Preparing for Approved HTQ status at Levels 4 and 5: Does it Augur well for your HTQs?
Everyone who works in further education and training will be aware of the technical educational reform that has swept through the sector in recent years.
Rooted in the recommendations of the 2016 Sainsbury review, we’ve seen the introduction of the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE), occupational standards (set by trailblazer employer panels) and a new suite of technical qualifications linked to them: T Levels and Apprenticeships.
The standards ensure that we are preparing individuals of all ages for the workplace, developing their knowledge, skills, behaviours and competencies. We are preparing individuals for today’s workplace and giving them the skills to adapt to future jobs.
Much of that reform has focused on Level 3, but the reforms don’t stop there. If you’re delivering higher education (HE) qualifications – and there is substantial provision within further education (FE) settings including HNCs, HNDs, foundation degrees, degree-level qualifications and a whole range of short courses at Levels 4 and 5 – change is coming, and it’s time to start preparing.
HTQs: reflecting on the benefits
It’s worth taking a minute to remember the value of higher technical qualifications (HTQs).
Chris Fairclough, ETF and Royal Commission Technical Teaching Fellow and Curriculum Operations Leader in the Higher Engineering, Science and Nuclear Department at Lakes College, gained his BEng in Nuclear Plant Operations and Processes through a day-release programme sponsored by his employer, Sellafield.
In what was, effectively, a trailblazer for higher apprenticeships, Chris developed the skills and behaviours he needed through work-based training and gained technical knowledge through both his university study and his onsite experience:
“By the time I got to 24, I had almost completed my Bachelor’s degree but I also had five years of industry experience behind me as well. That gave me an advantage over graduates joining the company, for example, because I knew how the company worked.”
The design principle for Chris’s degree course was based on a simple question: “You’re developing all of this technical knowledge over five years of your bachelor’s degree: are you able to apply it in the workplace?” And that question will be the test of ‘approved higher technical qualifications’ in the future: to be badged as ‘approved’ higher technical qualifications, Level 4 and Level 5 qualifications will need to demonstrate their occupational relevance and that they meet employer needs.
A new kite mark for HTQs
This next stage of technical education reform was driven by the 2019 Augur Report and is described in the Department for Education’s 2020 paper ‘Reforming Higher Technical Education’:
“Approved HTQs will be clearly identified through a government-backed brand and quality mark, so learners can find the right higher technical courses and employers can hire people with the right skills.
These qualifications will:
- Provide the knowledge, skills and behaviours that are needed to enter occupation(s) across the country.
- Be understood and recognised as high-quality by employers and so have national labour market currency; and
- Give learners confidence that those qualifications are recognised by employers and are perceived to be a credible, prestigious, and distinct pathway.”
To achieve this kite mark, providers will need to demonstrate that their qualification addresses the occupational competencies described in an occupational standard.
These standards will be familiar to anyone who’s delivered apprenticeships or T Levels, but not necessarily to colleagues working on HNCs (Level 4), HNDs (Level 5), foundation degrees (Level 5) or degree top-ups at Level 6.
Achieving the HTQ kite-mark will require providers to satisfy the demands of multiple partners, for example:
- the academic quality requirements of the higher education institution (HEI) that validates their foundation degrees
- the desired outcomes of their employer partners
- the accreditation requirements of one or more professional bodies (for example, the Institute of Mechanical Engineers [IMechE] and the Engineering Council)
- alignment with an apprenticeship standard to gain the approval of the IfATE.
Chris explains how Lakes College (National College for Nuclear – NCFN) have positioned themselves for the up-coming changes:
“When we developed our Engineering degree programmes four years ago, we wanted to align them with competencies stated within the approved occupational standards, particularly around the higher apprenticeships. We decided to focus on nuclear to start with and then look at the Engineering Council competencies for Engineering Technician at Level 5, and Incorporated Engineer (IEng) competencies at Level 6. We found that by linking those competencies through certain modules – work-based learning modules, professional development modules and project modules – learners can focus their work on the set of competencies that they’re working towards.”
Lakes College (NCfN) has used this to its advantage in terms of recruitment and associated income. The external accreditation by professional bodies it has gained gives its programmes a ‘market value’ outside of apprenticeship partnerships and offers additional value to the local area.
For Chris and Lakes College (NCfN), providing educational opportunities to communities in West Cumbria is a key driver for their higher technical qualifications:
“We’re about keeping people local. That’s going to be one of the key things about HTQs in the future: students coming through can aspire to do higher qualifications without having to travel to bigger cities. They can stay local and study local. There are a lot of bright kids in Cumbria and, by developing these degrees, we’ve helped to keep some really talented youngsters here.”
The benefits of HTQs aren’t just for young learners, of course. Adults already in the workforce are keen to upskill or change careers, and those returning to the workforce can benefit from work-based routes to higher qualifications and fulfilling occupations.
Chris explains: ”We have had a recent example of this. A qualified pharmacist wanted to retrain to work in the nuclear industry, That individual has self-paid their way through our Foundation Degree and then the Bachelor’s Degree top-up in Decommissioning and Waste Management. They have recently been awarded a place on the Sellafield Graduate Scheme, on the basis that they have completed an accredited degree, which develops the same knowledge, skills and behaviours that their higher apprentices are receiving at Lakes College.’’
Where to start?
Lakes College (NCfN) had foresight in their development of a new suite of higher technical programmes but, for many providers, achieving HTQ status could involve considerable work in re-engaging employer partners, professional bodies and validating HEIs. Chris has the following advice for those at the start of this journey:
- Start by talking to your employer partners: unpick exactly which roles they want to fill through their HTQs.
- Establish the knowledge, skills and behaviours that they will need to have for those roles and potential future roles.
- Match those to an occupational standard (or, if an appropriate standard doesn’t exist, begin a conversation with the IfATE).
- Consider how that knowledge and those skills and behaviours can be translated into modules and learning outcomes that meet the requirements of your HEI and employer stakeholders.
- Consider your teaching and learning environment and think: how can the sector-specific skills that learners need be supported and developed and facilitated through the teaching space that we provide? Do learners have access to industry standard equipment and technology and are they being supported to become effective in their use?
Done well, this next stage of technical educational reform has the potential to refresh and re-energise technical educational offers that may have lost relevance in fast-moving industrial sectors, to revitalise provision, and to retrain and re-skill regional workforces.
Further education – already in ascendance – has the potential to redefine the educational-industrial landscape by further embedding its relevance to, and relationship with, employers and industry through approved HTQs and higher technical Level 4 and 5 short courses to respond to local and regional need and demand.
It’s up to FE providers to ask themselves how they can work with employers, higher education institutions and other stakeholders to create the demand for Higher Technical Education so that we can address the longstanding ‘Missing Middle’ skills gap.
Responses