Ofqual’s new app requires improvement

Ofqual’s app is a step in the right direction. It’s a prototype, though, and several more steps will be needed to navigate the qualifications landscape, writes Gemma Gathercole

When Ofqual tweeted from their ‘Shaping the qualifications landscape’ event, you’d be forgiven for rolling your eyes at another statement of how complicated the qualifications system is, but this time Ofqual were using the analogy to introduce a new app they have produced to help users to explore the system.  So, what is this new app, who is it for and, more importantly, does it provide any clarity?

It’s important to establish at this point that the data they have used is not new, it’s already published in other places and other formats.  But what is new is the way that this data is published and its intent to be more dynamic and allow users to navigate it in new ways.  For someone who is quite used to and happy with manipulating spreadsheets this information doesn’t do what I’d like, but I suspect I’m not the intended audience.

The new app shows the volume of certifications in the past 12 months sorted by sector subject areas (SSA) and then by awarding organisations:

Where the SSAs and AOs are a limited number this is still easy to read, however, it can be more challenging for more popular SSAs:

But I suspect a more fundamental question is, if a user is relatively inexperienced in the taxonomy of qualifications, will they know where to look?  For example, if I were an employer and wanted to see the volume of plumbing qualifications, to pick on an example the has been used by others in the past, this visualisation wouldn’t help. 

First of all, I’d need to know that plumbing belongs to the Construction, Planning and the Built Environment SSA and the Building and Construction sub-sector.  Perhaps not too intuitive.  But we’ve also stumbled on the next problem, in order to see the volume of plumbing qualifications, you’d need to know which AOs offered them and then look at their qualification lists:

In the broadest sense, the app does present the information in a way that is, perhaps, easier to explore, but I remain uncertain as to whether this will help employers or other users to navigate the qualifications system.

So, what’s missing or how could the information be better presented? Perhaps this is the $64,000 question. 

There is a lot of data already available, if you want to navigate a series of different spreadsheets and reports and the answer to what information is needed has as many answers as there are potential users, so Ofqual’s job here is difficult.  Adding to this complexity is the fact that the app makes use of existing data and this itself provides a limitation. 

What I would like to see is an app that requires no previous knowledge by the user

I asked Ofqual why they used the SSA system instead of, say the Skills Plan 15 technical routes.  The answer of course is simple.  The technical routes do not cover the whole of the qualifications system, so wouldn’t be fit for purpose.  But also, qualifications are not yet mapped to those 15 sectors and, as mentioned before, this data is not new.  Mapping to the 15 routes isn’t straightforward.  But you might argue going forward that simplifying the labels attached to the qualifications system would be a step in the right direction of making it easier to explain.

What I would like to see is an app that requires no previous knowledge by the user about how qualifications are classified. Say if I wanted to know who offered Plumbing qualifications and how popular each awarding organisation was in terms of certifications at the moment I’d have to go to a number of datasets. 

A quick search on Ofqual’s Register of Regulated qualifications will tell me there are 35 plumbing qualifications currently available, but not what the certifications for those 35 were.  Bringing together some of the more disparate aspects of the data Ofqual holds may help get closer to that ambition of helping users to navigate the qualifications system.

Now for the good news, this app is a prototype and Ofqual are looking for feedback on whether it is useful and whether they’ve presented the data in a way that is useful.  So, if you’ve tried analysing Ofqual data in the past, I urge you to feedback to Ofqual on this app.  It will only be through understanding what people are looking for that Ofqual will know how to develop this system in future.

Gemma Gathercole is head of funding and assessment at Lsect

EU teachers descend on Middlesbrough for international STEM project

A science teacher who received an MBE for his services to science communication brought together 20 teachers from across Europe to Middlesbrough as part of an international STEM project, reports Samantha King.

Dr Richard Spencer, an A-level biology teacher and head of science at Middlesbrough College, invited 20 teachers from nine different countries to Middlesbrough, as part of a project to develop 30 new teaching and learning resources for design, science, technology, engineering and maths subjects.

Funded entirely by the European Union at a cost of €352,000, the three-year Erasmus+ project has brought together teachers from Estonia, Greece, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Finland, Portugal, Italy, Germany and the UK, to work in each other’s home countries.

Dr Richard Spencer

“My particular topic is about colour perception in animals and plant pigments,” explained Dr Spencer. “We did some brainstorming and looked at different areas of our own curriculum we would quite like to develop something from – colour was one of the things I was interested in. The challenge now is to try and expand that so it’s not so niche, and brings in other disciplines as well.”

The resources that are developed will be made available to schools and colleges in the UK, as well as in the countries of the international teachers involved after the project ends in summer 2019.

Beginning in December 2016, the project was first proposed by Estonian design teacher, Merit Karise, who approached Dr Spencer to be the initiative’s UK representative during the Varkey Foundation’s 2015 global teacher prize, in which they were both finalists.

“There was a bit of a question mark at the beginning around whether I could be involved because there was the Brexit vote,” Dr Spencer said.

“I just felt a little bit… you know… using European money for this project. But collaboration is fantastic. We’re such an eclectic mix of people. It’s really lovely to see these different disciplines being brought together.”

As part of the visit, the teachers went on a tour of Newcastle, the college facilities, and even saw the Tees transporter bridge, an example of what he says is “a wonderful feat of engineering”.

Despite receiving an MBE in 2010 and meeting the pope as a finalist in the global teacher prize, Dr Spencer is perhaps most revered by his learners for his classroom dances to aid comprehension, including the DNA Boogie (a take on the Jackson Five song ‘Blame it on the Boogie’).

Watch: the DNA Boogie in action

Sunderland College become second in the UK to partner with gaming giant

Sunderland College has teamed up with PlayStation as part of a global initiative to develop the next generation of games designers.

The college has become the first FE provider in the north-east, and the second in the country after Cambridge Regional College, to join Sony Interactive Entertainment’s global academic programme, PlayStation First, which lets students access the same software and equipment used by professional games designers.

Students on the college’s NextGen level three diploma course will also be able to publish their own games to PlayStation users, and are already working on a 3D puzzle game which will be released in 2019.

“To become an education partner we had to convince Sony Interactive Entertainment that we had the right approach to game development, so it’s incredibly rewarding that such an established brand has recognised the talents of our students,” said Mike Jaques, the curriculum leader for digital design.

“The games industry needs new talent,” said Luke Savage, the senior academic development manager at Sony Interactive Entertainment. “It needs new perspectives, individuals who can push the boundaries and bring us new, innovative experiences.”

Bath College celebrate their ‘Adult Student of the Year’

A learner at Bath College has been named ‘Adult Student of the Year’ at the AoC national conference.

Rachelle Wabissa, an access-to-higher-education student, received the award because she overcame a range of personal difficulties, including a diagnosis of tuberculosis just four months into her year-long course.

Despite being ill, she continued with her studies and even became a course representative to help support fellow students.

The 22-year-old has now completed her course, and has a place to study social work and applied studies at the University of Bath.

“It will open doors for me when employers see that I have put my heart and my soul into my education,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting to win at all. The continued support from my college was a great help and they really pushed me to be the best I could be.”

“Her compassion and hard work show, despite the illness she has been struggling with. She’s more than deserving of this award,” said David Hughes, chief executive of the AoC.

Sports students help SEND children experience their favourite sports

Sports students have helped children with physical, sensory and learning disabilities experience their favourite sports at the ProjectAbility festival.

Hosted at Truro and Penwith College, the annual festival is the inclusive arm of the Cornwall School Games, a Youth Sport Trust initiative that gives primary and secondary school children across the region the chance to compete in a range of sporting activities throughout the year.

More than 60 secondary students took part in the event, in sports including wheelchair basketball, boccia, cricket, football and archery. The college’s own sports students helped referee and oversee the running of the games.

“The event was brilliant – the smiles on their faces said it all; we’ve had fist pumps and high fives,” said Steve Hillman, inclusion sports officer at Cornwall Sports Partnership and Special Olympics Cornwall. “A massive thanks to Truro and Penwith College for hosting us.”

Hammond’s budget revealed poor understanding of further education

Instead of a thought-out comprehensive strategy for further and adult education and skills, the government has merely delivered more short-term tinkering, says Jill Westerman

We expected a budget for Brexit. The statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer fell some way short.

The budget was an opportunity for Mr Hammond and the government to demonstrate that they have a bold, positive vision for the Britain that will emerge from Brexit. It was a chance to show that they have a handle on the huge challenges posed by an ageing workforce, a dwindling supply of European workers and a UK in which social divisions are becoming ever more present and damaging.

Addressing these problems calls for more than a few bright wheezes and a modest shuffling of resources. It demands a profound change of course. There were a few good ideas but the Chancellor conspicuously failed to deliver meaningful, coherent change on the scale our society, economy and education system needs.

The news for the further education sector was not especially bad. There were no further cuts to funding and some extra cash to support colleges in preparing for T-levels. There was also an additional £600 for schools and colleges for every extra student who studies A-level maths and continued funding for unionlearn.

The emphasis on digital skills was also welcome (though online learning, while important, can only ever be part of the story). But where was the expansive, forward-looking vision for the future of the sector? Where was the recognition that increased reliance on homegrown talent requires a step-change in investment in education for adults as well as young people? And where was the extra funding needed to reinvigorate a sector which has been battered by cut after cut over the past decade?

The words ‘deckchairs’ and ‘Titanic’ spring to mind

Instead of a thought-out comprehensive strategy for further and adult education and skills, underpinned by an evidence-based understanding of changing needs and a changing sector, we had yet more short-term tinkering, often to ameliorate the damage done in previous rounds of education cuts, and little joining up of new measures.

The words ‘deckchairs’ and ‘Titanic’ spring to mind. Unless politicians get better at understanding the sector, and its critical role in improving lives, developing communities, growing skills and boosting productivity, and begin to think expansively about its future and what it can contribute, we are likely to find ourselves revisiting the mistakes of the past in the policy-making equivalent of Groundhog Day.

The government’s failure to do this – and, with the present difficulties our society and communities are facing, they had every reason to change tack and think bigger and differently about the future – is not only a blow for further education, it is calamitous for social mobility and social inclusion.

The loss of educational opportunities for young people and adults, at all levels of study, is a blight on lives and communities, particularly for the least advantaged. What was there in the Budget to give hope to those at the bottom of the heap? Where was the support for adults with poor basic skills – all nine million of them – or for the millions unemployed or in insecure work? Where was the recognition of the benefits that adult education can bring to the health and well-being of both young and old, and the consequent savings to the health budget?

This chronic underinvestment in adult education has an obvious impact on our capacity to meet the future needs of the labour market.

With too few 18-year-olds entering the labour market to take up future jobs and the supply of labour from the EU soon to be cut off, we desperately need more opportunities for adults to train and retrain, to adapt to new technologies and to navigate the challenges of later pensions and longer lives.  Where is the provision to meet these urgent needs? Where is the evidence that the government even takes these pressing concerns seriously?

Warm words about skills and further education are not enough. We need a long-term, well-funded strategy, which engages providers, students and future students, local government, local enterprise partnerships, employers and civil society, so the sector can finally play its full role in creating the foundation for the future prosperity of all our people. It’s time we stopped thinking of the future as somebody else’s business.

Jill Westerman is a trustee of the Further Education Trust for Leadership and principal of the Northern College

Learndirect’s apprenticeship achievement rates continue to fall, says Ofsted

Learndirect’s apprenticeship achievement rates have continued to fall, Ofsted has found in its first monitoring visit to the provider since its grade four earlier in the year.

Inspectors revisited the nation’s biggest FE provider at the end of October, and noted several improvements, while highlighting various areas of concern.

One of the most concerning findings was that its apprenticeship achievement rate has fallen again for 2016/17.

The provider’s achievement rate has dropped considerably for apprenticeships over the last three years and was at 57.8 per cent in 2015/16 – below the ESFA’s minimum standards threshold of 62 per cent and resulting in a notice of concern.

It is not yet known what Learndirect’s final overall achievement rate is for 2016/17.

“Managers of the apprenticeship provision have established successfully systems and procedures to enable them, for the first time, to be confident about how they monitor and report on the progress of apprentices,” Ofsted said.

“This improvement was not established quickly enough to prevent the final overall achievement rates for apprentices in 2016/17 being even lower than in the previous year.”

Learndirect received an overall ‘inadequate’ rating from Ofsted, including for apprenticeships, after it was inspected in March and had its report published in August following a judicial review.

The National Audit Office is currently investigating the provider and the Department for Education after claims that the government offered special treatment, allowing Learndirect to keep its contracts until July 2018 despite its grade four.

In its report, Ofsted heavily criticised managers at the provider and said that around a third of learners on apprenticeships “do not receive their entitlement to off-the-job learning” and fail to develop “the skills they require to progress to the next step in their career”.

Today’s monitoring visit report said it still “remains unclear” what off-the-job training has taken place at the provider.

Senior leaders have overseen the “phased introduction” of a new policy to clarify how assessors are expected to plan and record apprentices’ off-the-job training, but this did not start until two months after the grade four.

Almost half of apprentices are “identified currently as being behind target, and a further fifth are at risk of falling behind target”.

“Managers have begun to use this information to identify actions for improvement and support, but it is still too early to see the full impact of these actions.”

Inspectors did however praise directors for exerting “greater control and oversight” over the performance and quality of provision over the last few months.

“Managers have developed a set of challenging performance indicators to measure the success of their actions,” they said. “They are starting to use these effectively to manage the performance of their staff and subcontractors.”

However, the quality-improvement plans for the apprenticeship programme and the adult learning provision “do not take account of these indicators”, and are “too focused on the completion of actions and the development of processes”.

As a result, these plans “do not provide managers with an effective means to drive improvement, or a means to evaluate success”.

As previously revealed by FE Week, Learndirect was handed around £45 million to deliver adult education training despite its grade four. It is not yet known how much the provider has been given for its apprenticeship provision as it was left off of the government’s allocation spreadsheet for 2017/18.

Inspectors said the pace of improvement to Learndirect’s adult learning provision has been “quicker”, and its impact has been “greater”, than that for the apprenticeship provision.

Adult learning managers “acted quickly” to implement a range of initiatives immediately after the inspection that began to address the main areas of weakness.

They have “introduced successfully a new system for monitoring the attendance of learners, so they can now intervene more swiftly at the many centres where attendance is still too low”.

A spokesperson for Learndirect said: “The board is pleased that Ofsted has noted that performance across all the provision offered by Learndirect Limited is improving.

“While it regrets that success rates for SME Apprenticeships for 16/17 have dipped, Ofsted, the ESFA and Learndirect Limited were aware that this would be the case.

“The business is focused on ensuring the best outcome for those apprentices currently on programme and the report recognises the work done to achieve this. This has been a consistent theme in discussion between the company, the funding body and the inspectorate.” 

Budget 2017: Inflation-busting apprentice minimum wage rise

The national minimum wage for apprentices will rise again in April, from £3.50 to £3.70 per hour, the chancellor announced in his budget statement today.

This will be the second raise in a year, after the wage went from £3.40 per hour to £3.50 seven months ago.

It will now increase by a further 20 pence, after Philip Hammond accepted recommendations from the independent Low Pay Commission.

This is a 5.7 per cent rate increase, above UK inflation which rose to three per cent in October, and is larger by proportion than all other minimum wage groups.

For 18- to 20-year-olds, the increase is from £5.60 per hour to £5.90, while 16- to 17-year-olds will see their minimum wage go up from £4.05 per hour to £4.20.

And for 21- to 24-year-olds, it is going up from £7.05 per hour to £7.38.

The Living Wage Foundation, which estimates the real cost of living, suggests that the national minimum wage should be £8.75 per hour outside London, or £10.20 in the capital.

Mark Dawe, the boss of the AELP, welcomed the news, but with caution.

“We have no issue with the youth rate of the national minimum wage being raised because social mobility is as much about a young person being able to afford to live as the offer of a job or apprenticeship,” he said.

“But over the longer term, with the downgraded growth forecasts in mind, we must remain mindful of what employers can afford – there is a balance to be struck.”

Coat campaign aims to keep more than 100 homeless people warm this winter

Business students from Abingdon & Witney College are attempting to deliver 100 coats and jackets to those in need in the area over Christmas.

The #100coats project has been launched by level two business students, who will use what they’ve learned about getting messages across and creating visuals during their course to promote the initiative.

The students are aiming to gather at least 100 clean winter coats or jackets by December 13, and are also asking donors to attach a luggage tag with a message to the recipient of the clothing.

A charity, Oxford Homeless Pathways, will be helping them distribute the clothing, and local business suppliers Aston & James are offering space to store any donations.

“It’s really important for our business students to gain real-life practical and employability experience to support their academic studies,” said Tracey Lee, a business lecturer at the college. “I’m incredibly proud of their commitment to the campaign which will help keep local homeless people warmer this winter.”