EAL update on CTD Quickstep

FAQs for learners registered for EAL qualifications by CTD Quickstep 

Update: 13/03/2025

1. What is EAL’s role in this situation? What are you doing to support learners?  

As an awarding organisation, EAL creates, develops and administers technical vocational qualifications for engineering and building services engineering which approved colleges and training providers deliver. We are responsible for ensuring that they meet the standards and requirements of the UK education framework, are delivered consistently across providers and recognised nationally.  

We set the exams, tests and assessments that individual learners take to achieve the qualification and oversee the certification process.  We approve training centres to use our qualifications, work with them on an ongoing basis to ensure that qualifications are delivered of a high standard and carry out regular quality assurance checks on providers. 

As one of the awarding organisations CTD Quickstep registered its learners with, our role is to evaluate the quality of assessment delivery arrangements for our qualifications.  EAL is not a training provider and, therefore, is not responsible for the delivery of courses, learning, training, delivering assessments or assessing learners outcomes. 

2. What support can EAL offer me? I’m not sure which awarding organisation I was registered with by CTD Quickstep.  

In the first instance, we encourage learners to contact CTD Quickstep directly via their website, and wait for a response from the insolvency company.  

We are asking individuals who believe they may be registered and actively progressing on an EAL qualification with CTD Quickstep to submit this form. This will help us establish how many active EAL learners are impacted by this news, and allow us to contact you directly. 

Once you have completed the form, if you are enrolled on an EAL qualification, our Customer Experience Team will be in touch to provide you with our records of your progress.  

Learners who are not registered with EAL will be signposted to other awarding organisations which have CTD Quickstep as an approved centre. 

We also recommend impacted learners: save their e-portfolio or learning records . If you have online access to your portfolio or learning records, we recommend ensuring that you have offline access, via download or printing a hard copy.  

 3. What qualifications did CTD Quickstep register with EAL?  

These are the qualifications we had registered by CTD Quickstep:  

Qualification number	Qualification title
603/5982/1 (603/5982/1A, 603/5982/1AZ, 603/5982/1B, 603/5982/1BZ)	EAL Level 3 Electrotechnical Experienced Worker
501/1605/8	EAL Level 3 NVQ Diploma in Installing Electrotechnical Systems and Equipment (Buildings, Structures and the Environment)

4. What process does EAL go through to approve a centre?  

The process that EAL undergoes to recognise a centre involves a thorough evaluation to determine if the centre can uphold the expected standards of assessment of EAL qualifications.  Once EAL is satisfied that a centre has the resources and appropriate assessment arrangements in place, the centre can be approved to offer various qualifications provided by EAL. The relationship between EAL and approved centres includes ongoing monitoring to uphold and ensure the maintenance of quality standards.    

The application process includes extensive vetting with external quality assurers to confirm that a centre is able to maintain the standards expected, and handle the volume of learners they plan to enrol. This includes reviewing the centre’s policies and processes, and the knowledge, skills and experience of its staff. We also check information available from public bodies including Ofsted and the Education and Skills Funding Agency, to understand more about the applicant centre’s ability to deliver our qualifications, and its capacity to deliver to the expected learner volumes.   

Although the process includes financial due diligence including checks with Companies House, EAL, like other awarding organisations can only access publicly available information. Awarding organisations do not have the power to access the private information needed to audit the long-term financial stability of a centre's business model as part of the application process. 

5. When did you last visit the centre? And did it raise any concerns? 

We visited the centre on 10 October 2024 and found no concerns on the quality of their processes and procedures.   

 

Update: 05/03/2025

EAL is aware that a training provider offering EAL qualifications, CTD Quickstep has entered insolvency. This is a complex and fast changing situation. We have made a notification to the regulator, Ofqual, are in discussions with TESP, and are looking to work with the insolvency practitioner.

Whilst we appreciate that learners will be concerned, we conducted an external quality review with the provider in October 2024 and found no issues in terms of quality.

We appreciate this will be stressful for individuals enrolled on courses with this provider, as they will be concerned about their learning journey.

In the first instance, we encourage learners to contact CTD Quickstep directly via their website, and wait for a response from the insolvency company. We also recommend that impacted learners:  

• Save their e-portfolio or learning records: If you have online access to your portfolio or learning records, we recommend ensuring that you have offline access, via download or printing a hard copy.  
• Share your contact details with us: In order that we can establish how many active EAL learners are  impacted by this news, we are asking individuals who believe they may be registered and actively progressing on an EAL qualification with CTD Quickstep to submit this form. This will enable us to contact you directly, as we establish more information about the provider’s situation in the coming days. 

Once you have completed the form, if you are enrolled in an EAL qualification, our Customer Experience Team will be in touch to provide you with our records of your progress. 

We will use our website to provide updates as the situation develops.