Concern has been raised at the government’s expulsion of thousands of qualifications from school league tables.

While stating that its members would welcome the strengthening of vocational education, the Association of Colleges (AoC) believes it should not be allowed to result in less 14 to 15 year-olds being exposed to vocational qualifications.

It comes after the education secretary, Michael Gove, announced that the number of vocational qualifications that will count towards a school’s GCSE performance in league tables is being cut from 3,000 to 70.

Just 125 vocational qualifications will be included from 2014 and only 70 will count towards the main performance measure – the percentage of pupils getting five A* to Cs at GCSE, including English and maths. The other 55 will count in the tables, but will not contribute towards the main measure.

It is an attempt to stop schools encouraging youngsters to take qualifications that boost league table position, but do not help prospects, and follows recommendations made in a report by Professor Alison Wolf last year.

An AoC spokesperson said: “Colleges will welcome the implicit endorsement that provision of vocational education needs to be strengthened to ensure that high standards are maintained in all types of institutions, including schools, in order to ensure the delivery of high quality vocational provision that our young people need in order to secure satisfying and fulfilling future employment.”

Currently, there are 63,000 14 to 15-year-olds enrolled in a college; with 3,500 full-time and 59,000 part-time.

The AoC spokesperson added: “Evidence has shown that colleges are best-equipped to deliver high quality vocational education and we believe that all 14-year-olds should have the opportunity to attend their local college.

“Colleges were pleased with the Wolf Report’s support for colleges looking to enrol more 14-year-olds onto full-time courses.

“Alison Wolf was insistent as to the value of high quality vocational provision for young people.

“Whilst the announcement confirms that commitment, we would be concerned if it resulted in fewer young people who would benefit from an early exposure to vocational learning having that opportunity.

“Ultimately, we believe that colleges should take centre stage in the delivery of vocational education and become hubs of vocational excellence, using their expertise and resources to support provision in their locality.

“And we are in discussion with the Department for Education to make this intention a reality.”

The Department for Education said some of the qualifications still to be included are subject to future review and schools will remain free to offer any other qualification accredited and approved for study by 14- to 16-year-olds.

The rise in adult apprenticeships has continued to accelerate in the first three months of the new academic year, while the number of starts aged between 16 and 18 has dropped, new data has shown.

Provisional figures, published by the Data Service in the Statistical First Release (SFR) last week, show that the number of new apprentices aged 25 and above has risen to 53,300 in the first quarter of 2011/12, up from 27,600 in the same period last year.

Gordon Marsden, shadow minister for further education, skills and regional growth, says the figures show a disregard for the widening gap in apprenticeship volumes.

“Officials disregarded the imbalance of post-25 and said never mind the quality, fill the width,” Mr Marsden said.

“You can’t turn these things around overnight and they‘ve recognised now that they do need to do more of the 16 to 24.”

A spokesperson at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) says it is “not possible” to compare the provisional figures with data from 2010/11.

“Provisional data for the first quarter of the 2011/12 academic year (August 2011 to October 2011) provide an early view of performance and will change as further data returns are received from further education colleges and providers,” the spokesperson said.

“Quarterly figures for 2011/12 will be updated throughout the year and will be finalised in the January 2013 Statistical First Release. It is not possible, therefore, to directly compare provisional data for the first quarter of the 2011/12 academic year with data from earlier academic years.”

The growing number of adult apprenticeships, shown to be up by 93 per cent in the SFR provisional figures, follow four consecutive quarter increases in 2010/11.

Tess Lanning, research fellow at the IPPR, says the rise in adult apprentices reflects an “increasingly broad definition” of what counts as an apprenticeship
“Over the past decade apprenticeships have become increasingly less likely to offer a route into skilled employment for young people,” she said.

“Instead, the biggest increases have been for adult apprentices, most of which are existing employees, many in low-paid jobs.”

The number of apprenticeship starts aged 16 to 18 dropped by three per cent in the first quarter of 2011/12, down to 53,700, according to provisional statistics in the SFR.

The figures follow record levels of youth unemployment, which has now reached 1.04 million for young people aged 16 to 24, announced by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) last month.

“What these figures show is that the government was too slow to respond to the crisis in youth unemployment by adjusting the priorities,” Mr Marsden said.

“They were too slow in picking them up and even when they did so, the pick-up in those 16 to 18 and 19 to 24 areas, although it has increased, has not increased anywhere near enough in volume to match the huge increase in post 25.”

A BIS spokesperson said the government would be doing all it could to help young people get back into work.

“The private sector is playing an important role: creating over half a million jobs in the past year – the highest in the G7 countries – and we are in turn supporting business by cutting corporation tax to make the UK the most competitive tax system in the G20 and making an unprecedented investment in apprenticeships,” the spokesperson said.

“It is vital that we do all we can to help young people without work get back into employment with good long term career prospects.”

The total number of new apprenticeships starts hit 457,200 in 2010/11, up 14,500 from provisional figures published in October last year.

Increasing unemployment is fuelling a sharp rise in demand for short employability qualifications, figures obtained by FE Week reveal.

Statistics from three major awarding bodies – Edexcel, City and Guilds and NCFE – report significant increases in registrations for courses which aim to improve CVs, improve interview techniques and aid application writing.
Although aiming to help get people into work, the qualifications, in some cases, only see little more than a third enter employment.

Despite this, the reason behind the surge in people registering for the qualifications is blamed, by the bodies, on rising unemployment rates.

However, it could also be down to the opening up of the single Adult Skills Budget from August last year, which means training providers who previously offered apprenticeships or workplace learning are now able to deliver outside the workplace.

Figures from Pearson, owned by Edexcel, from the start of September to the end of November in 2010 and 2011, show registrations of their Workskills qualification by training providers rose from 1,951 to 27,878 – an increase of some 1,428 per cent.

However, during the same time period, numbers for non-training providers – schools and colleges – have slightly decreased from 87,753 to 87,244.

The total for both provider types is 115,122 in 2011 – an increase of 25,418 when compared to the total of 89,704 in 2010.

A Pearson spokesperson said: “More than ever, individuals wishing to progress in the workplace, in education and in training, need to demonstrate flexible and wide-ranging skills.”

Further analysis shows the increase is due to the introduction of a ‘Designed for Apprentices’ model of the qualification, accounting for 24,909 of 2011’s figures. The qualification was not available the previous year.

A spokesperson for Pearson confirmed that there are no apprenticeship frameworks that mandate a Workskills qualification, adding: “As far as we understand it, providers are taking this in addition to their apprenticeships – even though it’s not funded – as it helps learners with the apprenticeship programme.

“As there is no additional funding for this, we took the decision to provide free registration for the WorkSkills qualifications as part of the BTEC Apprenticeship package when registering on full frameworks.”

Fellow awarding body City & Guilds (C&G) has also revealed an increase in registration numbers for their Employability and Personal Development qualification.

In the same time period, figures have risen from 15,160 to 24,872, but they were unable to split the figure by provider type.

A spokesperson for the organisation said: “This increase can probably be attributed to the sharp rise in UK unemployment figures recorded over the same period.”

The spokesperson added: “With high levels of unemployment, people are focusing on developing the skills needed to find work. The qualifications help learners develop employability skills that employers require, helping them be more attractive in a competitive job market or progress into education.”

NCFE, due to “commercial sensitivity” were unable to provide specific details, but have revealed that registrations for their eight employability qualifications have risen by 396 per cent during the past 12 months.

A spokesperson for NCFE said: “The growth is understandable when you consider the emphasis now being placed on the government to ensure young people are prepared for work and rapid growth in unemployment figures.

“These particular qualifications are popular as they provide core skills needed to help people gain employment and get their first step onto the career ladder.”

The Skills Funding Agency said greater access to the Adult Skills Budget was “intended to simplify the funding system” and increase opportunity for learners.

A spokesperson said: “This means that training organisations that have previously been restricted to workplace learning can also deliver provision geared to meet needs of individuals, including helping unemployed people into work.”

The Agency also said that colleges and providers are “free to make their own decisions about the mix and balance” of their provision, including the specific qualifications they deliver, when asked about the budget’s use.

Among those offering employability skills is RTT Group, which delivers the full-time qualification over two weeks at 10 sites across England.

Nick Barton, director of operations employability at the provider, said: “We will expect to see 7,500 to 9000 clients from Jobcentre Plus, Work Programme and Work Choice from across the country by the end of this academic year.

“That could easily increase by 25 to 50 per cent if we could fund it.

“The numbers are more than double than we saw last year through Response to Redundancy and Routes into Work.”

When asked about job progression, Mr Barton added: “We can’t offer 100 per cent of the learners employment.

“We offer 100 per cent of learners in our Sector Based Work Academy programmes that we run with Jobcentre Plus, a guaranteed interview and work experience.

“Our job entry rate is better than many Welfare to Work providers and, depending on where we are delivering in the country, we expect it to be over 38 per cent and for our Work Programme customers, over 50 per cent.”

Less than 0.01 per cent of more than 14 million learning accounts have been accessed directly by learners, figures obtained by FE Week reveal.

The statistics, released in a Freedom of Information (FoI) request to the Skills Funding Agency (SFA), show only 800 learners have accessed their Personal Learning Record (PLR), out of 14,166,906 Unique Learner Numbers (ULN) which have been created to give them access.

The PLR is managed by the Learning Records Service (LRS), a team of 17 staff within the SFA which enables the sharing of learner and achievement data across the education and skills sector.

The provision and maintenance of the ULN, which the FoI response says cost £7.2 million to implement, is also one of the services delivered by the LRS.

the total number of learners that have accessed their record directly to date is 800.”

It was first piloted back in 2006, before being rolled out in 2008, with access for the first learner to the LRS in January 2009.

However, the SFA, in the FoI document, say access to the accounts by learners will increase when they are promoted actively.

It reads: “It is not possible to quantify all the interactions on behalf of a learner.

“However, 1.76 million individual learner records have been accessed and updated.

“Many of these transactions will have been triggered to support a learner such as enabling a claim for public funding of learning.

“Direct access for learners to their records has not been actively promoted and the total number of learners that have accessed their record directly to date is 800.

“We expect this figure to rise significantly with the roll out of easier ways for learners to access their record online and promotion of routes, such as via Lifelong Learning Accounts in England.”

Denise Gledhill, head of funding and learner records at Wakefield College, said there seems to be a “general lack of awareness” about the LRS.

She added: “As a college, we incorporate standard information about the LRS within the Learning Agreement at enrolment, as required.

“Only two learners, from around 8,000 learners enrolled so far this year, have contacted my team this academic year, to request their ULN.”

Although admitting it is difficult to quantify time and money invested in LRS, Mrs Gledhill said that on average, one member of staff spends 20 per cent of the week investigating ULNs – which includes matches, duplicates and serious errors.

She also said: “We are not opposed to the principle of ULNs and the Personal Learning Record, but as a college we are currently seeing no benefit from the LRS.”

It is not the first time concerns have been raised about ULNs and Personal Learning Records – as its use by awarding bodies has previously been questioned.

Little more than a year ago, the Federation of Awarding Bodies (FAB) raised members’ issues on the system over lack of control and responsibility for errors.

At the time, FAB’s chief executive Jill Lanning also said that exam boards were “nervous” over the prospect of confidential data being shared.

Meanwhile, in November, at an information authority meeting, the group “expressed concern that they have to put a lot of time and effort” into ULNs, but they said awarding bodies “do not seem to have bought” into them.

Mrs Lanning, speaking to FE Week, said: “We are still discussing details with the LRS about moving forward.

“Some awarding bodies are signed up to it, with some only for a trial period, but some are still biding their time to decide.”

The LRS provides services to more than 7,600 organisations, including schools, FE providers, higher education institutions, careers services and awarding organisations.

Since the introduction of the LRS, it is estimated the UK education sector has benefited from £56.9 million of avoided costs, while total salary costs including for all LRS staff were £847,722.54 for 2010/11 and £463,395.15 for 2009/10.

The increase is explained by the “recruitment of a permanent team following completion of the programme” that set up the service.

However, the SFA was unable to comment further at the time of going to press.

Apprenticeship success rates have risen for the fourth consecutive year across all age groups, according to new government data.

The statistical first release (SFR), published by the Data Service last week, shows a 2.6 percentage point increase in apprenticeships at all age groups and skill levels.

The completion rate of all 16 to 18 apprenticeships rose to 74 per cent in 2010/11, up from 72.4 per cent for the previous twelve months.

John Hayes MP, minister of state for further education, skills and lifelong learning, said: “Clarity of policy, strength of commitment and certainty of purpose has delivered record numbers of apprenticeship starts, outstanding success rates and growth across all sectors.”

The SFR also revealed an 83.2 per cent completion rate for 16-18 higher apprenticeships, rising to 84.8 per cent for learners aged 19 and above.

“Thousands of higher apprenticeships will open up new pathways to excellence for the brightest and best learners,” Mr Hayes said.

“A zero tolerance approach to unnecessary red tape, and new financial incentives for small firms will enable more employers to offer gold standard training to match and beat our international competitors.”

The Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) says the statistics prove the apprenticeship programme is in “rude health”.

Graham Hoyle, chief executive of AELP, said: “The latest official statistics show that right across the board, apprenticeships are playing a key role in lifting skill levels in the UK workforce and giving thousands of young people a successful start to their careers in manufacturing and service sectors. ”

Total completions for 16 to 24 year-olds hit more than 160,000 in 2010/11, up by 16.8 per cent on the previous year.

Mr Hoyle added: “Amidst all the doom and gloom surrounding the economic outlook, employers and providers deserve major credit for significantly increasing the number of apprenticeship places and for offering quality training when they have to contend with higher costs on their businesses.”

The SFR data also showed an increase in the success rates for advanced level apprenticeships, with an average completion rate of 78.6 per cent across all age groups in 2010/11.

Intermediate level apprenticeships had a similar increase, with a success rate of 72.2 per cent for apprentices aged 16 to 18 and 78 per cent for those aged 19 and above.

The Skills Minister has launched an independent review into the professionalism of the further education (FE) and skills workforce today.

John Hayes MP has confirmed the review will be chaired by Lord Lingfield, alongside an expert panel led by David Sherlock CBE, former head of the Adult Learning Inspectorate.

“As we reform the further education sector to ensure it is fit for the 21st century, it is right that we also work to raise the status of FE professionals,” Mr Hayes said.

“We want to give the best support to those who teach in the sector.”He added: “I am delighted to announce that the respected educationalist, Lord Lingfield, has accepted my invitation to lead this important work.”

The independent  review, which will take evidence from the FE sector starting this week, is expected to report in the spring.

The terms of reference include reviewing the current arrangements used to facilitate professionalism in the FE sector, as well as proposing how they can be changed or improved.

The terms also include the following ‘key tasks’:

* Review progress made with professionalising the FE and Skills workforce following the introduction the reforms stemming from ‘Equipping Our Teachers for the Future’;

* Investigate if lessons can be learnt from the way professional status is facilitated and regulated in other sectors;

* Examine the appropriateness and effectiveness of the current regulations;

* Examine the role, functions, benefits for members and governance of the Institute for Learning as the sector’s professional membership body, its regulatory functions and how effectively it is facilitating the achievement of a professionalised workforce, and, where relevant, the contribution of other partner bodies;

* Consider what is the fairest, most efficient and appropriate way of meeting the costs of facilitating a professionalised FE and Skills workforce;

* Make recommendations for any changes and improvements required to enable continued progress in raising the professional standards and status of the FE and Skills workforce, to support continuing professional development, and to engage and give confidence to all key stakeholders.

Other  members of the panel include Dawn Ward OBE, Principal of Burton and South Derbyshire College  and Dan Wright, Chief Executive of First4Skills.