Memorandum
To:
Education and Skills Committee
Re: 14-19 Specialised Diplomas
From: Qualifications and Curriculum Authority
Executive
Summary
The Diplomas are the
key to raising participation and attainment in post-16 education to the highest
rank of OECD countries. They are the foundation for building the human and
social capital of the nation over the next decade. The new qualification
deserves widespread cross-party support.
The Diplomas use applied
industry-driven curriculum as the foundation for an education programme
designed to build higher order cognitive thinking and problem solving skills.
The value of such curriculum has been demonstrated in competitor OECD
countries, although not within an identical Diploma configuration. The Diplomas
have the potential for much broader appeal than traditional academic
programmes.
Key issues in the next phase
of work are to communicate the core public narrative about the role and purpose
of the Diplomas; to ensure that risks in
their development and delivery are foreseen and managed; and to ensure that the
Diploma Gateway functions effectively.
1. The Qualifications and Curriculum
Authority
1.1 The
QCA is a statutory authority with responsibilities, obligations and rights set
out in the Education Act 1997 and other legislation. Its responsibilities
relate to the development, regulation and provision of curriculum, assessment
and qualifications. It provides advice to the Secretary of State for Education
and Skills on request or by decision of the QCA Board.
1.2 As a
non-departmental public body, our programme of work is funded partly by core
grant from the DfES, for our general statutory responsibilities; and partly by
additional funds allocated to undertake specific work within our area of
expertise. The balance between the two is negotiated annually with DfES. We are
funded by Government; we provide advice to Government on the basis of our
research and professional expertise; we undertake work for Government; we are
responsible for delivery of elements of the Government agenda; but QCA is not a
part of Government.
1.3 Our
relationship with DfES is one of interdependence. QCA has no role as a public
critic of Government policy or practice, although the formal advice we offer to
Government in due course becomes public, along with the Government response to
that advice. As the national authority for curriculum, assessment and
qualifications, with responsibility for regulating provision and assuring the
maintenance of standards, we have however a significant role in leading public
discussion of needs, priorities and directions in areas of education and
training in which Government policy is in development, or in which there is
need for policy.
2.
The development of Diplomas
2.1 At the initiative of the
Sector Skills Development Agency (SSDA), the Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) have
convened Diploma Development Partnerships (DDPs). There is (or in due course
will be) a DDP for each of the 14 Diploma lines of learning. Each DDP includes
representatives of employers, higher education, relevant professional bodies,
awarding bodies, and schools and colleges. The DDPs each have a quite explicit
role in curriculum development: they determine, on the basis of extensive
consultation, the knowledge, skills and understanding to be included in the
principal and specialist learning in each Diploma, at each level.
2.2 The
QCA has no role in determining the content of the principal and specialist
learning - that is a matter for the sector-led DDPs. The other two components
of the Diploma are the core or generic learning (which includes functional
skills in English, mathematics and ICT; personal, learning and thinking skills;
and the extended project) and the additional elements, which provide for a wide
selection of optional choices. In these two areas, which are largely common
across all Diplomas, the DDPs and QCA develop the curriculum jointly. The DDP
is responsible for ensuring that the
Diploma accurately reflects the sector it represents.
2.3 The role of the QCA is to translate the
DDP requirements into regulatory criteria that will form the basis for awarding
body qualification specifications, so that all Diplomas at each of the three
levels have a similar structure; have a similar balance between core learning,
principal learning, and additional and specialist learning; and represent a
similar standard and level of demand.
2.4 Once this is done, QCA looks to the
awarding bodies to develop units and qualifications that meet the regulatory
criteria. These must have the support of DDPs before being submitted to QCA for
accreditation. Along with all other qualifications, Diplomas will be included
in the new Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF), which recognises a wider
range of achievement than the current National Qualifications Framework through
the award of credit for units and qualifications. The QCF will provide flexible
routes to gaining full qualifications, and allow credit towards a final
qualification to be accumulated as component units are completed successfully.
2.5 A
further responsibility of QCA is to develop the systems and technical
infrastructure capable of allowing the awarding of Diplomas from 2009, across
the numerous awarding bodies contributing units to them. This project is needed
to facilitate the introduction of Diplomas. The area of QCA responsible for
this work is the National Assessment Agency (NAA). Once built, the management
of the systems and technical infrastructure will be the responsibility of the
awarding bodies.
2.6 All partners are ensuring that work on
the Diplomas is proceeding constructively and well, but this is very new
territory. Some of the timelines have proved ambitious, and there have been
some difficulties in defining roles and responsibilities. Such difficulties
have been overcome primarily as a result of the good will, good sense and
commitment of all partners. The recent Leitch Review will facilitate greater
clarification of the role of SSCs in the demand-side approval of qualifications
for funding, and the role of QCA in the development of regulatory criteria, the
national accreditation of qualifications and the recognition of learner
achievement through the QCF.
2.7 In ambition, scope, complexity and
potential, the introduction of a Diploma qualification across 14 lines of
learning and at three levels in each line is a major national reform of
secondary curriculum and qualifications, currently without parallel in any
other country. The success of the reform is profoundly important, because it is
the key strategy to drive up participation and attainment post-16, and hence to
raise our national performance from well below the OECD average. In the immediate future, attention will
focus in particular on three important areas: communicating the core public
narrative about the purpose of Diplomas; ensuring that risks in their
development and delivery are foreseen and managed; and ensuring that the
Diploma Gateway functions effectively.
3.
The purpose of Diplomas
3.1 Like GCSEs, GCEs and the International
Baccalaureate, the Diplomas have an educational objective rather than a
training objective. Their curriculum however is very different because it is
derived from industry, and at least half of the principal learning must take
place in an industry-related environment. Like all good education programmes,
the purpose of the Diplomas is to achieve growth in both the cognitive domain
(what young people know, understand and can do) and in the affective domain
(what young people are like e.g. team workers, self-managers, effective
participators, independent enquirers, problem solvers). The Diplomas will give
young people a fully rounded education, which equips them for both higher
education and entry to employment. They will raise the level of participation and
attainment in education, but they are not designed to provide job-specific
training in order to make young people job-ready: that is the function of an
apprenticeship or an occupational qualification. Diplomas will thus not meet national skills shortages directly,
but they will provide a much sounder platform than at present on which the
skills needed to meet those shortages can be built.
3.2 As our competitor countries much higher
on the OECD table have shown so successfully, an applied curriculum derived
from industry provides as much challenge, interest and
rigour as a traditional general
or academic curriculum. The higher order cognitive and problem solving skills
inherent in industry-led curriculum in the Diplomas in Engineering, in Creative
and Media, in Society, Health and Development, in Information Technology, and
in Construction and the Built Environment, are no less challenging than those
in traditional fields such as chemistry, modern foreign languages, geography
and history - nor is the learning from
them less productive. It is expected that the expanded choice of curriculum
provided by the Diplomas will attract many young people who are not currently
greatly excited by the general qualifications and would otherwise leave school,
as well as many who will find that the Diplomas offer a more interesting and
potentially rewarding qualification than GCSEs or GCEs.
3.3 There will be a suite of Diplomas available at each of Levels
1, 2 and 3 and each suite will appeal to different students. At Level 1, the
Diplomas will, for the first time, offer a coherent educational programme for
those young people who are not ready to progress straight to Level 2, who may
be under-achieving, or who have simply become disengaged from the traditional
curriculum. Until now the only alternative to GCSEs for many of these students
has been vocational training programmes, such as motor vehicle maintenance,
construction or hospitality, which do not address the wider educational and
skills needs of these young people. At Level 2, the Diplomas will offer a
coherent, bespoke educational programme as an alternative to the traditional
GCSE curriculum, or the combination of GCSEs with GNVQs, BTECs and other
qualifications. Level 2 Diplomas will appeal both to those who are likely to
perform better in these programmes than in GCSEs, and to high achievers who
would perform well in GCSEs but are attracted by a more contemporary and
applied curriculum. Level 3 Diplomas are designed for all students across the
full ability range, many of whom will have taken GCSEs rather than a Diploma at
Level 2. As with GCSEs and GCEs, the Diplomas will be graded, providing clear
differentiation of achievement between learners.
3.4 The Diploma is a baccalaureate-style,
coherent single qualification rather than three discrete and possibly unrelated
GCE qualifications. The Diploma will signify to higher education and to
employers that the holder has functional skills in English, mathematics and
ICT; that he or she possesses personal, learning and thinking skills
appropriate for further study or employment; that there is a unity and
coherence in the principal line of learning, embracing both general, academic
and applied learning; that the holder has demonstrated the skills of
self-motivation and independent enquiry, which are inherent in the extended
project; and that he or she has had real experience of the workplace as part of
the learning programme. In comparison with A-Levels, the Level 3 Diploma will provide a
broader, more coherent, more comprehensive and potentially more flexible
programme of study, and
signify an acceptable level of performance in all dimensions of the cognitive
and affective domains.
3.5 It is important that the purpose, nature
and function of the Diplomas is widely understood throughout the community. A
major communications programme is being undertaken by DfES. The recent
appointment of distinguished leaders in the fields of business, higher
education, and schools and colleges to act as public champions and ambassadors
for the Diplomas is a very welcome step forward.
4.
Identification and management of risk
4.1 The design, development, introduction and
implementation of a new Diploma qualification covering 14 lines of learning,
each at three levels, with roll-out in three tranches in three consecutive
years from 2008, is an extraordinarily complex process requiring exacting
standards of project management and programme delivery. The design and
development of the Diplomas requires complex and highly technical work on the
definition of content; on sequencing the acquisition of knowledge, skills and
understanding; on definition of assessment criteria and the development of
assessment methods which are fit for purpose; on determination of a common
grading system and grade standards for all 14 lines of learning, and procedures
for their monitoring and maintenance across Diplomas and linearly in time; and
on the development of appropriate pedagogy and support materials. These
educational issues are in parallel with a set of strategic and logistical
issues which are equally complex and demanding: achieving buy-in from employers
nationally, regionally and locally to support work-based learning; recruiting
or training teachers with the appropriate industry background to deliver the
principal and specialist learning, and targeting the available recurrent
funding to support them; ensuring that the available capital funding supports
the provision of industry standard facilities for learning; creating the
necessary local collaborative arrangements between schools, colleges and
employers; addressing the industrial, funding and logistical issues needed to
make such arrangements attractive and workable; communicating the reforms; and
putting in place strategies to ensure that the Diplomas attract students from
across the full ability range.
4.2 A great number of agencies and
organisations are involved in this work. They include several government
departments, of which the lead agency is the DfES; a range of non-departmental
public bodies, such as the LSC, QCA, SSDA, TDA, LLUK and QIA; other bodies such
as the SSAT, the NCSL, the CEL, the Local Authorities and higher education; the
private sector, most notably the awarding bodies and the employers represented
through SSCs; and representative bodies, including employer associations and
unions. It is important that the various partners have sufficient visibility of
the total programme for the delivery and implementation of the Diplomas, and of
the interdependent accountabilities that the other partners carry, as lack of
such visibility would create a situation in which emerging risks might not be
identified and ameliorated.
4.3 A number of changes and developments in
the way the programme is evolving have helped to strengthen the arrangements and
to provide greater visibility: the appointment of a DfES project director
supported by external consultants; the addition of representation from awarding
bodies and SSCs to the 14-19 Programme Board; refocusing the Diploma Board and
the Diploma Advisory Group; and the establishment of a regular meeting, chaired
by Ministers, of the chief executives of the non-departmental public bodies
responsible for the various aspects of Diploma development and delivery. QCA is
fully committed to working with DfES and all other partners to ensure that
these arrangements are effective. It is important, for all partners, that there
be a series of OGC Gateway Reviews over the lifetime of the project.
5.
The Diploma Gateway and quality assurance
5.1 The success of the Diplomas will be
dependent on their appeal to the full range of student ability from first
introduction in 2008, and on their capacity to maintain and grow that appeal in
the following years. The objective is that Diplomas should be the preferred
qualification for many students who would otherwise take GCSEs, GCEs, or other
qualifications from the wide and somewhat confusing array of vocational
qualifications available for young people, as well as raise participation and
attainment amongst those who would otherwise leave school early. The new
qualifications must prepare both groups equally well for both higher education
and employment. If however the Diplomas are aimed only at early school leavers,
they will quickly be seen as second-rate and purely vocational qualifications,
and will fail as other qualifications have done. We must learn from history if
we are not to repeat it.
5.2 There is a potential risk that the
national desire to drive up retention and attainment post-16 as quickly and as
widely as possible could lead to Diplomas being offered in inappropriate places
and circumstances, by teachers who lack industrial experience, or in
partnerships between schools, colleges and employers which are less than fully
satisfactory. If this were to occur, the Diplomas would be devalued from the
beginning. The Diploma Gateway (not to be confused with OGC Gateway Reviews)
has been established by DfES as a quality assurance process to ensure that the
new qualification will not be compromised. The Gateway Process is the key to
assuring quality of delivery, which must be given top priority even were it to
be at the expense of not achieving projected enrolment targets in the initial
years of introduction.
6.
The prize
6.1 The Diploma offers the prospect of
participation and attainment in education post-16 being raised in England
progressively to the highest rank of OECD countries, thus providing a sounder
foundation for the building of human and social capital than that which we have
at present. For higher education, it provides a more rounded education in both
the cognitive and affective domains of learning than the GCEs, and guarantees
functional skills in English, mathematics and ICT, together with the personal
skills and attributes needed to succeed at university. For employers, it has
the same advantages: young people will enter employment with a much better
understanding of the creative opportunities in the world of work, with positive
attitudes and the will to succeed, and with the focus and capacity to raise the
productivity of both their employing company and the nation through the
acquisition of high-order job-specific skills. The Diploma has immense
potential as the foundation for driving up national performance in education
and skills, and it warrants the full support of business and the community, of
higher education, of our political parties, and of all sections of the
community.
Ken Boston
Chief Executive
Qualifications and
Curriculum Authority
8 January 2007
