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23 April 2002
Mr
Ivan Lewis MP
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State
Department for Education and Skills
Sanctuary
Building
Great
Smith St
London SW1P 3BT
Dear Minister,
An
Impending Crisis in Vocational Education and Training
The National
Forum for Engineering in Colleges (NFEC)
represents Heads
of Department/Deans of Faculty concerned with engineering and
technology in the FE sector. The
majority of Colleges providing engineering education and training
are represented on the Forum.
It has a regional structure, provides staff development,
and maintains a close relationship with relevant professional and
employer bodies through its National Council.
At our National Council meeting on 18th
April, it became clear that a very critical situation was
emerging, which would affect the availability of appropriate
courses and qualifications for many vocational students and
trainees, including modern apprentices.
When the ‘rumbles of discontent’ regarding the
implementation of change in the school-based Post-16 programmes
emerged, Ministers took an active interest and launched an urgent
report from Professor David Hargreaves. The 14 – 19 Green Paper
emphasises equal esteem for vocational programmes, but serious
difficulties with the implementation of change are arising which
have yet to be addressed satisfactorily by your Department and
your agents in the QCA, LSC and Awarding Bodies.
The broad issues are as follows:
·
There
were far too many qualifications on the former ‘Schedule 2a’
list, and a welcome programme of rationalisation is under way.
No one disputes the need for this; the difficulties are
with the phasing and quality (fitness for intended purpose) of
their replacements. They
key issue is the phasing of the change and lead time for
implementation.
·
For
the lower levels in the National Qualifications Framework, the
major set of qualifications in use is a range of City and Guilds
Certificates, mainly but not exclusively in the ‘2000 Series’,
the ‘3000 Series for motor vehicle’, and some of the CAD/CAM
programmes. Theoretically,
these remain available from City and Guilds (for their world-wide
market). In practice,
they will cease to be available to England’s publicly funded
education and training students, as they will not be listed, and
consequently not funded, under the new LSC Act after September
2002.
·
The
intended replacement for these from C&G is a range of
‘Progression Awards’. Some
have now been accredited for the National Qualifications
Framework; others will follow.
In April 2002, four problems are apparent:
1.
Firstly, the specifications
are not widely available to course designers, teachers and
trainers, and there are no teaching support materials. NFEC
members are education professionals who consider it not only
unethical, but also unreasonable in terms of quality of provision
for students, to attempt to launch totally new programmes of study
without proper information and preparation.
Yet many of the details are unlikely to be available until
August for courses intended to start in September 2002.
2.
Effective college management
requires prospectuses to be prepared and published up to an
academic year before their programmes come into use.
As the intended change was not common knowledge when the
2002/2003 programmes were scheduled and prospectuses printed, they
currently advertise the now ‘non-fundable’ programmes. They,
therefore, mislead prospective students and their sponsors.
3.
Some programmes are
progressively linked, so that successful students from the first
year can proceed to the next stage.
That progression would be denied by current arrangements,
in contrast to the safeguard arrangements made for A-Level
students during the change to AS /A2.
4.
The Progression Awards were
originally designed for a limited purpose and are rather narrowly
linked to single-skill NVQs; they actually offer limited access to
progression generally. When
evaluated against the new criteria for Modern Apprenticeship
‘Technical Certificates’, many in engineering were found
wanting. Vocational
education and training is a non-compulsory, competitive
marketplace. Not
enough work has yet been done to convince employers that, by
September 2002, these new products will offer the flexibility SMEs
need and will be ‘fit for their intended purpose’ – the
formal definition of quality.
We fully understand that there are detailed and
technical issues involved here, but that is not the essence of the
current problem. Those
matters can be resolved, given time, good will and co-operative
discussion. What
is needed now is a simple
extension of the funding approval for existing qualifications,
to give everyone time to solve the problems. The issues may be
equally pressing in other curriculum areas, but we do not presume
to speak for all. They
are, however, critical in the complex and resource-intensive engineering,
construction and technology area of vocational education and
training.
We urge you to take urgent action within your
Department, and with QCA, LSC and City and Guilds, drawing on
advice as necessary from ourselves and the Engineering Employers,
Training Organisations and Profession, to forestall the impending
chaos in the implementation of this otherwise very worthwhile
change.
Yours sincerely
Peter Swindlehurst
For the NFEC Executive.
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