Post-16 Reform is Moving Fast, but is Assessment Keeping up?

Dean Blewitt, Senior Innovation and Investments Manager at the awarding organisations NCFE, explains why assessment must continue to keep pace with sector reforms if learners are to achieve the outcomes they deserve.  

The post-16 education system is entering a period of significant change. The Government’s reforms have set out proposals to simplify qualification pathways, strengthen progression routes, and align skills provision more closely with employer needs. 

This reflects a broader drive to ensure education supports economic growth and opportunity. Alongside these developments, however, there is a need to consider how assessment itself must evolve to remain fit for purpose. 

While much of the reform conversation appropriately focusses on qualification types, routes, and funding approval, comparatively less visible attention has been given to how assessment will operate within this evolving landscape.  

Yet changes to what is taught and how learners progress inevitably raises fundamental questions about how achievement is defined, evidenced, and recognised. Assessment is not a neutral component of the system – it actively shapes teaching, learning, and learner outcomes. 

Credible, transparent, and aligned to real-world expectations 

Recent evidence highlights both the importance of vocational pathways and the complexity of measuring success within them. Work by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) emphasises the critical role that essential employment skills (such as communication, problem-solving and information literacy) are likely to play in future labour markets.  

These skills, identified through the NFER’s Skills Imperative 2035 programme, cut across academic and vocational routes and reinforce the need for assessment that captures broader capability, not just knowledge recall. 

Complementing this, the latest wave of the Perceptions of Vocational and Technical Qualifications survey, commissioned by Ofqual and conducted by YouGov, delivers up-to-date evidence of how learners, providers, and employers view vocational and technical qualifications (VTQs) and their assessments.  

The findings point to strong understanding of VTQs across stakeholder groups and highlight ongoing interest in how qualifications support recruitment and training decisions. This reinforces the importance of ensuring that assessment remains credible, transparent, and aligned to real-world expectations. 

Impact of generative AI 

Together, these insights point to a system where the value of vocational learning is widely recognised, but where that value ultimately depends on how it is assessed and evidenced. As a result, the mechanisms of assessment, and how they evolve, remain focal points for discussion.  

As pathways like T Levels and the new V Levels emerge, there is a dual need to ensure that assessment aligns with policy intent and that it accurately reflects what learners know and can do in dynamic contexts. 

At the same time, the rapid development and impact of generative AI is prompting renewed focus on assessment design. Research funded through NCFE’s Assessment Innovation Fund and delivered by The Open University found that many commonly used assessment types are susceptible to AI-generated responses, with some achieving passing marks.  

Attempts to detect AI use also present challenges, reinforcing the need to design assessments that remain robust in the context of emerging technologies. 

This points towards a clear direction of travel: assessment tasks will increasingly need to emphasise judgement, context-specific responses, and authentic performance. Approaches such as observation, professional discussion, and integrated in-programme assessment are likely to play a more prominent role alongside traditional methods. 

We continue to explore how AI might support assessment in practice, including applications that could enhance aspects of marking, feedback, and question design. These activities are grounded in the principle that technology should enhance, not replace, professional judgement, with transparency and governance remaining central to maintaining trust. 

Given the scale of reform, there is a clear opportunity to strengthen the evidence base around assessment. This includes understanding how different approaches perform for diverse learners, how assessment supports progression, and how it aligns with employer expectations. Such evidence is critical in ensuring that assessment remains fair, reliable, inclusive, and relevant. 

Shaped through collaboration 

One of the most effective ways to build this evidence is through collaborative innovation. Partnerships between awarding organisations, providers, employers and researchers enable new approaches to be tested in controlled, transparent ways.  

This collaborative approach ensures that innovation is not only developed but robustly tested – balancing the need for progress with the responsibility to protect learners and maintain system confidence. It also enables insight to be generated at scale, supporting more informed decision-making across the sector. 

Ultimately, the success of any qualification system depends not only on its structure, but on how effectively it recognises what learners know and can do. Assessment is central to this.  

As the post-16 landscape continues to evolve, there is a clear responsibility across the sector to ensure that assessment keeps pace and remains grounded in evidence, shaped through collaboration, and designed to support fair and meaningful outcomes for all learners. 

By Dean Blewitt, Senior Innovation and Investments Manager at NCFE