Never mind the technology, where’s the learning?

All this week there has been a series of training events for ICT Mark Assessors. These are the people who are accredited to assess the ICT Mark. To keep your ticket as an assessor, you have to attend one of these events. In a session by Becta it was announced that, from BETT 2009, Becta will launch new ’stepping stones’ towards the ICT Mark known as the “Next Generation Learning Charter”. To quote from the PowerPoint notes for speakers:

“So today, I can announce that we will shortly be launching the Next Generation Learning Charter that builds upon the highly regard Excellence Awards; the prestigious ICT Mark yet opens up the opportunity for EVERY school to make a public commitment and to gain recognition as the progress along their journey.”

The stepping stones (progression pyramid) is shown here, and adds two layers below the ICT Mark to encourage schools to get involved with improvement with ICT. The first layer enables a school to make a public commitment to “improve / advance” by engaging in the process of ICT self-review through the Self-Review Framework within the next three years. The second, and perhaps more controversal, is that it would seem that a school can self-certify that it has made progress on 3 out of 4 of the 8 elements (one must be Element 1) and together with a reference from a ‘critical friend’ apply for a Becta certificate which recognises that ‘progression’ has taken place.

For some providing this ‘ladder’ towards the ICT Mark seems a sensible step. For others it seems to devalue the notion of a quality assured accreditation scheme. There seems a paradox between the ICT Mark that is externally assessed to a national standard and a ‘half way’ certificate that is self-certified. Most concerning of all is the provision of a certificate by the ICT Mark awarding body without any external check on the progression that might have been made or even whether the school has understood the process.

Tags: Becta, ICT Mark, accreditation