Spanner mightier than pen in earning power News | Published in FE Focus on 5 November, 2010 | By: Joseph Lee Section: News
Posted on | November 7, 2010 | 49 Comments
Found by Jonathan Wells of Guroo Functional Skills.
Report says BTECs taken with GCSEs add 5.9% more to earnings
Students combining GCSEs and BTECs at level 2 are likely to earn more than those who take academic courses only, a new study shows, challenging claims that low-level vocational qualifications are a soft option.
Vocational courses at level 2 have attracted increasing criticism as an easy alternative to GCSEs, but the study - commissioned by BTEC parent company Pearson and carried out independently by London Economics - says taking a level 2 BTEC on top of five GCSEs adds 5.9 per cent more to earning power than an all-academic course.
It suggests that, while political debate continues over the value of some vocational courses, employers are willing to pay for staff with the qualifications.
“It is not the case that those with vocational qualifications routinely under-perform those with academic qualifications,” the report says.
But London Economics found that other level 2 vocational courses led to a fall in earnings if taken with GCSEs: 3 per cent for City and Guilds and 6 per cent for NVQs.
The UK Commission for Employment and Skills has suggested that such falls are not because the qualification is itself damaging, but that they reflect the poorer career prospects of the students who tend to select them.
What is a level 2 qualification?
Posted on | October 31, 2010 | 1 Comment
Posted by Jonathan Wells of Guroo Functional Skills and taken from the TES on 29/10/10
Andy Warhol once said: “What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest.” His words were in reference to Coca-Cola - a product close to my heart.
Further education, like Coke, is unbiased. It doesn’t differentiate between those with few qualifications and those yearning to study at a higher level - or between vocational and academic. These customers have a dream unique to them as individuals. Further education makes it happen. It’s the people’s choice. Yet we are still stuck in a debate about “parity of esteem” between vocational and academic provision.
If we are serious about parity of esteem, we need to be positive and use branding to ensure qualifications are seen as having equal value, whether they are vocational or academic. This will be far less negative than the current tendency to constantly relate the value of one (vocational) by reference to the value of the other (academic).
The mere fact that we refer to a full level 2 NVQ as the “equivalent of five GCSEs at grade A*-C” suggests it is not. If we are serious about reinforcing the equal value, then perhaps we should have another umbrella benchmark to describe the level of achievement - vocational or academic. I think we could do worse than Certificate (level 2) and Diploma (level 3).
My proposal is not a repeat of previous debates about qualifications. It is about what we call those qualifications. Irrespective of how you get there (whether by an academic or a vocational route, or a combination of the two), when you reach the equivalent of a full level 2, you receive a National Certificate.
On reaching the equivalent of full level 3, you get a National Diploma. You might earn this by doing A-levels at school, or by completing an advanced apprenticeship with British Gas. Either way, you’ve made it - in your own way.
Let’s start with young people. Our aim must be for all those leaving full- time education next year to receive their National Certificate. Irrespective of what they do next, it will ensure they are more ready for the world of work than those without. I suspect it won’t be long before adults seeing all these young people coming into the jobs market with their National Certificates - and, the following year, their National Diplomas - will want their own.
The incremental cost of this initiative will be insignificant in the greater scheme of things and in the context of the positive culture change it will support. I am convinced that the cost could be more than covered by ensuring that those who have a National Certificate or National Diploma are not given public funding to carry on learning at the same level, but contribute to the cost of obtaining these extra qualifications. I say more about this in the independent review of fees and co-funding in FE that I undertook for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which I called Co-investing in the Skills of the Nation.
Let’s go back to Andy Warhol as he continues his point about Coke. “You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too.”
If I can take the liberty of a Warhol-style analysis of my idea, it would be something like this: “A National Certificate is a National Certificate and no amount of academic study can get you a better National Certificate than the one the guy doing an apprenticeship gets. And no amount of vocational training can get you a better National Certificate than the guy doing GCSEs.”
Chris Banks was managing director of Coca-Cola Great Britain from 1997- 2001.
Just one in three diploma students pass, says Ofsted By Hannah Richardson
Posted on | October 26, 2010 | 49 Comments
Again, Functional Skills seem to be the problem - but is it the qualification, or the way they are addressed?
Only about a third of students who took Labour’s flagship diplomas in England had managed to achieve them two years on, Ofsted has found.
Inspectors said the vocational parts of courses inspired many learners, but that they had been let down by English and maths teaching.
The report said the diplomas, which combine practical and academic learning, were too complicated.
And many students failed to understand what was required of them.
Diplomas are alternatives to GCSEs and A-levels and offer learners the opportunity to develop vocational skills using industry-standard equipment.
Schools, colleges and businesses team up to offer the qualifications with students travelling between them to attend their courses.
Former Schools’ Secretary Ed Balls said he hoped they would one day replace A-levels as the “qualification of choice”.
‘Highly problematic’
But the take-up has been slow with just 11,000 students starting them in the first year. And of these, only 4,000 had gained the qualification after two years.
Continue reading the main story
“
Start Quote
The complexity of the qualification is proving a real challenge to both learners and institutions”
Christine Gilbert
Ofsted chief inspector
Some 36,000 learners started courses in 2009-10 which are yet to finish.
However, the Ofsted evaluation of the qualification found some elements worked well.
This was especially true of the main subject area of the qualification known as “principal learning”.
Many learners responded well to the opportunity for active and practical learning and managed to develop their independent learning in this area. And behaviour and engagement was good in most places visited by inspectors.
But the part of the course covering English, maths and ICT or “functional skills” was “highly problematic”, according to Ofsted.
This part was often taught in isolation, mostly back at schools and colleges, and many students did not realise that “functional skills” were an important part of their course.
Industry-relevant
Most thought that the “principal learning” - the specialist learning about their chosen subject - was the only part of their diploma.
However, many supporters of the diploma say it is this part of the qualification that makes the courses more demanding than other options.
Ofsted chief inspector Christine Gilbert said: “In some areas diplomas are starting to provide young people with valuable learning opportunities and work-related skills.
“However, a number of problems stand in the way of more young people benefiting from the high quality learning seen on some of the visits for this survey.
“The complexity of the qualification is proving a real challenge to both learners and institutions, with only just over a third of the first cohort gaining a diploma after two years.”
She said more needed to be done to improve the teaching of functional skills and make it more joined up with the main subject content.
The report evaluated the success of the diplomas in their second year of operation by visiting 21 of the groups of schools, colleges and employers offering the qualifications.
The first five diplomas, in information technology, health, construction, media and engineering were introduced in 2008, and schools began offering a further five, in business, environmental studies, hair and beauty, hospitality and manufacturing last year.
A Department for Education spokesman said: “Ministers have already made a number of changes to the diploma to make it easier to offer this qualification.
“Professor Alison Wolf has also been appointed to lead the independent review of vocational qualifications for 14 to 19-year-olds, and we look forward to seeing her report next year.”
Diploma conference report
Posted on | October 16, 2010 | 29 Comments
the front page of Sec-ed carries a report about the Diploma conference last week in Birmingham.
Focus was on diploma qualifications and how they would survive into the future.
Functional Skills conference
Posted on | September 28, 2010 | 45 Comments
London on Tuesday 16th November.
click here to get to deatils of the Functional Skills event with guroo as main sponsors.
Functional Skills weightings
Posted on | September 26, 2010 | 1 Comment
Delivery information in 2010/11
Functional Skills in English, Mathematics and ICT delivered through 16-18 and
ALR will be unlisted. Where Functional Skills are delivered as part of an
Apprenticeship Framework as a direct replacement for key skills, they will continue
to be listed at 0.08 SLN. This applies to all age Apprenticeships.
Functional Skills in English, Mathematics and ICT delivered through 16-18 learner
responsive and ALR will be unlisted. This will allow time for the qualifications to
settle down and the delivery hours to be established.
Functional Skills in English and Mathematics funded by the YPLA through the 16-
18 learner model will be funded at a 1.4 programme weighting. Functional Skills in
ICT will continue to be funded at 1.12.
Only Entry Level Functional Skills in Mathematics funded by the Skills Funding
Agency through the ALR model will attract a 1.4 programme weighting.
All other Functional Skills in English and Mathematics funded through the Skills
Funding Agency (ALR model) will be funded at 1.2. Functional Skills in ICT will
continue to be funded at 1.12.
Functional Skills in Apprenticeships will continue to be funded at programme
weighting 1.0.
Major Functional Skills conference announced
Posted on | September 20, 2010 | 56 Comments
November 16th, London.
A conference dedicated to functional skills featuring key note speakers from industry, practitioners and ofqual as well as a marketplace featuring all the exam bodies and resource providers.
Issues with the costs or complexity?
Posted on | September 12, 2010 | 23 Comments
Picked up by Jonathan Wells of Guroo Functional Skills.
The exam board with the biggest share of the Diploma has called for it to be simplified after figures showed that a disappointingly small number of pupils completed the qualification this year.
Only 3,069 pupils were awarded a full Higher Diploma - judged equivalent to GCSEs - this summer.
Ziggy Liaquat, managing director of the Edexcel exam board, accepted the numbers were “much lower” than original estimates and blamed its complexity, saying a simplification was “critically important”.
The applied-learning qualification developed by the last Labour government to rival GCSEs and A-levels requires pupils to complete several elements, including a core “principal learning project”, functional skills in English, mathematics and ICT, work experience, an extended project and personal, learning and thinking skills.
Mr Liaquat said: “Teachers and students say the principal learning project has real value and is a strong part of the qualification offer. However, it’s clear the completion rates are low, which is a result of the Diploma’s complex nature. We’d call for a simplification of the structure of the Diploma to take some administrative burden off the system, which doesn’t have a great deal of value. Simplification is critically important.”
John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said the numbers completing the Diploma were “encouraging”.
“More will finish the components for the qualification and achieve the Diploma over the coming months,” he said. “It’s important to recognise that students have not failed if they have not yet passed every component by age 16.”
Nick Gibb, schools minister, said: “There will be a place for the Diploma as long as there is demand for it.”
3,069 - Number of pupils awarded a full Higher Diploma this summer.
Key skills remain for a short period.
Posted on | August 3, 2010 | 3 Comments
Apprenticeship providers can continue using the existing Key Skills programme for literacy and numeracy until March 2011 after protests about the qualifications’ replacement, Functional Skills. The Association of Learning Providers objected that the Functional Skills programme is more classroom- and paper-based, whereas earlier programmes were integrated with practical skills, making them more suitable for apprentices.
Key Skills reprieved for apprentices only.
Posted on | July 19, 2010 | 6 Comments
Taken from the TES on 16th July bu Jonathan Wells of Guroo Functional Skills
Key skills, which are being phased out in favour of functional skills, have won a stay of execution as the Government seeks further discussions on the way forward in apprenticeships.
John Hayes, the further education minister, told the annual conference of the Association of Learning Providers (ALP) this week that functional skills had been due to replace key skills in apprenticeships later this year.
But Mr Hayes said the introduction of functional skills, which are designed to offer practical education in English, information and communication technology (ICT) and mathematics across a number of qualifications ranging from GCSEs to apprenticeships, had to be examined further.
“That is why, after speaking to providers, I have decided to extend the use of key skills in apprenticeship frameworks to March 2011 and continue to consult with the sector on the best way forward,” he said.
The ALP fears functional skills are designed for school pupils and will not meet the needs of apprentices or adults. While key skills are successful in delivering basic skills, the ALP is worried success rates will fall under functional skills.
ALP leaders have also called for a single procurement agency for all employment and skills provision.
Martin Dunford, ALP chair, said: “We need ministers to be even bolder if we want to avoid a lost generation of young people and a raft of employers complaining that they don’t have skilled recruits available to take advantage of any upturn.”
The ALP has submitted a six-point plan to the Government on how to provide a more cost-effective FE and skills system. Recommendations include providers being rewarded for successful outcomes and a preferred supplier register.
Functional Skills
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