Excellence in Further Education

IES undertook this project on behalf of the Quality Improvement Agency (QIA). The aim of the research was to review the roles and purposes of the range of existing awards that recognised, rewarded and transfered excellence within the further education system. Such awards included Learning and Skills Beacons, the New Standard for Employer Engagement, and the Inspire Awards. The IES review identified what additional recognition for organisations (over and above the Framework for Excellence) would be needed within the further education system following implementation of the Framework for Excellence from September 2008. It also offered recommendations for an appropriate mechanism to identify and transfer best practice within the further education system, consider the ways in which the Framework for Excellence ratings might be used to promote excellence at organisational and sectoral levels, and proposed a transition strategy for the management of the existing excellence awards until the Framework for Excellence is fully in place.