We’ll lose apprentices due to Reeves’ tax and wage rise, say bosses

Bosses have warned the chancellor’s budget tax hikes and rises to the minimum wage will wreck their plans for new apprentices.

Rachel Reeves vowed to rebuild public services as she announced £40 billion in tax rises last week, which included increasing employer national insurance contributions by 1.2 percentage points.

She also announced that from April the national living wage will rise 6.7 per cent from £11.44 to £12.21 an hour, while the apprentice minimum wage goes up 18 per cent to £7.55 an hour.

Business secretary Jonathan Reynolds admitted the increases were likely to impact companies’ ability to hire new staff.

An FE Week investigation has found early signs that apprentices are either being let go or recruitment is being put on hold in industries including hairdressing and early years.

A snap survey by the British Hair Consortium (BHC), shared exclusively with FE Week which gathered responses from 1,600 hair salon owners employing a total of 3,277 apprentices, suggested 95 per cent will now cut back on hiring to save money.

When asked how apprentices’ minimum wage increases would impact their apprentice plans, more than half said they would freeze hiring, and another quarter said they were likely to reduce their current headcount.

‘It’s not appealing’

Brooke Evans who runs BE Ironbridge, a hairdressing salon in Telford, Shrops, said it was now “very unlikely” she would take on further apprentices.

She added: “Other salons I’ve spoken to are unlikely to take on more because it’s not appealing.”

Evans has two apprentices working alongside seven stylists and estimates she has trained 10 apprentices in the last five years.

She said: “The increase in wage baffles me for apprentices because you put in so much time to get them to the right standard.

“They might qualify in two years, but we invest in them for six to 12 months to refine their skills enough.”

Employers in the early years sector also said the budget is likely to hit their hiring plans.

Lisa Evans, manager of Abacus Nursery and Childcare, recently hired two 16-year-old level 2 apprentices.

But she said: “Due to the announcements in the budget and the lack of appropriate funding, I will potentially only be able to offer them their level 2 and not be able to support them through to their level 3 as the rising costs will affect my sustainability within the setting.”

Budget detail

Under Reeves’ plan, employer national insurance contributions will rise from 13.8 per cent to 15 per cent and the salary threshold where contributions begin will fall from £9,100 to £5,000.

Meanwhile, the employment allowance for small businesses, effectively a discount on the overall national insurance bill, will increase from £5,000 to £10,500.

Employers also do not pay national insurance for apprentices under the age of 25 who earn up to £50,270 a year.

Wage rises positive ‘in theory’

Neil Leitch, chief executive officer of the Early Years Alliance, said that while “in theory” rises to minimum wages is positive news, combined with higher employer national insurance contributions it is “increasingly difficult” for businesses to remain viable.

Amy Alderson, director of early years specialist Aspire Training Team, which has more than 300 apprentices, said wage and national insurance increases “are posing a real challenge” for businesses.

She added: “As costs increase it’s crucial that employers remain committed to supporting apprenticeships, particularly in sectors like early years education where there’s already a staffing shortage.

“Scaling back on apprenticeships for short-term cost savings will ultimately harm the sector’s stability and growth, leaving both employers and the communities they serve at a disadvantage.”

Bad hair day

Toby Dicker, co-founder of the Salon Employers Association, whose members took part in the BHC survey, said salons were moving away from taking on apprentices “because there’s literally no money left”.

He argued that rising costs have pushed two thirds of the sector’s workers into the self-employed “gig economy”, meaning there are less employers who will take apprentices on a PAYE basis.

He added: “Any service-based industry is harder hit, but hairdressing more so because the apprentice doesn’t add any value initially.

“If you’re an apprentice painter or electrician or plumber, you can at least pass the tools and do those things.

“But an apprentice hairdresser is learning, they’re a student as far as we are concerned, but yet they’re regarded as workers by current administrations and government.

“A generation of employees will be gone – that’s what those numbers are telling us.”

Other sectors?

Apprentice training providers suggested employers in other sectors were also cutting back on hiring plans, but none were willing to go on record.

Luke Muscat, managing director of training provider B2W Group, said he had spoken to several senior leaders in industries such as insurance, IT and hospitality, who were considering “reducing hiring plans, recruitment and pay freezes, increasing automation and technology”.

He added: “They were not specifically against apprentices, but I think it will be young people and apprentices that find it hardest to compete as employers tighten their belts.”

Journey’s not over for skills bootcamps, says top DfE official

There is “definitely a future” for skills bootcamps, a top Department for Education civil servant has said following uncertainty about funding for the courses.

Apprenticeships director Kate Ridley-Moy told the Association of Employment and Learning Providers autumn conference that the programmes could potentially “evolve” into a fundable option through the reformed growth and skills levy.

The previous government committed half a billion pounds to fund skills bootcamps between 2022 and 2025. The short courses involve a combination of training, work experience and a guaranteed job interview over a period of up to 16 weeks.

While there have been no commitments to fund bootcamps with public cash beyond March, Ridley-Moy outlined a positive road ahead for the providers who deliver them.

She said: “There definitely is a future for skills bootcamps.

“We’re also thinking about how, in a reformed growth and skills levy, there is a call for shorter courses for employed people. So actually, it’s a great way to look at bootcamps and potential evolution of it.”

Ridley-Moy added skills bootcamps had proved a “huge success” but recognised there were “some areas” where the delivery and outcomes “can be improved”. Research of the early rollout of the programme found low completions and concerns over the “appropriateness” of some job interview offers.

Autumn 2025 aim for foundation apprenticeships

The civil servant also gave an update on the government’s commitment to introduce “foundation” apprenticeships.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced £40 million at last week’s budget to develop the courses.

Ridley-Moy said more information will come in the spring and the aim is to roll out foundation apprenticeships next autumn.

She acknowledged there had been “lots of previous offers” designed to deliver opportunities for those not yet ready to undertake apprenticeships, namely traineeships, but insisted “we are learning the lessons from our design and from some of the problems that we’ve encountered in the past”.

She added: “As jobs with training, the new foundation apprenticeship offer will start with the need of employers as well as the needs of young people. It will focus on ensuring that training is directed towards real vacancies and staff-shortage areas. The training offer will include clear, seamless progression into other apprenticeships.”

Ridley-Moy also said a timeline for implementation of the growth and skills levy should be communicated in the new year, as should final decisions on which level 7 apprenticeships will be removed from the scope of levy funding.

£300m budget boost ‘can’t pay for 5.5% FE pay rise’, AoC claims

Colleges will find it “impossible” to use the £300 million additional funding being pumped into the sector to match the school teacher pay award, leaders have claimed.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced the cash injection at last week’s Budget, but details on how the funding will be distributed and what it should be spent on have still not been released.

Unions were quick to insist the money must be used to fund a 5.5 per cent pay rise for college staff that matches what schoolteachers will receive in 2024-25.

Schools got £1.2 billion of government cash over the summer to cover the costs, but colleges received nothing.

The Association of Colleges previously said £250 million was needed to match this pay award in FE.

But the AoC claims the £300 million announced at the Budget will be spent on other priorities like projected demographic increases in 16-to-19 students, partly because the cash is expected to be released in April – the next financial year.

AoC chief executive David Hughes posted on social media to say colleges will see “none of it before then, making it impossible, sadly, to match the school pay award in this academic year”.

He later told FE Week: “There seems to be some misunderstanding that the extra funding will be able to help colleges to match the school teacher pay award announced in July. That looks highly unlikely, given that the extra funding announced is for the financial year starting in April 2025, and the schoolteacher pay award is for the academic year already started.”

The previous government stumped up an additional £185 million in 2023/24 and £285 million for 2024/25 through the 16-to-19 funding formula to help fund college pay rises in those years.

The AoC made a recommendation of a 6.5 per cent uplift for college staff pay in 2023/24, in line with what schools got, but only recommended a 2.5 per cent pay rise in 2024/25.

University and College Union head of further education Paul Bridge said colleges “know they are getting an overdue funding boost” and should “manage their budgets to prioritise giving hard-working staff a proper pay-rise now”.

He added: “Many further education lecturers are using foodbanks and rationing their heating, so for college bosses to follow the AoC’s suggestion and continue to hoard their resources instead of supporting staff would exacerbate the already parlous staffing situation. 

“Last year the Tories made clear their £470 million funding boost was to support staff recruitment and retention; at the very least the Labour government now needs to mirror that directive for colleges to prioritise staff. If the AoC and college bosses keep on holding down pay, then the sector will continue to haemorrhage workers.”

Hughes outlined that some of the £300 million will be “required to fund places for the growing cohort of young people who have a statutory right to education or training to age 18”.

He added: “We will all soon know more about what the growth has been in colleges and school sixth forms in this current academic year, and because of lagged funding that will drive how much of the extra £300 million of funding is required for the next academic year and how much might be able to support other priorities including a funding rate rise.”

Today the National Education Union closed a ballot for strike action in 40 sixth form colleges also excluded from the schoolteacher 5.5 per cent pay rise over the summer.

Daniel Kebede, the NEU’s general secretary, said his union “expects appropriate funding to be given to colleges to enable pay settlements that match those in the maintained schools sector”.

The outcome of the ballot is expected to be announced in the coming days.

The Sixth Form College Association said that “most” of the £300 million will be “needed to fund the projected increase in the number of students”.

Chief executive Bill Watkin told FE Week: “It remains the case that there is a pressing need to raise the rate of 16-to-19 funding to provide students with the education and support they need to fulfil their potential, and to ensure that staff in sixth-form colleges receive the same pay increase as their colleagues in schools and academies. 

“£300 million is not enough to fund this, and the bottom line is the government needs to invest significantly more in 16-to-19 education to ensure that both students and staff get a fair deal.”

Skills minister Jacqui Smith told this week’s Association of Employment and Learning Providers conference that the Department for Education is now in a “business planning process” to decide how to allocate the £300 million.

The DfE said details will be released “in due course”.

Labour must end the scandal of FE teacher pay

Planning lessons? Check. Curriculum development? Check. Assessment for Learning? Check. Manage behaviour effectively? Adherence to the teachers’ standards at all times? Most definitely.

We’re all expected to demonstrate the same knowledge and skills, so why is there such a huge disparity in pay between teachers in schools and those in FE colleges?

Much of the problem stems from colleges themselves. Job descriptions for Maths and English teachers are often vague, stating, for example, that is desirable for a candidate to have or be working towards a teaching qualification – without clarifying whether this is QTS, QTLS, or something else entirely.

This enables colleges to pay the absolute minimum, because they do not have to employ a teacher with QTS and therefore pay them to scale. Those who are attracted to the more laid-back environment that college life promises after school burnout take a financial hit if they decide to make the switch.

It happened to me, and it has happened to many others.

While schools in the state sector have to follow the pay scales set by the DfE, with most academies and many independent schools also choosing to, FE colleges can set their own levels.

The UCU has recommended pay levels, which are shockingly far below those of schools, but colleges can choose to ignore even these. Essentially, they operate as private businesses and pay what they want.

It’s unsurprising, really. The 2010 coalition government and the successive Conservative governments that followed it battered sixth form and FE colleges with severe funding cuts, resulting in redundancies, courses stopped and some colleges closing.

In essence, these governments did not see the value of post-16 education, refused to properly invest in them, and colleges have never financially recovered. Those who have absorbed the brunt of this brutal financial battering are the teachers in these organisations.

A career in FE is no longer financially tenable

One particular effect of this policy climate has been the devaluing of many teaching staff by renaming them ‘lecturers’. By doing so, colleges are able to introduce an element of the casual university employment market, where lecturers are often employed on a zero-hours basis, and are only paid for the hours they teach.

Many maths and English teaching positions in colleges are now advertised on a per-hour basis. These often go unfilled, thus perpetuating recruitment problems. Meanwhile, those who do accept these zero-hours terms often find their hours being drastically cut at short notice, meaning that a career in FE is no longer financially tenable.

We can’t pretend this doesn’t affect students too. Constantly changing teachers, some of whom are qualified subject specialists and many of whom are not, does not help them pass their resits.

Reinforcing this devaluing of FE teachers is the idea that we are facilitators rather than teachers. No, we are not. Students often need to be explicitly taught the Pythagoras theorem, or need scaffolding and modelling to even attempt extended writing.

This is teaching. Any other name is just a way of deskilling us so that we can be paid less. Let’s see it for what it is and not give in to it.

This situation is exacerbated by decisions relating to teaching and learning, along with recruitment, being made by heads of departments who themselves are not subject specialists.

For example, it is fairly common for a head of maths to have a vocational background, or for a head of English to be ESOL-trained but not hold a PGCE in English (or even in some cases, QTS of any kind).

The new Labour Government must stop burying their head in the sand about the pay and recruitment crisis in FE. They have listened to the NEU and the STRB. Now, they must listen to us:

  • Create enforceable pay scales similar to those in schools.
  • Only use qualified teachers to deliver GCSE maths and English courses.
  • Ensure heads of departments are subject specialist.
  • Talk up the hard but often unseen work that college teachers do.
  • And invest in a diverse range of courses that inspire students to pursue their goals.

Labour’s economic mission relies on skills, and those depend first and foremost on skilled teachers. This isn’t a mission that can be delivered on the cheap.

Labour can do much better than simply tweaking the levy

There is considerable focus on the way Skills England will be set up, including what will happen to the functions of IfATE. Whoever leads the new body needs to set out a clear vision for a world-class skills system with an associated road map for delivery.

To succeed and be around for the long-term, Skills England will need leadership with the clout to influence the whole of government, not just a sponsoring department.

However, even more important is the new government’s plans for the growth and skills levy. How it will choose to use the money available to grow the talents and opportunities of our workforce will be critical to the economy and lifting the UK’s poor productivity.  

The new levy will be critical to all five of the government’s five missions to rebuild Britain.

Since the 1960s, the UK has had numerous forerunner levies in one form or another, including in construction and related engineering for companies of all sizes.

These have been run and adapted over time by industry and sector skills councils, generally with success. A more recent and more familiar example is the apprenticeship levy introduced in 2017.

Employers complained that the apprenticeship levy focused only on large firms, lacked flexibility and was over-bureaucratic. So the growth and skills levy presents a rare opportunity for the government to really “put the employer in the driving seat” through a new sector-led approach.

Drawing lessons from historical industry levies which have proven effective over six decades and from devolution policies, we suggest industry groups oversee the new levy’s implementation, while the government focuses on collecting funds and setting regulatory frameworks.

This approach would emphasise local input, collaboration with the UK’s devolved nations and regions, and set clear skills outcomes aligned with technological advancements, AI, and net-zero goals.

This approach would emphasise local input

Sector-specific strategies would also ensure inclusivity for SMEs and the self-employed, with a commitment to leveraging experts in new technologies for workforce training, including partnering with further education colleges.

There could be a structured sector deal or sector license with five-year renewable terms, promoting strong governance and an industry-wide commitment to skills development.

The overarching goal is to place responsibility for skills upgrades in the hands of industry professionals, who can better respond to real-time economic demands, technology shifts and the move to net zero.

Skills and productivity improvements will involve considerable commitment and contributions from local government in England and the administrations in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Their engagement must be integral to the way forward.

So, what might be the underpinning conditions of a sector deal or license? Here are five key considerations:

First, clear outcomes for the delivery of the skills needed for sustainable economic growth and productivity improvements and for upgrading businesses and workforces (including SMEs and the self-employed) for new technologies, AI and net zero.

Second, an industry-developed national sector skills strategy for the whole of the sector including SMEs and the self-employed.

Third, strong governance through a sector leadership group that looks at sector strategies as a whole, including the skills requirements. This is essential, and the governance organisation must be able to take the whole of the sector with it.

Fourth, close working with devolved authorities to support the differing priorities and needs of each locality.

And fifth, a commitment from the sector to utilise the skilled people who are at the cutting edge of introducing the new technologies, AI and net zero skills to support training and occupational standards development.

Instead of assuming all that will happen is tweaking of the existing apprenticeship levy, let’s start a real debate about what the growth and skills levy should look like and how it should be governed and operated.

The above proposed approach puts responsibility where it really rests and in the hands of the people who can truly implement the changes in skills that the UK’s economy desperately needs. 

All level 7 apprenticeships will be axed, skills minister suggests

The axing of level 7 apprenticeships from levy funding will be “pretty widespread”, the skills minister warned as she suggested a blanket ban on public subsidy for the programmes is coming.

Jacqui Smith addressed apprenticeship levy reform concerns in her speech at today’s Association of Employment and Learning Providers conference, in which she also defended the “independence” of incoming quango Skills England.

Prime minister Keir Starmer announced plans to remove some level 7 apprenticeships from the scope of levy funding to shift resources towards young people training at lower levels during Labour’s party conference in September.

It comes amid strain on the Department for Education’s already stretched apprenticeship budget which has been almost fully spent in the past two years.

Smith said today: “In order to open up the growth and skills offer to deliver new training where it’s needed most, you will be aware that we’ll be asking more employers to step forward and to fund level 7 apprenticeships outside of the levy.

“We know that for too long employers have not invested enough in skills, and that’s something which needs to change. We’re clear that levy funded training is only one element of the investment from employers in the skills needs of their workforce, and we want to encourage and support employers to go further in investing in these training needs as we build towards that responsive and collaborative skills system.”

Level 7 apprenticeship starts are dominated by the accountancy or taxation professional and senior leader standards. But other popular programmes include advanced clinical practitioner, solicitor, academic professional, chartered town planner, district nurse and community nurse specialist practitioner.

Some sector leaders have praised the decision as it removes so-called “deadweight” costs – paying for training that would have happened anyway in the absence of the levy.

But other training providers, universities and employers fear that removing all level 7 apprenticeships from the levy will disproportionately hit the NHS, schools, councils and the civil service which often spend their levy on these apprenticeships.

Pressed on whether the DfE and Skills England will engage with the sector on potential areas to keep in scope of the levy, Smith said this will happen but suggested it is unlikely any standards will survive as the removal of funding “will be pretty widespread”.

She said: “We absolutely need to hear the evidence, the examples, exactly that type of information about where we might be able to make some changes to enable us to make these decisions.

“I just don’t want in six months’ time for people to say I wasn’t honest. We are going to have to shift funding from level 7 in order to be able to fund the other priorities that I have set out. I wouldn’t want people to leave this room with an impression that there will be a lot of flexibility around that.”

Asked directly if this means all level 7 will be cut, Smith replied: “More than some people hope, I suspect.”

AELP has argued the level 7 axe could be avoided if the £800 million gap between the amount taken in by the apprenticeship levy from employers and the actual programme budget was plugged.

Smith said she has “made this point to the Treasury”.

Skills England independence fears ‘wrong’

Labour consistently claimed in opposition that its proposed new skills body, Skills England, would work across government to fix the “fragmented and broken” training system. The party has since set up the organisation in “shadow” form, appointed an interim chair from inside the DfE and advertised for board members and a chief executive.

Last month we learned the new organisation will be set up as an executive agency within the DfE rather than as an independent body, and the £130,000-a-year CEO role will be at senior civil service director grade, reporting to the director general for skills, Julia Kinniburgh, which is more junior than people expected.

Smith attempted to dispel the fears of a lack of independence.

She said: “Skills England will have an independent board which will provide leadership and direction, as well as scrutiny to ensure that it’s operating effectively and within the agreed framework. We have had hundreds of applications for that board, and very, very many applications to be the chair of Skills England as well.

“It will be close enough to government to be the authoritative and driving voice to inform policy development and to ensure that the whole of government is brought into the priorities that it identifies.

“The idea that Skills England would not be both independent from and challenging to government, I think people will realise is wrong when we announce our chair.”

Our three recommendations to the government’s Level 3 review

It is now more than three months since the government announced it was conducting a “short review of post-16 qualification reforms at level 3 and below”. A last-ditch appeal from 455 school and college leaders urging ministers to introduce a corresponding pause to the defunding of applied general qualifications (AGQs) such as BTECs was unsuccessful.

But now the review is underway, there are signs that the government’s approach is evolving. For a start, the focus of the review has narrowed considerably: from qualifications at Level 3 and below, to Level 3 only and finally just to Level 3 qualifications due to be defunded in 2025.

This has reduced the number of qualifications in scope from around 5,700 to around 500, but it is still a tall order to make considered decisions on the future of courses studied by tens of thousands of young people between now and the end of the year.

Skills minister Jacqui Smith’s recent opinion piece in FE Week also struck a more conciliatory tone and indicated that the new government now sees a bigger role for applied general and other qualifications alongside A and T Levels.

This is welcome news, but does it mean the review will now lead to a better outcome for young people? The Protect Student Choice campaign believes it can, if the government implements the following three recommendations that we shared with ministers last month:

Retain funding for 21 AGQs in key subjects

Just 38 of the 500 qualifications within the scope of the review are applied general qualifications. We have identified 21 courses with significant enrolments that are essential to retain in key subjects such as applied science, health and social care, IT and engineering. 

All meet the government’s criteria of high levels of demand/take-up by learners, supporting the skills needs of employers, offering good progression to related employment and successful outcomes in higher education, and offering good outcomes for learners from different backgrounds and different levels of prior attainment.

Confirm that students can enrol on these until 2026/27

If the government confirms its position on these 21 AGQs by December, that will provide colleges and schools with some much-needed certainty for the 2025/26 academic year.

However, given the lateness of the decision, that will soon be replaced by uncertainty for the following year. To address this, students should be able to enrol on AGQs approved through the review up to and including 2026/27.

No restrictions on combining qualifications

The previous government planned to introduce funding rules that would stipulate the applied subjects that students could study alongside A Levels, and other restrictions that would limit the size and number of AGQs that could be included in study programmes.

These restrictions should not be introduced. Colleges and schools must  retain the autonomy to decide the combination of qualifications that will lead to the best outcomes for their students.

These sorts of restrictions do not apply to A Level-only study programmes, and they should not apply to students pursuing AGQs.   

Implementing these three recommendations would be hugely beneficial to young people and hugely reassuring to colleges and schools.

The campaign’s immediate priority is the current review and securing a sensible outcome in December. But other challenges are close at hand.

For example, it remains unclear when decisions will be made about the Level 3 qualifications that are outside the scope of the government’s review; all have an uncertain future beyond September 2025 (including 79 AGQs in subjects such as business).

The campaign is focused on AGQs because we believe it is vital to retain a genuine three-route qualification system at Level 3.

Asking what qualifications should sit alongside A and T Levels in the future isthe wrong starting point. The right starting point is to ask how we ensure there are high-quality academic, applied and technical qualifications to meet the needs of all young people and employers.

That’s the fundamental point the Protect Student Choice campaign will continue to make, while remaining focused on encouraging the government to adopt our three practical recommendations next month.

Why I won’t give up on our English GCSE resitters

“What about the mental health impact of resits?” I was asked, when addressing an FE English and maths conference just after Covid.

“Yes, they can definitely help,” I replied.

The conference had temporarily moved online, so I was safe from my recurring nightmare of being shanked in the toilets at that event. But I couldn’t unsee a comment in the chat: “They won’t help my students.”

It lingers; the comedy of such low professional esteem, mixed with pity for students who deserve better, and the tragedy of a teacher who has lost belief in their own subject.

I became an English teacher because I believe stories have the power to change lives. I have seen them do so seismically, redrawing young people’s trajectories. And I have seen them do so subtly, providing moments of joy, hope and curiosity.

More recently, I have been reminded of their power through my own need.

A year ago, my mum died suddenly. The façade of grown adult immediately crumbled, sending a little boy running back to reading and writing stories.

“All I could think was that tomorrow cannot come. Time cannot go on. I am pulling the emergency brake of time,” explains Margaret, in Lev Grossman’s young-adult story The Map of Tiny Perfect Things. She relives her mother’s last day on loop. It is the kind of elegant and beautiful metaphor reliably found in YA fiction.

Teen novels provide vicarious survival training for the turbulence of life that will never be found in the ephemera of functionalism or the pedantry of linguistics, but which is completely compatible with the open text choices of the current English Language GCSE.

And they scale in accessibility from tailored ‘hi-lo’ (high chronological age, low reading age) options, through to the aspirationally-literary, allowing a well-designed resit course to lead students through a bookshelf that stands a chance of engaging them, moving them and connecting them to something beyond assessment requirements.

Stories have the power to change lives

I once spent most of a term carefully exploring the novel Thirteen Reasons Why, with more than one resit learner remarking, “This is like therapy”.

Writing, too, is a crucial mental health intervention. Students will take the opportunity to tell their own stories of grief, given the space to write freely. Some did so under a research project, leaving me with samples of the writing and permission to share them.

A health and social care student described her father entering a hospice: “We went up to see Dad, he wasn’t looking his best but I could see he was still fighting. The nurses there let me give him his tablets, take him to the bathroom, and change the dressings on his legs because I wanted Dad to know that I tried.”

A foundation student with speech and language difficulties discovered his voice in writing: “Mum walked in crying and said ‘I’m so so sorry but your dad passed away this morning’… I was starting to cry. On that day I didn’t have any friends because days before this, someone got me in big trouble.”

The catharsis of literacy should not be the preserve of those from better-off backgrounds who more reliably achieve it by age 16.

Supporting learners to read and write stories is what GCSE English resits look like when teachers are, in turn, supported to do the thing that made them sign up to the job in the first place.

Those stories will empower and inspire our young people, and will be there for them when they wouldn’t have known they needed them.

“Forgetting her mother, failing her mother and her friends and herself – those are awful things,” the narrator of John Green’s Looking for Alaska acknowledges feelings that could seem crushing and were too much for his friend, “but she did not need to fold into herself and self-destruct. Those awful things are survivable.”

Being human means inevitably experiencing times of poor mental health. Stories help young people to talk and learn about the normalcy of sadness, loss and hopelessness. They gift a resource of companionship and an outlet of self-expression that will lend strength, whenever it is needed, and will remind them that it is not forever.

The need for English has never been greater.

Read all of Andrew Otty’s Uncivil Servant columns here

We can’t afford complacency in the fight for BTECs

Despite being one of the most established technical qualifications at Level 3, the future of BTECs has been overshadowed in recent years.

The previous Conservative government had planned to remove funding for all BTECs between 2024 and 2028 in order to clear the ground for T Levels while also citing perceived quality issues.

Then in July, just weeks ahead of the beginning of the new academic year, defunding was paused. New secretary of state for education, Bridget Phillipson announced that a ‘short, focused review’ of Level 3 qualifications overseen by skills minister Jacqui Smith would take place before the end of the year.

This news has no doubt brought a sense of relief to colleagues in the sector who have been arguing for at least the past six years that defunding BTECs would generate a number of negative impacts for learners and institutions.

We should not, however, be complacent and assume that the outcome of the review is a forgone conclusion in favour of BTECs, particularly since it is unclear what will be in scope given the department for education have declined to publish the terms of reference.

Instead, we must continue to press the government to keep these qualifications.

The loss of BTECs would limit choice for learners who want applied general qualifications that combine the development of practical skills with academic learning and would force them instead to make a binary choice between purely academic qualifications and technical qualifications that lead (though not always seamlessly) to a specific occupation.

In 2018, one in four students entering higher education held a BTEC (double the 2008 figure); and it remains far from clear that T Levels will ever be able to match this scale.

T Levels can make a valuable contribution to the Level 3 landscape but they are unproven and their lack of flexibility and their size, rigour and links to specific occupations mean they will only ever appeal to a minority of learners.

This could cause universities to enter into financial insolvency

Only 16,000 young people enrolled on a T Level this year and the lack of learner demand has caused some colleges to roll back on their T Level programmes.

This muted enthusiasm is compounded by the fact that the high number of teaching hours, need for specialist equipment and securing a 45-day work placement for each enrolled learner also makes them challenging and expensive for sixth forms and colleges to deliver.

Indeed, I have previously argued that to ensure they deliver the quality expected they should be limited in delivery to colleges and ‘technical’ sixth forms that have sufficient business links to provide high-quality placements.

It is difficult to see a situation where T Levels will be able to serve the 200,000 students who are currently enrolled on BTECs – leaving the risk that a significant number of these young people, who are disproportionately from underprivileged backgrounds, could be disenfranchised from the skills system.

This risk was identified in the Department for Education’s own impact assessment, which concluded that disadvantaged students had the most to lose if BTECs were defunded.

In addition to the significant impact on learners, there would also be a knock-on effect on the finances of the sixth forms and colleges that offer them, as well as the universities that recruit BTEC award holders.

The apparent quality issues cited by government failed to take into account work prior to 2016 to reconstitute BTECs as more rigorous RQF BTEC Nationals.

As more higher education institutions move towards authentic assessment and away from traditional exam-based examinations, the use of continuous assessment and portfolio work favoured by BTECs also puts them more in line with the expectations of some university courses than A Levels.

In any case, at a time when 40 per cent of higher education providers are expected to be in deficit in 2023/24, a significant cut to the number of young people holding eligible Level 3 qualifications could be the thing that causes one or more universities to enter into financial insolvency.

Technical skills are severely lacking in the UK. In Coursera’s 2024 Global Skills Report we were ranked as the 45th most technically proficient country, behind European neighbours Switzerland (1st), Germany (3rd), and France (5th).

If Labour is serious about kickstarting economic growth, they need to open up more routes through our skills system into technical roles, not cut them down. T Levels are one answer, but not the whole answer.

As a sector, we need to be unapologetic about the need to retain BTECs. Now is not the time to withdraw one of  the most reputable technical Level 3 qualifications on offer.