Company selling short GCSE-equivalent information technology course at �13,000 per class

A company has offered to visit schools to teach an information technology course, an element of which counts as a GCSE in league tables, over a period of up to nine days at a cost to the institution of �13,205 for one class of pupils.

The charge by the Coventry-based firm PET-Xi would amount to £528.20 per pupil, or more than a tenth of the per-pupil funding for the entire year for the school that raised concerns about it with us.

It has been described as an example of the “incredible” susceptibility of regulated qualifications to league-table gaming, although a spokesperson for the company said the course was not being offered as a short-cut to better headline results for schools, that the course was offered with high staff:pupil ratios and that its profit margins were low.

PET-Xi sent an unsolicited email to our teacher source two weeks ago, with the subject line: “Are you looking for an alternative Basket 3 Qualification that counts towards Progress 8?”

This is a reference to the fact that part of the course that PET-Xi offers, called a TLM level two qualification in IT user skills (open systems and enterprise), counts towards the Progress 8 metric, the key statistical measure in secondary school league tables. As a qualification that can be used in “Basket 3” of Progress 8, the TLM level 2 qualification counts the same as GCSEs in subjects such as art and drama.

The email continued: “With the second half of the Autumn term now upon us, senior leaders in schools are securing pre-Christmas dates for PET-Xi to deliver our Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) for Schools programme to suitable Year 11 learners. We are meeting with a school local to you next Wednesday so I wondered if you would be available for 30-45 minutes to meet with us.”

PET-Xi’s offer sees four of its staff visit schools to work with a group of 25 pupils. Over a period which the company says is seven days - our teacher source said he was told it is five days – the pupils complete exams in Microsoft, Excel, Word and PowerPoint.

They also complete coursework and, during a further two days at the school, an end-of-course exam which is the level 2 qualification. The teacher said he was told that students would be given two attempts at the exam. Teaching would typically take place in blocks either side of Christmas, or during the February half-term. Qualification entry fees and all costs to the school are included in the total price.

In another email exchange, the teacher was told of the costs, which he described as “staggering”. The quote, which the company’s representative headlined in an email as a “special offer”, applying to any programmes starting before the end of 2017, was £11,980 plus VAT as the core cost for a group of 25 pupils. There would be an additional charge plus £1,225 for the group (which equates to £49 per pupil) for workbooks.

That works out at £528.20 per pupil, plus VAT. The school’s entire per-pupil funding for the year is less than £5,000, meaning the course cost would equate to 11 per cent of its annual funding for these pupils.

The teacher said his school had a cohort of 200 pupils and was told there was no limit on the numbers each institution could put through PET-Xi’s course.

The regulator Ofqual has calculated that the TLM level 2 qualification should take 120 hours to teach. This, in turn, has formed the basis for its being weighted by the Department for Education as worth a GCSE for league table purposes. Yet even if the course were taught for nine days, at five hours a day, this would only equate to 45 hours’ teaching. This helped to underscore to our source that it was a league table shortcut.

He was incredulous, and angry that other schools might be taking up the offer and using the qualification to boost results quickly. He said he had been told that the success rate for the course was 96 per cent at A*-C, which is well in advance of the comparable GCSE rates.

He said: “This is nothing but a way to game the performance tables. We are a school that try and do the best by our students by making decisions that our ethically correct by our community. It is so frustrating that schools can use this type of course to boost figures, generating positive Progress 8 scores.

“The costs of this are ridiculous. It works out at £528.20 per student, based on a cohort of 25. Is this a good use of school funds?”

Nicholas Marshall, a former headteacher now studying for a doctorate at Sheffield Hallam University on the effects of England’s results-driven accountability systems on pupils, said: “It’s incredible that qualifications are recognised by Ofqual that lend themselves to being gamed in this way.

“You also have to think about the ethical implications of directing so much of an institution’s funding towards a group of perhaps 25 pupils in this way,” whose results on the course, he said, might be disproportionately important to a school’s published results data.

Marshall said that Ofqual’s calculation that the qualification would take 120 hours to teach would be on the basis that it followed an extensive period of preparation, rather than being the result of a short course over a week or so. But the fact that schools might offer it through an intensive course over only a few days suggested it could be used to boost a school’s results in a way which would not be possible through a conventional GCSE taught over a much longer period.

After our request for comment, a spokesperson for PET-Xi responded as follows: “PET-Xi has always helped learners achieve and progress academically and in the world of work. Its specific activities often focus on either one or the other, but what appealed the most to the company in devising its MOS for Schools programme is that it provides a unique opportunity to address both of these elements at the same time.

“Academically, the programme helps learners work towards achieving the TLM qualification in IT User Skills, which has been rigorously tested, reviewed and accredited by Ofqual.

 

“PET-Xi is a registered centre with TLM (The Learning Machine), the qualification awarding body. PET-Xi has worked closely with TLM at every stage from the start of the development of its MOS for Schools programme to ensure the best application of its effective immersive and intensive model for helping struggling learners work towards achieving success in the robust MOS certifications and TLM qualification.” 

 

The spokesperson added that PET-Xi supports “struggling students – a proportion of which have a range of educational difficulties”, though our teacher source was told by the company’s representative that this particular “programme is targeted at mainly high/middle ability” pupils.

 

PET-Xi said that the 120 hours which Ofqual says TLM’s qualification should take to teach covered the entire period of Key Stage 4 (usually years 10 and 11). This meant that “the 120 hour training you reference is not crammed into its high-impact courses”.

The spokesperson added that schools had been free to sign up to teach TLM’s qualification themselves. Indeed, TLM is struggling to cope with demand, it has been reported elsewhere.

The spokesperson for PET-Xi also gave us a breakdown of the costs of running the course which appeared to show that if schools taught the qualification themselves, their total costs could be £9,275 for registration, licensing and exam costs, plus another £800 in their staff costs, or £10,075 in total.

“PET-Xi is not profiteering. [Its course] is not being used to artificially inflate results for school league tables.”

An Ofqual spokesperson said: “Awarding organisations must comply with our rules on setting guided learning hours for qualifications included on DfE performance tables. Given the concerns raised about the teaching/delivery time for this qualification, we will be carrying out checks to ensure that the number of guided learning hours assigned to it are appropriate.

 "It is the awarding organisation’s responsibility to make sure that its schools are meeting delivery requirements and we will be seeking assurance from them about how it will do this. We will work together with the DfE and Ofsted so that the arrangements can be monitored appropriately within schools and necessary assurance provided.”

Ofqual told us it could not comment on the weighting qualifications were given in school league tables, as this was a matter for the DfE. So we asked the DfE to comment on that aspect, but the department routed us back to Ofqual for comment.