30 March 2004

What I've heard and seen today, is both inspiring and daunting in the challenges and opportunities it presents us as professionals in the learning business.

In this room we have policy makers, providers, developers, funders, researchers, experts and, of course, many of my team from QCA itself - regulators. But despite our different takes on e-learning and e-assessment, I believe we are all very much in the same business, which is to get more people engaged in high-quality learning which is fit-for-purpose and which delivers personal benefits to the learner, as well as wider societal and economic benefits to the community.

The QCA, as the regulator of the curriculum and qualifications system has, I believe, a particular burden of responsibility in that, without tremendous care and strategic consideration, we have the capability of becoming a sea anchor on progress.

The reason we have called this conference together today, and the reason we will be bringing together an audience next month to talk about the future of e-assessment in the schools arena, is to ensure three things:

• That we understand, and share understanding of, the sheer potential of e-learning and e-assessment in driving uptake and participation in high quality learning experiences.
  
• That we send a strong signal to educationalists, awarding bodies, funders, sector skills councils and others who will chart the course of learning over the next decade, that we want to regulate strategically to enable and motivate developments which will nurture such potential. Sea change rather than sea anchor.
  
• And finally, to start (with a wide range of partners) a constructive dialogue about the things we might need to do so that learners and employers can easily distinguish high quality, meaningful e-learning and e-assessment and that valid learning achievements can be recognised.

Let me start by talking about the wider context of vocational learning and qualifications.

We have, at present, a system based on the concept of a National Qualifications Framework. This is a system which is focussed on the achievement of quite large bundles of learning - whole qualifications, which Government measures in equivalence to GCSEs or A levels. Thus, a so-called full-fat Level 2 NVQ is equivalent to 5 good GCSEs.

It is a system which assumes that learners and employers value and want qualifications, which is probably only partly the case.

It is also a system which, by being allowed to grow like topsy, has become unwieldy and incomprehensible to many of the people we want to buy in to it. Progression routes are not obvious, the level and size of qualifications are not widely understood, and there is little co-relation of standards between different sectors or occupations.

A simple look at the proportion of learning which is going on outside the framework suggests that the current NQF is not fit-for-purpose. It is not at present capable of recognising all the learning that employers and individuals want to undertake.

This analysis is not new to anyone in this room. In fact QCA with partners has already been charged by Ministers to undertake a wholesale review of vocational qualifications and learning and last year's Skills Strategy re-emphasised the point.

The review is leading us now to think less in terms of a Framework of Qualifications, more a framework for recognising achievement which we feel is a much more inclusive and flexible way of considering a progressive approach to learning.

We are also looking at underpinning such a framework with a system of credits which measure the size or weight of learning achieved. This means we can start to categorise learning outcomes with two dimensions - the level, which signifies the challenge or demand, and the credit rating which signifies the size or length of time spent learning.

If we can create this sort of broad architecture and achieve some accepted nomenclature around learning outcomes, I believe we will have the makings of a powerful learning structure which will have real currency for learners, their parents and employers.

There is, of course, a concurrent review of the 14-19 phase being conducted by Mike Tomlinson. This presents the real prospect of a joined up framework for recognising achievement from 14-19. That is the goal we are working towards.

Although we fully expect to be entering unit and credit based qualifications into the framework over the next few months, it may take up to a decade for full reform to work through the system.

If I look back ten years, we were just getting used to our in-trays being full of faxes instead of telexes, and a day like today would have involved hundreds of pounds worth of slides being made up and mounted in carousels to illustrate our presentations. Today we rely on the person who knows how to plug the laptop into the projector - then the top dog was the one who knew for certain which way up to put the slide in the carousel.

The point I'm making is that technology has changed our lives profoundly in the last ten years and there is no doubt in my mind that similar seismic shifts will take place in the next ten years.

The challenge for us as regulators is not so much to second-guess the technologies which will prevail in ten years' time as to find ways to make our approach flexible, progressive and responsive so that we embrace and motivate change where it benefits learners.

The teenagers of the future, who may be among the first candidates to take new diplomas, are six-year-olds today. They have just started primary school but are already learning to spell and read from computers, and they are already manipulating images onscreen.

The days of families sitting around the fireplace playing Scrabble and Monopoly are being replaced by sibling rivalry over who will be first to reach the next level of a computer game. Today's six-year-old is a 'digital native', perhaps more familiar with a Graphical User Interface than with pen and paper.

These technological advances open up a whole new vista of learning possibilities, as we have seen and heard today. Even today, via City & Guilds', impressive Global on-line assessment system, the woven product of a student in Brazil might be shown on-line to an assessor in Singapore, who can ask for knot four on the nineteenth row down to be shown on screen, and then for the camera to show the reverse side.

MBA hopefuls all over the world will be taking their GMAT tests on-line having booked into a centre at their own convenience. The test programme will generate questions which will get progressively more difficult as the candidate scores correct answers. Or the questions will get easier if the candidate scores incorrect answers. At the end of the test, they will get a print-out letting them know their score -immediately.

These are just two examples which illustrate the power and reach of e-assessment. But let's just nail the benefits:

• First, e-assessment makes assessment more accessible physically by being potentially on-line, on-demand. This is the most obvious benefit. No need for scheduled exam dates and places. Simply turn up at a LearnDirect centre, a library, a pub even, which has the relevant facilities. Access the assessment on-line and receive immediate feedback. Potentially, with sophisticated recognition techniques, e-assessment could conceivably be reliably undertaken in a candidate's own home, assuming acceptable levels of reliability that the candidate really is who they say they are have been established.
  
• Second, e-assessment makes assessment more accessible by being potentially more acceptable and less threatening to learners. When doing a test feels more like playing a video game, a whole generation of exam-allergic learners may willingly seek to have their achievements and learning recognised formally.
  
• Third, technology means that totally new forms of assessment which might be more appropriate, more challenging, more diverse can be achieved on-line. E-assessment literally adds a new dimension to assessment, falling in between physical assessment of skills or competence and traditional paper and pen examinations. New assessment potential means new skills development potential. In the long term this may mean profound changes to the national curriculum but, in today's context, it could change the face of vocational learning both in schools and in the workplace.
  
• Last, but by no means least, e-assessment will itself drive the development of e-learning. I don't think there will be anyone in the audience who has not had their eyes opened today by the sheer power and potential power of e-learning. No one who has listened to our speakers and test-driven some of the materials on display could fail to understand that e-learning can and will have a profound effect on work-based learning. But we cannot tolerate a situation where someone who has completed a programme of learning in their own time, at their own pace, has to book in for a paper and pen exam at the local college in order for that learning to be recognised.

We even have to wonder whether needing to go anywhere to complete an assessment is acceptable. I believe we should be prepared to rely on formative assessment embedded in e-learning programmes to recognise learning and this will present yet another set of challenges to consider.

So let me try to set out some basic principles for QCA and our partners as we navigate this challenging territory:

• Most importantly, we will at all times champion the cause of the learner. For every first-class piece of e-learning that has been developed there are probably ten or more carelessly constructed examples. QCA will champion only the highest quality materials which offer genuine learning and advancement of skills and knowledge.
  
• Make no mistake, QCA intends to be a champion for e-learning and e-assessment. We will drive the take up of learning and qualifications by new initiatives in e-assessment and e-learning.
  
• In this territory we will play gate-opener not gate-keeper. We will seek new models of regulation which will enable progress and we will be open to innovative ideas and concepts.
  
• We will develop new guidelines which encourage and enable e-assessment wherever it is appropriate and effective. We will do this with your help and partnership. How should we best provide guidance on the capture of digital evidence in an e-portfolio? How do we identify and authenticate a candidate carrying out basic skills assessment in a library compared with one taking a qualification for the nuclear power industry? We expect to develop proactive relationships with Awarding Bodies, Sector Skills Councils, Ufi/LearnDirect and many other partners as we develop our thinking.
  
• We have today, in effect, launched a dialogue with the industry to consider how learning which has been conducted electronically, and which has embedded formative assessment, might be recognised formally. We want learners and employers to be able to distinguish between e-learning that uses the best principles of instructional design, which embraces the assess-train-assess models, and which genuinely offers fit-for-purpose learning with no false promises.
  
• As we develop our new framework for recognising achievement and the system of credits which will underpin it, we will ensure that it embraces the potential for e-learning and e-credits.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we are embarking on a programme of profound change and development. We do not have qualifications deficits, we have skills deficits. If we fail to embrace the potential of e-learning and e-assessment today, we will be creating a potentially unbreachable chasm between the public and private sector.

The QCA is about strategic regulation, and we intend to be a powerful agent of change in the interests of the millions of people who can enhance their lives and potential through these new forms of learning and assessment.

Ken Boston