Friday Round Up 17 March 2023

I published an article on the complexities of the apprenticeship system this week, which readers may find interesting.

IfATE have published their EDI toolkit. As many of you know I do keep banging the drum about the agencies needing to work together on apprenticeships, so it was good to see statements such as support compliance with existing regulatory or legal requirements such as Ofqual’s General Conditions of Recognition. Whilst it does not directly say that they have worked with Ofqual on this, I am hopeful it is a step in the right direction to joined up working and thinking (they forgot to put page numbers on the strategy, but it is page 9 when viewing electronically, if you want to find out more).

It was the annual apprenticeship conference this week and I was lucky enough to attend and spend time with a many fabulous EpAOs. It was great to see the results (and pictures) of all the award winners. The highlights are on LinkedIn and attendees own websites, but you can also access Amanda Spielman's (Ofsted) speech and Catherine Large's (Ofqual) speech here, which has some useful hints and tips, alongside details of future publications (guidance and data). However, I do disagree with Ofqual's point "there remains a healthy market of 140 regulated awarding organisations who offer end point assessments, offering plenty of choice to training providers":

• Firstly the choice of EpAO is supposed to rest with the employer not training provider (ESFA Funding Rules P161). Please please please, can Ofqual/ESFA/IfATE work together so that employers, providers and EpAOs are not misled!
• Secondly, we have fallen from a peak of 325 EpAOs in March 2021 (222 of which would have been in scope of Ofqual) to just 140, so the EpAO market place has shrunk.
• Thirdly, there are 46 standards with out an EpAO (a further 38 without an EpAO, but an EpAO in principle) and approx 280 standards, 41% of standards, with just 1 EpAO (the reason I say 'approx' is because this figure gets confusing when digging down into the version numbers of standards as some EpAOs are not approved for all versions of the standards).

The data does not appear to support a statement of a market with "plenty of choice" (data extracted from the register of EpAOs and list of standards on this webpage)

Ofqual consultation on their proposed regulatory approach for entry level, level 1 and level 2 qualifications supporting progression to higher levels of study in England (Consultation closes 25 May)

Vocational and other qualifications quarterly: October to December 2022

Updated application forms for RoATP

There does not appear to have been an ESFA Update this week.

Round Up produced by Jacqui, following searches across a range of websites

Jacqui Molkenthin, JEML Consulting

Providing EpAO specialist support for development, quality, compliance, and growth

[email protected], 07951 616 065