An Ofsted investigation into foundation learning has pointed towards a host of problems with the scheme just weeks before the replacement 16 to 19 study programmes are introduced.

The education watchdog uncovered “poor” attendance and “little or no” work placement, along with “low” progression rates.

Its report, Lessons from the Foundation Learning Provision for the new 16 to 19 Study Programmes, also said the scheme’s “overall judgment profile . . . was lower than that for e2e [Entry to Employment]”, which it replaced in August 2010.

The report added: “Progression rates into full-time education or training, an apprenticeship or employment for the total numbers of leavers in the sample for 2010/11 and 2011/12 were low at an average of 50 per cent and 49 per cent, respectively.”

Matthew Coffey, Ofsted’s director of learning and skills, said: “It is important for the government and the sector to learn lessons from previous programmes highlighted in this report, which will aid the development of the 16 to 19 study programmes.”

The 13-page report further highlighted “insufficient integration of functional skills” as among the “weaker aspects” of foundation learning, which was designed to help 14 to 18-year-olds work towards to level two qualifications.

There was also “insufficient impartial advice and guidance on progression routes”.

Mr Coffey said the number of learners going on into full-time education or training, an apprenticeship or employment had been too low.

“To break this pattern, providers must make use of best practice in understanding why some providers are succeeding where others fall short,” he said.

The 16 to 19 study programmes, which will include traineeships and A-levels, are expected to be in place from August to replace foundation learning, which ends next month.

Professor Alison Wolf’s government-commissioned Review of Vocational Education found nearly 1,300 qualifications in the foundation learning “catalogue”, many of which were “very small”.

She said: “Employers value either a few familiar qualifications or ‘real’ experience.”

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “Alison Wolf was highly critical of foundation learning provision . . .  because students end up taking numerous low-level qualifications that do not help them progress.

“That is why we are ending provision next month and establishing new study programmes from September.

She added: “We are also publishing new data to record the destinations of students the year after the end of key stage four and after taking A-levels or other level three qualifications.”

However, the Ofsted report — published on Friday, May 31 — also contained plaudits for foundation learning.

The education watchdog had looked at evidence from 59 providers — not including colleges — delivering the scheme to 16 to 18-year-olds and said it had resulted in “a very large number of learners improving their personal and social skills”.

Ofqual is investigating exam spending by colleges after its annual report found payments by schools had more than doubled in ten years, from £154m in 2002/3 to £328m in 2010/11.

Between 2006/7 and 2010/11 the number of different qualifications available schools and colleges also rose by almost 10,000, from 8,150 to 18,100.

Much of the increase is accounted for by the introduction of the Qualifications and Credit Framework, which by 2010/11 included 9,700 qualifications.

An Ofqual spokesperson said: “We want to find out what has caused spending to increase in recent years, and find out if improvements in the way exams are bought might result in schools and colleges saving money.”

Opinion Leader Research Ltd has been commissioned by Ofqual to carry out the research.

The firm will be contacting more than 500 schools and colleges in England and Northern Ireland to conduct 20-minute telephone interviews with senior staff.

Two different surveys are being drafted — one for staff responsible for recording and monitoring exam spending such as college finance directors, and one for staff who choose which qualifications to buy in, such as curriculum managers.

The announcement of Ofqual’s exam spending survey, which will also look at schools, was welcomed by the 157 Group.

Its executive director, Lynne Sedgmore, said: “We welcome an open and transparent review to really help understand the costs, benefits and more generally assess value for money.”

Ofqual’s annual market report for 2012, which considered schools spending, suggested four possible reasons for the increases, including more qualifications being taken and a shift in demand towards qualifications which have higher fees.

“In recent years, there has been an increase in the number of ‘other’ [neither GCE nor GCSE exams] qualifications taken in schools and some of these have higher fees,” it said.

Ofqual also told FE Week that it was possible there had been an increase in the number of additional fees being charged, such as late fees or resit fees.

An Ofqual spokesperson said: “We do not know the extent to which each of these factors is responsible.”

The examinations watchdog said it would encourage any colleges who were contacted to participate.

Skills Funding Agency announces transition factors hitting provider funding rates by 25 per cent or more.

Colleges and training providers have been told their Skills Funding Agency earnings rate could fall by a quarter or more, with just two months before the new academic year.

The agency is introducing protection measures for colleges and training providers, to “smooth” the impact of its new funding system.

The measures are intended to stop providers’ earnings rocketing or nosediving.

Jerry White, director of planning and performance at City College Norwich, said: “It is going to be vexing curriculum planners up and down the country to be told, with only around 30 working days to go until the beginning of the new contract year, that funding values need adjustment resulting in the need to change delivery and resource plans.”

The agency said decisions on next year’s funding were still open to review.

Each provider has been given a number — a ‘transition factor’ — that indicates how much of the budget under the new system it can keep.

A provider transition factor of 0.9 would mean its national rates are reduced by 10 per cent, so it would need to do more work for the same money.

Allocations, finalised at the end of March, remain unaffected by the ‘transition factor’.

Worries about providers learning how they would be affected by the protection measures were aired in a Joint Information Systems Committee online forum for college finance directors, where one provider revealed its rates under the new system would be cut by 25 per cent.

“I can’t imagine that colleges are going to take this lying down,” said one forum member.

FE Week has also learned that at least one independent training provider has been given a transition factor below 0.7.

Meanwhile, a number of colleges have already approached the Association of Colleges with concerns about their situations.

Julian Gravatt, the association’s assistant chief executive, told FE Week: “In principle, it’s right for the agency to smooth the introduction of the new formula, but it’s unacceptable that some colleges have only just received this information at a time when they are setting their 2013-14 budgets.

“We are busy taking up college queries with agency staff.”

An agency spokesperson said: “We have worked with the sector over the past 18 months to develop and implement a more streamlined funding system.

“We are helping providers move to the more streamlined system including using a transition factor which will ensure that their total cash earnings remain within three per cent of the current system.

“The transition factor is derived from the latest full year data from 2011/12 to generate an adjustment which maybe positive or negative to earnings of a provider. It has not been designed to be applied at the level of each qualification for planning provision.

“In circumstances where provision has changed dramatically from 2011/12 to 2013/14 we will review each provider’s transition factor to ensure that high quality provision to learners and employers can continue.”

———————————————————————————————-

Editorial : The transition factor

The Skills Funding Agency has been helping providers understand its funding reforms since first publishing plans in October 2011.

It has also designed the reforms in partnership with an advisory group made up of provider representatives.

But, as with all funding reforms that have come before, there will be winners and losers.

At the end of March the agency said it would “smooth” out the winning and losing with transitional protection.

Now we learn the extent of smoothing required for some providers — and it’s huge.

Imagine signing off your curriculum plans and then learning a 0.7 transition factor will be applied.

Effectively, this means to earn a £10m allocation you would have to plan £13m-worth of provision, and at a rate of 70p in the pound.

It will also be interesting to see how subcontractors react.

Presumably they will be seeking out prime providers with a transition factors above one, as they will now be earning more than the national rate.

All avoidable of course, had the funding system reform been resisted.

Nick Linford, editor of FE Week

The 16 to 18 apprenticeships budget has been cut by £166m as would-be apprentices were squeezed out of places by “competition” from older applicants, a senior Department for Education (DfE) civil servant has revealed.

Simon Judge, the DfE’s finance and commercial director, wrote to the Education Select Committee after its expected funding of 16 to 18 apprenticeships in the current financial year fell nearly 20 per cent to £684.3m.

He said the removal of poor quality provision explained some of the underspend, but increased competition from applicants aged 19-plus, funded by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, was also a factor.

“The removal of poor quality [apprenticeship] provision is only one element of the overall underspend,” wrote Mr Judge in a letter dated May 8 to committee clerk Lynn Gardner.

He said changes in the apprenticeship mix by sector, and the wider economic conditions facing businesses in some regions and sectors, also explained the fall.

The financial revision was disclosed in the DfE’s supplementary 2012-13 estimate.

In the most recent Statistical First Release, published in March, the number of under 19 apprenticeships started in the first half of this year was provisionally 69,600 — a 12 per cent drop on last year’s provisional figure of  79,100.

By contrast, the 19-24 apprenticeship starts over the same period grew 6.5 per cent.

This comes just two months after the government revealed under 19 apprenticeship starts had fallen for the first time in three years — from 131,700 in 2010/11 to 129,900 last year.

Tristram Hunt, Junior Shadow Education Minister, claimed the underspend revealed incompetence. “The number of apprenticeship starts for young people has already fallen by nearly 2,000 in the past year. And now we discover that the government is so incompetent that it’s not even spending all the money in the apprenticeships budget. With nearly one million young people unemployed that is simply unacceptable,” he told FE Week.

A joint statement from the two departments said: “There are a number of reasons behind this underspend. This includes changes in the cost of courses that were taken up, economic challenges facing some sectors and an increase in 19 to 24-year-olds choosing to become an apprentice. We have also rooted out poor quality provision that was not meeting the needs of today’s employers.”

A senior economist at the Institute for Public Policy Research, Tony Dolphin, who wrote  the report Rethinking Apprenticeships, added that apprenticeships should be reserved only for those aged 16 to 24.

“They should not be just another form of on-the-job training; they should specifically support the transition of young people from education into work through a mix of on-the-job targeted training and more general off-the-job learning,” he said.