Follows provider pass rate data issue
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has changed when it asks SQE students about how they prepared for the exams, confirming that they will now have to complete a separate training provider survey after sitting the assessment and before accessing their results.
In an update published last week, the regulator said candidates will continue to complete the diversity survey before booking their SQE assessment. That survey gathers data on candidates’ backgrounds, including age, disability, caring responsibilities, education, ethnicity and socio-economic background, and is used to monitor diversity across the SQE cohort.
The key change concerns questions about how students prepared for the exams, including any training provider they used. Instead of collecting this information when candidates first create an SQE account, often long before they have completed, changed or even begun their preparation, the SRA will now gather it after they have sat the SQE but before their results are released.
In practical terms, that means students will not be able to access their results for any sitting until they have completed the training provider survey.
The new approach follows the SRA’s admission late last year that a flaw in how it collected data left it unable to publish pass rates by SQE training provider, despite pledging to do so by late 2023.
The SRA says the shift in timing is intended to improve the accuracy of the data collected. It is also considering whether, and how best, to contextualise and publish the information so that it provides meaningful guidance to future would-be lawyers weighing up their prep options.
This seems quite authoritarian and has red flags written all over it. I would be interested to see how the SRA worked through data protection requirements for this initiative.
It’s an achievement how much the SRA prioritise things that literally no one asked for
I am a trainee solicitor in full time work and i used a provider the first time I sat the exams and unfortunately did not pass. Im taking them again soon and am not using a provider at all, I wonder how they will factor that into the survey?
Especially when they already fail to factor in differences between students and full time professionals when determining pass rates (likely because studies show full time professionals have a far lower pass rate despite working in the profession the exams are supposed to prepare students for!)
Took them so long to correct this flaw. Typical SRA.
God forbid the regulator focuses on work that has any use.
Contrary to some of the posts here, in my experience a lot of people who are planning to take the SQE are interested to see data around provider pass rates (and pass rates where no provider has been used).
I’m not seeing the point in this. The top firms send their trainees (the brightest and most hardworking students) to ULaw and BPP which will then lead to higher pass rates
So let me get this straight. SQE candidates must study contract law to pass the exam. Candidates enter a contract with and pay thousands to Kaplan for them to administer the SQE, months ahead of the exam. AFTER entering the contract with Kaplan and AFTER taking the exam, Kaplan decided they are imposing new terms? Terms that the candidates did not agree to? and Kaplan now effectively says “comply with these new terms or we won’t perform our part of the contract where we promised to provide you your results”.
This is holding results hostage. Yes, it’s only a survey; however, on pure principle it’s just wrong. These exams are so expensive and stressful. Telling candidates they won’t be allowed to see if they passed or not unless they comply with some new term? Stupid.