Btecs - Vocational Qualifications[]
Vocational qualifications in IT, including Btecs, are available as Awards, Certificates and Diplomas. Btecs work much more like the world of work - you are 'managed' and get regular feedback from your tutor, and have the opportunity to re-draft assignments, as you would at work. In many ways Btecs assess consistency and hard work rather than ability to memorise.
Usually you have to attend college to take Btec courses because of the emphasis on coursework. Some can be completed and assessed via online distance learning, though you will have to pay for this. This is a recent development, which means that the online companies offering such courses don't have much of a history or many online reviews to help you decide whether they will be good value.
Btecs and other vocational qualifications are commonly divided by size and level. An 'Award' is the smallest size (in terms of number of hours to study), next up is a Certificate, then a Diploma (roughly one year full-time), then an Extended Diploma (2 years full-time). So Certificate/Award/Diploma tells you how big the Btec is, and then you look at the Level to tell you the difficulty. BTec Nationals are Level 3 - A-level standard. BTec Firsts are Level 2, ie a 'good' GCSE at grade C or above, and Level 1 is Foundation level, ie GCSE at D-G.
Pearson (Edexcel) has brought out a policy on distance assessment, so it seems that they do have a framework in place for certain qualifications to be delivered and assessed remotely.
Kandu-IT Btecs from home[]
Kandu-IT offer distance learning courses and assessment for Btec Level 2 and Level 3. This means you can do the full Btec from home, which is very unusual. They used to offer the Level 3 Extended Diploma, which offered enough UCAS points to access a foundation degree (Pass - Pass - Pass, which was max grade, gave 48 UCAS points). They now just offer the standard Level 3 which offers 24 UCAS points There is a discounted price to help Home Educators on www.awediscounts.com
Review from home educator Sandra A:[]
"My son studied with Kandu IT for a number of years gaining a Level 2 Btec (Certificate) in Computer Engineering and then a Level 3 Btec Diploma in ICT Specialist Systems. I can assure you that the company is completely reputable and genuine. Our tutor, Scott Mckenzie, and his father (Vince) could not have been more helpful and supportive. Nothing was too much trouble and they had endless amounts of patience. Student support was very, very good !! They were very supportive of home education..we found them brilliant for what we needed (and as a total non-techy, I learnt a lot too !)."
Kandu IT also offer a free online IT Technicians course, with a completion certificate - may be a nice intro to try if you're considering this sort of thing."