There is concern at the Department for Education’s rush to “defund” a number of well-established qualifications, which critics say will place some colleges at risk financially and leave some students without viable post-16 pathways.
A report from the Education Select Committee into the post-16 qualification landscape has urged ministers to hold fire.
T levels began life in in 2019/20. They are two-year, Level 3 courses – broadly equivalent to three A levels –which include a nine-week industry placement.
Currently 16 of the 24 planned T level courses are live, operating in fields including agriculture, business and management, craft and design, and legal services.
The committee’s inquiry heard “much praise and strong sector will” for T levels to succeed, however there is concern at the government’s seeming impatience to defund AGQs that overlap with T levels.
The DfE’s reforms began with the defunding of more than 5,000 qualifications at Level 3 that had no or low enrolments. But now the DfE is removing funding approval for AGQs that overlap with wave 1 and 2 T levels from the 2024/25 academic year, and with wave 3 and 4 T levels from 2025/26.
The final phase of reform will then see a “reapproval process” for academic and technical qualifications at Level 3, with new criteria that qualifications must meet in order to be publicly funded from 2025.
Analysis cited in the report by Protect Student Choice – a campaign coalition – claims that as many as 75 of the 134 reformed AGQs are under threat of being defunded from 2025. However, the picture is confusing as ministers told MPs that only “a small number of qualifications that overlap with T levels are being retired”.
The committee concluded: “It remains unclear how many AGQs might remain once the DfE’s reforms are complete.”
Its report adds: “This withdrawal of funding for certain AGQs may place additional pressure on further education colleges and sixth forms whose funding has been particularly squeezed in recent years with larger cuts than other areas of education since 2010/11.”
The committee says that there needs to be more time to allow for “the evaluation and roll-out of T levels” otherwise we risk leaving young people “stranded without suitable qualification pathways and deepening worker shortages in key sectors”.
Notably, the committee says that this argument “was made by the vast majority of those who submitted evidence to the inquiry”.
What makes the DfE strategy more high-risk is the fact that evidence shows BTECs are successful in boosting progression for disadvantaged students. The report adds: “The ‘overwhelming majority’ of students entering with BTECs or mixed programmes do not drop out or repeat. (The research) credits BTECs with ‘enabling widening participation of students from lower socio-economic backgrounds, as they are much more likely to take BTECs than their more privileged peers’.
“Research indicates that BTECs act as a stepping-stone for further study and expected earnings and employment differentials for a student progressing from a Level 3 BTECs to a first degree are positive.”
Experts told the committee that the first cohort of T levels had gone “very well” and many believe them to be an improvement on BTECs and AGQs.
However, the inquiry heard some concerns, not least the capacity within industry to offer equal access in all areas to the mandatory nine-week placements.
MPs also heard that T levels may not be accessible to students with lower academic attainment or with SEND. The DfE has launched a T Level Transition Programme for learners who require an additional year of preparation, but only 14% of the first cohort ended up moving onto a T level–a figure the committee called “entirely inadequate”.
Other concerns include research showing that the majority of young people have not heard about T levels, declining interest from employers, and the fact that “because of their specialist nature, many universities aren’t accepting T levels alone for undergraduate degrees and are additionally requiring relevant A levels”.
Education committee chairman Robin Walker MP said:“We welcome the government’s ambition to declutter the post-16 landscape and raise the status of technical qualifications. We were also buoyed by evidence that T levels are proving successful.
“But it is essential that DfE promotes them among students and the thousands of employers needed to supply work placements, or else T levels will fail to make a meaningful difference.
“We have concerns about the feasibility of scaling up T levels, and as it stands, the planned withdrawal of AGQs will constrict student choice and could deepen the skills shortages that these reforms are meant to fix, including in vital sectors such as social care – effectively pulling the rug from under the further education system. We call for a moratorium on these reforms until T levels are fully rolled out and there is robust evidence to show they adequately replace AGQs.”
Commenting on the report, Julie McCulloch, director of policy at the Association of School and College Leaders, said that the DfE’s “reckless rush” to defund BTECs and similar qualifications before T levels are properly embedded has been “opposed by pretty much everybody in the education sector”.
She continued: “We’ve repeatedly warned that this risks leaving many thousands of students without a viable post-16 pathway, causing huge damage to their future life chances.
“However, ministers have dug their heels in and appear to be determined to scrap a proven set of qualifications which lead to higher education, apprenticeships and careers without having the slightest idea of how well T levels will work in practice.
“We can only hope that they now pay heed to the warnings of the Education Select Committee and introduce a more sensible and measured approach which is in the interests of young people.”
Elsewhere, the MPs’ report also calls for a “wholesale review” of 16 to 19 funding due to real terms reductions in funding between 2010 and 2020.
- Education Committee: The future of post-16qualifications, April 2023: https://bit.ly/40XAv4T