‘Over complex’ school diplomas branded failure

The qualification was aimed at bridging the gap between academic and vocational learning and was intended as a serious alternative to GCSEs and A-levels.

It now looks set to be scrapped after just three full academic years despite large sums of public money being invested into it.

Since its launch in 2008, nine education authorities in Yorkshire spent £12,883,607 developing courses, training staff, creating facilities and delivering the qualification.

Figures provided to the Yorkshire Post also show that in some districts fewer than 20 students opted to take the diploma when it was launched. In Wakefield just five students took the diploma in 2008/09 after £181,000 had been spent developing courses.

In 2009/10 there were just over 3,000 students studying for diplomas across the region.

Sue Kirkham, the Association of School and College Leaders’ education policy expert, warned these students could now be left with a qualification which employers do not recognise in 10 years because it has been so short-lived. She said the diploma had been too complex and had not “represented value for money”.

Ministers have never axed the programme but Mrs Kirkham said the Government’s decision to stop the “per pupil funding” councils were given for the qualification and end a service which helped to co-ordinate the diploma meant it would not continue.

In order to earn a diploma pupils needed to complete study in their specialist industry area and pass “functional skills” tests in literacy, numeracy and information technology. Students could also carry out an extended project.

Because the diplomas could involve studying different components set by more than one exam board the National Diploma Aggregation Service was created to work out whether students had achieved all of the elements needed to earn the qualification.

Future government funding for this has now been cut and Mrs Kirkham said without it the exam boards would not be able to deliver the diploma in its current form. She also warned schools were suffering as a result of constant changes to the exam system.

“It happens with successive governments,” she said. “A Secretary of State comes in and develops something and it becomes their baby but then when they are replaced by another government the new Secretary of State... scraps it.”

She predicted some successful areas of the curriculum which had been developed as part of the diploma, such as engineering, might became stand-alone qualifications worth one GCSE.

Sheffield had one of the largest numbers of pupils studying for a National Diploma in the region with 563 in 2010//11. Around £2.3m was spent in the city delivering diplomas and another £120,000 on developing the courses before 2008/09.

Schools in Sheffield delivered diplomas in information technology, creative and media, engineering, construction and the built environment, society health and development, business administration and finance, manufacturing and product development, environment and land-based development, sport and active leisure and travel and tourism.

Nick Duggan, Sheffield Council’s assistant director for 14-19 education, said it was a frustration that funding had been stopped as schools and the council had worked closely with employers to develop the curriculum. He said employers had been pleased with the courses and diplomas had started to attract more academically able pupils into vocational education.

He added: “The Government is launching University Technical Colleges now to deliver vocational qualification and the first in the region will be in Sheffield, but these will be teaching 150 pupils in a year. With the diploma we would have been looking at around 800.” Diploma funding in Sheffield included the creation of a facility for the teaching of the society health and development diploma.

The National Diploma has not only been undermined by the cut to its direct funding but also by proposed changes to secondary school league tables. The Government want to end the system where qualifications can be worth several GCSEs and they have also said that a maximum of two non GCSE qualifications can count toward a school’s rankings.

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