This podcast was recorded for end-point assessment organisations (EPAOs) who must apply for Ofqual recognition by 1 July in support of external quality assurance (EQA) reforms.

Charlotte Bosworth, managing director of Innovate Awarding and chair of the Federation of Awarding Bodies’ (FAB) End Point Assessment Organisation Group, Jessica Lewis-Bell, senior strategic relationships manager at Ofqual, and our own chief operating officer Rob Nitsch answer questions and provide guidance and insights.

EQA monitors the end-point assessment that apprentices take at the end of their apprenticeship, to ensure that it is fair, consistent and robust across different apprenticeship standards and between different assessment organisations.

Transcript

Paul Offord

Hello I’m Paul Offord I work in communications at the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education and I’m your host for this podcast. Today we are going to be talking about external quality assurance transition with Charlotte Bosworth, Jessica Lewis-Bell and our own Rob Nitsch. Welcome all, would you like to introduce yourself?

Charlotte Bosworth

Hi I’m Charlotte Bosworth, the managing director of Innovate Awarding and the chair of the end-point assessment organisations group for the Federation of Awarding Bodies.

Jessica Lewis-Bell

Hi I’m Jessica Lewis-Bell, I’m a senior manager in strategic relationships at Ofqual.

Rob Nitsch

And hello everybody I’m Rob Nitsch I’m the chief operating officer at the Institute and within that I have accountability for both external quality assurance and end-point assessment.

Paul Offord

Great stuff I’m glad you can all join me. Right let's get started, jess can you briefly explain what external quality assurance is?

Jessica Lewis-Bell

yeah of course so external quality assurance or EQA as it's widely known. Monitors the end-point assessment that apprentices take at the end of their apprenticeship to ensure that it's fair consistent and robust across different apprenticeship standards and between different assessment organisations. So Ofqual’s role is as an EQA provider we regulate end-point assessment organisations to ensure that they work to a high standard and we also ensure that the end-point assessment is fit for purpose.

Paul Offord

Okay and rob what do we mean when we talking about the transition process?

Rob Nitsch

Yes thank you Paul. The institute announced plans to move to a new simplified system for eqa of apprenticeship endpoint assessment back in last august. these changes will see eqa delivered now by ofqual or the office for students for integrated degree apprenticeships. and that means that the institute will stop directly delivering eqa but will continue to oversee the system in line with our statutory responsibility and we've put in place a framework to do that. it also means that though those other organizations that deliver eqa will also be handing over responsibility to ofqual and the office to students and what this means in the first batch so that transition um of those for whom the institute provides a service for open awards is that there'll be a transition of over 260 apprenticeships over to ofqual and all related endpoint assessment organizations on the register will need to secure recognition from ofqual as part of that process.

Paul Offord

 i see and when do endpoint assessment organizations who currently have their eqa delivered by the institute need to apply for recognition by?

Rob Nitsch

well first of all i'd like to say that the institute ofqual and of course the agency understand the extraordinary challenges that covid-19 have brought to the sector and the impact of the lockdown and how that has affected end-point assessment organizations. but of course there's been a huge amount of pressure and uh you know we think that it's particularly important to listen, to show flexibility, to respond uh where we can. and we've listened to concerns about the previously uh announced timings around the eqa tr