Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-03-24
Topic: Education
Jo Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I draw attention to my interests in the register as chair of Access Creative College, an independent training provider of further education for the creative industries. Access welcomes many of the measures in the Bill, as do I. However, I have real concerns that we are inadvertently blighting the applied general qualifications, including BTECs, that it provides I listened carefully to the Minister’s remarks responding to Amendment 15A, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett. I may have misheard but I thought I heard her say that A-levels and T-levels were the best routes for learners. I really worry that that kind of language, which creates a hierarchy between qualifications, will lead us to diminish the applied general qualifications and the place they have in our system. I worry that we are denigrating them, which will make it harder for providers confidently to offer them and for learners to undertake them, not knowing whether they will hold their value over time in the eyes of employers and the Government. We need to be careful to ensure that when we talk of parity of esteem we include applied general qualifications in that, so that it is parity of esteem not just between A-levels and T-levels but between A-levels, T-levels and applied general qualifications, including reformed BTECs if they are to be further reformed It is really important that the Government try to set out a long-term vision for applied general qualifications. We have to recognise that we have moved quite a long way from the previous government position of there being nothing in between A-levels and T-levels. The Government are now acknowledging that there are going to be a large number of qualifications of the applied general variety, but we need to ensure stability and certainty over their funding and their place in the system, otherwise providers are simply not going to get going and offer them, and learners are not going to be confident about taking them In that respect, it would be extremely helpful, for example, if the Government set out when they intend to end the moratorium that has been in place since September 2020 on the creation of new applied general qualifications. To my mind, it does not make any sense to have a moratorium if the Government, in their new policy position, now see value in qualifications in this space between T-levels and A-levels. What purpose does a moratorium serve? To my mind, it crimps and constrains innovation. It prevents providers adapting to the needs of employers and learners and stops them innovating. That is a real issue, and the Government would do well to set out a timeline for ending this moratorium I am all for T-levels, and Access Creative College, which I mentioned, is embracing such T-levels as exist that are relevant to its areas of expertise, including the digital T-level—but let us not develop them at the expense of BTECs and other applied qualifications, which meet the needs of their learners extremely well. Let us not create a burning platform for T-levels that does great damage to their needs.