or more suitable partners will ensure the college is best placed to realise its ambitions for learners, the community and employers, and for staff. We continue to work with the EFA and SFA to achieve this aim,” added Mr Gaston.
Mr Mucklow recommended, among other things, the EFA bring a £770,000 payment forward to the January to March period, and the SFA should claw back £280,000 in April to June instead of February.
It comes after Prior Pursglove College, which was graded inadequate by Ofsted in January having previously been rated as good, was praised for its progress in a fourth monitoring report. Inspectors said it had made significant or reasonable improvement in all areas.
No one from Prior Pursglove was available for comment.
The publication of official lists of technical and vocational qualifications that will figure in 2017 performance tables has been welcomed with the hope it might bring “relative stability”.
The Department for Education has updated its lists of new technical certificates for 16 to 19-year-olds, technical awards for 14 to 16-year-olds and A-level equivalent Tech-levels taught up to the age of 19. The 625 qualifications listed are approved for teaching from September and represent a significant fall from the 5,000-plus that could previously be included in performance tables.
Lynne Sedgmore, 157 Group executive director, said: “The publication of the full lists of vocational qualifications which will count towards league tables from 2017 at long last brings the prospect of relative stability in the FE and skills sector.
“What we now need is for politicians to give the sector the time to allow these qualifications to become embedded in the system so that the benefits of vocational learning are clear to students, teachers and employers.”
Tech-level qualifications were announced by the government in July last year to sit alongside the A-level academic route.
The Association of Colleges (AoC) has launched a consultation on a proposed new code of governance for English colleges.
Ex-head of FE and skills investment and performance at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) Dr Sue Pember who is now AoC governance adviser, has spent the last six months travelling the country collecting ideas on what should feature in the code from more than 250 governors and other sector leaders.
Dr Sue Pember
A draft version of the code [see below] was sent to colleges and other bodies with an interest in the sector including BIS, the Education Funding Agency, Skills Funding Agency, Ofsted, the National Union of Students and the University and College Union on Wednesday (December 10).
It was accompanied by a letter from AoC chair Carole Stott (pictured right) inviting principals and chairs of governors to submit their views on the document.
In the letter, Ms Stott said: “The new code should not be seen as supporting a ‘tick box’ approach, and boards are encouraged to adopt its spirit as well as its letter. By adopting the code, you can demonstrate leadership and stewardship in relation to your college help protect its reputation and that of the wider sector and give key stakeholders and partner’s confidence in our self-regulation.”
The original AoC code of governance, for general FE and sixth form colleges, was published in 2009. Ms Stott added that there were now “higher expectations on Ofsted’s part about the role of governors in overseeing quality improvement”. “With the continuing trend for greater transparency and ‘student/customer’ protection, I cannot stress enough the importance of being proactive in providing this assurance if we are to avoid future legislative or regulatory creep,”
she said.
The draft version of the updated code sets out 10 principles for good governance, including that each board should set “the mission, vision and strategy including defining the ethos of the college” and make “all final decisions on all matters of fundamental concern”.
Carole Stott
It added they should be responsive to the labour market, develop a financial strategy to ensure the long-term solvency of their colleges and ensure that “due diligence takes place in relation to subcontracting and partnership activity”. It also said that boards should “foster exceptional teaching and learning and financial management by using best practice when selecting and recruiting the senior leadership team” and follow this up with “rigorous” performance management.
Dr Pember said: “This new values-based code of good governance will bring about a step change in governance. It has been developed through an open process with over 250 sector governors, clerks and senior leaders contributing to the principles and drafting. We believe this is a code for the sector by the sector.”
Email governance.code@aoc.co.uk to respond to the consultation before it ends on March 5.
The values of college governance
High-quality FE, which commands public confidence and promotes the reputation of individual colleges and the sector, must rest on a number of shared values.
By implementing such values the governing board can ensure quality education and training for its students, demonstrate public benefit, provide the basis for its own effectiveness, support college autonomy, support the sustainability of the service and enhance the reputation of the sector and, by example, demonstrate 21st Century leadership.
A failure to adopt and implement a set of agreed values has implications beyond the college concerned, by potentially undermining the collective reputation of all colleges and the wider sector.
In setting out core values, the code adopts and builds on the Nolan Principles of Public Life, which provide an ethical framework for the personal behaviour of governors.
They are selflessness, openness, objectivity, integrity, honesty, accountability and leadership.
In addition, given the specific nature of FE and its reliance on state funding, and in line with good practice, the code also adopts the values and behaviours of respect and being passionate, professional and prudent.
The code is based on the following expectations of good governance, which illustrate the values and beliefs of further education governors:
– Putting the student first, promoting high expectations and ambitions for students and staff
– Ensuring inspirational teaching and learning
– Providing strong leadership to both the senior team and the community the college serves
– Setting the strategy and acting as guardians of the college’s mission
– Demonstrating accountability to students, parents, staff, partners, employers, funders and other stakeholders, including publishing accurate and timely information on performance
– Listening to students, employers and staff
– Ensuring the achievement of equality of opportunity and diversity throughout the college and implicit in initial access
– Using the college’s autonomy and independence to meet local education and skills needs
The 10 principles of good college governance
To implement and embed the above values and expectations in the college, governors and senior leaders will adopt the following key principles. The governing board will:
1. Set the mission, vision and strategy including defining the ethos of the college
2. Be collectively accountable for the business of the college taking all final decisions on all matters of fundamental concern
3. Ensure there are effective underpinning systems to implement the strategy and, through constructive challenge, monitor its progress
4. Ensure that the college is responsive to the relevant labour market by adopting a range of strategies for engaging with employers and other stakeholders that will support students progressing to relevant further study and/or successful employment
5. Adopt a financial strategy and plans which are compatible with the duty to ensure sustainability and solvency of the college. It will adopt effective systems of control and risk management that promote value for money, efficient use of the capital estate and technology, meet mandatory audit requirements and produce accurate and quality-assured college data
6. Ensure that effective control and due diligence takes place in relation to subcontracting and partnership activity, including setting up of academies, and ensure systems of delegation and accountability are in place
7. Foster exceptional teaching and learning and financial management by using best practice when selecting and recruiting the senior leadership team and following up through staff development and rigorous and effective performance management
8. Meet and aim to exceed its statutory responsibilities for equality and diversity
9. Ensure that there are organised and clear governance and management structures, with well-understood delegations and authorities and governors are capable, knowledgeable and supported
10. Regularly review performance and effectiveness
The effect of the Further Education Learning Technology Action Group (Feltag) is being felt across the sector, explains Bob Harrison.
At a recent Think Out Loud Club, a community of innovative FE practitioners supported by City & Guilds, the Feltag was described as “a movement not just a report”.
It is six months since the government accepted Feltag’s 35 recommendations and there are increasing signs that the sector is taking ownership of our report. And that is how it should be.
The Skills Funding Agency (SFA) has issued clarification around the percentage of online delivery issue which seemed to cause anxiety with some providers.
It is also running some online pilots to aid understanding of the incentives that might be needed to encourage more blended learning as Feltag recommended.
Consideration is also being given as to whether capital receipts from the sale of underutilised buildings/land can be reinvested in digital technology and staff skills and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) are in negotiation with Ofsted about how the common inspection framework can best support innovation in the use of technology for learning.
But one of the biggest challenges has been the assessment and accountability system. While most agencies have been responsive to the Feltag recommendations, discussions with Ofqual have not been as successful and there is still much work to do before the assessment tail has less influence on the pedagogic dog.
While most agencies have been responsive to the Feltag recommendations, discussions with Ofqual have not been as successful and there is still much work to do before the assessment tail has less influence on the pedagogic dog
Nevertheless some awarding bodies are investing considerable time and resource in their exploration of the use of digital, online and onscreen testing.
Most important has been the willingness of Matthew Hancock’s replacement as Skills Minister, Nick Boles, to welcome, support and maintain the momentum created by Feltag and encourage FE providers “to innovate in the use of technology for learning”.
And I have recently been judging applications for a national FE award for ‘Outstanding use of technology’ and the quantity and quality of applications suggests Feltag is nudging the thinking in FE towards a more digital future.
In my 35 years’ experience in FE I have always found FE teachers enthusiastic and willing to innovate with technology for learning, but they are in need of some leadership vision and support.
Learners are already innovating in their approach to the use of digital technology for learning and life and pupils in schools have growing expectations of digital learning when they leave school.
This is not really about technology but about new ways of thinking. Technology will never replace good teachers, but teachers who use technology effectively will replace those who do not.
The Ministerial intention behind Feltag was, and is, to increase the number of learners and improve the quality of learning and support using technology.
Decisions about the percentage online, which blend suits which learners and the skills of the workforce are rightly the domain of educationalists not the SFA or BIS.
Governors, principals and leaders in FE must take ownership of the problem and decide how they want to realign their asset base. My view is we need more and better teachers skilled in using technology for engaging, supporting and assessing more learners and fewer glass palaces, classrooms, atriums and reception areas massively underused and underutilised for big chunks of the year.
The history of FE suggests that one of its strengths has been the ability to respond to changes in the economy and society in a flexible and responsive way.
This has been an impressive, but long overdue start to the digital challenge facing FE. We need to own the change and pick up the pace.
Just ask Comet, HMV, Jessops, Blockbuster and many other organisations that didn’t adapt to the digital challenge quick enough.
Efforts by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) to cut red tape succeeded in reducing up to £300m of costs by around 2 per cent. Christine Lewis assesses the situation from the point of view of the sector admin staff she represents.
The Simplification Plan was but the latest iteration in a line of attempts to reduce the levels of bureaucracy that bedevil the FE and skills sector.
The Bureaucracy Review Group annual report a decade ago highlighted cause for hope as government and its inspectorates agreed to diminish the red tape burdens that were outlined.
Changes agreed by Ofsted, Adult Learning Inspectorate, Learning and Skills Council and Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) promised a 25 per cent cut in scrutiny processes and workload. A new information management culture was to develop based on trust and measuring performance by accessing real time data used by providers to manage their own business.
QCA was to seek agreement on a common data set that all awarding bodies would supply; information collected at the same time and accessible to other agencies.
It was also to rationalise scrutiny requirements placed on providers leading to a 30 per cent reduction of demand imposed by awarding bodies. Crystal clarity was to be renegotiated on the roles of central government and its agencies with the education department focused on strategic leadership and LSC on managerial implementation.
A radical overhaul of engagement with employers, quality, funding systems and efficiency as well as data was to be mindful of reducing bureaucracy as a success criterion.
For those of us who are veteran stakeholders on FE advisory groups, the Simplification Plan was a Groundhog Day event. The quango bonfire did little to reduce the administrative burden on colleges and staff.
For those of us who are veteran stakeholders on FE advisory groups, the Simplification Plan was a Groundhog Day event
The National Audit Office (NAO) in 2011 reported on the costs of complying with funding, qualifications and assurance requirements, suggesting a figure of between £250m and £300m. Subsequently, the Public Accounts Committee also expressed concern at the unnecessary burden created by funding, qualification and assurance arrangements.
The NAO refers to agencies that informed the plan and notes that providers had little voice in developing it. This is also the case for the nearly 19,000 administrative and central services staff, who would have no difficulty in describing why the inexorable tide of red tape that comes with new initiatives and requirements, stretches their working hours to the full.
The number of teachers has reduced by more than 3,000 since 2010 and learning support by more than 2,000. We can rest assured that providers would not be adding to their admin staff unless it was imperative.
The FE Commissioner may be able to make a gung-ho statement about the need to cut support staff to balance the books, but that will not diminish the demands for their services in college. If providers responded by reducing this section of their workforce the teaching and learner support function would need to assume all manner of compliance-necessary duties.
The NAO notes that the government cannot estimate the true costs of complying with the assurance regimen, but shows that some of streamlining has saved £4m — which is not a King’s ransom in terms of the £7bn estimated cost and is unlikely to impact on staff workloads.
It concludes that the BIS and the Department for Education have not done enough to work together, which touches on the thorny problem of why the two-thirds of 16 to 18-year-olds in colleges, theoretically under the wing of the DFE, are educated in a sector run by BIS and its agencies.
The third of that age group who remain in school do so under a protected budget with no reductions in staffing or feet off the quality pedal.
But there are worrying signs revealed by Unison’s administrative and management staff in academies who report significant increase in workload post-transfer.
The various incarnations of bureaucratic entities and their demands that have straddled the FE sector display a real lack of trust in providers and staff, have no democratic foundation and waste money that would be better spent on learners.
As far as student debt goes, City & Guilds UK managing director Kirstie Donnelly is more qualified than most to sympathise with today’s hard-pressed learners struggling to stay out of the red.
Just ask the manager of the Natwest bank that held her account during her days as an English literature student at the University of Manchester.
“The bank manager told me and my dad [Brian] that I probably had one of the worst student debts at the time,” explains 47-year-old Donnelly.
“I remember he suggested to me and my dad that I shouldn’t bank with them again, and my dad did say: ‘I think you might regret that one day’.”
But Donnelly’s financial situation was not born of profligacy.
“The reason is I didn’t get a grant,” she explains. “My dad was funding three of us [Donnelly is one of four siblings], but he couldn’t actually afford to. Even though we were all working to try to fund ourselves, it was still accumulating.”
Donnelly with mum Jill in 2003
However, Donnelly’s efforts to pay her own way through university were nothing new.
At the tender age of 11, she had an after-school job picking lettuce in the village where she lived, just outside Southport, in Lancashire.
“I have always liked working,” says Donnelly, now a resident of Hampstead, in London.
“But of course, it was different then, there weren’t the same compliance issues and I think that’s really quite hard for young people today.”
At 16, she got a job on a campsite in France, without telling mum Jill and dad.
“When I had finished my O-levels, I remember going in and saying: ‘I’m going to France tomorrow’. My parents were absolutely horrified,” she says.
“But they had the good sense, because they were quite liberal, to let me go, once they knew that it had all been arranged properly.
“Clearly, there was something going on in my head which was about wanting to be part of some world of work, really.”
Her work ethic, she says, comes partly from her parents.
Jill, who died 10 years ago, was “a fantastic woman”, says Donnelly, who taught children with special educational needs, while Brian was also a teacher.
From left: Donnelly’s younger brother Nick, Donnelly, dad Brian, and older brothers Matt and Tim
“He’s 78 now and retired but he still does things, he goes off to Africa on education projects and he does things locally,” she says.
With two older brothers, Matt and Tim, and a younger brother, Nick, Donnelly says she grew up in a “very male” household.
“It was quite robust, I suppose I did get special treatment, but only sometimes,” she says. “But I also had to learn how to play football as well.”
And learning to play football may well have proved more enjoyable than the world of education that Donnelly now calls home, career-wise. Indeed, she looks slightly sheepish as she admits: “Funnily enough, I don’t know that I loved school — or education generally.
“I feel awful saying that because I was privileged enough to go all the way right through to university.”
Donnelly went to university having completed her A-levels at Runshaw College, in Lancashire. During the uni holidays, she worked in France and on a Dutch tulip farm.
Being able to create something from scratch that then is going to have a positive impact on many people who you won’t ever even meet, that clicked with me quite quickly and obviously stayed with me
“I’ve done some awful menial jobs in my time — whatever it took to earn some money. But I enjoyed what came with that — travelling, meeting new people,” she says.
“I realised that it wasn’t just an isolated environment like at university.”
However, despite her exposure to the world of work, she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do in the days after giving her university bank manager nightmares.
“I don’t think I ever had a clear pattern in my head really,” she says.
“I was always quite envious when you hear people say, ‘I am going to be…’ and then you meet them later on and they actually did it.
“But I don’t think it’s always possible to know what you want to do. That’s why choice is so important.”
In need of a job, Donnelly replied to as small newspaper advert for a supply English teacher at Priestley Sixth Form College, in Warrington.
“I had never taught before,” she says. “But I walked in and they had me teaching their business A-level course for about four months, filling in, somebody was on maternity leave.
Donnelly (right), aged three, with brother Matt
“While I was there, I got involved in designing the vocational curriculum programmes.”
It was a turning point for Donnelly, who says the “creativity” of course design was what appealed to her.
“Being able to create something from scratch that then is going to have a positive impact on many people who you won’t ever even meet, that clicked with me quite quickly and obviously stayed with me,” she says.
After a few months there, she moved to designing training programmes for offender rehabilitation charity Nacro before moving to the Manchester Training and Enterprise Council (Tec).
One of the themes in Donnelly’s career, she says, has been around change, not surprising in a sector that’s forever shifting and reforming — but it is something Donnelly thrives on.
“The common thread is in every role I have had is probably being a change agent — but transformation and change is something that always is of interest to me, although not for the sake of it, but where it’s needed, where you can see opportunities to make something better,” she says.
Her 10 years at Manchester Tec gave her experience doing “some real leading edge things in a public sector setting, but with a very clear commercial bias — it’s a very important blend that we need to have in our sector really”.
“I don’t know why people sometimes have such a problem with commerciality within a public sector, because I think it’s important,” she says.
Donnelly with partner Nat at their civil partnership ceremony
“As long as what is happening with those commercial outputs is then still driving that agenda, I think it’s a good thing.”
When the Tec was disbanded “on a political whim” in 2001 Donnelly decided to pursue her burgeoning interest in technology and education, at Video Arts, a producing training videos, as they made the move from VHS to digital.
It was there she met civil partner of 14 years Nat, who left the company shortly after Donelly arrived and now works for the Children’s Food Trust, where she teaches children and families about healthy cooking and eating.
After Video Arts, Donnelly was headhunted to work for Learndirect, where she stayed for eight years until it was sold in 2011.
Getting the MBE for services to e-learning the same year, she says, was surprisingly enjoyable.
“I wasn’t hugely bothered about it but you go to the palace and they really do make it very special,” she says.
For Donnelly, the move to City & Guilds felt like the “natural thing to do”.
Donnelly receiving her degree from Manchester in 1989
“I am quite an intuitive and instinctive person and years before I’d visited City & Guilds and I remember just fleetingly thinking, ‘I can see myself working here’,” she says.
Looking back at her own career, which began with her not knowing what options were open to her, she says she can see where her interest in policy came from.
“I have been shaped by what’s happened to me, and they have been positive experiences by and large, but I therefore do feel really passionate about people having more choice, and that choice being earlier, about people having much more access to work experience,” explains Donnelly.
In terms of careers advice, she says: “I just think is an absolute travesty that we continue to talk about it yet ignore it. And yet actually if we did it properly and we did it well, then would it not actually end up being a prevention, rather than a very expensive cure?”
It’s a personal thing
What is your favourite book, and why?
I really love Middlemarch by George Eliot, but equally I was a great fan when Bridget Jones first came out, and I used to collect the columns when it was in the Guardian as a weekly column. Also one of the really good books I’ve read very recently which really struck with me was Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson
What do you do to switch off from work?
In the week, it’s difficult. I have a dog called Sue-Ellen so I love spending time walking. I love living in London, so I do a lot of walking around, lots of theatre. I like swimming, but I don’t do enough of it
What’s your pet hate?
It’s probably people being rude and dismissive, and then the other one I probably don’t like is people who are disingenuous or insincere. Just generally people being rude or discourteous to others. There’s just no need for it in this day and age
If you could invite anyone to a dinner party, living or dead, who would it be?
My mum — she was great at dinner parties and I so miss having our chats together and Captain Hardy, partly to find out if he did
kiss Lord Nelson but more to discover if the family legend about him being an ancestor of ours is true
What did you want to be when you grew up?
I never really had a burning desire to be a fire fighter or a nurse or a doctor. I knew that I wanted to travel — I was probably quite interested in journalism actually. I started thinking about things like child psychology
Jim Proudfoot considers the purpose of the Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF) and asks ‘what next?’ in light of its scrapping by Ofqual.
The recent Ofqual consultation on the QCF determined its design rules were too restrictive and imposed a one-size-fits-all approach not consistent with the development of high-quality vocational qualifications or those that met the needs of employers.
It has now been confirmed that these rules will go next summer. Transitional arrangements, costs and what signifies a high-quality vocational qualification will be published.
Some awarding organisations (AOs) recognised for QCF only may lose it altogether. Some of their qualifications may no longer be fit for purpose.
All qualifications must be valid, reliable, up-to-date, comparable to others at the same level, manageable and minimize any potential bias.
Ofqual says that qualifications that are not valid will have to be withdrawn or redeveloped. This implies that either there are qualifications already on the register that are not fit for purpose or that one result of withdrawing the QCF rules will mean that some qualifications will no longer be fit for purpose.
How will the Conditions of Recognition be amended to reflect this?
The QCF has been in operation for almost ten years now, about the same length of time as the diploma experiment in schools.
Its main purpose was to decrease the number of qualifications, especially duplicates, thus making the system clearer and more transparent to both learners and employers.
The numbers of duplicate qualifications and units has risen and this begs the question: “Are learners and employers still confused about which qualification is really relevant and accepted nationally?”
One of the main problems with the QCF was the (implied) insistence of sharing units
It is important to maintain national standards both for our internal needs as well as our international reputation. Change perceived for political reasons does not help.
One of the main problems with the QCF was the (implied) insistence of sharing units.
If one AO used another’s unit then it was forced to abide by that organisation’s use of the unit, specifically its review date, and also whether it wanted to continue with that version of the unit after that date had passed.
Any AO that uses someone else’s unit has to ask for it to be reviewed to match any extension of its qualification or it could ask for the ownership to be transferred then it would have control.
If neither of these options worked (for example because the owner refused to review it or transfer ownership — maybe because it saw the other organisation as competition) then it could actually just copy the details of the unit and create its own.
This situation has been a bone of contention between AOs for many years as they do not see why someone can come along and just copy their work for nothing but, once it is on the register, it is Crown Copyright.
Copying, of course, could also put into question the AO’s ability to develop its own units and could be a reason for an intervention by Ofqual against the conditions.
These are all good reasons for getting rid of the QCF. The original aim has been forgotten, probably because of the implications of actually transferring credit along with the fear of competition and, in simple terms, cost. It is easier to do the whole qualification in one place.
Some consider assessment in the QCF as overkill, but the ability for an AO to vary its assessment strategy may be a retrograde step and harder to police.
When a system is changed problems arise and this will mean substantial cost in time for the AOs.
Ofqual’s Regulatory IT System (RITS) may well change or be completely replaced. There are still outstanding transition issues from 2010 when Web-Based Accreditation (WBA) became RITS and certain fields in the new system could not be populated and information was lost or archived.
This varies in the NQF and the QCF. Officially, there is only one framework. The National Qualifications Framework (NQF) does not deal in credit but this is the main aspect of the QCF and it demands sharing.
I look forward to seeing how these two will become one.
