Exclusive: The millions wasted on failed diploma courses

The Yorkshire Post can reveal more than £12m of taxpayers’ cash went into creating and delivering National Diploma courses across the region which education bosses now fear have no future.

The money was given to councils and schools from the Government to launch its flagship 14-to-19 National Diploma qualification which combined academic study with work-based learning in industries ranging from engineering and manufacturing to sport and leisure and hair and beauty.

The qualification was designed to compete with GCSEs and A-levels, but only three years after it was launched, and with only a small number of students opting to take it, it is set to be abandoned.

The National Diploma could be studied at different levels with a higher level for 14-to-16-year-olds worth seven good GCSE passes and the advanced diploma, which could be taken by sixth formers, said to be the equivalent of three-and-half A-level passes.

Although the Government has not abolished the qualification, several councils and a body representing school leaders told the Yorkshire Post they did not expect it to be able to continue beyond next year after the withdrawal of per pupil funding for diploma courses by the Government and proposed changes to school league tables which will not recognise them as being worth seven GCSEs. Exam boards AQA, City and Guilds and Edexcel are to stop offering the qualification.

Figures from nine of the region’s 15 education authorities show £12.8m was spent on developing the diploma curriculum, creating new facilities, training staff and delivering courses. This includes £3.8m being spent in Barnsley, more than £2.4m being spent in Sheffield and another £2m in the East Riding.

In 2008/09 fewer than 1,000 students chose to take a National Diploma in Yorkshire, across the three year groups at either level, and there were just 3,000 students studying for one across the region in 2009/10. This is compared with around 60,000 students in one school year who sit GCSEs in the region every summer. Nationally fewer than 10,000 GCSE level diplomas were completed this year .

Dennis Richards, head of St Aidan’s CE High in Harrogate, said: “The problem is the diploma was flawed from the start. The diploma was delivered by groups of schools with each one acting as a hub for a subject. It was hugely impractical in a large county like North Yorkshire to have a handful of children being taxied from one school to another.

“All of the schools involved had to timetable the same two days for the diploma for a small group of pupils. It was the best case of a tiny tail wagging a huge dog that you will ever see and councils had to employ someone just to co-ordinate the transport of pupils.”

The East Riding was the only council in the region to provide a breakdown of the costs of transferring pupils between schools to study the diploma. These showed almost £250,000 was spent in three years, and in its first year £42,699 was spent on transport when just 17 pupils across the East Riding were studying for a diploma.

Mr Richards also questioned how the qualification could be worth seven GCSEs.