BTEC Qualifications

Debate between Fleur Anderson and Andrea Jenkyns

Monday 18th July 2022 Westminster Hall

[Andrea Jenkyns]

If the hon. Lady bears with me, I will come to that point; it was touched on earlier and I will answer it with regard to the pathways.

On a more technical route, we will fund two groups of technical qualifications alongside T-levels for 16 to 19-year-olds. The first will be qualifications in areas where there is not a T-level. The second will be specialist qualifications that develop more specialist skills and knowledge that could be acquired through a T-level alone, helping to protect the skills supply in more specialist industries and adding value to the T-level offer. Adults will be able to study a broader range of technical qualifications than 16 to 19-year-olds, which takes into account prior learning and experience. That includes technical qualifications that allow entry into occupations that are already served by T-levels.

I hope that has made it clear that we are not creating a binary system. Our aim is to ensure that students can choose from a variety of high-quality options, which I will go into. That is why it is important that we reform the system, to ensure that all qualifications approved for funding alongside A-levels and T-levels are high quality, have a clear purpose and deliver great outcomes, which is the most important thing.

As the post-16 qualification review continues, a new funding approval process will confirm that all qualifications that we continue to fund alongside A-levels and T-levels are both necessary and high quality. Both Ofqual and the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education will have a role in approving those qualifications, and they are currently consulting on their approaches at level 3.

We are unashamed about raising the quality of technical education in this country. Students will benefit from the reforms because they will take qualifications that are high quality and meet the needs of employers, putting them in a strong position to progress to further study or skilled employment. Where students need more support to achieve a level 3 qualification in the future, we are working with providers to provide high-quality routes to further study. We have introduced a T-level transition programme to support learners in progressing to T-levels. We are also piloting an academic progression programme to test whether there is a gap in provision, which supports students to progress to and achieve high-quality level 3 academic qualifications in future.

We are determined to act so that all young people can learn about the exciting, high-quality opportunities that technical education and apprenticeships can offer. Through the Skills and Post-16 Education Act 2022, we have strengthened the law so that all pupils have the opportunity for six encounters with providers of technical education qualifications and apprenticeships as they progress through school in years 8 to 13. For the first time, we are introducing parameters around the duration and content of those encounters, so that we can ensure that they are of high quality. The new requirements will strengthen the original provider access legislation—the Baker clause.

We will continue to gather evidence to ensure that our reforms across both technical and academic qualifications are working as intended. In particular, the unit for future skills, as announced in the levelling-up White Paper, will ensure that across Government we are collecting and making available the best possible information to show whether courses are delivering the outcome that we want. That will help give students the best possible opportunity to get high-skilled jobs in local areas.

Employers will benefit from our reforms, which place them at the heart of the system and will ensure that technical qualifications are genuinely grounded in the needs of the workplace. The Construction Industry Training Board has said that the reforms to technical education are a great opportunity to put things right that industry should seize. We will also strengthen and clarify progression routes for academic qualifications, to ensure that every funded qualification has a clear purpose—that is vital—is of high quality and could lead to good outcomes.

I will now touch on some of the questions that were raised across the Chamber.

[Fleur Anderson]

The educational plans that the Minister has described are exactly the plans that the petitioners are concerned about. Has the debate given her pause for thought about going ahead with the reforms and then assessing the outcomes—as she has just described—rather than waiting and looking again at the reforms before they are cut, because then it will be too late? We will simply not know how many people are not doing the courses, rather than assessing the people who are doing the courses and their educational outcomes. Has the debate given her pause for thought about the plans that she has just outlined?

[Andrea Jenkyns]

I thank the hon. Lady for that question. We are consulting vigorously, and I was actually going to bring in her points here. She mentioned colleges in her area. I happily meet colleges, and that goes for colleges represented across the Chamber. My ears are open to this, because it is something I am passionate about. Social mobility is a big thing for me. Coming from a regular background, I want to ensure that every child has a great start in life, so my door is open.

I was asked about creating a barrier for disadvantaged and BAME students. We are not withdrawing funding approval from all BTECs and other applied general qualifications. We will continue to fund BTECs and applied general-type qualifications as part of a mixed programme where there is need and where they meet new criteria for quality and necessity. Students who take qualifications that are more likely to be replaced have the most to gain from the changes, because in future they will take qualifications that are of a higher quality, putting them in a stronger position to progress to further skills or skilled employment. The most important outcome is that they have a decent start in life and good-quality jobs.