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‘ofqual’

Race on to approve assessors in time for apprentices finishing in March

Fresh concerns have been raised about endpoint tests on apprenticeships, after an FE Week investigation found learners who will finish in March on a new standard without any officially approved awarding organisation. Global insurance company Aon has confirmed this to be the case for the first wave of students taking its level three insurance practitioner […]

News

GCSE English and maths retakes are a policy car crash

The new mandatory post-16 resit policy for GCSE English and maths is setting young people up to fail, and government should allow other progression routes, says Graham Taylor. Mandatory English and maths aren’t going away. They are vital and underpin most things we do. But any way you slice it, this year’s GCSE resit results […]

Opinion

National programme launched to boost apprenticeship end-point assessment

The government has launched a new programme to tackle the shortage of end-point assessors in apprenticeships, after FE Week reported that almost 60 per cent of apprenticeship standards cleared so far don’t have an approved assessment organisation. The new large-scale scheme is funded by the Department for Education and commissioned by the Education and Training Foundation, […]

News

Ofqual boss urged to ‘fight’ for apprenticeship assessment watchdog role

“Stand up and fight” to become the apprenticeship assessment watchdog – that was the call to Ofqual’s boss from new Federation of Awarding Bodies chair Paul Eeles at conference today. The role has currently been laid at the door of the Skills Funding Agency, which has been slow to approve organisations to carry out new […]

News

SFA approve just 13% of apprentice assessment organisation applications

Organisations applying to the government’s new register of apprenticeship assessment organisations are being turned away because their plans for end-point assessment are not up to scratch, according to the new interim chief executive of the Institute for Apprenticeships, Peter Lauener. Mr Lauener (pictured above right), who is also chief executive of the Skills Funding Agency and Education […]

News

Let’s make end-point assessment part of the solution, not the problem

While end-point assessments currently raise more questions than they answer, if well implemented, they could help build confidence in the apprenticeship system, says Terry Fennell Last month the DfE approved the 135th apprenticeship standard for mainstream delivery and by the end of 2016, over 3,000 apprentices will have started on one of these new programmes. […]

Opinion

Apprenticeship standards without assessment organisations should not be approved for delivery

Dr Pember is absolutely right to be mad with the government for exposing apprentices to so much needless anxiety over unknown end point assessment organisations. And it is frankly absurd that a funding body is maintaining the list of approved awarding organisations, when we have a perfectly good watchdog that could and should do the […]

Opinion

No approved assessment organisation for over half of new apprenticeships

Almost 60 per cent of apprenticeship standards cleared so far by the government for learner starts don’t have an approved assessment organisation, a Skills Funding Agency update has today revealed. The online document showed there are only 63 standards with an approved AO to do the end point assessment. That’s out of 147 standards that […]

News

Halfon plays down apprenticeship levy ‘gaming’ fears

The apprenticeships minister Robert Halfon has sought to play down fears in the business community that some companies will “game” the new apprenticeship levy system to subsidise their own in-house training. Halfon told a fringe event at the Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham this morning that although it was “inevitable” that there may be some “gaming […]

News