Dissolved Parliament delays league table recognition of OCR Cambridge National in ICT

Schools and colleges may be aware that the OCR Cambridge National Certificate in ICT has yet to appear on the DfE’s list of qualifications approved for recognition on performance tables in 2017.

The DfE claimed there was ‘significant’ overlap of content between the ICT National and the GCSE in Computing. OCR appealed strongly with a detailed technical map that showed concerns about overlap were ill-founded. However, to make entirely sure, we have removed three optional units, taken by fewer than 1% of candidates, (comprising the technical strand) from the Cambridge National Certificate in ICT certificate.

As the 2017 list is subject to ministerial approval, the DfE agreed to propose the inclusion of the ICT National to a minister for official sign off. Despite OCR’s attempts to speed up sign off, we received official notification on 26th March that the process was on hold until after the forthcoming Election:

“The decision on whether the Cambridge National in ICT qualification can be included in the 2017 key stage 4 performance tables remains under review. Unfortunately, there was insufficient time for a decision to be made before ministers left the Department.”… “once a new government has been formed and ministers appointed, we will seek a resolution to this matter as a priority”.

OCR apologises unreservedly to all those involved in planning their teaching provision in ICT for this most unsatisfactory delay in process. We remain convinced from discussions with DfE and by studying the DfE criteria for decision-making, that the Cambridge National Certificate in ICT will eventually be included in the 2017 list. However, until ministerial sign-off has taken place, the official position is that this decision is still ‘under review’.

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