Ofqual: our role and what we do
08 April 2008
We've made a short video to explain Ofqual's aims and set the tone for our work in the coming months.
We spoke to senior Ofqual staff to establish what the new regulator will stand for and also interviewed key stakeholders in colleges and awarding organisations to find out what they expected from us.
Kathleen Tattersall, our chair, told us about her vision for Ofqual.
"Learners have a real interest in qualifications. I've always said throughout my career that the only purpose qualifications serve is to open doors for learners to the next stage of their learning or into employment. So it's very important that the qualifications and tests that they do command public confidence and command the confidence of colleges, universities and of course employers. It will be an on-going task for us in Ofqual to ensure that that public confidence is maintained."
John Guy, principal of Farnborough Sixth Form College, set out what he felt Ofqual should deliver:
"We're looking for a regulator who will ensure that the qualifications that my students take here are assessed well, accurately and fairly reflect their achievements."
One of his students agreed:
"The regulator should ensure that the system is fair and re-assure us as students that the system is fair, so we have faith in them that they are doing their job properly."
Jerry Jarvis, managing director of awarding organisation Edexcel, said:
"We're looking for an organisation that is going to draw together all of the elements that are involved in the achievement of a qualification and an organisation that really is going to look after the needs of the learner."
Isabel Nisbet, acting chief executive of Ofqual, explained how we would help meet this requirement:
"The way that we are going to maintain standards is by setting out clear requirements of the awarding bodies, the organisations that provide the qualifications and the assessments. To set out what we require of them and to encourage them to produce the highest standards and also to innovate. And we believe we are working in partnership with them as regulated and regulator."
Mike Cresswell, director general of awarding organisation AQA, described what he was looking for Ofqual to do.
"The number one task for Ofqual as soon as it gets up and running will be to establish its independence very clearly. To establish a clear way of working with the awarding bodies it regulates, which is about partnership but also obviously calling us to account when need be to create an environment in which we can work together to solve the problems that are facing the qualification system and to advance education."
We also wanted to find out what young people felt about the future role of the regulator. One student told us:
"I think the new body should be for us because we're the ones that will benefit out of it and I think we should get assessed or asked questions so we should be communicating with the body so that we can tell them what we want as well."
Greg Watson, chief executive of awarding organisation OCR, added:
"We want a regulator that promotes innovation and makes innovation possible. We're going into a period of tremendous change in this country. For young people we're hoping that more and more of them will stay in full-time education and training until they're 18 and that means we're going to need a wider range of choices for young people than we've got now. For adults we want vocation qualifications to keep pace with a fast-changing economy. In both of those areas we're going to be looking for mould-breaking qualifications, brand new ideas and just as in areas such as medicine or food that the regulator creates an environment in which the mould can get broken but still make sure that those new ideas are fit for purpose and work well for the people that they're supposed to benefit. That's where Ofqual can play a really pivotal role."
Kathleen Tattersall reflected on the challenges that lie ahead when she told us:
"I want Ofqual to be an organisation that works in partnership with awarding bodies but always with an eye to why it's doing that. And the reason why we've come into existence is to ensure that the learner gets a good deal from the qualifications and tests which they take and that those qualifications and tests are as reliable and accurate as they possibly can be and that they feed back into the learner a good sense of achievement."
This film lasts about four minutes.