House of Commons - Education and Skills

Select Committee on Education and Skills Fifth Report

3 DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT

56. From the outset, it has been the Government's intention that Diplomas should be employer-led, the contention being that the new awards should meet the demands of business, as well as those of higher education institutions. In the last quarter of 2005, five initial Diploma Development Partnerships (DDPs) were established.[61] These "multi-organisational partnerships"[62] are being co-ordinated by the relevant Sector Skills Councils and typically include employers, schools, colleges, representatives from higher education, professional bodies, and awarding bodies. Their role has been to develop the "skills, knowledge and understanding" which the Diplomas should cover.[63]

57. The DfES describes the other stages of the Diploma design process, and the roles of other agencies, as follows:

58. During our inquiry, it became apparent that some people had serious concerns about the way the development process for the first five Diplomas had proceeded. Many of those at the heart of the Diploma Development Partnerships were keen to point out that very significant progress had been made; nevertheless, we were often left with the distinct impression that this had been against the clock and had demanded formidable effort from those concerned. We were keen therefore to explore the perspectives of key players on the design and development process to date.

EMPLOYER INVOLVEMENT

59. The Government says that a key selling point of the Diplomas is that they will be valued by employers, and that employers will have been fundamentally involved in their design. Karen Price of e-skills UK told us she thought that employers were indeed firmly behind the IT Diploma:

"I think employers are extremely enthusiastic about the opportunity that they have been given to influence the curriculum so that it is relevant to the world of work in the 21st century. I think they are massively supportive of the Diplomas and have been involved in their development from the beginning."[

Ms Price went on to confirm that very many well-known employers had been involved in the development of the IT Diploma, including Cisco Systems, Microsoft, BT, John Lewis, and a range of small- and medium-sized enterprises. Similarly, John Rogers of Skills for Health told us in relation to his sector's Diploma that: "Of all the work in which I have been engaged in terms of this age group, this is probably the best employer engagement that we have ever had."[67]

60. However, other evidence was more circumspect about the level of employer involvement in the Diploma design process—and particularly, about the ability of Sector Skills Councils to reflect the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises. For example, Mark Snee of Technoprint UK, a member of the Manufacturing Diploma development Steering Group says:

61. Similarly, while the Institute of Directors told us it did not want to imply that consultation with employers on Diplomas had been poor, "a general concern does remain about any tendency to portray Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) as the 'voice of business', particularly of small employers. For instance, in a representative survey of 500 IoD members conducted in March 2006, less than a fifth (19%) had heard of the Sector Skills Development Agency or the Sector Skills Councils, and only a handful (3%) were active participants."[69]

PROVIDER INPUT

62. As noted above, the intention from the start has clearly been to give Diploma Development Partnerships—led by employers and their representatives—the initial steer—although as the DfES note in their evidence to us, Diploma Development Partnerships are expected to include other representation-particularly from the schooling and further- and higher-education sectors. Some argued that the initial decision to place employers in the lead was in itself questionable. John Bangs of the NUT told us that he thought it had been "a major, strategic mistake on behalf of the Government, […] to say employers are leading, the schools and teacher organisations are following up behind."[70] A similar line was taken by Geoff Stanton of the University of Greenwich, who argued:

63. The National Association of Head Teachers also shared these concerns about the late involvement of education professionals in the design process, but nevertheless praised the QCA's efforts at trying to rectify the situation, saying it had been "assiduous in involving schools, in some cases through the teacher associations and other bodies, which has helped to develop the Diploma to its current point […] problems […] however […] remain and it is far from certain whether or not the Diplomas will be the successful project as initially envisaged".[72]

64. It appears that the failure to involve teachers and leaders at an early stage in the design process may also have led to some practical challenges for consortia members applying to the Gateways for permission to deliver the first tranche of Diplomas in September 2008. Speaking in January 2007, Dr Elaine McMahon of Hull College told us:

65. We relayed these concerns to the Minister. In response, he told us that if there was a perception that teachers and lecturers had been insufficiently involved to date, that was indeed "unfortunate". He continued:

AWARDING BODIES

66. Evidence we received from awarding bodies made the point that they, as well as teachers, had not been involved in the Diploma development process until a very late stage in proceedings. OCR observed:

"The process of developing Diplomas has been heralded as revolutionary; it is certainly true that the DfES 14-19 implementation plan takes the standard process for developing a qualification and turns it on its head. […] The Government has effectively created new bodies that believe, according to their own literature, that they were created to develop Diplomas without feeling constrained by the views of teachers or assessment experts. Whilst employers could and should play a greater role in defining what should be taught in schools and colleges, it is stretching credibility to say that they should do the spadework of developing a detailed curriculum for 14-19 year olds. Most DDPs kept awarding bodies at arms length until they were close to completing their detailed Diploma content."[

67. However, the Secretary of State indicated that he did not accept this, saying:

68. The approach to designing the first five Diploma lines was highly unorthodox, in that it granted a large degree of initial freedom to the Diploma Development Partnerships in terms of what they produced. This undeniably created problems further down the line, when the transition from content to workable learning programmes and qualifications was attempted. A key issue appears to have been the late involvement of teachers, lecturers and awarding bodies—with the result that their practical experience was not sufficiently harnessed in the earlier part of the development process. This meant that earlier specifications had to be revised and that, toward the end, the timetable has become very compressed indeed. The awarding body OCR told us:

69. The Diploma development process has clearly been frustrating for many of those involved, and it is commendable that progress has been made in spite of this. The new Diploma development partnership approach—with Sector Skills Councils and employers in the lead—has been experimental, and also highly complex, on account of the number of players involved. At the same time, we are concerned that there appears to have been too little direct involvement in or feedback from small and medium-sized employers who have an important part to play in setting a climate of business acceptance of the new Diplomas. We recommend focused attention is given to involving them more prior to the launch of the pilots. At times, there has been a lack of clarity about who is responsible for taking key decisions during the development process. What is more, it seems as if the risks involved in such a complex project may not have been fully appreciated at the outset by certain key players and particularly, by those with ultimate management responsibility for the programme—the DfES. It does appear that some lessons from the first Diploma Development Partnerships have been learned, so future developments are unlikely to be as fraught.

EXISTING QUALIFICATIONS

70. The Government says that the aim for Diplomas is to develop a 'third 'track' between vocational qualifications, and 'academic' ones such as A levels. This raises questions about the role of existing qualifications which do not provide training for a specific job and are therefore not vocational in its narrowest sense, but nevertheless offer work-relevant, practical learning, combined with some elements of theory: examples would be the BTEC National and First Diploma awards, and the more recent OCR National awards. Edexcel (the owner of the BTEC suite of qualifications) told us that over the last year, the number of enrolments on their courses had "risen enormously" and growth in schools (i.e., among learners in the age-group that the Diplomas will be targeting) had been "particularly noteworthy".[78] Some practitioners from whom we took evidence told us they did not want to see existing qualifications—particularly, BTECs—hastily withdrawn in pursuit of qualification rationalisation. Elaine McMahon of Hull College, for example, urged against "ditch[ing] any of the qualifications which parallel this Specialised Diploma whilst it is still embedding. I think it needs a careful, if you like, nurturing in."[79]

71. We raised this issue with the Minister, who clearly indicated that the Department held no timetable for the phasing out of existing qualifications. He told us that he envisaged a situation whereby existing qualifications would "wither on the vine, as the Diplomas win the argument really."[80] Jon Coles of the DfES added that over time the challenge would be to ensure that the best of the existing qualifications came "within the Diploma framework."[81]

72. In turn, this raises another issue: the degree to which knowledge gleaned in the development and delivery of existing programmes—such as BTECs—has been fed into the Diploma development process. Paul Hafren of Warrington Collegiate cautioned against any tendency to cast aside current qualifications and start again from scratch:

73. Similarly, Edexcel cautioned against jettisoning existing qualifications and neglecting past experience:

^74.The Government has told us that it does not intend to abruptly withdraw existing vocational qualifications, which may in some ways be seen as 'competitors' to the Diplomas. We welcome this. If they were to be withdrawn before Diplomas were properly established, this could act to reduce choice for those young people who do not wish to pursue A levels—a concern made more acute given the withdrawal of GNVQ qualifications in 2007.[84]

75. The question remains as to whether more use could and should have been made of existing 'tried and tested' qualifications such as BTECs at the outset. What appears to have happened is that a 'blank slate' approach has been adopted, with the promise that convergence between the Diplomas and other awards would occur at a later stage. While we appreciate that the aim was to create something new and radical, this nevertheless seems wasteful to us and makes it likely that old lessons will have to be learned again. We urge DfES and the awarding bodies to develop urgently a strategy to make clear how existing qualifications can fold into and relate to the new Diplomas, and to spell out the equivalence and transfer possibilities of existing qualifications.

Qualifications and awards—where are we now?

76. We took evidence from Sector Skills Councils and the QCA in January 2007. Karen Price of e-skills UK told us then that the content of the first five Diplomas had largely been established, in consultation with employers. The current focus of activity was working with the awarding bodies to turn the content into examinations and schemes of work. However, she also drew attention to the scale of the work remaining:

"I still think there is a lot to do in very challenging timescales to achieve a quality output. My view is that the customers for the Diploma are employers, higher education and then young people and their parents. If we do not have a high quality product that delights those customers in 2008, we will have failed the economy and young people. There is a lot still to be done to achieve that."[

77. Ken Boston of the QCA, giving evidence at the same time, appeared keen to stress that much of the work was completed. He told us: "The qualification is there. There is not a great deal of scrambling around the content of the specification to be done within the next few months. The key issue is delivery."[86] However, we were subsequently contacted by the awarding body, OCR, who said that this was categorically not the case, and that reassurances about the readiness of the qualifications had been premature. They told us:

78. OCR went on to provide a list of sticking points, which include: a lack of work to date on what will be assessed; how precisely assessment will take place; and how standards are to be set and maintained over time. They conclude:

79. The compressed nature of the later stages of the development process also raises questions about whether an adequate amount of time has been put aside for piloting elements of the new awards. The Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA)—who have formed a partnership with City and Guilds to develop and deliver the units and overall awards for Diplomas—suggest this may not be the case:

80. In our previous report on A level standards, published in 2003, we criticised the Government and the QCA for their failure to fully pilot the Curriculum 2000 reforms before pressing ahead with full implementation and in particular for not piloting the A2 exams before introduction.[90] In response to this, the Government told us:

In evidence, Jon Coles of the DfES confirmed that in respect of the functional skills elements of Diplomas, the full pilots would begin in September 2007 although they would not be evaluated before first teaching commenced in September 2008. He continued:

81. It is a matter of concern that awarding bodies have been given such little time to turn the specifications from the first five Diploma Development Partnerships into workable qualifications which are tied to coherent learning programmes. As with teachers and lecturers, awarding bodies should have been more consistently involved in development work from an early stage; had they been, it is possible that some of the problems that later arose—for example, the unexpected reworking of Diploma content which was undertaken in order to bring about consistency across Diploma lines-could perhaps have been avoided.

82. As it stands, very complicated and detailed work has, in the case of the first five Diploma lines, been uncomfortably compressed. We very much hope that the learning programmes and qualifications which emerge will be of a high-enough quality to be accepted by the groups that matter: students, employers, HE and, of course, those who will deliver them—teachers and lecturers. Understandably given that awarding bodies began qualification development so late in the day, awarding arrangements and longer-term quality assurance procedures are not yet well-developed.

83. It also appears that although full pilots for certain elements of the Diplomas—such as the functional skills units—will have begun in September 2007, the full evaluation of the pilots will not be complete before first teaching begins in September 2008. This is a matter of concern given previous commitments the Government has made to this Committee about ensuring qualifications are properly piloted and evaluated before implementation. We would urge that when the evaluation of the pilots is complete, urgent consideration be given as to whether the current split of the proposed 14 Diplomas into three sub-sets of qualification level, making 42 in all, is likely to prove unduly complex and jeopardise acceptance by employers, universities and others.

COMPARABILITY AND GRADING

84. Lorraine McCarthy of Moseley Park School told us that her school was planning to be involved in two Diplomas in September 2008—IT and Engineering. She was concerned about variability in terms of the demands of the different Diplomas: "It seems to me that there is a great difference in the levels in the different Diplomas and that there is no consistency, in terms of the levels, across the board, as far as I can see, on that first look."[93]

85. Amicus raised similar concerns about an apparent lack of consistency across Diploma lines:

However, Jon Coles of the DfES told us that he had confidence in the equivalence of the Diplomas:

86. The Engineering Employers Federation, however, was not convinced that this had been achieved without the adoption of a 'lowest common denominator' approach—and without detriment to content. They told us:

87. The issue of equivalence across all fourteen Diploma lines is a vexed one: on the one hand, some sector representatives have clearly felt at times that their particular requirements are being shoe-horned into a one-size-fits-all package not suited to sectoral needs, or that their original stipulations have been pushed aside; on the other hand, there is a clear need for equivalence for the students undertaking these courses—this is especially true if they do not choose, for whatever reason, to enter a particular industry sector.

88. Another issue linked to consistency and equivalence, which appears to still be 'live' is that of the grading of the Diplomas. Writing to us in March 2007, and in reference to earlier evidence given to us by the QCA and Sector Skills Councils, the OCR said:

89. Similarly, the AQA told us that: "it is pertinent to record that all the awarding bodies are on record as being opposed to awarding Diploma grades because of the risks involved in terms of fairness to students and the credibility of the Diploma." However, the awarding bodies' recommendation appears not to have been taken up by the Government. The AQA suggest that grading should be based only on principal learning and on the extended projects, rather than on all the component parts of the Diploma (such as functional skills units). They argue that this more limited grading system:

90. The OCR does say that in recent months, awarding bodies have been "invited to contribute more fully to developments. We have been pleased to see our contributions increasingly well received by DDPs, DfES and QCA. However, we do not believe this is enough and, for the first five Diplomas, it has come too late."[99] We are concerned that in relation to some aspects of Diplomas—for example, on the issue of grading—there does not yet appear to be consensus between partners on the approach which should be taken, or even what still remains to be done. We believe it is important that the higher education sector should be more closely involved in this process, so that the acceptance of diplomas as an alternative pathway for some into HE is not compromised.

End-to-end oversight and risk management—the role of the DfES and Ministers

91. A clear concern in much of the evidence we received related to a perceived lack of end-to-end management of the Diploma reforms by the DfES. We understand that at the start of the Diploma development process, the programme was managed from within the DfES's 14-19 implementation unit; ultimate management responsibility fell to the head of this unit, who was also in charge of all other aspects of the wide-ranging 14-19 reform programme. The Sector Skills Council Skillset, which has been involved in the creation of one of the first five Diplomas, told us:

"[A] major issue has been the separation between Diploma development, workforce development and communications in governance terms and reporting arrangements as this has resulted in a fragmented approach to this development and overall reform."[

100

92. Geoff Fieldsend of the Sector Skills Development Agency said that what was important was that the DfES retained complete managerial oversight of the Diploma project:

101

93. Ken Boston of the QCA said that in this respect, matters had improved in recent months:

102

94. The changes to which the QCA appears to be referring is the appointment of Chief Executives from several key agencies—including the QCA, Awarding Bodies and the Sector Skills Development Agency—to a Chief Executives group, which meets regularly and reports directly to the Minister in charge. Additionally, the Minister confirmed in later oral evidence that a senior permanent appointment had now been made within the DfES to a role with end-to-end management responsibility for the Diploma programme.

95. It is unfortunate that, given the obvious scale and complexity of the Diploma programme, coherent end-to-end management, governance and reporting arrangements were not established within the DfES from the outset. We believe that there was a failure to appreciate the sheer scale and complexity of the challenge in hand. Our understanding is that now—five months from the point where the awards should be ready and workforce development is due to begin—a permanent project manager for the Diplomas has finally been appointed, who will have oversight of all management aspects. We also recognise that new arrangements have been put in place at the senior strategic and governance level, whereby Chief Executives of all the relevant agencies—including awarding bodies—meet regularly. It is crucial too that regular ministerial input and oversight of the new management arrangements should remain at the strongest and highest level possible, to ensure that the priority and delivery of diplomas within the Department's overall workload does not slip.

96. Given all the concerns that have been expressed to us about whether the Diplomas are ready to be introduced, and the uncertainty about what the Diplomas are designed to achieve—whether they are vocational or practical or academic—the initial phase is vitally important. The Secretary of State said in evidence that 2008 is the "pilot stream."[103] The Government needs to ensure that it is genuinely a pilot, and if problems are not resolved, or if further problems emerge, then the wider roll out should be delayed or reviewed in order to prevent the failure of the Diplomas.

61 Subsequently, DDPs have been established for the remaining nine Diplomas: Land-based and Environmental; Manufacturing; Hair and Beauty; Business Administration and Finance; Hospitality and Catering; Public Services; Sport and Leisure; Retail and Travel and Tourism. Back

62 Ev 53 Back

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64 The National Assessment Agency was launched in April 2004 to "develop and deliver high-quality national curriculum tests and supervise the delivery and modernisation of GCSE and A level examinations." (taken from www.naa.org.uk website). Back

65 Ev 54 Back

66 Q 1 Back

67 Q 1 Back

68 Ev 176-177 Back

69 Ev 197 Back

70 Q 124 Back

71 Ev 160 Back

72 Ev 83 Back