Seema Malhotra
Main Page: Seema Malhotra (Labour (Co-op) - Feltham and Heston)Department Debates - View all Seema Malhotra's debates with the Department for Education
(4 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
Shockingly, results last summer revealed that one in three students dropped out of their T-level course, which is higher than for earlier cohorts. Something is going very wrong. In April, the Education Committee raised major concerns about T-level roll-outs, regional variations and falling employer engagement. Access to opportunity really matters, so should the Minister not now pause and review the defunding of alternative qualifications, as Labour would, and urgently bring forward the 2023-24 T-level action plan in order to address concerns raised by the Select Committee and Ofsted and bring much-needed clarity and support for colleges, employers, parents and students?
Robert Halfon
Not content with being in the anti-apprenticeship party, given her plans to weaken the apprenticeship levy and halve the number of apprenticeships, the hon. Lady is also taking on the mantle of T-level denier. We have 18 T-levels; we have, as I mentioned, a 90.5% pass rate; we have 10,000 students doing our T-level programme; and we expect the data that we will release early next year to show that many thousands more students are doing the T-level programme. I am very proud of our T-level programme. I know that the hon. Lady will be eating mince pies at Christmas, but I suggest that early next year she may be eating humble pie, because our T-level programme is something to be proud of.