QAAET Conference -Continuous Improvement - David Sherlock
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Transcript of QAAET Conference -Continuous Improvement - David Sherlock
Sunday, February 13, 2011 Quality Education & Training:
Towards a Better Future 1
Continuous
Improvement: Mission Impossible?
• Effective and efficient systems
• High investment in up-to-date resources
• Relevant, rigorous, consistent and transportable
qualifications
• Instructor qualification and continuous professional updating
• Motivation and guidance to improve the delivery and
management of programmes
Quality Education & Training:
Towards a Better Future
• Systems: government and employers
• Investment: government and providers
• Qualifications: employers and government
• Instructor
Effectiveness: providers and government
• Motivation: providers and government
• Government – the common factor and the
eternal optimist
Quality Education & Training:
Towards a Better Future
Today
Future
Self-Sustaining High Trust
High Investment High Control
Today
Future
A common government aspiration
A more probable reality at the provider level
Quality Education & Training:
Towards a Better Future
• 11 per cent of teaching sessions observed were
outstanding
• 49 per cent of work-based VET providers were
good or outstanding compared with 42 per cent
in 2008-09
• 56 per cent of colleges were good or
outstanding but, half had improved and half
declined in performance
• Of nine colleges previously considered
outstanding, six were not so now
Quality Education & Training:
Towards a Better Future
Quality Education & Training:
Towards a Better Future
Traditional inspection:
• Deploys experienced educators as inspectors
• Inspects at random intervals, prioritising poor
providers
• Uses professional judgement without a clear
framework for consistency
• Emphasises consensus-building with providers and an
advisory function
• Agrees reports with providers and maintains
confidentiality
• Concentrates on teacher performance
Quality Education & Training:
Towards a Better Future
Reformed inspection:
• Deploys occupational specialists to evaluate their own professional areas
• Inspects on a fixed cycle, good and bad alike
• Uses a common framework to achieve consistent judgements
• Summarises judgements in numerical grades which can be tracked for trends
• Comprises dialogue between regular self-assessment and periodic independent review
• Publishes reports to inform market forces
• Concentrates on the effectiveness of learning and management
• Sets objective targets for improvement
Quality Education & Training:
Towards a Better Future
• Occupational specialists in VET seldom available as
public servants
• A fixed cycle of annual self-assessment and four-yearly
inspection is demanding and expensive
• Grading is a crude expression of professional judgement
• Observation of teaching and learning and publication of
inspection reports imply lack of trust in professionals
• A market-driven system implies some failure among
providers
• Inspectors do not have sufficient control over provision to
be held responsible for improvement
Quality Education & Training:
Towards a Better Future
• Remit for England
• All adult VET including colleges (over 18), work-
based learning, adult community learning, welfare-
to-work, national e-learning, armed services,
criminal justice system
• Developed the Reformed Inspection model
• 5 million learners; 2,000 providers; 150 inspectors;
500 associate inspectors; 100 management and
support staff; single national office with advanced
national ICT; average cost £15 million a year
Quality Education & Training:
Towards a Better Future
Quality Education & Training:
Towards a Better Future
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
2001-02 2002-03 2003-04 2004-05 2005-06
% Adequate providers
NVQ Success Rate
Excellent Providers
• 2001-02: 24 providers of 480 inspected good or
outstanding (grades 1 and 2); 80 providers
inadequate (grade 4) in all respects
• Best providers in 2001-02: military training
establishments, engineering specialists, employers
training their own staff
• Learner achievement in 2001-02: engineering
apprentices best at 59%, catering worst at 16%
• 2005-06: 151 good or outstanding providers and 24
inadequate
• 250 providers out of business or merged
Quality Education & Training:
Towards a Better Future
• A flexible mass VET system is vulnerable to
poor performance
• To achieve radical improvement all the quality
drivers have to be effective; governments have
a key role in investment, co-ordination and
creation of a sense of shared national
enterprise
• Employers must be centrally involved in
standards-setting and as providers
• The main driver of outstanding VET is
work-based learning and apprenticeship
Quality Education & Training:
Towards a Better Future
• The main connection between government and
providers
• Honest reporting of what they find – and
influence over government policy and
allocation of funding
• Independence: earned trust
• A focus on helping providers, employers and
learners to succeed – not criticising and walking
away
Quality Education & Training:
Towards a Better Future
The Transformational Diamond
Aspiration
Assessment Accumulation
Assistance
© Sherlock and Perry. Quality Improvement in Adult Vocational Education & Training, 2008
Quality Education & Training:
Towards a Better Future
• Start with any facet
• Transparency of Assessment with self-
assessment and inspection developing mutually
agreed evidence and judgements
• No adverse judgement without subsequent
support and re-assessment
• Shared good practice so that improvement is
cumulative
• Constant celebration of providers’ and learners’
success
Quality Education & Training:
Towards a Better Future
www.beyondstandards.co.uk
Sunday, February 13, 2011 Quality Education & Training:
Towards a Better Future 17