End-point assessments for around 30 apprenticeship standards could be scrapped under new plans announced today.

The Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education said it is preparing to “simplify and strengthen” apprenticeships that have a “statutory regulator” and an “established professional competency test”.

It would mean that in situations where an apprentice has met a statutory regulator’s requirements to practice, this will be counted as that apprentice’s end-point assessment (EPA) in the future.

Currently, just 28 standards (see full list below) out of a possible 500 that are approved for delivery could be impacted, most of which are in the healthcare sector.

The move is likely to lead to making permanent some of the EPA flexibilities that were introduced as a result of Covid-19, particularly nursing.

In April, the institute announced that registered nurse degree apprentices and nursing associate apprentices who have been assessed by the Nursing and Midwifery Council as having permanently met the requirements for professional registration and have passed through gateway “will be regarded to have met the end-point assessment requirements and have achieved their apprenticeship”.

The IfATE explained that “statutory regulators” are those that admit professionals into occupations that parliament has said must be regulated. In such instances, entry into the profession can only occur when an individual is added to the regulator’s register. 

Any statutory regulators delivering the integrated assessments will need to be admitted to the register of end point assessment organisations, held by the Education and Skills Funding Agency. 

Tom Bewick, chief executive of the Federation of Awarding Bodies, warned that “we can’t allow those with a material interest in the outcome of an apprenticeship marking their own homework” if this move is implemented.

The IfATE said that going forward, it will be working with employers to consider how integrated assessment could be extended to other statutory regulators, but added that there will be “no blanket approach”.

“Integrated EPA will only be considered where a statutory regulator, which admits professionals into occupations that parliament has said must be regulated, sets established tests of professional competency,” a spokesperson added.

A consultation will take place on each standard this applies to before any change. Where the decision is taken to integrate the EPA with professional competency tests, there will be at least three months’ notice given to end-point assessment organisations.

The institute told end point assessment organisations for nursing and other relevant apprenticeships on 14 October that work will start on introducing the changes in the coming weeks.

Jennifer Coupland, chief executive of the IfATE, said: “This innovative new approach will build on lessons learned from the assessment flexibilities introduced around Covid-19.  This will simplify the system and make it work better for both employers and apprentices, particularly in professions such as nursing.”

Bewick said: “Federation members were only briefed on these changes recently, so we think three months to implement the changes is unrealistic.

“We understand the need to avoid duplication in the assessment of apprentice competence. However, we also believe it is vital that a level regulatory playing field, from a quality assurance perspective, is maintained. It’s worth recalling the whole point of these reforms: to give greater public confidence in the quality of apprenticeships, which is why we can’t allow those with a material interest in the outcome of an apprenticeship marking their own homework.

“We can see how regulatory alignment between IfATE and statutory bodies is both pragmatic and sensible, but the timescales should be revisited.”

The apprenticeship standards affected:  

Dental Technician  

Clinical Dental Technician  

Orthodontic Therapist  

Dental Nurse  

Optometrist  

Pharmacy Technician  

Arts Therapist (Degree)  

Diagnostic Radiographer (Degree)  

Dietitian (Degree)  

Healthcare Science Practitioner (Degree)  

Occupational Therapist (Degree)  

Operating Department Practitioner (Degree)  

Paramedic (Degree)  

Physiotherapist (Degree)  

Podiatrist (Degree)  

Prosthetist and Orthotist (Degree)  

Speech and Language Therapist (Degree)  

Therapeutic Radiographer (Degree)  

Hearing Aid Dispenser  

Officer of the watch: boatmaster  

Probation officer

District Nurse  

Specialist Community Public Health Nurse  

Midwife (Degree)  

Registered Nurse – Degree (NMC 2010)  

Registered Nurse Degree (NMC 2018)  

Nursing Associate (NMC 2018)  

Social worker

Two new members have been appointed to the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education’s (IfATE) board.

John Cope and Dayle Bayliss will serve as non-executive board members for three years starting from next month, the government’s apprenticeship quango announced today.

Bayliss has worked in the construction sector for over 20 years and is currently a chartered surveyor, director, and project manager for Dayle Bayliss Ltd construction consultancy, based in Ipswich.

She is a former member of the IfATE’s construction route panel, which oversees approvals of new apprenticeships, and was chair of its construction: design, surveying and planning T Level development panel.

Bayliss, who is also a board member of the New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership Skills Advisory Panel and a member of the Suffolk Chamber Business Women Board, said her new role at the IfATE “feels like a natural progression”.

Cope is a former head of education and skills policy at the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), and deputy director of education practice at the thinktank Public First. He joined the University and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) as director of strategy, policy and public affairs in September this year.

Cope, who is also a non-executive director of the Activate Learning Group and an advisory member of the board of the Education Policy Institute, said: “I want to use my experience at the CBI to help engage employers more effectively. My day job at UCAS will help better link the two organisations to ensure all education options are promoted, not just higher education.”

Each will be paid £15,000 a year for a commitment of two days a month.

The number of people on the IfATE’s board is now up to 12, but it continues to have no black, Asian or minority ethnic (BAME) representation. The institute’s last BAME board member left in October 2018.

The Department for Education, which officially makes the appointments for the institute, said: “These appointments have been made as a result of an open competition which was conducted in accordance with the Governance Code on Public Appointments.

“Diversity is a principle of the public appointments process and the Code require that all appointments are made on merit.

“The DfE particularly welcomed applications from women, people with disabilities, LGBT candidates and those from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds.”

Increasing diversity in apprenticeships is key goal for the DfE, which set up the Apprenticeship Diversity Champions Network three years ago, setting a target of increasing the proportion of apprentices from BAME communities by 20 per cent.

The proportion of BAME apprentices sat at 10.7 per cent in 2015/16. This increased in 2018/19 to 11.8 per cent compared to 30.1 per cent for other FE programmes excluding apprenticeships. The latest figures for 2019/20 only show from August to January, at which point 12.1 per cent of apprentices were BAME.

New groups to tackle discrimination in the FE sector have been set up recently, including the Association of Colleges’ Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) steering group, and the Black Further Education Leadership Group (BFELG) – created by a number of existing and former college leaders.

The BFELG wrote to prime minister Boris Johnson and education secretary Gavin Williamson in August to warn that racism was undermining FE. Skills minister Gillian Keegan replied to the letter this month and pledged “to eliminate racism and to address racial inequalities in our further education sector”, as reported by FE News.

A spokesperson for the IfATE said it is a “firm supporter of BAME engagement” and works with “thousands of diverse employers to create opportunities for all different apprentices”.

“Of our total staff, 21 per cent have identified themselves as BAME – which is well above the national average,” they added.

“Our Diversity and Inclusion network promotes diversity across the Institute, presenting opportunities to discuss relevant topics and help change things for the better.”

A flexibility that allows apprentices to take their end-point assessment before their functional skills exam is set to be reintroduced, FE Week understands.

It follows an investigation by this publication that found thousands of apprentices “stuck in limbo” as awarding bodies struggle to adapt their functional skills assessments in the face of Covid-19.

Ministers are understood to be sympathetic to the situation and are looking at ways to mitigate this impact.

While there is currently no suggestion that Ofqual will return to centre-assessed grades for functional skills – as many training providers have called for – flexibilities are expected to be extended to apprenticeship rules.

In May, the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education announced a temporary flexibility that enabled apprentices who would otherwise be stuck at gateway to take EPA ahead of receiving their functional skills qualification, which was calculated following the cancellation of exams due to Covid-19, later on in the summer.

The rule applied to all apprentices due to take a functional skills test and receive a result between 20 March and 31 July.

FE Week understands minister Gillian Keegan has now ordered the IfATE to partly reintroduce this flexibility – allowing apprentices to sit their end-point assessment before their functional skills exam.

A timeframe for implementing this is not yet known.

It is also understood that the government will extend the regulation end date for legacy functional skills qualifications, which currently have a deadline of 31 December.

Since 1 August 2020, Ofqual has banned the use of centre-assessed grades for all vocational and technical qualifications, including functional skills.

All functional skills exams must now either be sat in the traditional manner, or awarding bodies must adapt their assessment arrangements to mitigate any impact of the pandemic.

But coming up with an adapted assessment solution for all affected learners has been an issue for most awarding bodies, with remote or ‘at-home’ assessments some way off being made available. Many apprentices are being instructed to work from home in line with government guidelines and are being instructed not to travel to centres for exams due to risk of spreading Covid-19.

Some workplaces that are open will not allow assessors to visit as their employees are having to use all available space which is restricted because of social distancing and safety measures. This is a particular issue in the health and care sectors.

The Association of Employment and Learning Providers estimates that tens of thousands of functional skills exams, mostly for apprentices but also for some learners funded by the adult education budget, could be delayed from now until Christmas as a result.

Jill Whittaker, the managing director of independent provider HIT Training, previously told FE Week there is a particularly urgent need to act on this now as learners on legacy qualifications, which are about to expire, will “miss the opportunity to achieve their functional skills and will be forced to enrol on the reformed functional skills”.

City & Guilds is one major awarding body struggling to launch remote functional skills assessments. The organisation had announced it was set to roll out functional skills tests to be sat at home prior to lockdown but it was forced to divert its resource into dealing with the exams fiasco throughout the summer. The at-home tests are still being worked on, but there is no date for their rollout.

Some awarding bodies have however been successful in rollout out remote or “at-home” functional skills tests.

One of them is Open Awards, which told FE Week it has included an option for remotely invigilated online assessments as part of its “controlled assessment policy” for a number of years.

“Our centres are able to apply to deliver remotely invigilated online functional skills at levels 1 and 2 on a one-to-one ratio using our existing assessment platform integrated with remote video-call software,” a spokesperson explained.

“Feedback so far has been positive and it is proving to provide a flexible and robust alternative to classroom-based assessments.”

Highfield is another awarding body that successfully offers remote assessment. It launched a “Qualify at Home” service in April 2020 and over 9,000 exams have since been invigilated via the service.

The assessments are taken online and Highfield invigilators “remotely monitor candidates ensuring their compliance with all of our examination conditions”, a spokesperson told FE Week.

“We achieve this by using four pieces of technology which we believe to be the most robust available in the market: screen share; webcam; digital audio; and a tethered smart device (usually a mobile phone).

“We’re extremely proud that we’ve successfully demonstrated our ability to adapt to changing circumstances and that we’ve created change within the industry during the biggest challenge we’ve all faced in decades.”

 

ESFA confirms some flexibilities

After this article was published, the ESFA confrimed two flexibilities for functional skills.

Skills minister Gillian Keegan said: “We have extended the end dates for legacy functional skills qualifications through to July 2021 to ensure learners have enough time to complete their outstanding assessments.

“Alongside this we have temporarily suspended the requirement within the apprenticeship funding rules for level 2 apprentices to study towards, and attempt level 2 functional skills assessments, making sure they can complete their programmes.”

The proportion of staff being trained has dropped to its lowest level since 2011, according to the government’s latest employer skills survey.

More than 81,000 employers across England, Wales and Northern Ireland took part in the biennial survey for 2019 – the results for which have been published today by the Department for Education.

It states that the proportion of staff being trained in the last 12 months decreased, from 62 per cent in 2017 to 60 per cent in 2019; adding that this was the “lowest proportion reported since 2011” when 54 per cent was achieved.

The research report explains that this decrease was predominantly driven by a lower proportion of staff being trained in England (60 per cent vs 62 per cent in 2017).

In contrast, there was a sharp increase in the proportion of staff trained in Wales (up 7 percentage points to 65 per cent), and a smaller increase in Northern Ireland (up 2 percentage points to 62 per cent.

Despite this, investment in training in England has risen but fallen overall mainly due to Wales.

The report states: “Employer expenditure on training and development over the previous 12 months was £42 billion. As well as such elements as fees to external providers and expenditure on equipment or materials, a substantial proportion of this expenditure covered the wages of staff while being trained, and of staff delivering training. Overall, employer investment was fairly evenly split between on- and off-the-job training (21.1 billion and 20.9 billion respectively).

“The 2019 training expenditure of £42 billion represents a 0.5 per cent decrease in real terms on the 2017 figure of £42.2 billion.

“While training expenditure has gradually increased in England since 2015 (from £38.9 billion in 2015 to £39.2 billion in 2019) and remained stable in Northern Ireland (£1.1 billion), it has fallen in Wales to £1.7 billion (compared with £2.1bn in 2015 and 2017); this is despite the proportion of staff trained in Wales increasing, and is due to a reduction in training days.”

The employer skills survey says the largest increase in total training expenditure occurred in the business services sector, from £9.4 billion in 2017 to £11.4 billion in 2019 (an increase of 21 per cent).

In contrast, there has been a continued downward trend in total training expenditure in the education sector; £3.5 billion was spent on training over the last 12 months in 2019, compared with £3.7 billion in 2017 and £4.2 billion in 2015.

A similar story was also true for arts and “other services”; training spend in this sector has fallen to £1.7 billion, down from 2.2 billion in 2017 and 2.6 billion in 2015.

Employers’ total investment in training over the previous 12 months was equivalent to around £2,540 per person trained and £1,530 per employee. “These figures have decreased by 1 per cent and 5 per cent respectively since 2017,” the report states, but adds: “However, across the employer skills survey series since 2011 the per employee and per trainee training spends have been relatively stable.”

Neil Bentley-Gockmann, the chief executive of WorldSkills UK, said these survey results underline the “urgent need for a high-quality skills pipeline which is adaptable to the rapidly shifting economic landscape”.

He added: “Employers have suggested that 63 per cent of skills-shortage vacancies were attributed to a lack of specialist skills or knowledge needed by candidates to perform their role.

“While we share the government’s commitment to skills and to Build Back Better, we must ensure this drive focuses on quality as well as quantity. By supporting high-quality apprenticeships and technical education we can shift the focus to excellence, not just competence, and provide young people and employers with the skills they need to succeed.”

The skills minister has said she is “hopeful” the list of free, first, full level 3 qualifications being funded as part of the Lifetime Skills Guarantee will be published next month. 

Speaking at an FE Week roundtable today, Gillian Keegan was asked when providers and learners can find out which courses they could start from next April with backing from the National Skills Fund. 

“We’re hoping that we can give you some more information in the next couple of months, and hopefully by November, so that’s what we’re kind of working to,” she said. 

This comes after prime minister Boris Johnson announced in September the government would expand on its current offering of a first, full level 3 qualification for learners up to the age of 23, so adults of any age could take advantage of the offer. 

The Department for Education said at the time: “We will set out details of courses next month [October].” 

The ESFA’s online “list of qualifications approved for funding”, which can be downloaded from gov.uk, contains 13,628 qualifications, FE Week analysis previously found.

More than 4,300 of those are at level 3, and 1,249 of that group are eligible for the legal entitlement, making them already fully-fundable for 19- to 23-year-olds via the adult education budget. 

Keegan told the roundtable the qualifications have to be high-quality, have the respect of business, and address a “wide range” of labour shortages. 

“So if you are working on something which every year has loads of people going off into great jobs because the businesses in that sector really, really value that qualification, those are the kind of ones that we will be focusing on, presuming they are in areas we have labour shortages,” she said. 

“So there will be a wide range of courses that cover [labour market] shortages.”

Education secretary Gavin Williamson caused confusion last week after suggesting to the House of Commons that T Levels will be included in the qualifications list – even though the DfE lists T Levels as just for 16 to 19-year-olds. 

The DfE later clarified that Williamson only meant that T Levels could possibly be made available to adults in the future, not by April. 

Today’s roundtable, sponsored by NCFE, also featured contributions by the awarding body’s chief executive David Gallagher, shadow apprenticeships and lifelong learning minister Toby Perkins, former shadow skills minister Gordon Marsden, Association of Colleges area director Shane Chowen, Association of Employment and Learning Providers managing director Jane Hickie and its director of research Paul Warner, and Learning and Work Institute chief executive Stephen Evans. 

Representing the college sector was Ali Hadawi, principal of Central Bedfordshire College; and representing the independent sector was Learning Curve Group chief executive Brenda McLeish.

View the full roundtable session below.

The government’s national retraining scheme pilot has been rolled into the national skills fund, Gillian Keegan announced today.

In a ministerial statement, the skills minister said the decision to amalgamate the two programmes was taken in order to “reduce complexity” in the adult education landscape.

The retraining scheme was first announced in the 2017 Budget to help adults retrain into “better” jobs, with £100 million set aside for the next three years to test and develop the scheme.

It took the Department for Education two years to rollout the resulting Get Help to Retrain service, which has been trialled in six areas of England to date by over 3,600 individuals.

The digital service acts as a course and job directory. It allows users to identify and input their current skills and then based on those skills, offer suggestions for training and alternative employment. The service then directs users to vacancies in their area based on the suggestions provided.

Keegan said integrating the scheme with the national skills fund would include the “conclusion of the trials of the Get Help to Retrain service”, but it is unclear at this stage as to whether the platform will be scrapped.

She added that the DfE’s engagement with employers on the retraining scheme “ensured we were better sighted on the skills they need their workers to have, as well as the need for a more flexible approach to the delivery of skills”.

The national skills fund was a Conservative Party manifesto commitment from the 2019 election and is worth £2.5 billion over five years in England.

Keegan said the “understanding and insights we achieved through high levels of research and comprehensive user engagement whilst developing the national retraining scheme have also produced a strong foundation for developing the national skills fund and other adult skills reforms”.

While not much is known about how the national skills fund will be spent, prime minister Boris Johnson announced last month that it will fund part of his new “lifetime skills guarantee”, which includes a free level 3 qualification to all adults that do not yet hold one.

The DfE is expected to launch an consultation on the wider use of the national skills fund in the coming months.

Keegan said: “We will engage closely with stakeholders as we continue to develop detailed plans for the national skills fund, including considering what role the fund could play in meeting more immediate needs in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Students will still sit one GCSE English and one GCSE maths exam before the summer half term next year, despite a move to push most other exams back by three weeks.

The Department for Education has confirmed today that most GCSE and A-level exams will take place three weeks later than usual in 2021, to give learners more time to prepare.

However, the department said one English and one maths GCSE exam will still take place before May half term “to help manage potential disruption”, along with some A-level exams in subjects with “typically low” student numbers.

The summer half term in 2021 will start from 31 May. It is the usual time that GCSE English and maths exams are sat each year.

All other exams next year won’t start until after June 7, continuing until July 2.

As a result of the change, GCSE and A-level results will be handed out in the same week of August, rather than a week apart. A-level results day will be August 24 and GCSE results day will be August 27.

The DfE has also confirmed there won’t be any further content changes beyond what has already been announced.

But the government has also said it plans to engage with schools and colleges over measures needed to address potential disruption, meaning schools and colleges could be left waiting as much as six weeks to hear ministers’ “plan B”.

The DfE said more detail would be published “later in the autumn”, in order to “ensure students have confidence that they will be fairly treated in terms of assessment in 2021”.

Ministers announced in June that they were consulting on a potential delay to exams in 2021, along with other changes to try to address disruption faced by pupils and schools and colleges.

The outcome of that consultation was published by exams regulator Ofqual in August. It set out content changes for GCSE and A-level exams aimed at safeguarding public health. It also announced changes to bring in more option content in some subjects.

However, the consultation outcome stated that more time was needed to consider the timing of exams.

Today’s announcement confirms rumours that the DfE was proposing a three-week delay, and details of how the system will work.

The government said the decision to hold the two English and maths GCSE exams before half term, which means a longer gap between them and other exams in the subject, will give year 11 pupils affected by Covid-19 “the best possible chance of still sitting a paper in each of these core subjects”.

The DfE also said that “no further subject-level changes to exams and assessments will be made for GCSEs, AS and A-levels” beyond what was set out by Ofqual in August.

Education secretary Gavin Williamson said: “Students have experienced considerable disruption and it’s right we give them, and their teachers, the certainty that exams will go ahead and more time to prepare.

“I will continue to work closely with stakeholders and I’m grateful for the commitment and willingness that’s been shown in delivering this additional time to ensure young people have the best opportunity to succeed.”

However, the DfE said today that its engagement exercise with the sector would last for six weeks, meaning schools could be facing a long wait to hear what other contingency plans are to be put in place.

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the ASCL school leadership union, said he was “dismayed” by the announcement, and said delaying the start if exams would be “of marginal benefit when compared to the loss of learning from the national lockdown and ongoing disruption”.

“It has taken the government an eternity to reach a very inadequate response to the scale of the challenge which lies ahead for students who are taking GCSEs and A-levels next year.”

A new app that forecasts the spread of Covid-19 in colleges has been launched.

Developed by the University of Exeter in collaboration with colleges, the free online tool is said to analyse individual college data according to various inputs such as class-based bubbles, larger year group bubbles and attendance on different days.

It also allows the user to input community infection rates as well as information about how they are running their college to forecast how many people may need to self-isolate and other steps they can take to minimise disruption.

The app is still in its beta edition, but after a “successful trial” with several colleges, the app is now available to every college in the country.

A spokesperson for the developers said that with rising infections in many areas, this new Covid planning and modelling app has the “potential to help college leaders forecast how many students and staff might need to self-isolate and plan accordingly”.

Sean Mackney, principal at Petroc College which helped develop the app along with the Association of Colleges and City and Guilds, said: “The flexibility of this app is its greatest asset and can provide useful forecasts for different approaches for different cohorts of learners and to see the combined effect at college level. The app has helped inform our decisions about bubbles, social distancing in teaching spaces and the timetable. It allowed us to us control infection and minimise the numbers who would self-isolate.

“As you can set your own variables, it is also useful to see whether the approach we took when community cases were 10 per week will still be the best ones to take if we were seeing 200 cases a week – so we can use it to revisit the way we set up our college to be sustainable, stable and safe, whatever the external context.”

Professor Gavin Shaddick, chair of data science and statistics at the University of Exeter, said the organisations involved in the development have worked together to ensure that the “underlying epidemiological forecasting model reflects the kinds of situations that colleges may experience during the pandemic”.

“Similarly, the app has been designed jointly between data scientists and stakeholders to provide users with an easy to use interface, providing the tools needed to assess the effects of different scenarios and measures that are designed to reduce disease transmission within students and staff,” he added.

David Corke, director of education and skills policy at the AoC, said: “We hope this new app will give colleges the confidence to work from the data they input and make timely and sensible decisions on safety measures, the amount of blended learning they provide and keep students and parents informed of any changes quickly.

“Keeping students and staff safe is the number one priority and the new online tool will giving colleges an indication of when and if they need to change tact in dealing with coronavirus.”

The spokesperson for the developers said that if the app continues to be useful to colleges, they will seek funding to refine the tool, extend the support for users of it for a longer period, and share lessons learned.

Colleges can find out more about the app and how to access it by contacting tammi.jahan@aoc.co.uk at the Association of Colleges.