Last week, Ofqual published their guidance on arrangements for grading BTEC, functional skills and other vocational qualifications this summer.

While we wait for further guidance to be released after Easter, FE Week editor Nick Linford hosted a webinar yesterday to run through what has been announced so far.

He was joined by City & Guilds managing director David Phillips, NCFE chief executive David Gallagher, Pearson’s senior vice president for BTECs and apprenticeships Cindy Rampersaud, and Federation of Awarding Bodies chief executive Tom Bewick.

You can watch it back for free by clicking here.

Further FE Week webinars will be announced throughout the pandemic to help support the sector.

The sector has just days to respond to an Ofqual consultation on its plans for teacher calculated GCSE and A-level grades.

Views on the exams regulator’s “exceptional arrangements”, put forward following the cancellation of this summer’s exam series, need to be submitted by 29 April.

The consultation covers several areas including how the regulator should standardise grades, how the appeals system should work, sanctions for malpractice and a potential exam series in the autumn.

Chief regulator Sally Collier said: “All those students, parents, teachers and others affected by these unprecedented circumstances can be assured that we will continue to work urgently, with stakeholders and representative bodies across the sector and officials in the Department for Education, to put in place the best possible arrangements on their behalf.”

The consultation can be viewed here.

 

Proposals

As previously announced, schools and colleges will submit judgements on the grade each student would “most likely” have received had the exams taken place, and the rank order of each student.

Ofqual states this will be “holistic judgments” informed by evidence including homework, mock exams and non-exam assessments.

The regulator is now proposing that exam boards should only accept assessment grades and rank orders from a school or college if their principal, headteacher, chief executive or “nominated deputy” has made a “declaration as to their accuracy and integrity”.

The regulator is also proposing that pupils entered for exams in year 10 and below should now get calculated grades this summer, after previously saying they would only be awarded to year 11 students and above.

“While we believe the arguments to be finely balanced, we are proposing that, in the interests of the students who had expected to take exams, this should be permitted,” Ofqual said.

Today’s consultation also proposes that “statistical standardisation” to fully determine this summer’s exam grades should draw on three sources of evidence to prevent “bias”: historical outcomes for each school and college; the prior attainment (Key Stage 2 or GCSE) of this year’s students and those in previous years within each centre; the expected national grade distribution for the subject “given the prior attainment of the national entry”.

As result of this “standardisation model”, the final results students receive will “not necessarily be the same” as the school and college assessment grades.

Therefore, the regulator believes that assessment grades, rank order information, and the judgements on which these are founded, should be “confidential until after results have been issued”.

Ofqual said it “recognises” the possibility that some schools and colleges, students and others may “try to exploit the exceptional arrangements we propose to put in place this summer, including by seeking inappropriately to influence centre assessment grades or rank order information”, so it “expects” exam boards to allow this to be “investigated as potential malpractice, leading to the potential imposition of sanctions”.

As the normal reviews and appeal processes also cannot operate this summer, the regulator proposes that appeals should only be allowed “on the grounds that the centre made a data error when submitting its information; or similarly, that the exam board made a mistake when calculating, assigning or communicating a grade”.

Ofqual has also put forward that exam boards should only consider appeals submitted by schools or colleges on behalf of students, but not those submitted by individual students.

The regulator is also proposing to permit additional exams available in the autumn series for students that believe the results issued in the summer “do not reflect their likely performance had they taken an exam”.

However, entries to the autumn series “should be limited to” those who were entered for the summer series (by the 20 February 2020), or those who the exam board believes have made a “compelling case” about their intention to have entered for the summer series, as well as to students “who would normally be permitted to take GCSEs in English language and maths in November”.

A further consultation just on the autumn exam series will be launched at a later date.

The government will not publish provider-level achievement rates for the current academic year due to the coronavirus crisis.

However, the Department for Education will “still consider” publishing the national data.

The achievement rates in question are for 2019/20 – where learners are due to pass between 1 August 2019 and 31 July 2020 – and would have been published in March 2021.

In an update released today, the DfE said: “We will not publish any institution-level qualification achievement rates in the national achievement rate tables for the 2019 to 2020 academic year in response to Coronavirus (COVID-19).

“The performance tables that were due to be released in October and December 2020, and in January and March 2021, will not go ahead.

“The department will still consider publishing national data for the 2019 to 2020 academic year.”

It follows the DfE’s decision to not hold schools and colleges to account on the basis of exams and assessment data from summer 2020.

Last month the government announced the cancellation of this summer’s exams series.

On April 3, Ofqual revealed that teacher calculations will be used to grade GCSE and A-level students who were due to sit their exams over the coming months (you can read our explainer here).

And last week, Ofqual confirmed the same method would be used for grading the majority of BTEC and other vocational and technical qualifications (VTQs), including functional skills.

However, the exams regulator is undertaking further work to identify those VTQs where this approach is not appropriate, with further details expected to be released after the Easter break.

A college tied up in a long-running legal dispute with a Nigerian State has accepted a loss of £91,000 after clearing out their Nigerian bank account.

Portsmouth-based Highbury College has been holding onto cash that was paid in the currency of Naira, previously estimated to sit at around £400,000, for a number of years.

The cash-strapped college, which is also currently engaged in a £1 million legal battle with HMRC and has delayed signing off on its 2018/19 accounts following FE Commissioner intervention, had been waiting for a good exchange rate to recover the funds.

But a decision was taken by the board in recent months to retrieve it, and only £309,000 was repatriated.

A spokesperson told FE Week: “These funds were a legacy from an international project which concluded some years ago.

“The college had been waiting for a more favourable exchange rate which unfortunately has not materialised and was not forecast.”

Legal action to recover an additional £1.4 million that the college claims to be owed is “ongoing”.

The alleged debt is being held by the Cross River State Government – a coastal state in southern Nigeria.

In 2013, the college entered a partnership with the State to design a “demand-driven curriculum” and run a polytechnic training provider, called the Institute of Technology and Management.

But Highbury pulled out of the arrangement following a change in political parties in Nigeria in 2015, alongside a drop in oil prices which slowed down the economy.

Confidential board minutes obtained by this newspaper in November revealed that Highbury believes they have a “medium opportunity” of recovering just £872,000 of the £1.4 million.

Court cases had been pushed back a number of times throughout 2019. The college’s spokesperson said this week that due to the “ongoing nature of the legal proceedings”, they are “not able to comment further at this time”.

The confidential minutes also revealed the college has an ongoing legal challenge against HMRC for “recovery of VAT” totalling £1 million.

Highbury’s spokesperson said it is “one of a number of colleges that are challenging HMRC’s interpretation of Lennartz adjustments” in relation to new buildings on its main campus in Hampshire.

The college has been through a period of turbulence in recent years. Its accounts for 2017/18 recorded a £2.48 million deficit and showed a quick sale of their City of Portsmouth Centre for £4 million less than it had been purchased for.

Highbury axed its sixth form last year owing to financial pressures and made a number of staff redundant.

The government intervened at the college in September 2019 after an FE Week investigation revealed how its long-standing principal, Stella Mbubaegbu, had spent £150,000 on expenses in four years, which included one-off lavish items such as a £434 pair of designer headphones and a lobster dinner.

The principal has since been replaced in the interim by Penny Wycherley, while chair Tim Mason has been replaced by ex-chief executive of the Association of Colleges, Martin Doel.

The college’s 2018/19 financial statements, which should have been signed off and published by 31 January, continue to be delayed.

Toby Perkins has been appointed Labour’s new shadow apprenticeships and lifelong learning minister – separate to the shadow further and higher education minister position.

Emma Hardy was reappointed to the latter role today, after having represented the opposition for the entire FE and skills portfolio since January.

Perkins has been the MP for Chesterfield since 2010 and was previously a shadow defence minister before resigning in 2016.

Delighted to be appointed shadow Apprenticeships and lifelong learning Minister by ⁦@Keir_Starmer⁩ -look forward to joining Shadow Education team under ⁦@RLong_Bailey⁩ with ⁦@EmmaHardyMP⁩ ⁦@TulipSiddiq⁩ & ⁦@MGreenwoodWW⁩ https://t.co/VJ4b6kS6Vv

— Toby Perkins (@tobyperkinsmp) April 9, 2020

Since then, he has served on the Commons’ Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.

Hardy was originally appointed to the post following the December 2019 general election, after former holder Gordon Marsden lost his seat.

Following today’s decision, Hardy said: “Really delighted to carry on and a brief that I find really exciting and interesting. Lovely of Keir Starmer to call me and ask me to continue. Clearly a lot of work to do in constructively holding the government to account for the decisions they make.”

Hardy is the MP for Hull West and Hessle was previously a member of the Commons Education Select Committee after having been elected at the 2017 general election.

A former primary school teacher and union activist, she will serve on Labour’s education team alongside new shadow education secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey, whose appointment was announced earlier this week.

The long-awaited content for the first three T-levels is set to be published as the skills minister pleads with providers to not pull out of delivery in light of the coronavirus crisis.

Gillian Keegan has sent a letter to the sector making it “clear” that the government is “fully committed” to delivering the first of the new post-16 technical qualifications as planned in September.

It comes as the content and specifications of the first three T-levels, which were supposed to be made available last month, are due to be published by Pearson and NCFE tonight.

Keegan’s letter said the Covid-19 outbreak has had a “huge effect on your work and that we don’t yet know what the full impact will be, but there are very strong reasons for us to continue”.  

While providers have “rightly raised some issues” with delivery, “most wanted to continue to deliver the first T-levels this year”.

“I know how hard you have all worked, both to help develop T Levels, and to get into a position to deliver them, and I do not want your hard work to be wasted. ,” she added.

“The government is also determined that students will not lose out on opportunities due to Covid-19 – hundreds have already been accepted onto courses and hundreds more will be accepted between now and September.

“We owe it to these young people to find ways to continue to deliver the courses that they have chosen and that will offer them great progression opportunities.”

Minister Keegan continued: “I also firmly believe that T-levels are absolutely vital for businesses and the economy of this country. We know that the current system does not produce enough young people with the skills, knowledge and experience that employers need.

“Now – more than ever – it will be vital to ensure that we provide a pipeline of skilled young people that will help our businesses and our economy to recover.  

“I do not underestimate the difficulties in carrying on with delivery in the current climate. Please do get in touch with your usual ESFA contact if you encounter specific issues or have questions, I have asked officials to report to me regularly on the issues that are being raised and what we can do to overcome them.”

The first three T-levels to be delivered from September, by 50 providers, are in design, surveying and planning for construction, digital production, design and development, education and childcare. 

Keegan said that in light of the “current challenges”, the Department for Education will “reduce the information returns that we ask you to send us for the rest of the academic year to the minimum requirements”.

The T-level professional development offer delivered through the Education and Training Foundation will “remain available online”.

The minister added that the “unprecedented impact” of Covid-19 has meant that it is “currently extremely difficult for you to continue to organise and deliver industry placements through the Capacity and Delivery Fund (CDF), which was already one of the most challenging elements in delivering T-levels”.

Given these “exceptional and unprecedented circumstances”, T-level providers “will not be penalised for missing specific CDF targets this academic year” and “funding will not be clawed back if you can demonstrate how the funding has and will continue to support your work on industry placement delivery”.

Click here to read Keegan’s letter in full.

Staff at a college owned apprenticeship provider have taken a 25 per cent pay cut for the next sixth months to keep the business afloat during the coronavirus crisis.

Matt Garvey, the managing director of the West Berkshire Training Consortium part of Basingstoke College of Technology, told FE Week this “drastic” measure was taken by all 28 of his employees to “postpone disaster” and prevent the organisation from going out of business.

His provider currently trains around 400 apprentices.

So far the Department for Education has committed to continue funding colleges in advance of delivery for many funding streams including for 16 to 19s and the adult education budget, but officials have refused to provide the same support for private providers.

This is despite Cabinet Office guidance stating that in light of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Treasury will give consent to payments in advance at least up until 30 June.

Garvey said the position is “unsustainable” for independent providers such as his, and they have now been forced into the business of “buying time”.

“We hope the ESFA will come to their senses and be more equitable with independent providers,” he told FE Week.

“It is quite a drastic thing for our 28 staff to endure [to cut their wages]. It was clear if we did not do something like that then we would run out of money within six months.

“This has prevented that from occurring.

“I know of people in much worse circumstances than us. We are a charity so we are obliged to always keep some reserves and it does provide a buffer in the short term but unless something changes I don’t think any independent training provider can sustain themselves.”

Garvey added: “Longer term, if the employers don’t return to enrolling apprentices then ITPs are doomed without meaningful government support on a par to that rightly offered to colleges and other institutions.”

In a survey published by the Association of Employment and Learning Providers last week, 49 out of 279 private providers said they could soon go bust, 79 will “mothball” and 154 will downsize.