14 March 2003
Ofsted chief inspector David Bell has denied that he 'over-exaggerated' the poor quality of further education colleges.
Appearing before the education select committee on March 12, Bell said the comments in Ofsted's annual report were 'a very serious judgement' on patchy standards in post-16 education. He told MPs: 'I would not in any sense say I have over-exaggerated this issue. I reported what we had found and it was a very striking finding.'
Ofsted director of inspections David Taylor told the committee that the proportion of unsatisfactory teaching was too high. He said: 'A third of failing colleges is too many. If you were in one of these colleges then you would not get an adequate education.'
Bell said it was 'unfortunate that there was a very high concentration of inadequate and poor teaching in colleges'.
He defended Ofsted's inspection framework and said re-inspection of colleges was essential as it was ensuring that those colleges 'made significant improvement'.
However, in a written submission to the committee, the Association of Colleges said Ofsted's methods of assessing the quality of education and training in further education colleges 'seriously underplayed their achievements'.
The AoC claimed Ofsted had inadequate methods for assessing and counting the value that colleges added to students who did not stay for the entire course.
PFmar2003
