University of Birmingham vice chancellor Adam Tickell has weighed in on the growing pressure around student loans to argue that students without A Levels or equivalent qualifications are “not really capable of graduating”.
Public and political pressure on the student loan system has been rising, with interest rates and the inequity of debt across student demographics rightly coming under scrutiny.
Yet Tickell’s intervention does nothing to address inequity and should instead be called out across the sector for the thinly veiled class snobbery which it represents.
Headlines have focused on A Levels, but this VC fails to explain what “equivalents” to A Levels he deems appropriate for university entry. Without such details, one can only assume this means multiple routes into HE from vocational education.
This debate comes at a critical moment for higher education, when the purpose of universities is being contested both inside and outside the sector. Universities should be places of transformation, working to reduce, not reinforce, social inequality.
Where research does indicate that students with vocational qualifications are less likely to succeed, this is within the context of social disadvantage. It will come as no surprise to educators that socially disadvantaged students face more barriers to success, not because of their capability but because of the harsh impact of social inequality.
Students and voices in FE have long fought the privileging of A Levels within society, with vocational education routinely positioned as inadequate within the policy sphere. A Levels are still sadly perceived as a “gold standard”, leading to higher university acceptance rates.
The inequality with which BTECs, T Levels and other qualifications are treated is based on an outdated conception of what constitutes rigour in education. In this sphere, end-of-subject examinations are held as the standard, a narrow view of educational practice which has long been critiqued.
Research from the Nuffield Trust instead has shown that students with BTEC qualifications are less likely to drop out of university than their A Level counterparts.
Leader of the opposition Kemi Badenoch has positioned herself as wanting to save students money from excessive interest rates, but her comments expose a broader agenda to defund courses which “aren’t delivering for young people”.
Badenoch is directly targeting courses without an immediate quantifiable economic impact. Aside from completely missing the social benefits of a broad-ranging, public higher education model, Badenoch reveals a narrow view of education and a broader agenda against non-elite universities.
Like Badenoch’s intervention, Tickell exposes a political agenda gaining traction via a simplistic political narrative: that of rolling back post-war progress on widening access to post-compulsory and higher education.
As a former FE teacher now researching educational policy, my research explores the limitations of T Levels. Yet, Tickell and I are not positioned in the same wheelhouse.
My research does not identify a lack of capability within non-traditional routes. Instead, I explore the reduction of the T Level curriculum and learning opportunities to knowledge and skills which are to have immediate economic impact by policy makers.
At a decisive moment in which the unequal and unfair student loans system is coming under pressure, the comments from Tickell are incredibly disappointing.
Yet they are not surprising.
As FE practitioners, students and communities are well-aware, we sadly live in a society which routinely fails to acknowledge the transformative work and power of FE’s contribution.
As my practice shows in both FE and in a university where many of our students take BTECs, T Levels or Access courses to get there, students without A Levels arrive at university with important academic skills such as invaluable professional experience, producing detailed coursework, examining research and often the ability to juggle multiple demands of study and work.
Time and again they prove themselves more than capable of graduating.
Yet too often, for students from working-class backgrounds, plus those juggling additional multiple experiences of discrimination, the structural barriers to attaining a university degree, such as the cost-of-living crisis or caring commitments, are what impact university study.
Stating that access to student funding should be reviewed for non-A Levels students rolls back social progress. It furthers the damaging narrative that students with vocational qualifications, who are more likely to be from working-class backgrounds, are not welcome or needed in university settings.
This could not be further from the truth.
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