Digital qualifications: evaluation progress
Progress of Essential Digital Skills Qualifications and Digital Functional Skills Qualifications through Ofqual's technical evaluation process.
Applies to England
Documents
Details
The Department for Education has introduced a new legal entitlement that specified digital qualifications, at Entry Level and Level 1, will be fully funded for adults with no or low digital skills. This entitlement was made available starting in August 2020. Alongside the new entitlement, the Department is reforming basic digital qualifications, introducing new Essential Digital skills qualifications (EDSQs) and new Digital Functional Skills qualifications (Digital FSQs).
You can find further information about the 2 qualifications in the table below. From August 2020, the Department for Education introduced funding of specified Entry Level and Level 1 digital qualifications for adults with no or low digital skills.
At the same time, the Department started reforming basic digital qualifications, introducing new Essential Digital skills qualifications and new Digital Functional Skills qualifications.The documents on this page let you follow the progress of those reforms.
| Essential Digital Skills qualifications | Digital Functional Skills qualifications |
|---|---|
| New qualification available at Entry level 3 and at Level 1 | Replacing Functional Skills in ICT, but new qualifications available at Entry level 3 and at Level 1 |
| Appropriate qualification for adults with no or low digital skills wishing to gain digital skills for a specific life, work or study purpose - for example, to apply for jobs online, to manage finances online or to access government services online | Appropriate qualification for adults with no or low digital skills wishing to confirm they have digital skills needed for employment or further study |
| Qualifications based on new national standards for essential digital skills | Qualifications based on DfE subject content derived from the national standards for essential digital skills |
| 30-50 hours of guided learning | 55 hours of guided learning |
Updates to this page
Published 13 January 2020Last updated 25 March 2024 + show all updates
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Highfield has completed the Ofqual process of technical evaluation.
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BCS – Qualification requires resubmission.
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Changes made since 19 October 2023 • Pearson - DFSQs may be made available – all requirements met. • BCS – Qualification resubmitted for technical evaluation.
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Updated the Essential Digital Skills qualifications: progress so far - HTML attachment for January 2024.
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TLM – DFSQs may be made available – all requirements met.
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Pearson - technical evaluation complete and DFSQs may be made available (with requirements).
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Pearson - Qualification resubmitted for technical evaluation. OCNLR – technical evaluation complete and DFSQs may be made available – requirements are now satisfied.
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NOCN, NCFE and City & Guilds have satisfied the requirements following technical evaluation and DFSQs may be made available. TLM and OCNLR have completed technical evaluation and DFSQs may be made available (with requirements).
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Essential Digital Skills qualifications: progress so far page has been updated to reflect changes as of 8 September 2023.
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NOCN Level 1 Technical evaluation complete and qualification may be made available (with requirements).
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BCS and Pearson qualifications require resubmission.
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City and Guilds have completed technical evaluation and qualifications may be made available (with requirements). OCNLR, TLM and Pearson have resubmitted qualifications for technical evaluation.
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• Updated the stages of the technical evaluation process. • NCFE have completed technical evaluation and qualification may be made available with requirements. • NOCN Entry level 3 qualification has completed technical evaluation and may be made available with requirements. • TLM qualifications requires resubmission.
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Changes made since 8 June 2023: BCS qualifications resubmitted for technical evaluation, NCFE have completed technical evaluation, NOCN Entry level 3 qualification has completed technical evaluation, NOCN Level 1 qualification requires resubmission and OCNLR qualifications requires resubmission.
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Changes to the evaluation progress table within Digital Functional Skills progress, since the last update on 6 June, include BCS re-submission required for technical evaluation and NCFE have completed technical evaluation.
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Changes made to the Digital Functional Skills qualifications: progress so far evaluation progress table. NOCN, OCNLR and TLM have resubmitted qualifications for technical evaluation.
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Updated Open Awards and Highfield's progress within Essential Digital Skills qualifications: progress so far.
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Changes made since 18 May 2023: following the completion of technical evaluation Pearson’s qualifications require resubmission.
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The evaluation progress table within 'Digital Functional Skills: progress so far' has been redrafted and the numerical key to the stages has been replaced for additional clarity. Additionally, BCS have resubmitted their digital functional skills qualifications for technical evaluation.
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TQUK have asked to be removed from the list of awarding organisations who are undergoing the technical evaluation process for digital functional skills qualifications at this time.
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Evaluation progress table has been updated within Digital Functional Skills qualifications: progress so far
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Evaluation progress table has been updated within Digital Functional Skills qualifications: progress so far.
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Evaluation progress for Digital Functional Skills qualifications has been amended to reflect each awarding organisation's status as at 3 April 2023.
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Digital qualifications: table showing of the qualifications awarding organisations have notified Ofqual they are developing was updated.
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Evaluation progress has been updated for a number of the listed awarding organisations.
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'Digital Functional Skills Qualifications: progress so far' has been updated to include the evaluation progress of each of the qualifications that awarding organisations have notified Ofqual they are developing.
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Highfield Entry Level and Level 1 details have been changed from 4 to 3.
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The evaluation progress table in 'Essential Digital Skills qualifications: progress so far' has been amended to include information on Open Awards.
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Document "Digital Functional Skills qualifications: progress so far" has been updated to reflect the the final version of the regulatory framework, published on 31 March 2022. Also reflects the opening of the window for awarding organisations to expand their scope of recognition, on 14 April 2022.
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Evaluation progress table updated: both entry level and level 1 for City and Guilds are now at 3.
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Evaluation progress table updated: both entry level and level 1 for Highfield are now at 4.
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Update to the evaluation progress table: City & Guilds is now at 4 for both entry level and level 1, and Highfield is at 3 for both entry level and level 1.
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Update to the evaluation progress table: City & Guilds is now at 3 for both entry level and level 1, and Highfield is at 2 for both entry level and level 1.
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Update to the evaluation progress table: City & Guilds has been added to the evaluation progress table and both entry level and level 1 for City & Guilds are at 2.
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Evaluation progress table updated: both entry level and level 1 for NOCN are now at 5.
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Evaluation progress table updated: NOCN have resubmitted entry level and level 1 qualifications to Ofqual and both are undergoing technical evaluation.
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Update to the evaluation progress table: both entry level and level 1 for NCFE are now at 5.
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The Essential Digital Skills Qualification progress table has been updated and now shows Ascentis and The Learning Machine both levels at 5.
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The Essential Digital Skills Qualification progress table has been updated and now shows Ascentis both levels at 4, BCS for work both levels at 5, NCFE both levels at 4, OCN London daily life both levels at 5, and The Learning Machine both levels at 4.
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The Essential Digital Skills Qualification progress table has been updated and now shows Ascentis both levels at 3, NCFE both levels at 3, OCN London daily life both levels at 4, and Pearson both levels at 5.
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The Essential Digital Skills Qualification progress table has been updated and now shows BCS for work at 4 for both levels, The Learning Machine at 3 for both levels, and that OCR submissions have been withdrawn.
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On the Essential Digital Skills qualifications: progress so far table, NCFE and Pearson are now at 4 for both entry level and level 1.
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Update to the essential digital qualifications evaluation table: Ascentis is now at 4 for both entry level and level 1.
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The evaluation progress table for essential digital skills qualifications has been updated and now shows OCN London for daily life at 3 for both entry level and level 1.
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Update to the essential digital skills qualifications progress so far table: Pearson and BCS are now at 3 for both entry level and level 1, and The Learning Machine is now at 4 for both entry level and level 1.
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Update to the essential digital skills qualifications progress so far table: Ascentis is now at 3 for both entry level and level 1, and OCN London for life is now at 4 for both entry level and level 1.
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Essential digital skills page evaluation progress table has been updated to show that BCS for work and life both levels updated to 4, and Pearson both levels updated 2.
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Update to the evaluation progress table: both entry level and level 1 for Gateway are now at 5.
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Updated to show that the second consultation will be postponed and that our detailed rules and guidance for Digital Functional Skills Qualifications until the final version of the subject content has been published.
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Update to the essential digital skills qualifications progress so far table.
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Update to the essential digital skills progress table.
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First published.