Plans for new “V Level” qualifications to sit alongside A-levels and T Levels are being drawn up, FE Week can reveal.
Multiple sources confirmed ministers are poised to set out plans for a new suite of vocational qualifications in the upcoming white paper on post-16 education and skills.
It follows nearly a decade of heated debates over vocational and technical options for school leavers, which saw the introduction of “gold-standard” T Levels in 2020 and the phased removal of applied general qualifications (AGQs), like BTECs, to direct students towards T Levels.
Ministers from the previous Conservative government and current Labour government have been lobbied heavily by colleges to maintain a third route for students that combines practical skills with academic learning.
Campaigners from the Protect Student Choice campaign, spearheaded by the Sixth Form Colleges Association, warned scrapping AGQs would create a “qualifications gap” for tens of thousands of students for whom a T Level either wasn’t suitable or available.
Popular AGQs like BTECs in subjects such as health and social care, applied science and IT are due to be scrapped in 2026, with “highly regarded” AGQs in business and engineering set to follow in 2027.
There were over 277,000 students studying an AGQ last year compared to 41,500 T Level students. Protect Student Choice said removing those AGQ courses “risks reversing the recent progress made in widening access to higher education and could lead to an increase in the number of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET)”.
Minister hints
Earlier this year, the government’s independent curriculum and assessment review, chaired by Becky Francis, said it would consider “what level 3 qualifications may need to exist alongside T Levels to ensure a simpler, high-quality offer that serves the needs of all learners”.
The review’s interim report said it was “clear” that T Levels “are not suitable as the only technical/vocational pathway” due to “many factors, including the high bar individual providers may choose to set for entry, the design of the programme, and the relatively low number of young people at age 16 who are confident about their likely career destination”.
Francis’s final report is due to publish in the coming weeks, and is expected to inform upcoming white papers on schools and post-16 education.
Skills minister Jacqui Smith hinted at an announcement during the Labour Party conference this week.
Asked by FE Week if defunding plans were set in stone for 2026 and 2027, she said: “I’ve been completely clear that I think T Levels have got an important role to play. A-levels have got an important role to play. We have the need then for a third route in the middle.
“We’ll have more to say about that, and I think that will provide the sort of choice for those wanting to protect something they’ve got at the moment.”
Multiple sources told FE Week that V Levels would form the “third route” but details on the size of the qualifications, content, assessment and funding are yet to emerge.
The Department for Education declined requests for comment.
V-A-T plan
According to a government source, V Levels will be pitched as “sector-specific” qualifications next to T Levels, which are “occupationally-specific”.
They added: “But what we don’t want to see is a subsidiary route. We want everything to be of the same sort of quality provision, even if the assessment strategy is different, even if the content is different.”
Level 3 reform has been one of the most contested areas of education policy since the 2016 Sainsbury Review called for a streamlined system of A-levels and technical qualifications.
T Levels were introduced by the last government in 2020 and continued to be championed by Labour ministers. Developing and rolling out the qualifications to date has cost around £1.8 billion, but T Levels have been criticised due to high numbers of dropouts and over-optimistic student forecasts.
Another source told FE Week: “Schools, colleges and teachers are desperate for some certainty on post-16 level 3 options. There is some coherence to an A-level, T Level and V Level menu, but we’ll have to see what the V Level offer will be; how it differs from a T Level and how it will be better than the current offer of level 3 alternatives.”
On the V, A and T options, one college leader quipped: “More VAT in FE, just what we didn’t want.”
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