Technical education needs time to succeed

“There is no single route to achieving your ambitions,” said the new education secretary Lucy Powell, commenting on this summer’s exam results. Increasing numbers of young people appear to agree.

Almost 20,000 students received T Level results this year, an increase of about 65 per cent on 2025. New pathways have widened the offer, while participation has also grown in established T Levels.

That growth deserves recognition, but context matters. T Levels accounted for fewer than 20,000 of the 1.1 million level 3 results issued in England this summer.

As wider reform of post-16 pathways takes shape, they will need to continue growing, but are likely to remain a relatively niche route, at least in the medium term.

This creates a difficult balance. The skills system, along with young people’s choices, are changing. Any new qualification takes time to become established, understood and gain credibility. We can see this with T Levels, and new qualifications types must be given the time they need to embed.

Ofqual chief regulator Sir Ian Bauckham has made the same point, warning that vocational qualifications need time to become understood and credible. History suggests that continuity has too often been missing.

The Edge Foundation’s Honourable Histories report charts more than 30 years of interventions in further education, during which qualifications, institutions and assessment systems have remained in almost constant flux. It warns that policymakers too often confuse change with genuine reform, leaving learners, parents, employers and providers struggling to keep up.

The lesson for the current reform of 16-19 pathways is clear. Government should retain what works within T Levels and give new arrangements time to embed. Reform should build confidence in technical education, rather than starting another cycle of change before the last one has had a chance to succeed.

T Levels are only one part of a broader technical and vocational landscape. Learners have different ambitions and circumstances, so the aim should be a coherent system offering several credible ways to progress.

The latest GCSE results underline that point. With pass rates among post-16 English and maths resit students remaining low, education secretary Lucy Powell has described the current approach as a “treadmill of failure”. The challenge is not to lower expectations, but to ensure young people have routes through the system that allow them to make progress rather than repeatedly encounter the same barrier.

The government’s focus on reducing the number of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET) makes that more urgent. Nearly one million 16 to 24-year-olds across the UK are NEET. The interim Milburn review recognised that education is only part of the solution. Health, transport, employer demand and access to support also shape young people’s prospects.

Apprenticeships offer a different proposition from T Levels, a paid job combining training and assessment. Both routes matter and both face similar challenges, not least the level of demand from employers, but reforming qualifications and assessment will not be enough. Government must also reduce the practical barriers preventing employers from recruiting young people.

At FAB’s Apprenticeship Assessment Conference last month, one of the clearest messages was the need for predictability. Awarding and assessment organisations can adapt to change, but they need clear direction and realistic timescales.

Earlier this month, the level 2 administration assistant apprenticeship became the first reformed assessment plan to go live. It was an important milestone, but also showed how far the wider programme has to travel.

Predictability does not mean resisting reform. It means following through on agreed changes, communicating clearly and giving organisations enough certainty and time to implement them properly.

The same test will apply to V Levels, foundation certificates and occupational certificates. They must do more than give new names to existing choices or serve learners already well supported by the system. They need to provide credible progression into apprenticeships, further training or work.

Awarding organisations turn policy into qualifications that learners can understand, employers can trust and providers can deliver.

The system needs to keep pace with young people’s changing choices. But lasting reform requires more than speed. It requires a clear destination and consistent delivery so everyone knows what to expect.

That balance will be an important part of the conversation at the FAB 2026 conference in November.