In this month’s Skills for Life and Employability news:

• On-demand paper tests – please bear with us…
• New Employability qualification (7546) – look out for our launch events
• ESOL Skills for Life – mutual recognition of other awarding bodies’ units
• Time extensions on GOLA now self-service
• From the people who brought you Basic Skills Bulletin…

Skills for Life and Employability news is published every month and contains all the latest information and updates about City & Guilds’ learner qualifications designed to support the Skills for Life and Employability strategies in England, Essential Skills for Living strategy in Northern Ireland and National Basic Skills Strategy for Wales.

A downloadable (PDF) version of the newsletter (for printing and/or circulating to colleagues) is available below. A full archive of previous issues  is also available.

On-demand paper tests – please bear with us…

Our new On-demand system for accessing paper-based adult numeracy/literacy national tests has a number of important advantages over the old fixed-date and ‘weekly’ test systems it has replaced, not least the ability to make unnamed entries and scope to run multiple test sittings over the course of a week.

However, you may have noticed that we have had a few teething problems with the new system, and we can only apologise for any inconvenience this has caused. We are working with our Data, Supply and Systems teams to iron these out as quickly as possible, although in the meantime could we remind you about the importance of keeping all materials relating to a particular test sitting together.

As we have indicated in the last few issues of Skills for Life and Employability news, where you have more than one group of candidates taking the same test at different times (even on the same day), we would advise you to treat these as separate Batch orders. Unfortunately, in a few cases our processing systems have amalgamated batches together onto one Invigilation Certificate and supplied the same test paper for both groups! Needless to say, we are working to fix this although in the meantime if you find this has happened it is acceptable to split the pack as necessary, as long as all completed answer sheets and the Invigilation Certificate are returned to City & Guilds together.

Please also bear in mind that all On-demand test papers must be returned to City & Guilds, or destroyed, immediately after use.

New Employability qualification (7546) – look out for our launch events

We’re planning a series of launch events for our new Award and Certificate in Employability and Personal Development (7546). Dates confirmed so far are:

• London – Monday 16 June 2008
• Cardiff – Tuesday 17 June 2008
• Glasgow – 24 June 2008
• Birmingham – 27 June 2008.

For more information and to book your place, contact our National Events team at customer_events@cityandguilds.com.

We’re delighted to report that the new qualification has received formal support from Asset Skills  (as Sector Skills Council with lead responsibility for employability) and is currently going through the QCF accreditation process. Subject to regulator accreditation, both the Award and Certificate versions of the qualification will be available from the end of June.

Although 7546 is intended to replace our Certificate in Preparing for Employment (3797), we are also seeking to extend 3797 until June 2009. Again, this is subject to regulator approval.

ESOL Skills for Life – mutual recognition of other awarding bodies’ units

As you’re probably aware, all awarding bodies’ ESOL Skills for Life qualifications are based on common standards (the Adult Literacy national standards and QCA’s ‘ESOLness’ criteria).
Assessment models vary between the eight ESOL Skills for Life awarding bodies (eg ours involve assignments or portfolios), although all assess the same range of language skills and are on the National Qualifications Framework.

Since September 2006 City & Guilds has recognised prior achievement of individual ESOL Skills for Life mode units completed with other awarding bodies towards achievement of our full-mode ESOL Skills for Life (3692) qualification (see Issue 10 of Skills for Life news). For example, a learner who has already completed another awarding body’s Reading and Writing assessments would only need to complete our Speaking & Listening assessment to be awarded a full ESOL Skills for Life qualification.

Although QCA has recently written to all ESOL Skills for Life awarding bodies instructing them to allow mutual recognition, we understand that City & Guilds is currently the only awarding body to do so.

All mode units achieved with other awarding bodies must in all cases be evidenced by the original Certificate of Unit Credit (or similar). The procedure for checking prior achievement of the adult literacy national test (see page 15 our ESOL Skills for Life qualification handbook) must be followed, although there are no separate ‘proxy’ components to claim when submitting results – the normal component number should be claimed as if the candidate had passed our assessment.

Please note inter-recognition is only permitted where candidates have still to achieve at least one of the three mode units; candidates cannot be awarded the full-mode qualification more than once with different awarding bodies.

Please also be aware that mutual recognition applies only to ESOL Skills for Life, and not the Certificate in ESOL for Work (3694).

Time extensions on GOLA now self-service

Where candidates taking the national tests online using GOLA are entitled to additional time for Access reasons, this can now be set up locally without needing to arrange each individual case with our Policy and Regulation team. It’s now possible to enable a standard 25% time extension, either whilst scheduling the test or at any time before the scheduled start-time.

Any non-standard time extensions for more than 25% still need to be requested in advance and arranged with Policy and Regulation (cas@cityandguilds.com). 

Please remember that a copy of the evidence supporting any Access arrangements should be retained by your centre. Please complete form Access 3 and submit to Data Management, City & Guilds by the end of the month in which the test took place. The form is available from www.cityandguilds.com/policy.

From the people who brought you Basic Skills Bulletin…

Finally, could we draw your attention to a new publication that is launching in a couple of months’ time by Simon Boyd Publishing (who also produce Basic Skills Bulletin).

Workplace Learning and Skills Bulletin is a new publication aimed at all who provide or support workplace and work-based learning and skills. With the Leitch Review identifying World Class skills as critical to the UK’s competitiveness and productivity, initiatives like Train to Gain and Apprenticeships continue to grow in importance, this publication aims to keep you up-to-date on key developments with informed coverage of policy and practice.

As with Basic Skills Bulletin, City & Guilds is represented on this new Bulletin’s advisory editorial board; however we have no responsibility for any views published in the Bulletin.

Workplace Learning and Skills Bulletin will be published quarterly from June 2008.
Annual subscription is £75 for 4 issues, although there’s a special 10% ‘early bird’ discount (where you only pay £67.50 for the first year).

For more information and to order contact:
CIRCA Subscriptions Ltd
Tel:  01223 564334
Fax: 01223 354643
Email:  workplace@circaworld.com