We can’t afford complacency in the fight for BTECs

Despite being one of the most established technical qualifications at Level 3, the future of BTECs has been overshadowed in recent years.

The previous Conservative government had planned to remove funding for all BTECs between 2024 and 2028 in order to clear the ground for T Levels while also citing perceived quality issues.

Then in July, just weeks ahead of the beginning of the new academic year, defunding was paused. New secretary of state for education, Bridget Phillipson announced that a ‘short, focused review’ of Level 3 qualifications overseen by skills minister Jacqui Smith would take place before the end of the year.

This news has no doubt brought a sense of relief to colleagues in the sector who have been arguing for at least the past six years that defunding BTECs would generate a number of negative impacts for learners and institutions.

We should not, however, be complacent and assume that the outcome of the review is a forgone conclusion in favour of BTECs, particularly since it is unclear what will be in scope given the department for education have declined to publish the terms of reference.

Instead, we must continue to press the government to keep these qualifications.

The loss of BTECs would limit choice for learners who want applied general qualifications that combine the development of practical skills with academic learning and would force them instead to make a binary choice between purely academic qualifications and technical qualifications that lead (though not always seamlessly) to a specific occupation.

In 2018, one in four students entering higher education held a BTEC (double the 2008 figure); and it remains far from clear that T Levels will ever be able to match this scale.

T Levels can make a valuable contribution to the Level 3 landscape but they are unproven and their lack of flexibility and their size, rigour and links to specific occupations mean they will only ever appeal to a minority of learners.

This could cause universities to enter into financial insolvency

Only 16,000 young people enrolled on a T Level this year and the lack of learner demand has caused some colleges to roll back on their T Level programmes.

This muted enthusiasm is compounded by the fact that the high number of teaching hours, need for specialist equipment and securing a 45-day work placement for each enrolled learner also makes them challenging and expensive for sixth forms and colleges to deliver.

Indeed, I have previously argued that to ensure they deliver the quality expected they should be limited in delivery to colleges and ‘technical’ sixth forms that have sufficient business links to provide high-quality placements.

It is difficult to see a situation where T Levels will be able to serve the 200,000 students who are currently enrolled on BTECs – leaving the risk that a significant number of these young people, who are disproportionately from underprivileged backgrounds, could be disenfranchised from the skills system.

This risk was identified in the Department for Education’s own impact assessment, which concluded that disadvantaged students had the most to lose if BTECs were defunded.

In addition to the significant impact on learners, there would also be a knock-on effect on the finances of the sixth forms and colleges that offer them, as well as the universities that recruit BTEC award holders.

The apparent quality issues cited by government failed to take into account work prior to 2016 to reconstitute BTECs as more rigorous RQF BTEC Nationals.

As more higher education institutions move towards authentic assessment and away from traditional exam-based examinations, the use of continuous assessment and portfolio work favoured by BTECs also puts them more in line with the expectations of some university courses than A Levels.

In any case, at a time when 40 per cent of higher education providers are expected to be in deficit in 2023/24, a significant cut to the number of young people holding eligible Level 3 qualifications could be the thing that causes one or more universities to enter into financial insolvency.

Technical skills are severely lacking in the UK. In Coursera’s 2024 Global Skills Report we were ranked as the 45^th most technically proficient country, behind European neighbours Switzerland (1^st), Germany (3^rd), and France (5^th).

If Labour is serious about kickstarting economic growth, they need to open up more routes through our skills system into technical roles, not cut them down. T Levels are one answer, but not the whole answer.

As a sector, we need to be unapologetic about the need to retain BTECs. Now is not the time to withdraw one of  the most reputable technical Level 3 qualifications on offer.