Subsidies to develop a set of flagship technical qualifications have been quietly ditched after ministers shifted resources as part of the spending review, FE Week has learned.
Higher technical qualifications (HTQs) – a suite of government-approved level 4 and 5 certificates launched in 2022 – offer learners one and two-year technical courses as a “true alternative” to the university degree route.
More than 280 qualifications, most of which already existed, carry the HTQ name, which signifies high quality, alignment with employer needs, and gives learners access to university student finance.
But ahead of the spending review, the Department for Education closed a grant programme to help colleges, universities and awarding bodies grow HTQ delivery.
The grants could be used for building refurbishments, equipment such as robots and virtual reality headsets, employer engagement schemes, staff upskilling and curriculum development.
News of the decision comes in the same week prime minister Sir Keir Starmer announced a new target for raising participation in higher technical courses.
Ambitions changed
The most recent data shows around 4,300 learners signed up to study HTQs in 2023-24, in subjects including applied computing, early years and animal welfare.
The DfE estimates about 850 signed up the previous year when HTQs were launched.
The qualifications are part of a wider set of reforms to English technical education prompted by the 2016 Sainsbury review, which recommended developing T Levels and apprenticeships which both align with employer-led occupational standards.
HTQs were designed to address long-running concerns about a lack of level 4 and 5 educational options and attainment.
The government has positioned them as a “practical and advanced next step” for T Level students and sees them as part of its offer of modular shorter courses available through the upcoming lifelong learning entitlement.
According to the National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA), which scrutinises government projects, the government had concluded ministers’ ambitions were “no longer in place” and £23 million earmarked for this financial year was redeployed to “support wider and ongoing work to drive up quality in provision”.
The whole-life cost of the grant programme, which was planned to last until 2027, was estimated at £176 million.
A further £300 million was spent on 21 institutes of technology (IoT) centres that specialise in delivering HTQs through regional collaborations of employers, colleges and universities.
Losing interest
While Skills England continues to add to its list of approved HTQs, the early withdrawal of funding to develop the courses was seen by some as evidence that government interest had waned.
Former Dudley College of Technology chief executive Lowell Williams, a director of Black Country and the Marches IoT until this summer, said the government took a “disappointing and disjointed” approach to HTQs.
He praised the concept of offering young people a study route to higher education and work but believed the qualifications failed to “break the mould”.
By Williams’ final year, he had concluded the government had “given up” on HTQs and the IoTs they are often taught in, choosing instead to focus on new technical excellence colleges which are “at best overlapping and at worse competing”.
A review of the HTQ approval process funded by Lord David Sainsbury’s Gatsby Charitable Foundation voiced concerns that the qualifications lacked brand awareness from learners and employers, and the Skills England approvals process was “complex” and sometimes too slow to keep pace with industry.
One organisation said: “We’re trying to move quickly to meet the demands of industry and it becomes cumbersome. It can take 18 months [and then] another year after approval before you can run it. So three years from the idea to getting students on it.”
Graham Hasting-Evans, chief executive of awarding body NOCN, said HTQs were not a “phenomenal success” due to limited employer demand.
FE Week understands the government still views higher technical education as a priority but the development and delivery of HTQs should now be “business as usual”.
The DfE was contacted for comment.
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