Unique learner numbers (ULNs) should be mandatory and used across all awarding organisations to make it easier for student results to be issued, researchers have suggested.
Ofqual chief regulator Jo Saxton has backed the idea and claimed that if ULNs had been universally used in the summer of 2022 the number of delayed BTEC results would have been reduced.
The Department for Education is understood to be considering how to extend the use of ULNs in the face of long-held barriers that get in the way of a system-wide roll-out, such as cost and data protection.
Sector-wide use of ULNs was called for in a research report published today by ImpactEd Consulting, which investigated steps that “might help to secure parity of treatment for students taking different types of qualification, and to streamline the workload for schools and colleges”.
