Nearly all students who dropped out of the second wave of T Levels switched to a course that is set to be scrapped through controversial government plans.
The exclusive data has sparked renewed calls for the Conservatives to abandon their proposals that involve defunding a host of level 3 qualifications in the next two years and for Labour to stand behind their commitment to “pause and review” the reforms.
The Department for Education’s latest T Level action plan, published in April, confirmed previous FE Week reports that a third of students who started a T Level in 2021 left the programme early.
A total 5,321 students enrolled in 2021 but only 3,510 completed. Of the third that withdrew, 370 did an apprenticeship, 716 transferred to another course and 682 left education.
But the action plan did not lay out the courses those 716 learners chose.
Data obtained by FE Week through the Freedom of Information (FOI) law, and analysed by the Sixth Form Colleges Association (SFCA), revealed 90 per cent of students who switched to other technical or vocational courses chose a qualification that will be axed by 2026 under Tory reforms.
Seventy students, one in ten, swapped T Levels for A-levels, another 50 did a different academic qualification and six did a different T Level.
But 145 students, one in five, moved to a lower level 1 or level 2 qualification.
James Kewin, the deputy chief executive of the SFCA, believes defunding non-T Level qualifications and funding limited alternatives will result in more students choosing lower-level courses in their post-16 choices.
Defunded options
Three in five (439) switchers moved to an applied general, tech level or vocational and technical qualification (VTQs).
These have been earmarked to lose public money, either because they overlap with T Levels or because they don’t meet the government’s criteria for “reformed” level 3s.
SFCA’s analysis shows 397 of the 439 students switched to qualifications that will be axed.
Kewin said: “It’s hard to fathom how ministers can look at this sort of data and conclude it is in the best interests of students to plough ahead with the plan to scrap most non-T Level qualifications.
“The government remains determined to remove the safety net provided by these qualifications, despite the data published today showing the very obvious dangers of doing so.”
Introducing T Levels has not in itself been controversial, with many in the sector supportive in principle because of the extra teaching hours, higher per-student funding rates and generous capital funding for colleges and schools.
But removing public funding from rival qualifications and heavily restricting other options has been one of the most controversial education policies of the Conservative government.
Kewin, who leads the Protect Student Choice campaign coalition of 28 school, further and higher education organisations, said he “looks forward to a very different approach being adopted after next week’s election”.
Last June, the campaign secured a commitment from Labour to “pause and review” the defunding of qualifications if it won power.
Seema Malhotra, the shadow skills minister, said in October Labour “will work with colleges to develop the skills Britain needs through a pause and review of the disruptive defunding of qualifications”.
But the promise was absent from this month’s Labour manifesto.
FE Week understands DfE officials have identified defunding level 3 qualifications as an issue for urgent decisions for the incoming education secretary.
The DfE does itself no favours when it applies different rules and terminology to various programmes.
For instance, in AEB/ASF, if a learner transfers to another course, it’s not considered a drop out or a withdrawal and is excluded from achievement rate calculations.
But here we have a story about T levels where a bunch of learners have transferred to other courses and are called drop outs / withdrawals.
The important missing bit is understanding why they left the original course not just the fact that they did. But as is so often the case, the desire to politicise everything seems to be favoured above well reasoned learning about what is actually happening.
Apprenticeships aren’t immune either, if an apprentice changes provider but stays on the same standard, they can be counted as two drop outs, or at best 1 achievement but 2 leavers.
Drop outs or pushed outs?
My child stared a T level, but there was only a handful of students on the course. It folded within 2 weeks, leaving us with very few options. He was able to do the first year of his BTEC, but not the second year. Now only the first year of the T level is offered locally, so he can’t complete the Extended Diploma.
I contacted the D of E, but they were less useful than a chocolate teapot. It seems they are more concerned about smoothing over their own image, than helping or caring about the young people who are being messed about by poor implementation of policy.
As a specialist T level tutor it is true about students dropping out of this subject simply because its to hard to digest the units and take, including examination leave them bewildered and confused which brings on stress and anxiety this is why they leave its miss sold to them
Whilst the defunding of level 3 quals, particularly BTEC, is not right, this is a very politically influenced article and frankly is pretty poor journalism.
The clear focus of the article, its clearly an outright attack on the conservative education policy in favour of promoting Labour’s
I expected better from FE weekly
I dropped out of my T Level because it was advertised as a vocational course which actually was overwhelmingly academic, with a heavy focus on vaguely relevant content. Each unit had little connect to another and none supported the development of my employable skills, as my apprenticeship does. My opinion of the T Levels, at least the course I was on, was that they were ideal for an individual who did not want to focus on developing the skills they needed for the relevant sector until university, rather than developing them from day one of their course.
On an apprenticeship, I developed the skills I need from the beginning and am supported through academic learning which is strictly relevant. Based on interactions with individuals who completed the T Level, my impression is that they learned a specification with only emerging understanding of the knowledge needed to be employed in the workforce. I left my T Level a year in, and feel I have greater subject knowledge and employability having an industry based experience. I feel far more prepared for university placements in a year of my apprenticeship than I did a year into my T Level placement. I am thankful I made the choice to gain a ‘hands on’ experience opposed to another two years after GCSE spitting out information which appeased as strict marking criteria.
For context, I got grades 5-9 at GCSE and was predicted an A in my first year at T Level, academically I was capable of achieving well on the T Level but it did not suit my individual learning needs – specifically when the courses were new and each college seemed unsure how to deliver the content.