Everyone’s T’eed off, so let’s dig in to make T Levels work

There’s no such thing as bad publicity, as the old adage goes. But with newspapers calling T Levels a “disaster”, a grilling at this week’s Education Committee and now a National Audit Office report which could be summarised as “must do better”, it’s becoming hard to swallow that adage. College marketing departments are holding their heads in hands over yet more setbacks for the beleaguered “flagship technical education qualification”.

The NAO report doesn’t hold back on stating that DfE must do more to address student take up. At TSCG’s careers conference last week, delegates didn’t hold back either: parents don’t get them; schools don’t promote them, and young people don’t want them. Yet, the recently published curriculum and assessment review interim report still refers to them as the “gold standard”.

 The last government’s approach of saying it was switching off all alternatives may have resulted in more students adopting T levels. It would also have likely resulted in higher drop out rates, lower attainment and even more NEETs (not in employment, education or training) given the reduced alternative options. However, retaining the status quo of qualifications with T Levels as an addition would have resulted in them at best becoming niche, or more likely quietly ditched like the old 14-19 diplomas – remember them?

It doesn’t seem like we know what to do with them. There’s desperation from policy makers for them to succeed, but so many barriers to overcome. As well as the uptake challenge, the NAO correctly identifies scalability problems for industry placements. Plus there is the issue around university progression given lukewarm admissions departments, despite directives from government.

For my part, I keep wrestling with a central question. What is precisely the purpose of T Levels? Despite the lack of universal university take up, this does seem to be the favoured destination of many T Level students – when A Levels and applied general qualifications already serve this perfectly well. If the purpose is primarily progression into skilled employment, I think the jury is out so far– gold standard or not.

The arguable failing from the off was that policy makers attempted to take a complex landscape of technical education and shoehorn it into a one size fits all advanced level Key Stage 5 box. This isn’t how technical education works. It’s not what happens in general FE colleges. Many technical education courses start below Level 3 – and need to. Many don’t fit into a quasi-academic style qualification – and shouldn’t do. To an extent, this has now been realised with the ditching of T Levels in areas such as on-site construction, catering and beauty therapy.

So, where do we go from here? First, I’m not advocating for one minute we should give up. There are parts of the post-16 education system that wish these things would just fizzle out like a bad dream. I’m not one of them. Here’s my roadmap:

First, we must resolve confusion over where T Levels sit in the qualification landscape. There’s a reason the education and early years route is enjoying successful uptake whilst the science one isn’t. We need to achieve consensus and be clear on exactly which pathways are best suited to T Levels, which to technical occupational qualifications and which to applied generals. Otherwise we’ll just exacerbate the complexity of navigation for young people, employers and influencers.      

Second, to achieve scalability we need to accept in practice that T Levels serve a different market to A Levels. They must be more accessible to those students who do not want to pursue an academic route, because the “competition” for T Level take-up isn’t so much applied generals as A Levels. Recent government announcements regarding the review of some specifications is a step in the right direction. It must go further.

Third, we need to be clear on the intended progression from T Levels – whilst not closing off individual choice. Here in Greater Manchester, universities engage collectively with colleges on T Level progression. However, there’s a huge opportunity to position the T Level proposition as a continuum through to Level 4 and 5 technical routes, through HTQs and via a classroom or work-based option.  It’s currently a missed opportunity.

Finally, if we want to make T Levels succeed, we must take the responsibility for leading collaborative local and regional solutions. In Greater Manchester, we’re collectively supporting the awareness-raising in schools through our colleges’ ‘festival of technical education’. The combined authority is tackling scalability of industry placements through galvanising the employer base at a city region level, supported by a central vehicle for sourcing opportunities whilst complementing the efforts of individual colleges. It is accepted that these solutions might not work in all localities, but collaboration in whatever form is key.

Yes, T Levels have come in for some stick lately with lots of barriers still to overcome. But we’ll do what we always do so well in FE – make the bloody things work!