Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the effect of removing the BCS Level 2 ECDL Certificate in IT Application Skills from the list of qualifications to be included in the technical award category in the 2018 Key Stage 4 performance tables.

The Department carried out a review of the European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL) qualification. This review concluded that ECDL no longer demonstrated the characteristics of a Technical Award. In such circumstances, we reserve the right to remove a qualification from the list of qualifications that have been approved for inclusion in performance tables.

In making the decision to remove ECDL from the approved list for 2018[1], we considered the effect on schools and pupils. We judged there to be sufficient time remaining for an alternative qualification to be studied, should that be in the best interest of the pupil.

We recognise that late changes to the approved list are not desirable. In this case, however, we acted to remove a perverse incentive for schools to enter pupils into qualifications that may not have been in their best interests.

[1] www.gov.uk/government/publications/2018-performance-tables-technical-and-vocational-qualifications#history