The body behind a new quality mark for FE providers will get taxpayer funding of up to £350k this financial year having received £201,193 last year, according to details released under the Freedom of Information Act.

The Institution for Further Education (IFE), a not-for-profit limited company, spent just over half of its £400k budget from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) in 2013-14 as it developed plans for Chartered Status.

It can call on BIS, which released the information, for up to £350,000 this financial year “to operate and exist” — but no government funding has been put forward beyond that.

However, the “position will be reviewed in light of progress made in 2014-15”.

A BIS spokesperson said: “The funding that BIS provided to the IFE to establish Chartered Status is considered appropriate.”

An IFE spokesperson told FE Week: “On money, the intention is that the institution will be self-financing from membership fees as soon as possible.

“The availability of any future grant funding beyond 2014-15 is a matter for BIS.”

The IFE was launched last July and given responsibility by BIS for developing and launching Chartered Status.

Lord Lingfield (pictured), chair of the IFE, told FE Week in March that the organisation had “prepared business plans and received seed corn funding and recently acquired the lease of premises in Victoria Street, in Westminster”.

The Tory peer added he had consulted earlier this year with 80 large and small providers on plans developed by the IFE for the quality mark.

It is understood issues covered included the potential cost of the quality mark.

He said a “small group” had been chosen from providers who responded to the consultation to “develop and refine” the proposals.

The group held what is understood to have been its first formal meeting on June 4, but IFE would not say who attended or what was discussed.

Its spokesperson said: “There was indeed a monitoring meeting on June 4, which involved a selection of colleges and training providers.

“The meeting was one of many meetings and contacts with interested parties. The work of consulting and listening is still going on.”

He added IFE was still waiting for royal permission before it could start granting Chartered Status.

Concerns about the tracking of learner destinations have emerged with a new consultation on plans for colleges and schools to show key performance data on their website home pages.

Association of Colleges policy director Joy Mercer said she had worries about the Department for Education (DfE) proposals.

The DfE launched a consultation on Friday, June 6, for at-a-glance post-16 measures to be carried on college home pages to include students’ progress in academic subjects or Tech Levels as well as students’ average grades in each category.

Colleges and school sixth forms would also be expected to show the progress made by students who joined them without a C in English and/or maths, what proportion of their students drop out, and what proportion of their students go on to further study, a job or training at the end of their courses (when data is robust enough).

Ms Mercer said: “We are pleased to see a consultation on headline measures, because they were not part of the original consultation on changes to performance tables from 2016.

“It is very important these new headline measures are accessible to parents and potential students because all colleges will have to publish them as a condition of funding. However independent learning providers, which are also publicly funded, will not.

“We remain concerned that the headline measures using current national data, causes a particular problem for colleges in the way information on student destinations and progress is collected. This is something we’ve raised with the DfE.”

The consultation ends on July 4 with the proposals expected to come into force from 2016.

Current guidelines already require schools to publish information on performance. However, where and how this information is presented varies between schools and colleges. A DfE spokesperson said this made it “difficult and time-consuming” for parents to find information. Up until now colleges have not been required to publish evidence of their performance online.

James Kewin, deputy chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges’ Association, said: “The idea of schools and colleges publishing standard performance measures on their websites is a good one.

“But the data behind these measures must be robust. We would not want a situation where colleges are required to include measures on their websites based on incomplete or inaccurate data.

“The performance measures selected must also be the right ones. The five proposed in the consultation are important, and we are particularly pleased with the inclusion of a progress measure. But it must also be possible to link to make comparisons using more granular data if required. For example, using the proposed attainment measure, 80 per cent of sixth form colleges would have an average grade per academic entry of a C+, C, or C-.
“It is essential that the detail behind this proposal is thoroughly worked through before colleges are required to include performance information on their websites.”

The DfE proposals also affect primary schools, who will have to show pupils’ progress from age four to 11, among other things. And secondary schools will have to show pupils’ progress from age 11 to 16, including average grades across eight subjects.

Schools Minister David Laws said: “The information that will be published online by every school and college in future will support parents when choosing the best school or college for their child and help them challenge poor performance.”

The mention of virtual reality learning is one that will trigger visions of clunky visors and black Lycra bodysuits for many, but, as FE Week reporter Paul Offord found out, the vision is not quite the reality, thankfully

Students at the College of North West London are making use of every learning aid at their disposal, even virtual reality (VR).

Around 1,100 learners on construction courses (levels one to four) in plumbing, gas utilisation, trowel trades of brick and plaster, carpentry and joinery, and painting and decorating use it.

A further 1,400 on engineering courses (again levels one to four) in electrical installation, air conditioning and refrigeration, welding, automotive engineering, body and paint, mechanical engineering use VR.

Putting the college ahead of the field, virtually speaking, is its head of construction, Martin Biron.

“The College of North West London has embraced opportunities to support vocational education through the development of VR and AR [augmented reality],” he told FE Week.

“I think it is fair to say we are pioneers in advocating and developing the use of digital technologies within FE.”

He has been learning how to create new VR teaching programmes through a part-time masters degree at the University of the West of England and has developed a virtual hair and beauty training salon called le Salon De Coiffure at the college that is expected to be in operation from September.

“It can’t do things like simulate cutting hair,” he said.

“But students will be able to develop soft skills, like conversing with clients.

“I also developed a central heating component identification pod — this allows students to work in pairs within the virtual world and learn about the different components found within a domestic heating system.”

Students can download the VR software on home computers and smart phones.

They are also encouraged to use AR software that recognises tools filmed on smart phones (pictured below) and plays videos explaining how they work.

Another 8,500 students across the college have access to the college’s VR software that is not actively used in lessons. They use it to support studies, for example when learning about health and safety issues for a variety of skills training courses.

Mr Biron said that he saw VR teaching software as complementing rather than replacing workshop-based teaching.

“Gas fitting students, for example, can be working on a valve in class which controls the supply of gas to different appliances,” he said.

“We can show them on a big screen while they’re doing it which way the gas is flowing inside the valve.”

It might sound like an expensive piece of kit, and Mr Biron said it costs around £10,000 a year to maintain and update the VR and AR software, but he predicted providers would increasingly look to the technology as budgets are cut.

“It would cost hundreds of thousands of pounds for the college to build a new training salon, but one man did it for next to nothing in the virtual world and we will hopefully introduce that into the teaching programme from September,” he said.

He added: “We haven’t got the software yet to fully replicate practical physical activities like welding or cutting hair, but I’m confident there will be completely interactive virtual workshops within 20 years that will cut out all our current health and safety worries.”