Brown: Government must boost rollout of T-levels to ‘enact revolution’

The new Labour Government must “boost” the rollout of T-levels to enact a technical education “revolution”, a former prime minister has said.

Pausing the changeover of funding from lower quality to higher quality technical qualifications would be “calamitous,” Gordon Brown has suggested.

In the foreword of a report by consultancy WPI Strategy, the former prime minister and Labour leader said delaying the rollout of T-levels would “hamper” the country’s growth prospects and deprive young people of opportunities.

The first T-levels, the former Conservative government’s flagship technical qualification, were introduced in September 2020 and they are being gradually rolled out in England.

It would be calamitous and costly to slow the rollout of T-levels or pause the changeover of funding from lower quality to higher quality qualifications

The two-year courses, which are broadly equivalent to three A-levels, were developed to help meet the needs of industry and prepare students for work.

In the report, Mr Brown said low-quality technical courses “suppress talent” and employers do not value such courses when taking on new workers.

His comments come after the former government’s plans to withdraw funding for post-16 qualifications that “overlap” with T-levels faced criticism.

Last year, a report by the Protect Student Choice campaign, a coalition of education and employer groups, warned that tens of thousands of sixth-form students could be left without a suitable study programme if the plans to withdraw funding for a number of BTecs go ahead.

The UK’s system of thousands of qualifications, where in many instances public funding is going to for-profit private entities for qualifications that the government does not scrutinise the content of, is an international outlier

But, in the new report, Mr Brown called on the new Labour Government to ignore any calls to “pause and review” the technical education system again.

He said: “It would be calamitous and costly to slow the rollout of T-levels or pause the changeover of funding from lower quality to higher quality qualifications.

“Delay would set the economy back at a time when we desperately need skilled labour now.

“It would hamper our growth prospects by bequeathing us an inadequately trained workforce for a decade to come.

“And, most importantly, it would deprive young people of the opportunities to realise their potential in the labour market, with more job security and higher incomes than they have currently.”

The former prime minister added: “I have no doubt that one of the first items on the agenda of the new Mission Board for Growth, created by the Prime Minister , is a new policy to tackle skill shortages.

“I don’t doubt either that the Chancellor and the Prime Minister will want the October budget to set in place the revolution we need in post-16 technical qualifications, moving training from the sidelines under the Conservatives to centre stage under Labour.”

Mr Brown said the “best and ready-made starting point” was to boost the rollout of T-levels.

T-levels were introduced after Lord David Sainsbury published an independent review into technical education in 2016.

The new report, funded by Lord Sainsbury, calls on the Government to remove public funding from post-16 qualifications which overlap with T-levels and set a target of 100,000 T-level enrolments per year by the end of this Parliament.

In its manifesto ahead of the General Election, Labour did not set out its plans for T-levels nor alternative post-16 qualifications like BTecs.

Lord Sainsbury said: “The UK’s system of thousands of qualifications, where in many instances public funding is going to for-profit private entities for qualifications that the government does not scrutinise the content of, is an international outlier.

“Labour must seize the opportunity to break from the failures of the past and deliver reforms that provide value for money and high-quality education.”

Bill Watkin, chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association that co-ordinates the Protect Student Choice campaign, said: “Lord Sainsbury’s objective in funding this report was no doubt to promote the value of T-levels.

“But in attempting to do so, the report recycles many of the tropes used by the last Conservative government to describe Btec qualifications while overstating the performance and potential uptake of T-levels.

“It is almost as though the report has been drafted in a time warp, and its authors are not aware of all the incontestable facts of this issue.”

He added: “T-levels are a welcome addition to the qualifications landscape, but it would be reckless to scrap Btecs when there is no evidence to suggest that T-levels are close to being a genuine replacement or can be offered at scale.”

A Department for Education Spokesperson said: “Under the system we have inherited too many young people leave education without the qualifications they need to get into high-quality apprenticeships and good jobs.

“We will transform the education system so young people get the opportunities they deserve. We support T- Levels as a high-class vocational qualification which give young people a firm foundation for their future and will confirm our next steps shortly.”