Following the government’s decision to let providers decide whether to cancel exams this month, awarding bodies have been outlining how they plan to award grades for vocational qualifications if any exams do not go ahead.

All of the media attention has unsurprisingly been on what will happen with BTECs, so FE Week has spoken with a number
of other leading exam bodies to create this one-stop shop for what we know so far.

Pearson

The awarding body for BTECs has said it will award a grade for any student who is unable to take this month’s exams and has “enough evidence to receive a certificate that they need for progression”.

Those unable to take their assessment this month may also “be able to” take it at a later date. “If that is not possible, we will put in place arrangements to ensure you are not disadvantaged,” Pearson said.

A statement from the company added: “We are working closely with the DfE and Ofqual on all of this and we willshare more detail with you in the coming days.”

OCR

In addition to BTECs, exams for Cambridge Nationals and Cambridge Technicals are also running this month.

The qualifications’ awarding body, OCR, has said there may be an opportunity for students to take their assessment in the future if their exams are cancelled.

But if this is not possible, depending on the arrangements the government makes for the summer exam series, OCR has promised: “We will work with the Department for Education and Ofqual to make sure students are treated fairly.”

However, if a student was going to earn their certificate this month, and if there is enough evidence, OCR will award the learner a grade “to help them progress”.

There has also been an extension to the deadline for submitting Cambridge National coursework for moderation.

OCR has said the original date of January 10 has now been moved by two weeks, to January 24.

This means the results day in spring will be impacted, and OCR says it will be providing an updated timetable as soon as it can.

The awarding body has urged colleges to submit coursework as soon as possible “so we have evidence of your students’ work”.

VTCT

VTCT has said the January series of exams will go ahead as planned, but it has set up an additional assessment series in March for its technical award and applied general qualifications if a centre decides that learners will not take examinations in this month.

The additional dates for both qualifications’ exams will be between March 8 and March 12.

This will not change the existing dates in March for assessments for VTCT’s technical qualifications and technical level qualifications.

AAT

The Association of Accounting Technicians has not announced extra measures for students due to sit their qualifications in January, instead telling students who are due to sit assessments in the near future to contact their training provider.

They have encouraged providers to contact students as soon as possible about their “intentions and plans” and guidance has been put together for assessment centres to become Covid-secure.

While AAT is pressing ahead with exams in January, the awarding body said: “This is an ongoing situation, and we will continue to review our approach regularly as it evolves, along with providing updated information and guidance.”

City & Guilds

The number of students sitting the January exam series for City & Guilds and ILM is “very small”, according to managing director David Phillips.

He added that they have already been in touch with each centre with learners registered for an exam, to discuss options if they decide not to proceed; but decisions for what would happen in such a situation have not yet been made.

As for spring and summer exams, Phillips said: “We are working with our regulators and government departments on how to proceed and will communicate with all of our centres and customers as soon as possible.”

A college in Kent has already supported around 500 students to sit their exams this week after receiving “overwhelming feedback” from students who were keen to attend.

The government said on Monday that all BTEC and other technical exams would still go ahead this month despite the new national lockdown restriction, before backtracking a day later and placing the onus on colleges to decide whether or not they run.

East Kent College (EKC) Group told their students it was up to them if they attended and achieved an average turnout of around 80 per cent so far this week.

Education secretary Gavin Williamson said he chose to give leaders the flexibility to continue with the assessments as there are “a lot of young people who will need to complete their professional competency qualifications in order to take up work and job opportunities” and it was important to “keep that door open”.

But many colleges across England have since cancelled the exams amid safety fears.

EKC Group, which is in one of the worst hit areas of the country in terms of coronavirus cases, said that they “believe that we are able to offer these examinations safely and the overwhelming feedback from students is that they would like the opportunity to sit their examinations”.

“Therefore, we will continue to offer the examinations as planned. It will be an individual students choice as to whether they wish to sit the examination,” a statement from the college continue.

For those who choose not to sit the exams, the college has pledged to do “everything to ensure that future opportunities for sitting the examination are made available” and that “alternatively, the government may offer alternative forms of assessment”.

A spokesperson echoed Williamson’s view that it was important to allow students, who have been preparing for the exams for years in some cases, the opportunity to sit them to progress.

London South East Colleges, which has campuses across the capital and is also in a Covid-19 hotspot area, has made the same decision. Deputy chief executive David Lambert told FE Week the college group has had a 50 to 60 per cent turnout today – its first day of exams. Around 800 exams are scheduled to take place over the coming weeks.

In a letter to students, the college said: “After very detailed consideration, we have decided to let our students have a choice.

“We know how hard so many of you have worked for these exams, that you will be disappointed not to take them and that you would like the exams to take place.”

The letter continued: “We also know that many of you may feel anxious about attending on campus at this time.

“We know that some of you have vulnerable family members whom you want to protect, and others have had interrupted learning through needing to self-isolate in the past term.

“Therefore, to meet the needs of as many students as possible, we have decided that we will allow the exams to go ahead for those students who would like the opportunity to take them.”

Weston College, based in Weston-Super-Mare, has taken a similar approach.

“As a college we recognise that learners have worked really hard to prepare for their exams and will be anxious about this situation and the late change in guidance from the government,” a spokesperson said.

“We also appreciate that some learners are reliant on completing exams to secure licence to practice status or a professional status that is important to their career or advancement in work. Where our learners are able and want to take the exam they have prepared for, we will allow them the opportunity to do so. The college will therefore continue with the agreed timetable of exams in January.”

The college added that each learner will “know best their own individual situations, and will know how they personally feel about sitting their exam” so if any student “does not feel able to come into college, the college will support this decision and ensure that they are supported to complete the assessment at an alternative time or through any adaptive assessment protocols that may be put in place by the Ofqual and the awarding bodies in response to the pandemic”.

FE Week asked the college what the turnout had been like for the exams that had already taken place this week, but the college did not respond at the time of going to press.

A former top skills civil servant has criticised the launch of a government-funded campaign to promote free online education content at a time when the third national lockdown shuts the doors to adult education providers.

‘An Hour to Skill’ was launched on Thursday and aims to “inspire people to set aside just one hour a week for online learning” by taking a free online course through the ‘Skills Toolkit’.

The toolkit is a “platform” which offers more than 70 “high-quality” courses, according to officials, and was created by the Department for Education in April 2019 to help teach out-of-work people new skills during the first lockdown.

It consists of a web page on the National Careers Service with short course descriptions and links to the external websites for organisations such as Amazon, Microsoft, Google and the Open University. A previous FE Week investigation found that many of the courses are simply short video tutorials or PDF documents that people can stop and start, with no tuition and no external quality assurance from the likes of Ofqual and Ofsted.

The new campaign will involve the “one-hour” message being promoted through businesses’ channels as well as social media, and “demonstrates that making the time for online learning can feel simple and achievable, overcoming some of the key psychological barriers faced by the people we need to reach”. The DfE is also partnering with well-known psychologist Honey Langcaster-James to elevate the message.

The campaign has been set up as the government urges the public to “stay at home” during the national lockdown, which is due to run until at least mid-February and includes the closure of FE providers to all but vulnerable students and the children of key workers.

Sue Pember, a former director of FE funding in the DfE who is now the policy director of adult education network HOLEX, said the move was “disappointing”.

“I really can’t believe how insensitive this is,” she told FE Week. “Adult education providers and colleges were told to shut by the DfE and then the DfE starts and pays for a national advertising campaign for a set of commercial competitor providers.”

She added that the providers “are all private sector and I am not clear why they are giving them a business advantage over the providers they fund. Where is the national advertising for their provision?”

Pember also questioned the DfE’s claim that the courses on the Skills Toolkit are “high quality, as not one of them has been inspected by Ofsted”.

In response to Pember’s criticism, a spokesperson for the DfE said: “The campaign is backed by all the providers on The Skills Toolkit, including FutureLearn, Institute of Coding, University of Leeds and The Open University, to offer a range of high quality courses.

“The competition was open to all providers and those who applied were subject to a competitive and rigorous quality assurance process in order to have their courses featured on the platform.

“An Hour to Skill is designed to signpost people to these courses to help them develop their skills and to change attitudes to lifelong learning that will benefit all providers.”

In a statement accompanying the campaign’s launch, skills minister Gillian Keegan said the courses can “help boost the nation’s skills and job prospects at such an important time for our economy” and that she is “confident that learning through the Skills Toolkit can give you the skills employers are looking for”.

This follows an FE Week investigation last month in which the government was urged to withdraw claims about the take-up of courses on the toolkit.

This publication found that significant over-counting had already led to revised estimates, and that “course start” and “registration” claims in official statistics will continue to include web hits.

The DfE claims there have been more than 130,000 “registrations” for courses on the platform to date but admits these are “experimental statistics and rely on website analytics submitted by providers”.

More than £1 million had been spent to develop and promote the Skills Toolkit at the time of FE Week’s investigation. The DfE did not say how much extra funding is going towards the ‘An Hour to Skill’ campaign at the time of going to press.

No college or training provider should feel “pressured” to offer BTEC and other vocational exams this month, Gavin Williamson has said.

In an address to Parliament today, the education secretary said it was “important” to give providers the “flexibility” to offer the assessments as “there are a lot of young people who will need to complete their professional competency qualifications in order to take up work and job opportunities”.

He added that the government wants to ensure this “door is kept open” for the learners, and that leaders of colleges and training providers “will be the ones who are best and most accurately understand the needs of their students”.

Following the new national lockdown announcement on Monday, the Department for Education said that vocational and technical exams, which are being taken by around 135,000 students over the next three weeks, should still go ahead.

The DfE backtracked last night and said leaders could cancel the exams if they wished. It came after various colleges across the country told students their exams had been postponed. Membership organsations, including the Association of Colleges and Federation of Awarding Bodies, said the DfE’s statement caused further confusion for leaders and that the exams should be scrapped altogether.

Williamson addressed the Commons today to announce alternative plans for this summer’s cancelled GCSE and A-level exams and offered the following defence for allowing January assessments to go ahead.

“I know students and staff have worked hard to prepare for the January exams and assessments of vocational and technical qualifications and we want to allow schools and colleges to continue with these assessments where they judge this is right to do so.  

“No college should feel pressured to offer these and we will ensure all students will be able to progress fairly, just as we will with VTQs in the summer.”

After shadow education secretary Kate Green accused Williamson of “failing to show leadership” by leaving the decision to college leaders in these “difficult circumstances”, he added: “It is very important we give colleges, schools and all providers, the flexibility because there are a lot of young people who will need to complete their professional competency qualifications in order to take up work and job opportunities.

“Whether that is those who are doing electrician or gas courses where they have to do practical assessments. We want to ensure the door is kept open for them.

“That is why we have taken the decision to give providers the discretion, because they will be the ones who best and most accurately understand the needs of their students and those who need those qualifications to progress into a job.”

The DfE has said that it is working with Ofqual on arrangements for those students who do not take their planned January exams, as well as for vocational and technical assessments scheduled for February onwards.

A representative body for awarding organisations has said it is “bemused” by the government’s decision to leave it up to colleges to decide whether exams should go ahead this month.

Federation of Awarding Bodies chief executive Tom Bewick said it was “nonsensical and wrong-headed” to place the onus on college leaders to “make these important decisions” during a national lockdown.

“Even if exams could take place in Covid-secure surroundings, it will still not address how individuals, including assessors and staff, will feel about taking part,” he said.

Around 135,000 students had been set to be assessed for vocational qualifications such as BTECs over the next three weeks and the Department for Education said on Monday they would still go ahead despite the new lockdown restrictions.

The DfE then backtracked last night and said that colleges could now cancel BTEC and other vocational assessments due to take place this month, but left it up to leaders to decide. The DfE fell short of cancelling exams altogether, as it has done for this summer’s GCSE and A-level exams.

Bewick yesterday wrote to apprenticeships and skills minister Gillian Keegan to say FAB did not think holding January vocational exams was “realistic in the circumstances,” having consulted with members, including BTEC awarding body Pearson.

He today repeated his call for the exams to be pulled, saying the government was “emphatic” the summer exam series should be cancelled, so should do the same for all exams over the next six months.

Exams watchdog Ofqual’s chief regulator Simon Lebus “should work with the sector to put robust alternative arrangements in place. Many solutions already exist,” Bewick continued.

Pearson has already announced it will award a grade for any BTEC learner who is unable to take this month’s exams and has “enough evidence to receive a certificate that they need for progression”.

Those unable to take their assessment this month may also “be able to” take it at a later date. But if that is not possible, Pearson said it “will put in place arrangements to ensure you are not disadvantaged”.

A number of colleges had already said they were cancelling January exams before the DfE backtracked on its original plan to push ahead with them, citing safety concerns.

The National Education Union has backed the government’s decision to leave it up to providers to decide whether to hold exams, with joint-general secretary Mary Bousted saying “on balance” this is the right decision, as exam conditions “are not like classroom conditions” and can be “managed in a socially distanced way”.

There have been some big changes to lockdown rules which impact the FE and skills sector over the next six weeks, but guidance for exactly what England’s training providers other than schools and colleges should do has been absent.

The Association of Employment and Learning Providers spoke with skills minister Gillian Keegan and the Education and Skills Funding Agency’s director of apprenticeships Peter Mucklow yesterday to raise key questions that members want answers to.

FE Week is also seeking further details from the Department for Education, and we will update this page as and when. Here is what we know in the meantime.

 

Should providers close centres to most learners?

Yes. The AELP said it understands that the government is working on new guidance which is relevant to providers other than universities and colleges.

But overall, the expectation is that independent training providers are “required to repeat what they did during the first lockdown and conduct as much learning online as possible”.

Like schools and colleges, providers should only offer onsite training to vulnerable learners and children of key workers.

The DfE has removed a rule that previously said those students on programmes that require access to specialist equipment “may continue to spend some time on site”.

 

Can face-to-face end-point assessments continue as planned?

Yes. Face-to-face assessment “can continue – either in colleges and training providers’ premises, or in employers’ covid-secure settings – for vulnerable younger apprentices, those who need access to specialist equipment, and those whose learning cannot be delivered remotely”, the DfE told FE Week.

The department added that where they are able to do so in line with line with Covid-19 guidance, apprentices can “continue to make use of the existing flexibilities and discretions approved through the process set out by the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education to undertake their end-point assessment”.

But the use of technology for remote assessment is “encouraged where it is appropriate”.

 

Will centre-assessed grades for functional skills testing be permitted?

Not likely. In the light of Monday’s statement on the cancellation of GCSE and A-level exams this summer, the AELP asked if the DfE and Ofqual agree that the functional skills testing logjam should be relieved immediately by the reintroduction of centre-assessed grades.

Ofqual “indicated” to AELP yesterday that they are “reviewing options to resolve the functional skills testing logjam” but “we don’t expect CAGs to be among them at this stage but we will keep up the pressure for a resolution”.

As revealed by FE Week in October, thousands of apprentices have been “stuck in limbo” unable to complete their programmes as awarding bodies struggled to adapt their functional skills assessments where traditional tests cannot take place.

 

Will there be a new provider relief scheme?

Possibly. The AELP said that “without making any commitment”, ministers are “considering the case for bringing back some form of provider relief”.

Training programme starts are expected to now crash again following the new national lockdown which means minimal income for providers for at least six weeks. 

Two rounds of supplier relief were run last year which allowed payment in advance of apprenticeship and adult education budget training to help keep cash-strapped providers stay afloat.

 

Will asymptomatic testing be rolled out in ITPs?

Possibly. Schools and colleges have been given the go ahead and funding from government to set up rapid mass Covid-19 testing of staff and students this month.

ITPs are currently not part of the plans.

But the AELP now understands that asymptomatic testing for ITPs and their learners is “being considered”.

“Our understanding is that there may initially be some prioritisation according to the type of learning provision,” last night’s email said.

 

If your provider is seeking guidance on any other training issues relating to the new lockdown but not getting answers, please let us know by commenting below and we will put the questions to the DfE.

The awarding body that runs BTECs has pledged to award a grade for any student who is unable to take this month’s exams and has “enough evidence to receive a certificate that they need for progression”.

Those unable to take their assessment this month may also “be able to” take it at a later date. “If that is not possible, we will put in place arrangements to ensure you are not disadvantaged,” Pearson added.

Pearson made the announcement after the Department for Education last night told colleges it would be up to them to decide whether the 135,000 students sitting vocational exams, including BTECs, this month can go ahead.

In an online statement addressed to BTEC learners, Pearson said: “We want to ensure that you and all those working in schools and colleges are supported by us regardless of the choice that is made by your school or college on whether exams take place.

“We are working closely with the DfE and Ofqual on all of this and we will share more detail with you in the coming days.

“We appreciate this must be a very difficult time for you. We hope that this update provides you with some clarity and reassurance that you will not be disadvantaged whichever decision is made by your school or college regarding exams.”

BTEC learners and college staff have been through a mire of confusion in the past few days, after the government originally announced vocational exams planned for this month would take place.

That is despite prime minister Boris Johnson telling the nation on Monday GCSE and A-level exams in the summer will not “go ahead as normal”.

Yesterday, a number of colleges concerned about the safety implications of holding exams during this fresh lockdown unilaterally decided to cancel their exams for this month.

This included Loughborough College, which announced yesterday it would postpone their exams due to a local surge in Covid-19 cases as well as a number of students coming in from outside the area to take exams, and The Sheffield College which said it would cancel and rearrange exams “to ensure that these can be held safely”.

In response to the DfE pushing ahead, Labour’s shadow apprenticeships minister Toby Perkins said the exams “cannot go ahead safely and fairly this week,” while the Federation of Awarding Bodies chief executive Tom Bewick wrote to skills minister Gillian Keegan: “We do not feel the ambition of going ahead with the January series is realistic in the circumstances.”

Late last night, the DfE backtracked with the statement allowing colleges to decide whether to hold exams; however, this also triggered outrage in the sector, with Association of Colleges chief executive David Hughes saying it risks “continuing the confusion, leading to more uncertainty for every student, and puts thousands of young people and their families at risk, as well as the college staff managing the exams”.

The country’s largest teachers’ union has backed the government’s controversial decision to plough ahead with BTEC and other vocational exams over the coming weeks despite the national lockdown.

Mary Bousted (pictured), the joint general secretary of the National Education Union, told FE Week that “on balance” this is the right decision as exam conditions “are not like classroom conditions” and can be “managed in a socially distanced way”.

She added that “so many young people have been working towards them” and it is therefore “important” for those exams to go ahead.

The NEU leader is in the minority of people who agree that the exams should go ahead, with organisations such as the Association of Colleges, the Federation of Awarding Bodies, and the University and College Union all calling for them to be cancelled.

Prime minister Boris Johnson urged the public to “stay at home” as he announced a new six week national lockdown on Monday to tackle a new variant of Covid-19 that is making cases spiral.

Schools and colleges will now close to all but vulnerable students and children of key workers until the February half term at least, and the summer exam series will not be going ahead “as normal”.

The AoC estimates that around 135,000 students are due to sit BTEC and other vocational exams over the next three weeks, with many of them starting yesterday. But some colleges have chosen to cancel the assessments in the face of government plans for them to go ahead.

The Department for Education backtracked last night and said schools and colleges can now cancel BTEC assessments due to take place this month, but has left it up to leaders to decide.

“In light of the evolving public health measures, schools and colleges can continue with the vocational and technical exams that are due to take place in January, where they judge it right to do so,” a spokesperson said.

FE Week spoke to Bousted prior to this update and when asked whether she agreed with the government’s decision to continue with the January exams as planned, she said: “Yes, I do think that on balance it’s the right decision for January assessments and BTECs to go ahead this month.

“While I’m the first to say that schools and colleges need to be secure and Covid-safe, exam conditions are not like classroom conditions. It is much more possible to make exams Covid-safe than teaching where you’re interacting with people.

“There is now also much less footfall on the site because of the lockdown, so exams can be managed in a socially distanced way.”

Bousted concluded: “It’s important that those exams go ahead – so many young people have been working towards them.”