The skills white paper sets out a promising vision for a streamlined post-16 system. But to avoid yet another iteration of the continuous and exhausting cycle of FE reform, care must be taken to ensure this vision is delivered on, not just re-badged.
The post-16 qualifications landscape has long been overcrowded and confusing, making it extremely difficult for students, parents and employers to navigate. In our research at EPI, we showed using Ofqual’s VTQ (vocational and technical qualifications) landscape tool that students and parents often have hundreds, if not thousands of potential qualifications to choose from.
This bloated and confused landscape is clearly not conducive to a high-quality and sustainable post-16 system. As such, the newly announced V Levels have the potential to make welcome improvements to a flawed system.
While T Levels were supposed to simplify this landscape and become the main vocational level 3 offer, there are clearly too many learners left without suitable qualifications – they want to study for a level 3 vocational qualification, but not to study for a narrow and large T Level. V Levels are a welcome arrival designed to sit alongside A and T Levels. In 2024, we proposed the introduction of smaller T Levels and we are pleased the white paper is following in this direction.
V Levels will also actively promote and enable students to take mixed-level 3 pathways, combining academic and vocational education into one programme. Our work has shown that these mixed tracks are becoming increasingly popular with learners over time. And wider research shows hybrid programmes tend to deliver good outcomes for students.
The true test for the policy will be whether this momentum can be sustained without creating more complexity. A question going forward will be: what scope will V Levels have to genuinely simplify the landscape?
If existing vocational qualifications are simply badged as V Levels without reducing the number of different awarding bodies, sizes, content and assessment structures, there will still be an unhelpful and complex qualifications landscape. The focus on simplifying the post-16 qualifications landscape in its entirety must remain a key focus as V Levels are developed.
Critical to V Levels success will be forging clear pathways between level 2 and level 3 qualifications. The removal of the T Level foundation year (which we found was doing more harm than good for many students) is a step in the right direction.
Resit reforms fall short with current model
The white paper also proposed changes to the resit policy. Specifically, the government plans to introduce a new level 1 foundation, GCSE stepping stone qualification that students can take before doing their GCSE resit. Skills minister Jacqui Smith argues this will “end the resits treadmill”, yet this is far from clear given the information we currently have.
The proposed changes aren’t a massive departure from the current condition of funding policy. Students who achieve lower than a grade 3 can already take level 1 stepping stone qualifications (typically functional skills qualifications) to build towards achieving their GCSE. However, this is an increasingly uncommon approach used by colleges, as our research shows. For example, the use of stepping stone qualifications fell by around 50 per cent between 2015-16 and 2021-22, as colleges substituted them for GCSEs.
As such, new stepping stone qualifications need to be designed very closely with the sector to ensure they meet provider and student needs. Many students and providers prefer GCSEs over existing stepping stone qualifications because they are graded on a scale and allow students to feel a sense of progress. New stepping stone qualifications should also be graded on a scale to allow such progress to be measured and demonstrated.
Additionally, the white paper doesn’t say enough about addressing a range of other underlying challenges in delivering resits, including funding and staffing shortages in the FE sector and the need for more targeted support for disadvantaged students.
Ultimately, introducing a new level 1 stepping stone alone will fall short of addressing challenges with the current resit model. Until the underlying problems of acute staffing shortages and the need for targeted investment (such as a 16-19 student premium for disadvantaged learners) are solved, resits will struggle to deliver for all students.
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