Apprenticeship providers have been left shocked after the Education and Skills Funding Agency ignored their own coronavirus deferral policy and sent out contract termination letters, FE Week can reveal.
The business-ending intervention for failing the minimum standards for achievement rates comes just weeks after the ESFA wrote to providers claiming they would postpone decisions until as late as October, to take account of the “continuing challenges” relating to Covid-19.
One provider that did not wish to be named, with hundreds of apprentices, shared with FE Week a letter it received this week that said the agency was providing “notice of termination” on July 31. Access to all funding would then end and the training firm would be removed from the Register of Apprenticeship Training Providers.
The letter went on to say all new starts must cease immediately and the provider must “do its utmost to minimise disruption caused to apprentices”.
The provider shared the reasons for their underperformance with the ESFA in February and thought the matter was closed as they had not received the deferral letter sent to other providers last month.
When FE Week challenged the Department for Education on the unexpected interventions this week a spokesperson said there had been no change relating to deferrals but that in a small number of cases contracts are being terminated at this stage.
The DfE refused to comment further on why the ESFA was ignoring their own published deferral policy by taking action during the global pandemic.
As previously reported, overall national apprenticeship achievement rates dropped 2.2 per cent points last year to just 64.7 per cent.
The achievement rate for the new apprenticeship standards were particularly low, averaging just 46.6 per cent compared to 68.7 per cent for frameworks.
Providers have to have more than 40 per cent of their cohort on frameworks and standards above a 62 per cent achievement rate to achieve the minimum standard.
The contract termination letter said that in coming to their decision the ESFA had taken account of the evidence submitted by the provider along with “the scale of underperformance against the minimum standard threshold for 2018 to 2019 and your organisation’s track record relative to the minimum standard in previous years”.
In an FE Week webcast at the end of April, apprenticeships and skills minister Gillian Keegan expressed concern at historic “low-quality” apprenticeships delivery.
She said: “I was quite shocked at some of the lower quality delivery that happened in the first stages of the levy being introduced and I never want to go back to those days…I’ve met people on the doorstep who’ve actually said to me this is a load of old rubbish. We have to make sure that every apprenticeship is quality.”
Once a notice of contract termination has been issued, the DfE said the ESFA works with the provider to ensure that the apprentices and their employers receive advice about how to successfully complete their learning. This, they said, could include finishing with the same provider or transferring to a new provider, and that in practice, this depends on the time left to complete the learning activity.
The spokesperson went on to say that the ESFA will continue to talk to and monitor all providers who have failed minimum standards for all aged apprenticeships in 2018 to 2019, as part of their management of further education.
Two regular commentators on vocational education policy who now work at the same consultancy firm take opposing sides over whether it is in the government’s gift to guarantee a young person an apprenticeship…
Possible? No Jonathan Simons, Director of education, Public First
An apprenticeship is a protected term in law. It means that someone undertaking one must be following an approved programme of study; must be eligible for off-the-job training for a proportion of the week; and must be employed.
That last element is crucial. It’s what makes an apprenticeship different from college-based learning, which can be done in or out of employment.
Jonathan Simons
The government is very keen on apprenticeships, mostly because of the link to employers. As well as hiring the apprentices, groups of employers have also set the standards that apprentices work towards. And it is employers who choose which apprentices to take on in their company, and how many, and where to deploy them. All of this activity is covered under the much-used phrase “an employer-led system”.
And it’s because we have an employer-led system that we simply can’t have an apprenticeship guarantee: because it’s not within the government’s gift. Unlike university places, or college places, which can be more or less expanded as far as the government would pay for them, apprenticeships also need employers willing to offer them.
And all the data suggests that this is going to be very difficult. Many current apprentices are having their training paused, and new starts are plummeting, as companies furlough their staff and wait out the Covid storm. Sadly, it looks as if the economic recovery will be slower than first thought. It’s unlikely that many companies will be returning to pre-crisis levels of training, let alone offering more.
Of course, there is more that government can and should do to promote high-quality apprenticeships – and I’m all in favour of those things that John sets out. But to offer a guarantee to young people, when it can’t be met, isn’t just semantics – it’s misleading, and poor policy.
Possible? Yes
John Cope, Deputy director of education, Public First
In normal times, employers should lead the apprenticeship system, as ultimately there needs to be a real job at the end. We are not in normal times though – as the prime minister’s “apprenticeship guarantee” for young people rightly recognises.
The proposal has already been met with a barrage of doom-mongers and scepticism. Some justified, given the pace of apprenticeship reform, and from a policy purist point, you can never 100 per cent “guarantee” anything. Such thinking, though, would have vetoed the furlough scheme as “too expensive” and flinched at helping the self-employed as “too hard to administer”.
John Cope
More than any politician, Boris Johnson understands that to govern is not about patching up the status quo. Politics is the art of the possible – the attainable. Are we saying young people don’t deserve the same exceptional support our economy has received? I hope not.
So how could it work?
Cash incentives for the private sector
The UK is an outlier internationally. We pay high apprentice salaries (much more than Germany) and employers pay a levy and all the costs of taking on an apprentice. In normal times, a reasonable expectation. But now?
We should flip this on its head, like in Australia. The government should pause the levy and actually pay employers to take on an apprentice (on the condition there is a job at the end).
Fire up the public sector
The public sector is already a huge apprenticeship provider. We should crank this up even more. And not just for the sake of artificially keeping NEET figures down – this is an opportunity to fill critical shortages. We need more nurses, more teachers, more police. There is an apprenticeship route ready for each.
So there we go – how the PM’s “apprenticeship guarantee” could be delivered with political will, new money, and vision. Young people deserve nothing less.
Hate crimes in colleges have almost tripled in four years as leaders seek to raise awareness in light of a national spike since the coronavirus outbreak.
The data obtained via Freedom of Information requests by FE Week from 23 of the 39 police forces in England reveal that 460 offences were recorded in colleges between 2015 and 2019.
There were 50 hate crimes five years ago, a figure that jumped to 72 and then 92 in 2016 and 2017 respectively. The number of offences in colleges rose to 106 in 2018 and increased again to 140 last year.
The Crown Prosecution Service describes hate crimes as offences “motivated by hostility” towards someone’s disability, race, religion, sexual orientation or transgender identity.
They can include verbal abuse, intimidation, threats, harassment, assault, bullying and damage to property.
There has been an upward trend nationally, with the number of offences recorded by the police having more than doubled in 2018-19 compared to 2012-13, according to the Home Office. It claimed that increases have been “mainly driven by improvements in crime recording”, but also noted that there have been spikes after certain events, such as the EU referendum in 2016 and terrorist attacks in 2017.
Last month, Home Office minister for countering extremism Susan Williams told the home affairs select committee that hate crime directed towards South and East Asian communities had increased by 21 per cent during the Covid-19 pandemic. Police have also estimated a threefold increase in such incidents against Chinese people between January and March 2020, compared to the previous two years.
Exeter is one area that is experiencing the spike: at least six reports of coronavirus-related attacks were received by Devon and Cornwall Police by March 6.
Exeter College has since committed to using its influence among young people to condemn such acts. Although no Covid-related hate crime incident has taken place at the college, it signed a joint open letter on tackling the issue and racism in its community in the same month, calling recent attacks on people in relation to Covid-19 on the basis of ethnicity “cowardly and ignorant”.
It said: “As leading organisations in our community we wanted to send a message of unity and partnership so that everyone knows that we will stand together to tackle hate crime and hateful people.”
While each police force has different methods of recording the data, the most common motivator of hate crimes in colleges provided each year was racism.
For example, graffiti of swastikas was painted in the car park of West Suffolk College in January, according to the Bury Free Press. Xenophobic leaflets, telling people to “go back to their homelands”, were also found at Oaklands College in Hertfordshire last year, according to the Herts Advertiser.
The need to educate perpetrators on reliable sources of information and embed raising awareness into curriculums and enrichment programmes was cited by college leaders who spoke to FE Week.
TOWIE’s Bobby Norris (centre) after speaking to learners at South Essex College about his #EndTheTrend2Troll campaign
Jane Belcher, head of safeguarding at South Essex College, said some staff and students had in recent months received support in how to make reports, how to keep safe and what to do if they did not feel safe after expressing concern about hate crime in their community following Covid-19. The college was also “very proactive in making sure that there was information on our Moodle pages”.
She added there had been three incidents at the college in 2019 and estimates there are under five a year. “All of our staff are told [they’re] not bystanders. If we hear it, we step in, we readjust that view and have a conversation.”
According to Belcher, tutorials are South Essex College’s “linchpin” for open discussions and to highlight individuals who might be at risk or need more support. Staff focus on where potentially harmful student views have come from and what their sources of information are. “It’s our job as educators to [develop] those critical thinking skills in our young people… It’s just providing that safe space for them to start understanding why that view isn’t accepted.”
The safeguarding head has previously used conversation-starters such as a radicalisation storyline on teenage soap opera Hollyoaks, a Buzzfeed article illustrating a double standard between media coverage of Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle, as well as news that Facebook banned far-right groups. The college has also brought in outside speakers to engage learners, such as The Only Way Is Essex’s Bobby Norris, who came to its Southend campus in October 2019 as part of his campaign to make online homophobia a specific criminal offence.
Similarly, East Coast College has a number of initiatives in place to tackle hate crime. Nikki Lane, assistant principal, student wellbeing and support, told FE Week a partnership with Norfolk Constabulary began after the Brexit vote, when students and staff raised an increase in incidents in the community. “The idea was actually to look at prevention.”
The college uses a tutorial programme of around six interventions a year as well as additional enrichment activities as a “springboard” for groups to understand what a hate message is and to discuss where they are seeing them.
Lane added that apprentices also consider hate crime as part of discussions about equality with assessors, while adult learners are addressed on the topic as part of their induction.
East Coast College said it has seen “reasonably low” increases of hate crimes in recent years. Most incidents at the college have been verbal. However, social media, and accessing the rhetoric of figures such as Tommy Robinson and Katie Hopkins (whose Twitter account has previously been suspended for violating the platform’s anti-hate policy), was also blamed.
“[Students] are kind of feeling like maybe it’s OK to say those things, and then the conversation that we’re having is helping them understand the impact of that.”
Students from Stockport College’s Equalities Council (part of Trafford College Group) presenting Sylvia Lancaster (centre) with a £640 cheque after fundraising for the Sophie Lancaster Foundation last year. Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, also pictured on her left.
Trafford College Group hosted its own annual Hate Crime awareness event in March, reaching 1,000 students. Speakers included a victim of an attack outside a mosque, the mother of Sophie Lancaster – who was killed after being targeted because of her Goth subculture identity – as well as members from Remembering Srebrenica, the Bosnian town that was the site of a genocidal massacre in 1995.
Michelle McLaughlin, student engagement and student voice lead, recommended that other colleges reach out to their community and ensure they have representatives that “serve the diversity of the college cohort” and to “keep your finger on the pulse of what’s going on in your local area”.
While the FOI figures obtained by FE Week are specifically for incidents in colleges, other types of FE providers have also implemented policies to combat the issue.
Bedford-based private provider Firebrand Training receives specialist guidance and a hate crime “heat map” from its designated regional Department for Education FE/HE Prevent coordinator. Ben Hansford, managing director of apprenticeships, said that the company was advised to look out for unacceptable stickers in communal areas and behavioural signals, such as lower-level hate crime and bullying, damage to belongings and “jokes”.
Hansford added: “It’s critical to train and support your trainers to spot the indicators early, educate learners through good safeguarding material, have a zero tolerance of bullying and provide proactive welfare support.”
Stop Hate UK representative, Angela Wright, at Trafford College Group
A statutory duty for further education providers to “prevent people from being drawn into terrorism” was introduced into government legislation in 2015, after the controversial anti-radicalisation programme (Prevent) was first created in 2003.
Mike Ainsworth, director of London services at Stop Hate UK, a national organisation that supports education providers through its helpline and training services, said their work has shown that racism, homophobia, religious intolerance and disability hate “remain problems in places of further education”.
He added that the number of cases reported are a “significant underestimate”, with many students (particularly foreign nationals, those with disabilities and members of the LGBTQ community) reluctant to come forward.
Such experiences can have a significant effect on learners. A survey by the National Union of Students in 2010 revealed that victims reported resulting mental health problems in almost a quarter of hate crimes. This included depression, loss of confidence as well as feelings of vulnerability, isolation and being alone.
A government spokesperson said: “There is absolutely no place in our society for hate crimes and we will continue to work across government and with the police to bear down on offenders, support victims and irradiate this prejudice.”
Labour’s shadow apprenticeships minister has branded the prime minister’s “apprenticeship guarantee” proposal a “deception”.
Toby Perkins told FE Week he was “concerned” that young people were being given “false reassurance” by Boris Johnson at a time when they are facing “a very difficult job market”.
His comments come a day after Johnson told the nation during his coronavirus briefing that young people “should be guaranteed an apprenticeship” after warning of “many, many job losses” expected from the fallout of Covid-19.
The prime minister added that young people “in particular” are at the highest risk of losing their jobs or being unable to find work so “it is going to be vital that we guarantee apprenticeships for young people”.
His comments made headlines across the national media and has divided opinion across the FE sector, with some lauding the proposal while others are sceptical about its viability.
The idea of an apprenticeship “guarantee” originally came from education select committee chair Robert Halfon who tabled it Johnson during last week’s Liaison Committee hearing.
It is not clear, however, exactly how an apprenticeship could be “guaranteed” and the government has so far stopped short of explaining how it would work or even if it is an official policy they are working on.
Perkins said: “I am very concerned that a deception is being performed here because the announcement as I understand it is that the government will fund the learning part of an apprenticeship, but we all know the most expensive part of employing an apprentice is paying their wages, and if the government aren’t offering to do that then this no way constitutes a ‘guarantee’.
“When young people who are facing potentially a very difficult job market are given false reassurance it really is most unfair. I’m calling on government be clear about what it is they are offering here and not to use words like ‘guarantee’ unless they genuinely are guaranteeing that young people will have an apprenticeship.”
The Department for Education has provided a statement in response to Johnson’s comments from yesterday, but it fails to reference the “apprenticeship guarantee”.
A spokesperson said: “Apprenticeships are an excellent way to get into a wide range of rewarding and valuable careers, and they will continue to play a vital role in delivering the high-quality skills employers need and that will support our economic recovery post Covid-19.
“We are looking at ensuring that we support employers, especially small businesses, to take on new apprentices this year and will provide further detail in due course.”
Halfon has today written for FE Week on why an apprenticeship guarantee is needed. Read it here.
The Education and Skills Funding Agency has for the first time revealed the training providers that have been paid funding from apprenticeship levy funded employers.
The data, for the 12-month 2018/19 academic year, shows Lifetime Training at the top after it was paid a whopping £51.5 million – almost double the next closest provider QA Limited on £26 million.
In third was the British Army on £21.37 million, closely followed by Babcock Training on £21.3 million, and then Kaplan Financial in fifth on £20.8 million.
The college with the largest amount of levy-funding in 2018/19 was The Sheffield College with £3.8 million – which places it in 28th place overall.
The total amount of levy funding handed out in that year was £876,390,234, shared between 1,366 training providers. The average levy funding per provider was £641,574.
Top colleges across the country are celebrating receiving honours in the Association of Colleges’ Beacon Awards 2019-20.
The winners and runners up are being announced via a virtual awards ceremony today after the scheduled Parliamentary reception in July had to be cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.
This page will be updated throughout the day as and when each prize winner is revealed.
First up, Grimsby Institute of Further & Higher Education have won the British Council Award.
Our first award, The @BritishCouncil International Award, seeks to celebrate outstanding examples of international work. 🌍
— Association of Colleges (AoC) (@AoC_info) June 4, 2020
The next award to be announced goes to… Fareham College for the City and Guilds Award for College Engagement with Employers.
The #AoCBeacons@cityandguilds Award for College Engagement with Employers recognises exemplary practice in provision delivery and response to employer needs. 👔
— Association of Colleges (AoC) (@AoC_info) June 4, 2020
Grimsby Institute of Further & Higher Education have won again! It picks up the Edge Award for Excellence in the Practical Delivery of Technical and Professional Learning.
The @ukEdge Award for Excellence in Real World Learning recognises technical and professional learning that supports social mobility, enabling young people to succeed. 🌟
— Association of Colleges (AoC) (@AoC_info) June 4, 2020
Next up is the Jisc Award for effective use of Digital Technology in further education… which is awarded to The Manchester College.
The @Jisc Award for Effective Use of Digital Technology in Further Education celebrates an outstanding ‘Use of Technology’ carefully designed to improve student experiences. 💻
— Association of Colleges (AoC) (@AoC_info) June 4, 2020
We have now moved on to the Pears #iwill Award for Social Action and Student Engagement which goes to… EKC Group.
The @PearsFoundation#iwill Award for Social Action and Student Engagement celebrates college social action and engagement in communities, providing transformational education opportunities. ☀️
— Association of Colleges (AoC) (@AoC_info) June 4, 2020
The next prize is awarded to Preston’s College for the RCU Support for Students Award.
The Support for Students @RCU_Limited Award celebrates outstanding examples of student support – for a significant group of students, across a whole provision or a college wide approach. 🏫
— Association of Colleges (AoC) (@AoC_info) June 4, 2020
We have another double-winner, The Manchester College! Its second prize of the day is the Careers and Enterprise Company Award for Innovation in Careers and Enterprise.
The @CareerEnt Award for Innovation in Careers and Enterprise celebrates outstanding examples of innovative leadership and practice. 💼
— Association of Colleges (AoC) (@AoC_info) June 4, 2020
And that concludes the virtual ceremony for the Association of Colleges’ Beacon Awards 2019-20!
Below is a full list of the winners and runners up.
British Council Award Winner: Grimsby Institute of Further and Higher Education Runners-up: Southern Regional College, Burton & South Derbyshire College
City and Guilds Award for College Engagement with Employers
Winner: Fareham College
Runners-up: Exeter College, Bradford College, Hugh Baird College
Edge Award for Excellence in the Practical Delivery of Technical and Professional Learning
Winner: Grimsby Institute of Further and Higher Education
Runners-up: London South East Colleges, Abingdon & Witney College
Jisc Award for effective use of Digital Technology in Further Education
Winner: The Manchester College
Runners-up: Bridgwater & Taunton College
NOCN Group Mental Health and Wellbeing Award Winner: Barnsley College
Runners-up: Bridgend College, College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London, Hartpury College
Pears #iwill Award for Social Action and Student Engagement Winner: EKC Group
Runners-up: South West College
RCU Support for Students Award
Winner: Preston’s College
Runners-up: Abingdon & Witney College, Grimsby Institute of Further and Higher Education
The Careers and Enterprise Company Award for Innovation in Careers and Enterprise Winner: The Manchester College
Runners-up: Cambridge Regional College, Barnsley College, Sunderland College
Prime minister Boris Johnson last night told the nation that young people “should be guaranteed an apprenticeship” as part of the country’s recovery from Covid-19. Robert Halfon, who first proposed the idea, explains how this radical measure is a chance to re-establish a ladder of opportunity
Last week I raised with the prime minister the idea of an apprenticeship guarantee for our young people, with everyone between 16 and 25 with the right qualifications having access to an apprenticeship in a relevant business or social enterprise.
We must recognise the hugely important role that apprenticeships can play as we emerge into a post-pandemic society. It is vital that the government takes radical action to harness their benefits for the good of our economy and next generation.
The apprenticeship guarantee would be funded by the £3 billion skills budget announced in the Conservative manifesto at the general election. This money would cover the training costs of every would-be apprentice. The Department for Education must then make sure that there is a proper progression of apprenticeships from level 2 to degree level, and make sure every young person can be given that opportunity to move on.
FE Week has posed an important question about how the apprenticeship guarantee would work. I am pleased that Boris Johnson has agreed to look at the idea as a first step and it now falls on everyone with a stake in making apprenticeships a success to get together to work out how to make it happen.
It is all about putting in place the conditions for apprenticeships to flourish and I am determined that the education committee will play its part in pushing the government to act and work with businesses and training providers on a radical new approach to skills.
There needs to be an evangelisation of what apprenticeships can do, from the prime minister all the way through to every member of the government. We are lucky that the education secretary is passionate about skills and further education – and that Gillian Keegan, the skills minister, did a degree apprenticeship (the only MP to have done so).
Every day, ministers, MPs, peers and all those in authority should be talking up apprenticeships, and encouraging businesses to take apprentices on and young people to take them up. Businesses, FE colleges and training providers need more support to make this possible.
Finally, there should be a target that 50 per cent of students study degree apprenticeships in which they will earn while they learn, have no debt at the end and, unlike many graduates, be virtually guaranteed a good job.
Over the past few years it looked like we were really making progress in building an apprenticeship and skills nation. Between 2010 and 2015 more than two million apprenticeships were created – since then another 1.5 million. About 90 per cent of qualified apprentices then stay on with their employers.
Sadly, over the past year our apprenticeship dream seems to be stalling. Even before the pandemic, the number of apprenticeship starts in the first half of the last academic year had dropped by 11 per cent, with an even greater drop of 15 per cent for those aged between 16 and 19.
Last month’s report from the Sutton Trust laid bare the challenge that apprentices and businesses have faced from Covid-19. It suggested up to two-thirds of apprentices have lost out on work experience or learning, with more than a third furloughed. Eight per cent have been made redundant and 17 per cent have had off-the-job learning suspended.
The results of this survey are incredibly worrying. Not just because our skills deficit will widen – the OECD found that 40 per cent of workers in the UK are in a job for which they are not properly qualified – but, more significantly, because hundreds of thousands of young people may not have a chance to climb the jobs ladder once this awful pandemic is over.
We’ve done enough tinkering with apprenticeships, the levy clearly is here to stay and it is right that big business should contribute to the cost of training. We now need a bold grand vision, something that will really excite the nation and say to every parent that their son or daughter will have an apprenticeship, skills training and a job future-proofed for the fourth industrial revolution.
The coronavirus pandemic should be recognised as an important moment for re-establishing a ladder of opportunity. With an apprenticeship guarantee, every young person will have the chance to get the skills and training they need for a prosperous future.
An online photography exhibition to showcase the life of sixth form college students during lockdown has been launched by the apprenticeships and skills minister today.
More than 140 students from 46 colleges submitted contributions to “At home”, which is being co-ordinated by the Sixth Form Colleges Association (SFCA).
Department for Education minister Gillian Keegan said: “This has been a difficult time for the entire country but this exhibition is a wonderful example of how creativity can flourish in the face of adversity.
“It’s great to see how these sixth form students have captured the experiences of lockdown from a young person’s perspective.”
“2 metres distance” by Kate Johnson
One of the featured A-level students from Grimsby-based Franklin College, Kate Johnson, told FE Week: “I wanted to capture the way life has adapted.”
Her submission “2 metres distance” showed one of the smaller changes – not handling post directly – people have made to the way they live their lives that “seem so silly but are incredibly important to try and stop the spread of Covid-19”.
Johnson, 17, who wants to study fashion photography at university next year, said the exhibition had opened her eyes to still life and documentary style portraiture.
She added: “Art is and will always be a form of escapism and people can express their feelings through different art mediums, which I feel is even more important in a time when there isn’t much clarification.”
Emily Vivian Salomon, a 19 year-old A-level student at Franklin College whose photograph “Hands are for holding” is also being showcased, said she decided to participate to have an outlet of creativity while stuck indoors.
She added: “I’m really excited to be given the opportunity and I can’t wait to see what other people have done as well.”
Her photograph represents being “physically inside but mentally trying to escape the confines of your own home”.
“Hands are for holding” by Emily Vivian Salomon
Vivian Salomon plans to stay at the college to complete an art foundation course next year and study photography at university after that, while this experience has inspired her to produce a short film on the same theme.
Bill Watkin, chief executive of the SFCA, praised the “extraordinary artistic talent” in the sector and said the national exhibition had been put on to “stimulate our thinking about the world this summer”.
He added: “If young people are to make a valuable contribution to society – even if they are to be successful scientists, engineers, doctors and technicians – they need to develop their creative skills, their artistic sensitivities and their ability to interact with others.
“All of this will be more important than ever in the post-Covid world.”
The results for nearly half of all vocational and technical qualifications planned for certifications this summer will be based on a grade calculated by their provider, FE Week analysis has found.
Ofqual has published a list of qualifications in scope for their “exceptional arrangements for awarding qualifications” following the cancellation of exams.
Sitting alongside an interactive search tool, the spreadsheet allows users to see which individual vocational and technical qualifications will be graded either by teacher calculation, adapted assessments, or, as a last resort, have their assessment delayed.
The list shows there are 10,461 different qualifications with expected certifications this summer, before the coronavirus pandemic struck.
Of those, FE Week analysis found that 44 per cent, or 4,567 different qualifications, will require an estimated grade.
Meanwhile, 42 per cent (4,370) could involve an “adapted assessment” such as an assessment online and 15 per cent (1,524) of the qualifications will need their exams rescheduled.
As previously reported, Ofqual has set colleges and training providers a three week “window” to provide calculated grades for vocational and technical qualifications, starting from 1 June.
You can download the full list of qualifications in scope here. Ofqual’s guidance on how to calculate grades and adapt assessment can be found here.
