Home > News > July 2004 > 16-Jul-2004

New measures of success

Consistent and fit for purpose measures of success for the whole learning and skills sector have moved closer with the publication of a new document.

New Measures of Success: Priorities for Development is the latest stage in the creation of the new success measures, and is published by the Learning and Skills Council along with the Department for Education and Skills, the Office for Standards in Education and the Adult Learning Inspectorate. It stems from a consultation which took place late last year, and sets clear priorities for development.

While all elements of the learning and skills sector have their own ways of indicating how successful a learner has been, these are not always compatible with each other. This work attempts to rectify that by producing an agreed set of measures which will clearly demonstrate a learner's achievement regardless of what type of course they have studied.

Priorities for Development identifies four streams for concentrated effort:

• Developing a new measure of learner success that can be applied to all providers
• Value-added and distance-travelled measures to compare level achieved with starting level
• New measures to support the delivery of the Skills Strategy
• Continued development of value-for-money indicators

"It is essential that measures are designed to recognise and celebrate learner achievements, while providing the framework to build on performance and continuous improvement", said Alan Johnson, Minister for Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education. "I am grateful to the LSC and the Inspectorates for their commitment to applying these measures. It is clear that this solid partnership has paved the way for informed judgements about quality and performance in the sector and particularly to learners."

Geoff Daniels, Director of Funding Policy and Development, LSC said, "We are proposing a way, for the first time, to recognise the real successes in gaining qualifications in post-16 education of all young people, including young people with poor or modest qualifications from school. We are also working on how we might develop a similar measure for adult based. The sector has been crying out for measures of value added building on those available now for A levels. By working with the Inspectorates, the DfES and many from colleges and providers in the sector we have made genuine progress. I am very grateful to all those who have worked with us."

David Singleton, Head of Post-Compulsory Education, Ofsted said, "Ofsted's aim is to help improve the quality and standards of education through independent inspection and regulation. The New Measures publication brings us much closer to that goal and should help us to improve still further the fairness and rigour of our inspections. We are very pleased to have participated in this work. "

David Sherlock, Chief Inspector, Adult Learning Inspectorate said,"Providers have long felt aggrieved by differences in definition of learner achievement between schools, colleges and work based learning providers. Those differences make the same performances appear much worse in work-based learning. We are delighted that a serious start has now been made in developing a standard description of success for the whole learning and skills sector."

Training and development books

Discover books on a variety of training and development topics at the Training Reference Bookshop

Source suppliers

Visit the Training Reference Directory to view supplier details for a wide range of courses, products and services.

Sponsored links

Back to top