2018 PUBLISHED BY IN PARTNERSHIP WITH 2 www.pearson.com NICDEX 2018 launched, but it flopped. The remnants of the Framework NICDEX 2018 is here, for Excellence still exist to this day, in the form of the annual learner and employer satisfaction but why create a surveys (known as FE Choices for no obvious reason). So in 2016 I decided to have a go college league table? at a balanced score-card approach, and the NICDEX was born. Was it possible to make a college league table from DfE Nick Linford education college in South East London, I statistics, which was fair and not @nicklinford also became responsible for all aspects of overly complex? performance reporting. You will be the judge of that. For seven enjoyable years I crunched Most importantly NICDEX is he NICDEX is back for it’s third year. ILR data and was paid to turn it into transparent. The four measures At its simplest, it is a list of nearly meaningful information to help junior and that make up the NICDEX are Tall further education colleges, each senior managers make well informed and published by the DfE, and unlike given points for a basket of official DfE ultimately successful decisions. achievement rates they are hard performance measures. Then, in 2010 I wrote a book about FE to game (see page 3). Clearly, by listing the colleges in order data, called The hands-on guide to post-16 The measures are also updated of points, with the most first, it becomes a performance and data, which was published every year by the DfE, unlike league table. by Pearson (see right). Ofsted grades (see page 3). As a result, the NICDEX has generated a At the same time the funding agency Aside from selecting the lot of interest and opinion in equal measure, attempted to create a new performance measures, the main challenge even making the local news for Exeter regime, that they called the Framework for (some may say controversy) was College, who came top in both 2016 and 2017. Excellence. to devise a scoring system. performance table from a mix But my interest in FE data and It was to be a balanced score-card The NICDEX system is not perfect, but of measures. performance measure began in 2003, when approach, drawing on a range of measures with bonus points it does take account of But it is also a serious attempt to I joined Lewisham College as Director of to arrive at an overall score for the college. cohort size and with it being a score out of encourage colleges to look beyond Planning and Performance. Before it was launched, the idea of an 10, it is fairly easy to understand when it achievement rates, and really focus on Prior to that point, working for the WEA overall score was dropped, and from that comes to adding the four scores together to increasing satisfaction and progression. and two private training providers, my point it was destined to fail. arrive at an overall score out of 40. Who knows, in a few years from now focus had been on the funding methodology. Tens of millions was spent by the DfE, The NICDEX was an enjoyable they may even feature in the funding But at the college, a large general further a Framework for Excellence website was intellectual challenge, to create an annual methodology. Now that’s worth a debate! With Pearson as your expert partner, we’ll support you every step of the way in delivering successful apprenticeships. On-programme learning support: Mandatory and optional qualifications We know Maths and English qualifications apprenticeships Range of paid-for learning and training resources End-point assessment (EPA) service: Transform every aspect of your Comprehensive end-to-end EPA delivery supported by our dedicated EPA team apprenticeships journey with Tools and training to help you understand and prepare Pearson as your expert partner your apprentices for EPA Experience high quality at all time Training support: Training and CPD events Free advice and guidance events to help navigate the new standards Resources for practicing and preparing for EPA Visit quals.pearson.com/newapprenticeships for more information Y537 @PEARSON_UK @FEWEEK WWW.FEWEEK.CO.UK 3 FE sector needs to move away from achievement rates hen the NICDEX was launched for the rest of the provider and sector go up. in 2016 I explained that it was an It’s a game of simple mathematics, in Weasy decision to not include any which no teaching has improved but the achievement rate tables. average achievement rate has risen. Given how heavily provider achievement That’s not to say achievement rates are rates are relied upon by Ofsted and the not important, but as shown below in the ESFA intervention regime, this may have case of 3aaa, they are easy to manipulate. come as a surprise, but as it was explained They can also be a distraction from other at the time: “an overall all-age, level and important measures, such as progression sector achievement rates tells you little to into work where that was the purpose of nothing about how good a college is. the course, to prepare somebody for work. “For example, the shorter the course, the It was important to me that the NICDEX higher the typical achievement rate”. did not add to the problem, so for that My book, The hands-on guide to post-16 reason achievement rates are not included. performance and data, included a chapter I have also not included Ofsted grades in about the credibility of success rates (now the NICDEX, partly because I believe the called achievement rates). inspectorate too often relies on published It included a graph (see right) which achievement rates as well as in-year showed the extraordinary rise from 53 per unverified figures that colleges give them. cent to 80 per cent in just 11 years. However, my decision to exclude Ofsted The reason was fairly simple, the grades mainly stems from the problem that inspection and funding regime encouraged they do not inspect every year, inspections higher and higher achievement rates. are irregular and it can be up to a decade Take for example, the current before a college is reinspected. intervention regime, minimum standards. FE Week reported recently (edition 261), The minimum standard calculation is the number of full inspections in the year to designed to identify low achievement rates, 31 August 2018 fell a whopping 32 per cent. Extract from The hands-on guide to post-16 and the ESFA will then tell providers they So the duration between full inspections performance and data, about achievement rates can no longer deliver those courses. are only getting longer, making their So provision with a lower than average judgements of the college sector as a whole achievement rate ends, and all other things even less reliable at any given point in Treasury care less about quals being equal the average achievement rates time. than positive progression 3aaa satisfaction scores In 2009, shortly after the recession began, When the Association of Colleges fights I warned about reliance on success rates for more funding, what do the Treasury (since then renamed as achievement want to pay for, more qualifications or tell a very different story rates) in an article penned for the TES. more people off benefits and into work? I wrote: “in a target and performance After a change in the law allowing Aspire Achieve Advance (3aaa) was 20 percentage points. culture obsessed by qualification for data sharing between government awarded an Ofsted grade one in 2014 for But take at look at 3aaa satisfaction outcomes, there is a risk that progression departments, outcome-based performance success rates that were “extremely high scores (below), well below national into work is lost sight of and that the measures were introduced in 2014 and are and well above the national rate.” averages. completion of a qualification could even used in the NICDEX (see pages 12 to 15). In 2018, Ofsted inspected 3aaa for a The FE Choices satisfaction survey delay entry to work.” But just how seriously are they being second time and had planned to award results do not come from the ILR and so And the continued focus on taken, when (with the exception of another grade one. they are very hard to manipulate. achievement rates came at the same time traineeships) 100 per cent of 16-to-18 and FE Week have revealed, we now know This to some extent validates why as massive national budget cuts to adult Adult Education Budget (AEB) funding these high achievement rates were the satisfaction surveys, rather than courses, with the exception of employed is paid for qualification delivery and achieved after data manipulation by 3aaa achievement rates, are included in the people on apprenticeships. assessment? staff, which inflated them by more than NICDEX. Surely shifting the performance Unsurprisingly, most of the devolved metrics away from qualifications to mayoral areas are looking to introduce Learner satisfaction progression, into work for example, it some outcome-based AEB funding, Academic year 3aaa score Private training provider average score 3aaa % point diff would be easier to persuade the Treasury something that the national funding 2017/18 61.1 88.5 -27.4 to invest? agencies should have done years ago. 2016/17 71.1 90 -18.9 2015/16 71.7 89.6 -17.9 Employer satisfaction Academic year 3aaa score Private training provider average score 3aaa % point diff 2017/18 78.6 87.8 -9.2 2016/17 86.1 88.1 -2 2015/16 67.6 83.9 -16.3 Nick Linford, TES 2009: https://tinyurl.com/ycykjyoe 4 www.pearson.com NICDEX 2018 How to interpret the NICDEX he NICDEX 2018 measures and scoring and those that do are simply positioned in system is unchanged from last year.