UK’s flagship vocational qualification failing to attract students, colleges say

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The UK government’s flagship “T-level” technical qualifications are failing to attract the expected numbers of students, a survey has shown, sparking calls for an urgent revamp of the scheme.

The qualifications, launched in 2020 in a shake-up of post-16 education, were intended to boost vocational learning but have been plagued by issues including securing industrial work placements for students.

The qualifications were designed to improve the quality and availability of skilled labour, particularly to the manufacturing sector, as part of an effort to drive the UK’s sluggish economic growth.

A majority of further education colleges that deliver the qualifications said that enrolments were lower than expected for the 2023 academic year in half of T-level subjects, according to an Association of Colleges survey due to be published on Friday.

David Hughes, chief executive of the Association of Colleges, which represents the sector, said the survey showed that the government’s ambitious plans to increase T-levels this year had failed.

“Despite the government’s rhetoric on the success of T-levels, the stark reality is that across the country young people are simply not choosing them in the numbers hoped for,” he said.   

T-levels were rolled out by the Department for Education to replace the previous BTec qualifications, which were seen as overly complex and failing to deliver the necessary workplace skills.

Ofsted, the schools inspectorate, in September said in a report there had been “teething issues” with T-levels and added it had found “a range of shortcomings” that the Department for Education would want to address.

In October, Rishi Sunak announced a further shake-up of the UK’s education system by pledging to introduce a “British baccalaureate”, which would make all non-vocational 16 to 18-year-old pupils study maths and English.

Hughes said the announcement had confused the messaging on T-levels and raised questions among parents and pupils about the government’s commitment to the qualification.

The Association of Colleges has urged education secretary Gillian Keegan to better promote T-levels to parents and students, introduce digital work placements, and make changes to both content and assessment.

It also warned that the T-level requirement to pass maths and English GCSE was excluding a large number of 16-year-olds from the qualifications.

The share of students at English schools getting a grade 4 or above in both subjects fell from 66 per cent in 2019-20 to 61 per cent in 2022-23.

New T-level qualifications have been introduced in waves since 2020. This year qualifications were added for business and administration, engineering and manufacturing, and legal, finance and accounting.

A fifth of each course is made up of a mandatory 45-day industry placement to give students hands-on experience.

The AOC survey found that the “worst” performing subject was science, where almost nine in 10 providers said enrolments were lower than expected, up from two-thirds the year before.

For the new legal services subject more than 70 per cent of providers said enrolments were below their expectations.

Last year, the second year where there were 10 T-level subjects, 91 per cent of students achieved at least a pass. However, only 3,448 pupils completed their course, a third lower than the number who enrolled in 2021.

Darren Hankey, the principal at Hartlepool College in north-east England, said the college had been allocated funding for 100 T-level students across four subjects but had only managed to recruit 47. 

Though he supported the aim of using T-levels to create “parity of esteem” with academic qualifications, Hankey said the work placement requirements were impractical.

“There are five colleges in this area with perhaps 1,000 students studying engineering. We just don’t have the numbers of business placements to support that, or that transport infrastructure to get students to the placements. We just need to think this through,” he said.

He added that the squeeze would intensify hugely if the government pushed through with its pledge to remove funding from BTecs in order to force students to take up T-levels.

The opposition Labour party has said it will “pause” the defunding process to ensure there are vocational qualifications open to all students.

Seema Malhotra, shadow skills minister, said that while Labour supports the introduction of T-levels and the provision of high quality vocational pathways, the current government’s “mismanagement” of the rollout had led to low enrolment levels and “threatened our future skills pipeline”.

The Department for Education said it was backing T-levels with more than £250mn to help colleges deliver the additional teaching hours and industry placements.

“T-levels are only two years old, and already they are delivering brilliant outcomes — and we expect many more young people to benefit in the years to come,” it added.