Is the government right to reform qualifications for 16 to 19-year-olds?

You don’t often see teaching unions, schools, colleges, universities and education charities publicly join forces to resist a new government policy, but the debate over the future of qualifications for 16 to 19-year-olds in England has done just that. 

In 2016 when the government published their plans for T-levels, the new technical qualification for 16 to 19-year-olds, it raised an obvious question: what would happen to all the vocational and technical courses that were already in place? 

It wasn’t long before it emerged that the government’s vision was for young people to only have three options after age 16: A-levels, T-levels and apprenticeships. This meant that many popular courses such as BTECs would have to be cut to make room for T-levels. 

But the story is far from over. Over the last 12 months the government has re-confirmed their plans, then stated that they were in fact not going to get rid of BTECs, then delayed their plans, then said they would only get rid of a few BTECS, and now they’ve confirmed that 160 qualifications including 38 BTECs will indeed be removed. 

So where has this back-and-forth left the qualification landscape for 16 to 19-year-olds? Are there good reasons to reform the system, as the government has repeatedly claimed? And why have so many organisations lined up against the government’s plans to scrap many existing qualifications? 

To share their thoughts on this contentious issue, we are joined today by Ian Pryce CBE, the Chief Executive of the Bedford College Group, and LJ Rawlings, the Chief Executive of Youth Employment UK. 

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