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What’s in a name? With T-levels, quite a lot. By choosing a title that sounded a lot like A-levels – with T for technical – the reformers behind England’s latest post-16 qualification sent a message that the days of vocational education’s second-class status were over. The two-year courses, launched in 2020 (and not adopted in the rest of the UK), were supposed to boost applied learning and the prospects of the more than 50% of young people who don’t study for A-levels followed by a degree.
There are more than 20 T-level options, ranging from early years education to engineering, with each student choosing only one. But nearly five years on, the courses haven’t caught on. Fewer than 3% of 16-year-olds enrol for a T-level, with the vast majority preferring either A-levels, older “applied general” qualifications (which include BTecs), or some combination.
Last year, about 7,000 students qualified with a T-level. The dropout rate is higher than for other 16-18 courses, with almost a third of those enrolled in 2022 giving up. The figures for a T-level foundation course, intended as a stepping stone, are even worse. In 2021-22, only 8% progressed as intended. The picture is incomplete partly because ministers decided, in January, to postpone adding T-level data to performance tables.
Behind the scenes, a row is raging over what happens next. The original plan was to scrap other vocational qualifications once T-levels were up and running. Further education and sixth-form colleges soon realised this was a terrible idea. In 2021, a Protect Student Choice campaign was launched with a warning that if BTecs were axed, 155,000 teenagers would be left without any options at all.
You would think rising concern about young people not in education or work, and particularly the growing number of teenagers and young adults on disability benefits, would make post-16 education a priority. Last week, Sir Keir Starmer spoke of a “wasted generation”. But Labour’s policy in opposition, which was to “pause and review” the situation, was ditched after the election. Instead the skills minister, Jacqui Smith, postponed the defunding of older qualifications and relaxed the rules around the T-level’s compulsory 45-day work placement.
But the central problem remains: T-levels are narrower and harder than the courses they are meant to replace, making them unsuitable for students without a specific job in mind, and also for those who passed GCSEs with grade 4s or 5s rather than 6s or higher. College leaders have repeatedly challenged ministers over which courses they think such students should take. They are waiting for an answer.
It is not an accident that faith in T-levels transcends party loyalties. The commission that came up with them was appointed by a Conservative, Philip Hammond. But its leading figure, Lord Sainsbury, is an influential Labour donor (and the chancellor of Cambridge University). A non-partisan approach to curriculum reform is, generally, a good thing. The danger otherwise is that each new government rips up the efforts of the one before.
But in this case the problem appears to be the reverse: groupthink. Even the education select committee failed to break the spell. Its chair, Robin Walker MP, accused Rishi Sunak’s government of “prioritising saving face over … the interests of young people” after a report highlighted evidence that T-levels do not balance “rigour and accessibility” and noted that more than £1bn had been spent. Another review, from the charitable Education Policy Institute, proposed breaking down T-levels into smaller components. It also pointed out that economically disadvantaged pupils, and the growing number with special needs and disabilities, would be disproportionately affected by the removal of more accessible alternatives.
T-levels will be examined by MPs again as part of a new inquiry into further education, and also in Prof Becky Francis’s curriculum review. The danger is that the issue doesn’t gain the kind of traction that would force a proper rethink. That’s because aside from A-levels, sixth-form studies are seen as a niche subject. Arguably, this attitude is the most elitist thing about education in England – more than the role of private and grammar schools, more than the dominance of a handful of highly selective universities.
It also helps explain why the reforms haven’t worked. The experts commissioned to reshape the curriculum were clever people with good intentions. But in a democratic society, where a high premium is placed upon personal choice, more attention should have been paid to what teenagers want and are capable of. Because in the end, that is the test: no one can force them.
What happens now will depend partly on campaigners. Lord Sainsbury continues to be active on the pro-T-level side. A charity he founded, the Gatsby Foundation, told MPs that rival qualifications must be defunded to ensure T-levels’ success. Last year, Gordon Brown was enlisted in support. But the Protect Student Choice campaign has backers too, including hundreds of college principals, MPs with colleges in their constituencies, and peers who care about FE.
To put things right, it will be necessary to admit what went wrong. Far from sorting out vocational education, the T-level saga has turned into the latest illustration of a longstanding problem, namely the poor treatment of colleges by the educational powers that be. Anyone seeking further proof only needs to consider the decision not to give college teachers in England the same 5.5% pay rise as school teachers last year – a disgraceful choice by a Labour government that ought to be trying to narrow the school-college gap.
As one college principal told me, it is as if the highly able people in charge of education don’t fully grasp that the 155,000 pupils that the sector is most concerned about really exist – or think that if they and their teachers only tried harder, their grades could be nudged up. The reality, it is worth remembering, is that fewer than a quarter of GCSEs in England are graded higher than a 6.
Of course ambition is vital, but any teacher will tell you that realism matters too: students who lose confidence in their ability quickly lose interest. All young people need courses, pitched at a level they can manage, to provide them with knowledge and interests to support and enrich their lives – as well as helping them find jobs later on. It’s time to tell the truth: T-levels don’t fit the bill.
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Susanna Rustin is a Guardian journalist
