The Department for Education has confirmed a “short review” of controversial plans to defund BTECs and other level 3 technical courses, but there will be no long-term pause of the reforms.
Education secretary Bridget Phillipson today released a written ministerial statement outlining how the government will proceed with the review following yesterday’s announcement in the House of Commons.
The review will begin “immediately” and decisions will be communicated “before the turn of the year”.
However, the Sixth Form Colleges Association (SFCA), whose Protect Student Choice campaign secured a pause pledge from Labour in opposition, accused Phillipson of “betrayal” because today’s announcement does not commit to a multi-year pause of the defunding plans.
It means colleges and schools will not know until December 2024 what qualifications they can offer in September 2025.
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What will be paused and reviewed?
The DfE was planning to defund 134 qualifications, which attract around 40,000 annual enrolments, whose content “overlaps” with the first 10 T-levels introduced in 2020 and 2021 from August 1, 2024.
This part of the reform has now been paused, meaning alternative courses in construction, digital, early years and health can be delivered in 2024/25.
However, most colleges would have already removed these qualifications from their offering as they plan their curriculums 12 to 24 months in advance.
A further 85 qualifications that compete with the six T-levels introduced in 2022 were then put in line for the chop in August 2025, while another 71 courses that clashed with five more T-levels introduced over the past two years were also going to be defunded from 2025.
More than half of the popular 134 applied general qualifications (AGQs) which are included in the DfE’s performance tables, in areas like health and social care, science and law, are also set to lose their funding through a separate process.
These courses attract around 300,000 starts a year and will be defunded in 2025 and 2026 under current plans.
DfE has refused to pause this part of the reform, but it will be reviewed by the end of December 2024.
Planning nightmare
Phillipson said the review will begin “immediately” because the DfE “understand that the sector needs certainty so that it can plan its future delivery”.
“We will conclude and communicate the outcomes of this review into qualification reforms at level 3 and below before the turn of the year.”
However, the SFCA said the decision to not pause the 2025 and 2026 defunding schedule puts schools and colleges “in an impossible position, as the hasty review proposed by the government means that institutions will not know what AGQs they can offer in September 2025 until December 2024 at the earliest”.
Who will conduct the review?
Good question. In short, it looks like the DfE officials who set out the reforms under the old government could lead this review.
Phillipson only said: “We will undertake a focused review of the post-16 qualification reforms at level 3 and below to assess how best to improve the quality of the overall qualifications landscape, support the growth of T-levels, and ensure that all young people and adults have high-quality options that meet their needs.”
Schools Week has asked DfE for more details on which officials will conduct the review.
Defunding decisions from this review will then be reflected in the new government’s separate “curriculum and assessment review” being led by Professor Becky Francis.
Francis’s review does include 16 to 19 education and will recommend changes in this area, but it will have no say in the level 3 and below review.
A ‘betrayal’
Multiple sector leaders have welcomed the new government’s review of the level 3 and below reforms.
But the SFCA hit out at Labour’s refusal to pause all of the reforms for at least two years.
Chief executive Bill Watkin said the Protect Student Choice campaign “secured a commitment from the Labour party to ‘pause and review’ the defunding of applied general qualifications such as BTECs if they formed the next government”.
“The statement published today confirms the party has reneged on that commitment.”
He said the proposed pause “only applies to a small number of technical qualifications that were due to be scrapped next month”.
“It is now clear that there are no plans to pause the scrapping of applied general qualifications that the Conservative government had set in train.
“This is a betrayal of the commitment made in opposition, but much more importantly, it is a betrayal of the young people that rely on applied general qualifications to progress to higher education or skilled employment.”
