The number of Vocational and Technical Qualifications (VTQs) awarded in Northern Ireland has fallen by around 20% during the Covid pandemic.
This emerges from a report by the Ministry of Economic Affairs (DfE).
Just over 142,000 professional and technical certificates were issued in 2020-21, up from almost 178,000 in 2018-19.
Like GCSEs, AS and A-Levels, many exams and assessments in VTQs have been canceled in 2020 and 2021.
That meant schools and colleges calculated grades in BTECs and other VTQs for their students.
The Covid pandemic caused widespread disruption to teaching in schools, colleges and universities of post-secondary education (FE) during the 2019-20 and 2020-21 academic years.
The Department commissioned the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment (CCEA) to examine the impact this has had on the award of professional and technical qualifications in Northern Ireland.
His report has just been published.
Many VTQs relied on assessing practical skills or competences and this has proved difficult in some cases during the pandemic.
“Qualifications used to demonstrate practical ability, such as Plumbing, construction, performing arts or hairdressing would still need to be assessed before they could be awarded,” the report said.
“In some cases, assessments would have to be postponed until they could be safely conducted in line with public health guidance.
“Any impact of the Health Authority’s guidance on a sector has had a corresponding impact on learners completing relevant qualifications.”
The report found that hair, beauty and hospitality were the hardest hit, with some of those learners having postponed to 2022.
“There was also an impact on athletic qualifications; while colleges could arrange summer camps, etc., this came at a significant cost,” the report continued.
“The whereabouts were also affected as the learners left because they could not learn.”
The report found that some of these factors had led to a 20% decrease in the number of VTQ certificates awarded to students compared to 2018-19 – the last full academic year before the pandemic.
However, the fact that so many qualifications were awarded meant that many of the assessment arrangements put in place had worked.
- BTecs and professional exams for 2021 cancelled
- “Generous” grades are part of continuing education
- Record number of school leavers applying to the university
The report also states that many lessons were learned in 2020 that enabled improvements to the arrangements in 2021.
“In the context of the Covid-19 pandemic and the unprecedented challenges it presents, this is a clear indicator of the success of the alternative arrangements put in place for assessing and awarding VTQs in 2020-2021,” it said.
However, a number of staff, particularly in FE colleges, have expressed some concerns.
This included requirements for some students to “be vaccinated before internship”.
Some others said there was a need to “streamline” the number of VTQs and the number of registrars for them.
According to the report, there are currently 89 separate awarding bodies and around 2,000 separate VTQs in Northern Ireland.
All FE colleges also expressed their concern to the report’s authors about the declining numbers of FE students.
“All colleges have seen a drop in enrollment as they realize students are being retained by schools,” the report said.
In recent years there has been a significant fall in the number of school leavers enrolled in FE colleges in Northern Ireland.
Separate research commissioned by the DfE previously suggested that there still exists a “societal stigma” preventing some young people from pursuing a professional qualification rather than a university degree.
Exams and assessments for qualifications returned in 2022.
But the report said there will be “longer-term implications of the pandemic for teaching and learning, the potential skills gaps and the need to reintroduce public exams as the standard norm.”
“The impact of the pandemic is increasingly being recognized as far-reaching and far-reaching in education and development, and research to support policy initiatives to address this issue will be critical,” she concluded.
Add Comment