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Ministers urged to ‘recognise value’ of Functional Skills qualifications

Examinations & Qualifications Skills
Despite one million Functional Skills qualifications being awarded every year, their “credibility and value needs to be recognised by ministers”, it was said this week.

It comes after the Education and Training Foundation (ETF) announced a review of maths and English Functional Skills qualifications.

Skills minister Nick Boles has commissioned the review with the aim of “proposing new qualifications better suited to the needs of industry, practitioners and leaders in post-16 education”.

The decision comes after the ETF carried out its own study of employers’ views of English and maths qualifications last year, which concluded that the system of Functional Skills was “not broken, but could be improved”.

It found that Functional Skills are gaining wider recognition across small and large employers, who liked the approach of “applied skills, flexible assessment and problem-solving”.

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