Today, Ofqual has launched a consultation on the assessment of vocational and technical qualifications for Summer 2020. This can be found here. Open Awards will be responding and we encourage all relevant stakeholders to do so where they can as this will help to inform the approach we take to awarding learners their vocational qualifications this summer.
In the meantime, we have updated our FAQs on our website as best we can at this stage.
This consultation covers the majority of Open Awards qualifications including Functional Skills, Skills for Further Learning and Employment suite, and our full range of vocational qualifications at Entry Level - Level 5.
We are committed to ensuring that all learners who were due to complete a qualification this year are supported to do so. Alongside this consultation, we are continuing to work closely with Ofqual and other awarding organisations to identify the most appropriate method for awarding qualifications that were due to be completed this summer. This could include estimation of grades, or adaptation to assessments depending on the qualification level, purpose and progression routes.
We have asked all our centres to not delay an assessment to next academic year, or extend a course end date, without contacting us first to discuss alternative arrangements for you to be assessed this Summer as planned.
Where your centre is able to administer assessments in the usual way, then these can continue as normal. If your education provider is unable to administer assessments, or you are unable to access these, then we will be looking at alternative arrangements to award learners the qualifications they would have achieved.
We will publish further guidance for specific qualifications as soon as we are able to. In the meantime we encourage you to continue with your education/learning as much as possible as this is the best way to ensure you are ready to progress to your next level of education.
If you have any concerns, we encourage you to speak to your education provider in the first instance as they will be best placed to support you with next steps.