The diploma qualification in England: an avoidable failure?

Abstract

In 2005, the UK government introduced new vocationally related diploma qualifications. Two-year programmes were examined in the summers of 2010 and 2011; initial government hopes for candidate numbers proved largely ephemeral and results were disappointing. This article explores what happened to the diploma’s lofty ambitions using the summer of 2010 and 2011 results and a 2006 government policy analysis that went largely unheeded, in order to draw out lessons from this centrally developed programme. Critical insights from earlier vocationally related, centrally mandated qualifications such as General National Vocational Qualifications were generally ignored in policymakers’ misguided attempts to create something ‘new’. The analysis centres on the neglected aspects of the qualification’s complex structure, hurdles-based assessment model and insistence that candidates had to pass Functional Skills qualifications, all of which were major contributors to its demise in the autumn of 2011.