The Department for Education (DfE) has published an action plan for post-16 T-level (technical level) qualifications. These will be introduced alongside apprenticeships and A-levels to give students more options upon completing their GCSEs.
The report outlines that T-levels will be level three qualifications. The aim of the qualification will be to give young people the “knowledge, skills and behaviours necessary to start skilled employment in an occupation related to their field of study”. All T-level programmes will be “substantial” and “high quality” courses equivalent to three A-levels in size. Although T-levels will be set to the same standards as apprenticeships, they will be more “classroom based” than apprenticeships. Nevertheless, they will still all include a “substantial work placement with an employer … to help students put into practice the knowledge and skills they have learnt in the classroom”.
The first T-levels will be ready for delivery by 2020, across three ‘pathways’: digital, construction, and education and childcare. Other T-level pathways will follow in 2021 and 2022.
Those governing, particularly in secondary schools, need to ensure that the school provides impartial careers advice to students – which includes information on technical qualifications. New legislation, introduced through the Technical and Further Education Act 2017, will come into force in 2018. This will “require schools to give education and training providers the opportunity to talk directly to pupils in years 8 to 13 about approved technical education qualifications and apprenticeships that they may offer”.