Background

Launching in 2020 T Levels were a key part of this Government’s educational reform, and proposed to be one of the largest changes to post-16 education in a generation. Given the varying types of Level 3 vocational and technical programmes, the idea was that this would provide streamlined and more accessible options for young people, leading to greater trust in the quality of qualification and improved rigour for technical and vocational study – with an increased emphasis on career preparedness and skills in comparison to a number of the older level 3 qualifications – which consultation suggested was not adequately preparing youngsters for careers and affecting the productivity of the UK economy.

Sector area T Levels have slowly been introduced since 2020 – with funding for the majority of BTEC and equivalent L3 courses scheduled for phasing out in the very near future in their entirety. T-Level provision will join the Ofsted inspection framework beginning from the new academic year – it will be interesting to see how they intersect with the Skills judgements which were added to the FE framework for inspection last academic year.

Whilst not part of the official judgements of Ofsted, whilst undertaking inspections they also collated evidence to compile the information for this thematic review. This can be read here – https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/t-level-thematic-review-final-report/t-level-thematic-review-final-report

The report focusses on areas of strengths and improvement of the implementation of the qualifications thus far. There are areas of strength generally focussed around the Education programmes, where pre-existing networks were able to be used in order to facilitate the significant work placements, students are feeling well prepared for careers afterwards. There are also positive comments relating to delivery models where institutions have collaborated with local employers.

To counter this, there are numerous negative aspects around programmes. The lack of understanding and promotion of these programmes, poor IAG, not taking and using appropriate diagnostic snapshots of student’s starting points, issues with progression and poor resources from the awarding bodies – coupled with significant examination teething issues such as the Health and Science exam sitting last summer garnering negative press, hurting the qualification brand early – https://feweek.co.uk/health-and-science-t-level-results-will-be-regraded-after-watchdog-finds-serious-issues/ 

Furthermore, there were significant concerns raised with regards the transition programme which the DfE have already planned to rebrand from 2024/2025.

The current state of Vocational and Technical Study Programmes at post-16

The November 2021 just over 6000 16-18 year old students were enrolled onto a T level programme. This is in contrast to 620,000 who are studying a programme centred around AS/A Levels – of which approximately 140,000 were on a mixed qualification pathway involving Applied General qualifications (BTEC’s, QCF’s, NCFE quals etc.). A further 180,000 16-18 year olds were on study programmes of exclusively Applied General Qualifications or Tech Levels (not, T Levels) – which are employer backed technical qualifications from an earlier ‘BTEC reform’ (remember, this is to help make everything less confusing!), which were separated from other Applied General qualifications in institutional performance tables. Figures from the T Level Action plan shows just over 10,000 learners started a T Level last academic year. There are also approximately 300,000 students who are 19+ engaging in full-time further education across a variety of programmes.

T Levels require a minimum of 315 hours of work placement (approximately 9 weeks), with the exception of the Education and Early Years T Level, which for the ‘Early Years Educator’ specialism is 750 hours minimum (approximately 21 weeks). This number of hours maps to the count required from the Pearson Level 3 ‘Early Years Educator’ Extended Diploma (and similar) – which goes to explain why T Level providers in those areas have been commended for the placements in the report, as nothing has really changed – the systems have been in place beforehand. In other areas Applied General qualifications have not had mandatory work experience expectations previously, or even where they have, such as Health and Social Care – the demands of work placement in the  T Level are over three times larger. Due to the increased academic rigour and structure of the T Level programme, the emphasis is on ‘health’ placements as opposed to ‘social care’ placements, which have proven much more difficult to source, putting T Level providers in competition with universities for appropriate placements.

Not all level 3 programmes fit the mould of a T Levels – but will not stay in their current form. Consultation is ongoing for a new bevy of qualifications called Alternative Academic Qualifications (AAQ’s), for first teaching in 2025. There will likely be large AAQ’s in the likes of Sports, Performing Arts and Public Services which do not have T Level equivalents – which will likely resemble the current extended diploma models. Shortage areas are also available for large AAQ proposals – health sciences, engineering and manufacturing, education and childcare, construction and ICT. Ironically these are the areas that were deemed the most important and the first launched T Levels. Again, I stress, this is to make everything less confusing at Level 3!

There are also consultations for small AAQ’s, where a student can mix one with an A Level programme. These are to be focussed on Applied Science and Health and Social Care, as well as Criminology, Engineering etc. Some of these are where there aren’t A Level alternatives, but others such as ICT and Computing (Computer Science) do have A Level equivalents, but are included due to national skills shortages. Once again, I stress, this is to make everything less confusing at Level 3!

Research from the Social Market Foundation in 2018 showed that students accepted to university from working-class and/or minority ethnic backgrounds are more likely to hold a BTEC qualification that their peers. Approximately one-quarter of asian students and one-third of black students at university had done study programmes only compromising from BTEC/Applied General qualifications beforehand. There are therefore concerns from the higher education sector that this might reduce opportunities for the most disadvantaged to attend university longer-term.

Scalability and Future Implementation

In a very short timeframe the expectation is for T Levels to become the standard of vocational and technical study in England. Realistically in a couple of years time the 10,000 starts are likely to be 150,000 to 200,000 in order to facilitate the learners from discontinued Level 3 programmes. Do colleges have the resources? Is there employer buy-in? Can the sector facilitate this? How scalable are these qualifications to a broadened cohort?

Empirically there are already issues with the employers who have signed up. Some want ‘day release’, but on specific days – others want ‘block release’, so that work experience happens in chunks. These are all in one cohort. How do you structure classroom delivery? For something that is emphasised as 80% ‘classroom’ – how do you structure and plan a curriculum when there is zero consistency in when students are going to be available for your class?

We then have the emphasis on appropriate work placement. I know the current government have produced a push for satisfying local and regional labour demands – and it is vital for FE institutions to provide what the local labour market requires. However, there is a risk that this is going to become the sole focus for these institutions, blocking off the feasibility of courses in specific technical areas that aren’t prominent in a local area, preventing student progression into those areas simply due to their geographical location they are in as a ‘child’. This is a complete anathema of ‘social mobility’. A recent speech by Shadow Minister for Employment for the Social Market Foundation (transcript here) emphasises a number of points in this area – the following quote really resonating;

…“A few years ago, politicians were falling over themselves to talk about making sure kids grow up to be better off than their parents,” but it seems to have fallen out of favour with the current government.

I will argue that a central mistake in the UK’s labour market policy is low ambition for our people – an anathema to improving life chances.

I think that this low ambition stems from a low opinion of people which, at best, is the consequence of short-sighted policy making, and at worst, is a result of class discrimination about the jobs that people do…

Alison McGovern MP, 27th April 2023

Interestingly, the crux of this is similar to the issue I had with the 2020 ‘exam results’ algorithm fiasco. If the algorithm said that your school/college had a 4% A* rate historically – the individuals in your cohort this year did not matter at all, you got 4* A*. If you had a cohort of 20 students – sorry, nobody gets an A*, as each student is 5% of the cohort. This therefore had the potential to penalise smaller and regional providers. Essentially the way ‘algorithm’ worked was “Hey, you are unlucky enough to be at a s**t school – well you must be s**t”. This is an ideological choice.

The counter-argument will be that this is accounted for in what is accepted as the work placement. There are a number of variations in work experience type that are accepted as valid. Some sectors allow for 20% remote work, some allow you to working the supply line or tertiary component of the sector as part of the work experience. But these involve significant logistical work on behalf of institutions involved. Will sixth form colleges and schools have the expertise in order to navigate this?

Within the industry placement information from the DfE they have released a supporting document (Annex A) with a selection of ‘case studies’ – which are suggestions of how to combat a number of issues that may arise in organising industry placements. I will discuss three of these given scenarios below.

In theory this makes a lot of sense, until you realise it is not functional. If there are no suitable metrology employers within commuting distance, then a further education provider is not going to offer a metrology sciences T Level pathway, due to the importance of work placement provision. Yes, a workaround can be made for one learner as with the example, but putting this in place for a cohort of 20 or more takes a significant amount of resources – it will eat into the pool employer placements for other sectors – it’s not practical.

The Chloe example is similar. Yes, this is an approach which would work for the individual – but if there is only one furniture maker in the commutable locality then what about the other learners on the ‘furniture maker’ specialism. These are ‘cute stories’ in a document, but they are not practical and workable adaptations for a cohort of learners. Ultimately it means if an institution was to attempt to run this course in this area, meaningful work placements could not be sourced for the cohort.

Finally, we have Julie’s ‘story’. One thing that has been flagged, particularly with the most recently launched T levels, are the amount of ‘remote working’ that certain sectors are doing – which most T levels do not allow, and at-most the ratio is only 20%. The work placement Julie is receiving here actually similar to one of the criticisms flagged in the Ofsted report. The context in the report is regarding the Health pathway – how a lot of students have had to receive Social Care/Care Home style placements instead, which does not meet the required standards of what is needed by the students for the programme academically – with the academic emphasis being on on health and science. A flip side to this is a note from institutions that a number of students on these programme would actually prefer to progress into social care, but the programme in its current form does not adequately prepare them for this progression route.

The government have ring fenced an additional Employer Supply Fund unit March 2024 to try and encourage more employers to offer high-quality industry placements. Although governmental departments themselves have come under fire for not ‘walking the walk’ with regards offering industry placements to young people – https://feweek.co.uk/t-levels-government-departments-not-walking-the-walk-on-industry-placements/

Ultimately, this is one of the largest barriers to implementation. I genuinely cannot see how this can be addressed in order to scale these courses up to the numbers required, whilst providing worthwhile and relevant placements. There are going to be limited options for young people, very much constrained to regional area demands – which are often not aspirational but practical on behalf of the ‘economy’, not motivational for the young people themselves. The only way of combatting this is to reduce the importance of the industry placement element, or ‘working the system’ of secondary and tertiary supply chain jobs, or those only tenuously linked to the sector area the student is studying towards – which does not prepare the student for their chosen pathway or map to the academic content of the course.

In both situations this undercuts the rigour of the qualifications and ultimately the purpose of their formation to begin with!

T Level Progression

An often overlooked aspect are students outside of the 16-19 provision. As mentioned there were approximately 300,000 on full-time Further Education provision whilst there were only 10,000 T Level starts. Yes, there are continued options for Access to Higher Education qualifications (also going through a slight reform in the coming years), or even A Levels for 19+ learners focussing on a more academic route, however for those who are looking retrain in a technical pathway, a T Level is a much larger undertaking than the current applied general provision – increased teaching hours, days on campus, the significant work placement – all making it difficult to maintain yourself financially in the current fiscal climate and retrain.

The first cohort of T Level students were 1,300 across 43 institutions. 1,029 of these completed the two year programme, meaning approximately 1 in 5 learners dropped out mid-programme. Unlike BTEC and applied general courses there is no opportunity to ‘cash-in’ components of the course partway through, meaning these learners will not have received credit for their study – meaning to potential for 19+ learners maybe wishing to return to education when circumstances are different but struggling to find appropriate courses, for reasons given in the paragraph above. 

Within the report there are no specifics given with regards retention throughout the programme, but it does mention students dropping out or transferring to alternative provision. FE Week conducted some analysis following freedom of information requests on the Health and Science programmes after the exam issues of 2022 (read here) they found that approximately 1 in 3 learners transferred to alternative provision or left college entirely. This compares to a drop-out rate of 10% for the BTEC Health and Social Care and 11% for Applied Science. This is an astronomical difference, and when coupled with the fact these are smaller trial cohorts, who will often have greater focus and attention than mainstream adoption later will allow for, paints a concerning picture.

The report paints a negative light on higher education progression opportunities – choosing a few specific case studies – which aren’t really fleshed out. Over 130 higher education institutions, including highly competitive Russell Group Universities that have committed to accepted T Level qualifications for appropriate courses. A small pool of universities have come out and refused to accept these qualifications, and this generally maps with the universities who did not previously accept applied general and tech-level qualifications. A UCAS blog from February of this year (read here) states that of the 1,029 completions, 510 students applied for Higher Education courses, including 23% from disadvantaged backgrounds. This report paints an overall positive picture of offers being given, including those outside of the specific subject area, such as Social Sciences and Psychology. 80% of the 510 students were accepted for a place at university, upon conclusion of the application cycle. Whilst much smaller raw numbers, as a percentage this is slightly better than the 79% of BTEC students who applied, but slightly below the 84% of the students who had studied A Level.

In the Ofsted report the outlook with higher education is general more negative, emphasis is placed on a case involving the Digital pathway, and difficulties in achieving a higher education place. Whilst specifics are not given, I can infer from experience I suspect this is likely to be progression into Computer Science at a pool of specific universities. This is an IAG (information, advice and guidance) issue, an issue that also existed prior to T Level formation. There are certain disciplines at university that generally require specific subject levels as pre-requisites for entry (A Level Maths and Physics to study Physics at University; Chemistry and Biology for Medicine etc.). Based on how a university has built their programme, this can be something specific to a course at certain institution as well. This is not uncommon at certain Russell Group universities an their Computer Science programmes – where they will require a high grade in A Level Mathematics as part of their offer.

Yes, not all computer scientists require mathematics, but a lot do, and certain universities have built their provision around the areas that do. This is frequent IAG I have given over the years to various A Level, BTEC and ‘mixed economy’ students. These universities are upfront with this information. It is worth noting at this time that there is a distinct lack of level 3 calibre mathematics in the T Level digital pathway. Shockingly so, if I am to be honest if these type of progression opportunities were expected to be kept open. As a whole I have found universities transparent about whether they will accept a T Level course , and what they will accept – to the point that the emphasis on this area seems quite strange in July 2023 (maybe 18 months ago!?). 

One positive area of the report was emphasising Construction, where students were kept on as apprentices at their work placement areas. I’m less sure about this, as elsewhere in the report it makes a distinction to Degree Level Apprenticeships, so the assumption is that these are not advanced or higher level apprenticeships gained by these learners. Given that the general student in a T Level has a strong 5+ GCSE ‘passing grade’ profile, it is likely this level of apprenticeship would have been accessible to the learners at the age of 16. So what value has been added by completing the T Level programme? Yes you could look at development more holistically, but given that the placement is literally with the same employer, this suggests the employer is not confident in the developments of the individual through the programme they have undertaken that they need to refer back to a qualification they could have accessed originally. Therefore, how is this programme an improvement to students and employers?

Ultimately the notes on progression seem to be very specific case related. Why are these broader figures not being analysed? What actually did students go on to do? Not just a few case studies, what was progression for the cohort? Is it an improvement over the alternatives that were available? Importantly, what about drop-out rate? Where do students go? How has studying T Level affected the outcomes of students in comparison to alternatives? One of the risks of these programmes are that they may leave those who for whatever reason struggle to access the high demands and assessment style cut-off and in a much worse position than the current Level 3 study structure. 

Whilst it is still incredibly early days, and at this point we would only be looking at 1,000 or so finished students and 10,000 or so in current study, the lack of transparency for clear progression data and information regarding what happens to students who fail to complete is concerning. It makes it very difficult to audit the effectiveness of these programmes – to the point where the concern is that, this is exactly the point!