Supplementary memorandum submitted by
OCR
As you will be aware, OCR has already provided
written evidence to the Select Committee inquiry into specialised
Diplomas. We would have liked the opportunity to have developed
our views further in oral evidence but we recognise the time constraints
upon the Committee and welcome the Committee's desire to report
in a timeframe which leaves room for action.
However, as a major awarding body, with considerable
experience of developing qualifications, we felt it important
to correct some potentially misleading impressions that may have
arisen as a result of evidence the Committee heard on 17 January.
GRADING THE
DIPLOMA
It was claimed that the issue of grading has
been resolved. According to the uncorrected transcript of evidence:
"That is ticked off. We know we are going to grade the Diplomas.
We know how we are going to arrive at these grades."
At the time this statement was made, awarding
bodies did not know how we were going to grade Diplomas. Subsequently,
in a letter dated 30 January 2007, we have received outline details
of proposals for grading based on advice to ministers. It is prefaced
with the sentence, "In order to ensure that Awarding Bodies
are working within the latest position on grading, we outline
below the advice we have given to Government on Grading the Diploma."
The italics are ours. Although this document does move us forward,
it is neither exhaustive nor conclusive.
The limited advice on grading, far from resolving
matters, raises many further technical issues, not least around
designing individual mark schemes for each unit. In the same document
on grading, QCA proposes collaborative working on this through
the establishment of "a national `Marking Criteria and Comparability
Technical Group' through which all relevant awarding bodies, with
support from QCA, could agree on appropriate mechanisms for ensuring
consistent marking." We would strongly suggest that, with
the technical issues surrounding grading being far from "ticked
off", there are considerable limitations on our ability to
progress Diploma development, despite a deadline which is now
three months away.
TIMESCALE
Although grading is a very specific, technical
example of the difficulties facing OCR, we feel that, on a more
general level, based on evidence presented to date, the Committee
might easily under-estimate the enormity of the task still facing
awarding bodies. We repeat the observation offered in our written
evidence that this is the shortest timescale that awarding bodies
have ever been given to develop a significant suite of national
qualifications.
We are concerned that the Committee heard evidence
to suggest that the work was nearing completion. Dr Ken Boston
of the QCA was right to state that "on the issue of five
months, we are not starting from scratch. We have been working
on this for well over eighteen months to two years. We now have
criteria for all of the five Diplomas on the website. [...] There
is not a great deal of scrambling around the content of the specification
to be done in the next few months." However, we would want
the Committee to appreciate that a qualification is not the same
thing as a course. As the Committee will appreciate a fit-for-purpose
qualification is defined in four dimensions:
1. What is to be learnt (usually referred
to as the "content" or "curriculum").
2. What is to be assessed (what the qualification
will certify that a learner knows or can do).
3. How valid and reliable assessment is
to be carried out (eg through examinations, portfolios of evidence
or direct observation).
4. How standards are to be set and maintained
(to ensure currency for the qualification, consistency over time
and fairness to candidates).
For the Diplomas, only the first of these four
dimensions, that of defining the content as described within the
lines of learning criteria, is almost complete. In the time remaining,
awarding bodies must now resolve the other three. On the fourth
dimension, work has barely begun.
In practice there is something of a chasm between
the development of the lines of learning criteria, published by
the DDPs, and the production of actual qualifications. The content-based
criteria have to be translated into assessable learning outcomes.
Each learning outcome has to be interpreted, weighted and levelled.
The assessment approach for each unit needs to be established,
and assessment material and processes developed. All this has
to be worked up with schools and colleges to ensure that what
is produced can be delivered as a coherent and manageable programme.
THE CURRICULA
On top of the many technical challenges thrown
up by the criteria, the industry "curricula" do not
in themselves reflect a consistent and reliable standard. We welcome
the vital input from employers and the work undertaken by QCA
and the DDPs, but it would be wholly wrong to suggest that this
work makes the task left to awarding bodies relatively straight
forward. That the content has been given to us as a starting point,
rather than content and assessment arrangements being developed
in parallel and iteratively, as is usually the case with public
qualifications, actually increases the complexity of development
work needed to arrive at fit-for-purpose qualifications.
In conclusion, OCR believes that, through Herculean
efforts, it may be possible to develop the foundations of Diplomas,
of a quality that all agree is essential, for delivery in 2008.
We do not believe that the risks should be underplayed, and fully
concur with the evidence of witnesses representing the DDPs offered
at the 17 January session that, to protect the interest of learners,
the pilot should be of limited size with robust and careful monitoring
and management, involving input and support from awarding bodies
every step of the way. We also feel it is essential that awarding
bodies should contribute at a much earlier stage to the development
of the other lines of learning so that the right relationship
can be established between relevant content and sound assessment.
January 2007
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