Last week saw the annual media interest in A-Level results (at least in England). Commentators noticed, for instance, the substantial increase in STEM subjects, with over 100,000 students taking Maths. This figure was remarkable as it was the first time any discipline has exceeded that significant figure. Depending on their positioning, in some cases this led to a bemoaning of the fact that arts and humanities subjects are not thriving in the same way although, bucking the past few years’ trend, foreign language take up had increased. From the opposite perspective, others picked up the fact that there was a substantial increase in those taking Physics A-Level, although little improvement in the percentage of girls taking the subject.
However, the mainstream media glossed over the results for qualifications other than A-Levels, although they were not the only results announced that day. You have to look in the more specialist press to find any reference to BTECs or T-Levels. It is true that several times as many A-level exams were sat as BTECs (over 800,000 compared with slightly over 200,000 exams respectively), but nevertheless, there are a lot of students whose futures will be determined by their performance in these latter exams. As for T-Levels, despite a huge amount of money and effort having been put into what the last government hoped would be a transformation of vocational studies for the 16-19 age group, a mere 7,380 students sat these exams. Perhaps even more worryingly, over one quarter of those who started a course at this level did not complete it. In contrast to the relatively young T-Levels, BTECs have been around for a long time and are recognized by many universities as an appropriate entry path. Nevertheless, the Tory Government was in the process of ‘defunding’ these courses in favour of the unproven T-Levels; Labour has already said it will put a pause on any changes while it considers the wider landscape.
There are various issues that underlie the problems with T-Levels: the requirement of a 45-day relevant work placement is hard to accomplish if the local area can’t provide an appropriate employer; course lecturers seem to struggle with the demands of the course and universities don’t (at least yet) seem willing to recognize the qualification in the way they do BTECs. The spread of courses is also still quite limited, with only about two thirds of the planned subjects yet being rolled out. But one issue stands out, that is symptomatic of so much of our society, and that is the incredibly uneven gender split across the courses. T-Levels in construction were overwhelmingly taken by men (albeit only 318 students in total started the course): building services engineering had just 9 women enrolled this year – 3 per cent of the cohort – and onsite construction had 5 women, i.e 4 per cent of the total students. Construction (perhaps surprisingly, since it must happen everywhere) was also an area where placements seemed particularly hard to find and drop out rates were around 10%. This should be contrasted with the education and early years T-Level, where the cohort was almost entirely women: 94 per cent of the 1,533 enrolled students. This was similarly true for health where 91 per cent of the 1,044 students were women. Just as with A-Levels (as with the percentage of women taking Physics), societal expectations seem to have driven an unwholesome gender split across the courses.
There is no doubt that the area of post-16 education is somewhat incoherent, particularly if you are not following the ‘standard’ linear path that does not consist of A-Levels followed by University. It is incoherent in terms of both funding and regulation. If you want to get a sense of the complexity facing students, colleges and employers of what this landscape looks like, last month’s report, Augar Reviewed, from the EDSK think tank is a good place to start. A Government review published a year ago looks specifically at T-Levels and why they have not got off to a good start.
This all is rather serious for the economy. If we want, as a nation, to drive growth, improve productivity and be the innovative nation every Government wants of us, then we need not to waste the talent of many of our teenagers by providing an incoherent system which is likely to fail them. Skilled and semi-skilled workers are in short supply, for instance in the construction industry, and technicians who understand how to get the best out of equipment or use spreadsheets to help with logistics are vital to small companies wanting to thrive in the current market-place. Employers frequently bemoan the lack of workers like this when trying to fill posts, yet we seem unable, as a nation, to create a system which trains and values such individuals. Schools are not provided with the wherewithal to create a careers service that helps young people make the right decisions, or indeed what decisions actually need to be taken. It is to be hoped the Skills Commission, promised by Labour in their manifesto, brings coherence and logic both to the qualifications landscape and to the funding regime which supports this, bringing employers, education providers and local government together to create a better framework for post-16 education. It is a positive step forward that a unifying structure is at least being considered to try to remove the fragmentation and ‘them and us’ landscape we currently occupy in England, where only A-Levels are deemed worthy of mainstream media attention.
