Colleges and other training providers could be given the chance to gain “chartered” status as a mark of quality, FE Week has learned.

A new “chartered community college” grade would be introduced, with institutions assessed against a range of criteria possibly including the levels of qualifications of their staff, learner feedback and community involvement.

The plans are also being billed as helping immigration officials in their crackdown on “bogus” colleges.

The move is set out in a paper, leaked to FE Week, which was presented to the Further Education and Skills Ministerial Advisory Panel last week.

The document, written by Department for Business, Innovation and Skills civil servant Valerie Carpenter, says the introduction of “Chartered Community College Status” would aim to enhance the reputation of the sector, promote quality and improve the training of the workforce.

It would also have the aim of helping “the border agency to be able to recognise legitimate colleges and training providers,” says the document.

Chartered Community College status would apply to colleges, with an equivalent status available for non-college training providers.

The paper says that many providers would meet the criteria for the status “almost immediately”, but that “others would have further work to do to attain it”. “Experts from the FE sector” would sit on panels to assess bids.

Suggested criteria – included in the document to “stimulate debate” – include:

–          “quality indicators”,including qualification levels in the workforce

–          “learner-centred indicators”:student involvement in running the college, excellent customer feedback

–          “employer-centred indicators”, such as, again, customer feedback or clarity over fees charged

–          “community-centred indicators”: community engagement.

–          “open data”

The paper suggests the status should be voluntary, but that there might need to be “incentives”, such as “further freedoms and flexibilities” – to drive initial take-up.

Community colleges exist in the United States and there was speculation this week that this had inspired the term.

Jim Crawley, chair of the post-16 committee of the Universities Council for the Education of Teachers, said: “I have been to community colleges in the States and they are very close to their communities and seem to have a slightly higher status than FE colleges here.

“Chartered Community College status could be a hallmark of quality. A lot of our colleges do some great work, which never seems to get the recognition that it should.  So maybe Chartered Community College status could help.

“On the other hand, it could be that all the existing models of good practice that already exist in the sector could be ignored if some new status comes out instead.”

The Chartered Community College idea, which was put forward at the meeting chaired by the FE minister John Hayes, is being considered alongside the establishment of a Further Education Guild (see seperate article).

Both could become Government policy in the autumn.

The Government is poised to set up a new professional body for further education, a document leaked to FE Week reveals.

The Further Education Guild would act as a “focal point” for ministerial efforts to promote professionalism in the sector, including taking on aspects of the regulation of lecturers through setting professional standards and codes of behaviour.

The Guild would also develop qualifications and support and promote continuing professional development (CPD).

The Guild and an associated proposal to develop a new “Chartered Community College” grade for institutions appear to be part of Government moves to a new professional landscape for FE in which staff will no longer be required to be qualified teachers.

The Guild plan is set out in a paper presented last week to the Further Education and Skills Ministerial Advisory Panel at a meeting chaired by the FE minister John Hayes. The panel makes recommendations to the Government.

“FE Week has now also learned that Lord Lingfield’s final report, initially scheduled for publication this month, has been put back until early autumn.

The document is being seen as a response to Lord Lingfield’s review of professionalism in the sector, which produced an interim report in April recommending the scrapping of compulsory registration with the Institute for Learning and an end to the requirement for lecturers to be qualified teachers.

Sources say it is an attempt to offer something in response to criticism of the deregulation move in Lingfield.

FE Week has now also learned that Lord Lingfield’s final report, initially scheduled for publication this month, has been put back until early autumn.

an overarching body with end to end responsibility for professionalism and vocational education across the sector”

The document, “Developing an FE Guild” was written by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) civil servant Jonathan Yewdall and presented to a meeting of the panel, which includes representatives from stakeholder bodies across FE, on Tuesday last week (10^th July).

It says: “Reflecting current thinking about modern guilds, key functions and features of an FE Guild are likely to include:

“Acting as an overarching body with end to end responsibility for professionalism and vocational education across the sector, including to own professional standards and codes of behaviour for members; develop appropriate qualifications for people working in the sector through which people can progress; support  individual, subject specific and corporate CPD; [and] support employer recognition of professionalism.”

The Guild would offer institutional and individual membership, says the paper, both of which would be on a voluntary basis.

However, individuals and colleges would be given incentives to join, in that corporate membership of the Guild would be a key criterion for an institution qualifying as a “Chartered Community College” (see separate article).

Individuals would have an incentive to join, too, it says, as the training courses the Guild provided would be linked to higher level qualifications.

The document, which says the Guild would provide a “single, collective focus for raising standards of professionalism and being a custodian of excellence”, would be an “employer-led partnership drawing in employee representative organisations and sector bodies concerned with workforce development”.

The paper also raises questions as to whether the Guild would have any role in lecturers’ pay and conditions and whether it would have any role to play in handling unprofessional conduct complaints by individuals and institutions.

The Hospitality Guild, which was set up last year for the hotel and catering sector with funding from the Government’s £34 million Growth and Innovation Fund, is being seen as a model for the FE version.

The document does not represent finalised Government policy but sources at the meeting said there was no disagreement voiced among attendees. One source said: “There was widespread consensus that it would be worth pursuing both options, and this is something that is being taken forward. It’s very much John Hayes’s baby.”

Another source said, however, that the document raised many questions, including how a Guild would co-exist with current organisations including the Learning and Skills Improvement Service.

Full details are still to be finalised but an announcement is expected in the autumn, possibly at the annual conference of the Association of Colleges in November.

Participants in the meeting did not want to comment on the record.

BIS was also keeping tight-lipped about the proposals. “We don’t comment on leaks,” said a spokeswoman.

The interim Lingfield review said its final report would be published in July 2012, but the spokeswoman said the “evidence gathering for the final report” would be finished this month, with the final Lingfield report itself coming out in “early autumn.”

Unexplained changes to college data tables on what classifies as a ‘high grade’ have baffled colleges, who have seen their high grades drop “dramatically”.

The Association of Colleges (AoC) brought the problem to the attention of their members in a briefing leaked to FE Week.

The briefing said that “changes seem to have been made to the definitions of high grades in learner responsive performance reports” managed by the information authority and that the impact on colleges was “significant”, in some cases “halving” their high grade profile.

Joy Mercer, the AoC’s director of policy, said: “It is a mystery to us as to who changed the definition of high grades in college data tables. The AoC has asked the information authority to investigate.”

The organisation believes that high grades for GCSEs are now defined as A* to B rather than A* to C. National Diploma Level 3 qualifications (including the Sub Diploma and Extended Diploma) “now seem to need at least one distinction” in their grade to count as a high grade. “Three merits used to count as high grades but don’t seem to anymore,” the briefing added.

Ms Mercer added: “Colleges are always trying to improve the amounts of students who achieve high grades and this feeds into their own data analysis and improvement agenda. Colleges were confused as to why their high grades had dropped dramatically and also whether this would affect Ofsted inspections and performance tables. We have been reassured by both that they will not be using any new definition as it had not been agreed.

“It is also unclear which authorities and departments will be using this new definition and which will not. This could lead to a confusing time in colleges as they try to aggregate their own information and cross reference it with centralised data sets.”

Revised versions of the 2010/11 Education and Training National Success Rate Tables (NSRT) have been delayed until August, according to the Data Service.

Widespread errors were found in the original NSRT, published on May 24, forcing the Data Service to take down and investigate the data.

A spokesperson for the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) then told FE Week they expected the amended versions to be published by the middle of June.

Delegates at the Lsect College Data Conference were then told by the Data Service  that the revisions would be publsihed in mid-July. However, the revised NSRTs are still unavailable.

The Data Service website now states: “Our investigation into this issue has determined that there is an error and we have therefore removed the reports temporarily.

“The revised reports, with details on the revision are expected to be available in August 2012.”

In the original NSRT nearly a quarter of all qualifications were showing an ‘unknown’ level, up from 2 per cent in the 2010/11 Qualification Success Rate (QSR) report.

Members of the College Management Information Systems (CMIS) network said the anomalies were “massive” and included BTEC qualifications and Access to HE courses.

The values also varied for similar qualifications from different awarding bodies.

Comparisons with the 2010/11 QSR reports showed a difference of 672,123 ‘unknown’ starts across all age groups and providers.

The number of ‘unknown’ starts also rose from 8,777 in the QSR to 546,295 in the NSRT for learners of all ages in general FE colleges.

Jerry White, head of planning and performance at City College Norwich, told FE Week he was “very disappointed” that the revised NSRTs had been delayed until August.

“Given that headline national averages were published for 2010/11 QSR in December 2011 as part of provider reports, I fail to understand the delay in publishing the data that underpins those averages in the National Success Rate Tables,” he said.

Colleges use the NSRTs – previously known as Learner Responsive National Success Rate Tables – to compare their enrolments and success rates data with other providers.

“I am sure City College Norwich is not alone in wanting to review our performance in detail against this national data in order to effectively undertake our annual self-assessment,” Mr White added.

“The delays continue to hold up the self-assessment process and will place added pressures on college staff who have been unable to complete the analysis of their data prior to the impending summer enrolment period.”

More 16 year-olds chose further education over staying on at a school sixth form in 2009/10, according to new data published by the Department for Education.

The statistical first release, published earlier this week, is the first time the Department has revealed the percentage of students progressing to further learning in a school, FE or sixth form college, apprenticeship or HE institution.

The data shows that of 569,115 students, 37 per cent progressed onto FE provision, including general FE colleges – while 36 per cent studied at a school sixth form.

A further 12 per cent progressed to a sixth form college and 4 per cent enrolled as an apprenticeship.

The data also highlights the destination measures for learners in each local authority.

The Department said they hope the new data will encourage schools and colleges to support and prepare their students for further learning which offers “good long term prospects”.

Schools Minister Lord Hill said: “We are opening up access to this new data so people can see how different schools and colleges, and local authorities, perform.

“It gives parents greater information on which to base decisions.”

Six per cent of young people are not represented in the data either because they are in a job, on a gap year or not in employment, education or training (NEET).

The Department warned that the new data could still contain some errors.

“This is the first publication on ‘education destination measures’ and is classified as experimental statistics as the data are still being evaluated and remain subject to further testing in terms of their reliability and ability to meet customer needs,” the DfE website said.

The statistical first release also showed how many people went on to further learning after taking an A-level equivalent qualification.

It said 64 per cent of young people had studied for at least two terms the following year, with 8 per cent learning at an FE college, 1 per cent at a sixth form college and 3 per cent at an independent FE provider.

More than half were studying at a higher education institution. Lord Hill added: “It is interesting to see how well some local authorities in more deprived areas, and some schools and colleges in those authorities, do in terms of students going to our best universities, compared to those in other parts of the country.”