2015 Survey results - full release

Highlights from the results of this year’s survey include:

Within the sector, confidence in and experience of Functional Skills is at an all-time high. The position re GCSE is the complete opposite, with confusion over policy, a lack of experience and very limited confidence that GCSE is the right qualification for learners within the sector.

Awarding Organisations have improved customer satisfaction for Functional Skills with more than 75% of all respondents declaring they are very or quite happy with their provider. C&G and Pearson have almost established a duopoly supplying more than 80% of all institutions in the FE and WBL sector. Many of the smaller awarding organisations find success in other sectors away from the mainstream.

The market for assessments, diagnostics and resources is dominated by BKSB and ForSkills/Guroo with more 90% of all respondents saying they used one or the other. In terms of supplier performance, respondents overwhelming nominated ForSkills/Guroo as their supplier of choice in all 8 categories of resource type and use.

For the first time, the survey asked about e-portfolio use and about half of respondents said they used a system. The three largest systems mentioned were OneFile, Smart Assessor and SkillsPortfolio. Results show that customer satisfaction with e-portfolios is high at 80%+ with the one exception being users of Smart Assessor systems.