Funding fears over first Diplomas

By Hannah Goff
Education reporter, BBC News

Tower Hamlets College will be one of the first to offer the ICT Diploma

Head teachers remain concerned about the delivery of the first set of Diplomas despite government attempts to bolster them, a teachers' union warns.

ASCL general secretary John Dunford said issues of funding and logistics still needed to be addressed.

His comments come as Schools Secretary Ed Balls began a charm offensive aimed at raising the profile of the five new Diplomas due to be on offer from 2008.

He told reporters the qualifications had the potential to be first class.

But head teachers' leader Mr Dunford said although he supported the Diplomas, which combine theoretical and practical learning in one qualification, concerns remained.

Without any doubt they are going to be more expensive than traditional A-levels John Dunford ASCL general secretary

"With the existing Diplomas there are issues of logistics and funding which need to be addressed.

"In terms of logistics I mean the challenge associated with moving students around different sites."

There could be as many as 20 different providers in the partnerships that deliver Diplomas, meaning that students would potentially have to go to 20 different locations.

He also claimed head teachers feared there may not be adequate funding for the qualifications in schools.

"Without any doubt they are going to be more expensive than traditional A-levels.

"That has to be recognised in the funding allocations for schools and colleges.

"If the government wants the Diplomas to be a success then schools will have to have the means for them to be done properly.

"Even among the people who have gone through the gateway - the ones who are going to offer the qualifications - there are people who have these concerns."

'Headstart'

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said the government was committed to funding the Diploma programme.

"We have already provided schools and colleges with funding specifically for applied learning and will be announcing further funding details in December."

Last week Mr Balls moved to strengthen the qualifications by saying three academic Diplomas would be on offer from 2011.

On Monday he met industry leaders involved in the development of the Information, Communication and Technology Diploma at Tower Hamlets College - one of the centres to offer the qualification from September 2008.

It was the first in a series of ministerial visits to see how the first five Diplomas are being implemented across the country.

"What employers are saying to me - and what I have heard today - is that the Diplomas will give pupils a headstart," he said.

"They will open up real opportunities for combining academic and practical options to allow every young person to make the most of their talents, whether they are progressing to further study, work or an apprenticeship."

He asked the gathering of IT and mobile phone company managers on the Diploma development partnership whether plans were on track.

They answered jointly with a resounding "yes".

'Trailblazing'

But one ICT boss said this was only to be expected as they were the ones responsible for preparing the qualification.

Gareth Cadwallader, of Airas Intersoft and chairman of the development partnership, said the Diploma was about bringing educators and business together in an integrated way.

He said a common theme among the 90 or so colleges and schools who applied but did not win approval to deliver the ICT Diploma was that they had approached it as a traditional computing qualification.

There was a misconception that the qualification aimed to produce students "who could use products like Excel and Word", he said.

"The Diploma is really about how to deploy technology to solve business problems," he added.

Linda Austin, head teacher of Swanlea School in Tower Hamlets - one of the schools due to deliver the ICT Diploma from September 2008 - said: "There is still a lot of reluctance about the Diploma because they're not tried and tested.

She said: "The worry is if we don't make them work then they won't be trusted."

There were some schools, particularly grammar schools, who are currently very sceptical about introducing them, she said. "But we are trailblazing them and we have the confidence that they can become a very high status qualification," she added.