NCFE to calculate impact of Multiply

The educational charity and awarding organisation NCFE has been appointed by the Department for Education (DfE) to evaluate the success of its Multiply programme.  

A government-funded initiative to help adults improve their numeracy skills, Multiply is a free programme for people aged 19 and over without a maths GCSE at grade C or equivalent. 

It’s designed to build confidence, support families with children to improve their maths, help individuals better manage core life skills like budgeting and planning, as well as support those looking to enhance their career prospects.  

As a leader in technical and vocational learning, NCFE has developed a strong reputation in both adult numeracy and online assessment in the UK. Its role is to help maximise the impact of Multiply by evaluating learners before and after they’ve completed the programme.  

Suzanne Slater, Director of Operations at NCFE, said:

“We’re delighted to have been awarded this contract and support learners to grow their confidence and skills around maths. NCFE is passionate and committed to improving the functional numeracy skills of adults across the UK. 

“We’ll be working with around 3,000 learners over the next two years, including carrying out both pre- and post-diagnostic assessments, as well as a follow up around three months after completion, before providing all the insights we gain to the DfE for them to analyse. 

“We’re set to reach out to providers very soon and I’m looking forward to collaborating with them as part of this project to ensure their learners are benefiting as much as possible and we can effectively track the progress they make.” 

NCFE will use its existing Skills Builder platform to deliver the required assessments which, since 2007, has been used by over 1.7 million learners and 650 organisations to understand and improve learners’ numeracy skill levels.  

Trusted by educators and industries to test their cohorts accurately and reliably, Skills Builder has been continually validated by major schools, colleges, employers and training providers over a 15-year period, delivering more than two million online diagnostic assessments.  

Eve Stout, an adult learner who has already taken part in the Multiply programme, said:

“I’ve always struggled with maths. It’s one of the only GCSEs I don’t have, and I knew I had to do something about it. 

“Doing a Multiply course as an adult has been great and was the perfect starting point to building my confidence with numbers. The tutors were amazing and really helped me grow confidence with numeracy and maths skills that I have gone to take onto my apprenticeship and personal life.”