“Making sure everybody gets the grade they deserve”: a Q&A with Jake Tween, DSW

From finetuning assessment processes to advising the House of Lords, Jake Tween is determined to make sure every apprentice gets a fair outcome on their assessments. As Director of Apprenticeships at DSW, Jake is helping to steer the course of end point assessments – not just within his organisation, but across the end point assessment (EPA) sector as a whole through his work with the EPA Quality Alliance.  

One of the country’s leading end point assessment organisations, DSW has been delivering end point assessment since its inception and now carries out thousands of assessments every month. The organisation is at the forefront of EPA’s ongoing evolution, taking an active role in lobbying for change, driving innovation and improving assessment processes across the board.  

Here, Jake tells us about his role at DSW, as well as sharing his perspective on further education in the UK, the role of Artificial Intelligence in EPA and the importance of using the right platform to deliver seamless assessments at scale. 

Jake, tell us about DSW. What’s your ethos, your culture, your purpose? 

Our culture is all about creating exceptional experiences and fair outcomes for learners, making sure that we have a transparent and robust assessment process and that everybody gets the grade they deserve. We're also co-founders of the EPA Quality Alliance, which now has more than 80 member organisations who are signed up to our quality charter and actively attend meetings. That really helps us to standardise and make sure experiences are consistent across different EPOs. It also gives us the power to be able to lobby and influence the Department for Education (DFE) and different decision makers, so that we can drive change, drive innovation, and influence policy. 

Is there such a thing as a typical day in your role? If so, what does that look like? 

Good question, and there isn't! It sounds like a cliche but genuinely, no two days are the same, and I love that about my job. It makes it very rewarding, interesting and challenging. My role is Director of Apprenticeships, so I contribute towards the strategy but also oversee the daily implementation of that strategy across the business. Every day, I get to speak to clients, which is my favourite part of the job. I speak to training providers, colleges, universities and employers, about everything from solving a minor problem, right through to working with their senior leadership to develop joint strategies, boost apprentice numbers or improve outcomes for apprentices.  

What brought you to the role you're in now?  

I've been involved in the world of awarding since 2006. I started off in a customer service role and worked my way up through various quality assurance roles, and then into product development. Then in 2012 we had the Richard Review of Apprenticeships and subsequent reforms, which gave me an opportunity to really specialise in apprenticeships. It's been a really rewarding experience and I've achieved a lot more than I ever thought I would. I've been involved in dozens of different Trailblazer groups with employers, helping them to design standards and assessment plans. I've advised the House of Lords on degree level apprenticeships, and I'm invited to speak at several round tables events every year. I'm privileged to be in a position where I can have that influence over apprentices’ experiences, but also improving things for the sector as a whole. 

There was a time when the government pushed University degrees as the primary further education choice, but it isn’t the right path for everyone. Do you feel like apprenticeships are addressing that? 

Yes. As long as I've been involved in the sector, this term “parity of esteem” has been used, where we have strived to achieve parity between vocational qualifications (like apprenticeships) and university degrees. Countries like Switzerland and Germany are often referenced, where apprenticeships are seen as a first choice. You can see lots of business leaders and politicians in those countries who did apprenticeships, often in technical skills, and so they have genuine parity there.  

In this country, I think there’s been an almost an arbitrary drive towards doing a degree. Lots of people in my generation were the first in their family to get a degree – it was almost seen as a badge of honour. Now I’m seeing a lot of friends and colleagues who achieved degrees that don't really have any impact on their work at all. It doesn't get them into a better job, it doesn't help them to progress in their career, and they’re loaded with debt. That’s not to say degrees aren’t the right choice for many people – but it’s important to recognise there is real choice now and to weigh up the pros and cons of every option.  

I think we have come a long way in terms of rebranding apprenticeships, and I think making degree level apprenticeships available has been a game changer. Speaking bluntly, apprenticeships used to be seen as for ‘less academic’ people, whereas now, around 700 occupations are covered by apprenticeship standards, right the way up to level seven (although the future of level seven funding under the new government is a topic for another discussion).  

The whole “earn while you learn” factor is important as well. Not only do you not have three years' worth of debt, but you've got three years' worth of experience, three years' worth of earnings. I think it is the right choice for a lot of people. 

In your experience of end point assessment specifically, how has it changed over the years? 

It's improved vastly. I think the critical change that I've seen is better engagement with relevant stakeholders. When trailblazers were developing standards and assessment plans in the early days, it was very much employer driven. There was very little consultation with training providers or with the end point assessment organisations carrying out that EPA. Those ‘legacy standards’ made it challenging to deliver a consistent EPA, because there were errors and ambiguities in those assessment plans.  

What we've seen in recent years is much better engagement with training providers and assessment organisations like DSW. We can bring our experience to the table and challenge different ways of thinking, and it's had a massive impact. Now we’re able to deliver much more reliable, consistent, valid assessments at scale, but I think further improvement is needed.  

DfE has a strategic ambition to simplify end point assessments and make sure that we're not over assessing people, which is a good thing. Yet we need to learn from the mistakes of the past and make sure that we consistently involve assessment organisations in that process. We know what we're doing. We can share what we think will work. What's reassuring is that, across the industry, there is still a desire to maintain some form of independent external assessment. I think that's essential for people to have faith in the qualifications and maintain that ‘parity of esteem’. 

What standards do DSW specialise in, and how have you branched out over the years? 

We started off in financial services and we now assess up to 90% of all apprentices in that space. We've also expanded our portfolio to include occupations such as coaching, leadership and management, HR, business administration and a host of others. A lot of that portfolio’s growth has come from existing clients: for instance, a large bank that uses us for their financial services standards may also want us to assess their leadership or administration qualifications. Having epaPRO has helped us to expand and scale that portfolio through word of mouth and recommendations, as we have such a good reputation with our clients. 

Tell us more about how epaPRO helped you to scale that portfolio? 

We simply wouldn't be able to deliver end point assessment at the scale that we do if we didn't have a system like epaPRO. As we have evolved as an end point assessment organisation, epaPRO has come with us on that journey and Skilltech have listened and supported us. We have a voice within epaPRO’s steering groups, and we're able to influence the platform, functionality and technology that's available to us and our clients.  

Here’s an example. In the early days, assessment plans tended not to have timelines and mandated periods. As assessment plans have evolved, timeframes have become stricter. It's virtually impossible for us to administer that type of assessment manually at scale. Skilltech listened to us, kept their eye on the ball, adapted their technology and improved their functionality to evolve with us. It means that when things change, we're not on the back foot. We're able to deliver against changing and evolving requirements.  

What was the transition to epaPRO like?  

It was very seamless and very easy, which is what you want with a new supplier. We were actually one of the earliest adopters of the epaPRO platform. It worked for us when we were a small organisation, but it works even more effectively now that we are a large organisation, delivering at scale.  

We get great ongoing support from the tech team and from our account manager, and whenever we do introduce a new functionality, the Skilltech team will come to our offices, sit with our team, talk us through it and test it out. It means we can use that functionality effectively and are aware of wider functions that are available. Through exploring the platform with the epaPRO team, we are able to innovate and do things more effectively. 

The world of work obviously went through a rapid change in 2020. As we settle into the ‘new normal’, how is DSW adapting and looking ahead to 2025, and beyond? 

I think we were quite fortunate at DSW, in that we were always at the forefront of using technology; remote assessment in particular. Pre-Covid, I would say over 95% of our assessments were delivered online anyway. We were already using Zoom, Teams, WebEx, and facilitating professional discussions, interviews and presentations using that technology. When Covid hit, it didn't have a huge impact on us operationally.  

Of course, things continue to evolve, and we're looking at the risks and opportunities of emerging technologies. Key within that is Artificial Intelligence. I'm now heading up a group of end point assessment organisations, representing the EPA Quality Alliance, that is focusing specifically on AI.  

I think there are three threads to the AI discussion for EPAs. Firstly, how is artificial intelligence being used by individuals in the workplace? If someone is required to use AI in their role, we don’t want to punish them for that during assessments. Secondly, how is it used in a training environment? Thirdly, what role does it play in assessments?    

There are loads of opportunities for us to use AI as an assessment organisation. It could help us to develop materials, standardise assessments, improve quality, assure assessment decisions – it could potentially even be used to carry out assessments. 

It's feels like AI is in its early days, but that we’re also very much in the mire of it already. We're proactively working with Ofqual and other regulators to make sure that we are not pulled behind; that we're not Luddites, that we're embracing the technology. Yet we also need to identify the risks in terms of things like malpractice, ensuring that learners haven't relied too much on AI and are aware of how to use AI responsibly and appropriately. Personally, I think the benefits massively outweigh the risks. AI is here to stay: it’s really important that we, as a sector, understand, harness and embrace it.