Skills and Post-16 Education Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-03-24
Topic: Education
Kenneth Baker (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I strongly support the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett. It is right, and I echo completely his comments about T-levels. I am just as committed to T-levels as he is. They are an important and interesting innovation, and to show it, of the UTCs for which I am responsible, in the first year two have experimented with T-levels. They have been teaching them for the last 18 months and will know the results by August of this year. Last August, more UTCs implemented T-levels, so we are learning a great deal about them, though not enough The amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, would mean more time to consider whether they are living up to what we all hope that they will live up to. That is what it is all about. That is why, when we last debated this Bill, we asked that they should be delayed for four years. The Government listened—I recognise what the Minister and the Secretary of State said, which was, "No, we will delay defunding until 2024." They were going to start gentle defunding this year with a little bit more next year. I do not know whether that will be cancelled, but the main defunding will be in 2024. This means that we will only have two years of T-level results to judge. We will have the results in August 2022 of how many students—only a few hundred have taken them—got a distinction, a credit, a pass or a failure. In August 2023, there will be a few more hundred. That is very small evidence of whether they are working. T-levels will only succeed if two lots of people want them to succeed. The first is the students, and whether they recognise that this is a way in which they can get to university, improve their technical knowledge successfully and get a good job after that. The second is whether industry is satisfied that the level of education is what they expect their young employees to have Our experience of T-levels is that we had 10 starting the digital T-level 18 months ago at the Dartford UTC. Three dropped out because it was too demanding for them and too academic. We have discovered that students who only get 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 in GCSE will not be able to cope with T-levels, because 80% of a T-level is academic and only 20% is practical. The ones who can cope with T-levels will be those who in GSCE get 9, 8 and 7. Some who get 6 can cope; some cannot. Unquestionably, T-levels are trying to produce an officer class of highly skilled workers in technology However, you need more than an officer class. You need a large number of qualified technicians. It is rather like in the Army, where it is no good just having an officer class. You must have the level below them, the regimental sergeant-majors, the sergeant-majors, the lance-corporals and the corporals. These are the people who make the Army successful or not. BTECs have managed to train a lot of qualified technicians who do not particularly want to join the officer class, which is very interesting. You see this in levels 4 and 5—the two qualifications above level 3. Lots of people are now being encouraged to do these, people whom I would describe as "qualified technicians". To give an example, if you live in London and have a plumbing problem, you have to ring up Pimlico Plumbers. A plumber will come very quickly and charge £80 an hour, which is £640 for a whole day. If someone has a qualification of 4 or 5 and is earning £640 in a day, they are not going to spend two years going on to level 6, the foundation degree. They are the qualified technicians which BTECs provide extensively throughout industry Perhaps the Minister can explain one of the problems. BTECs will be disqualified if they overlap, but what does overlap mean? There is no definition of "overlap". It is very subjective. It is what you think may or may not overlap. To give an example, I have had a letter from an industrialist, whom I have never met, Benjamin Silverstone, a fellow at Warwick University and an expert in battery technology. He says: "My concern is that a kid says, ‘I want to do my engineering T-level because in two years that job is going to be there’, but that T-level doesn’t fit them for it because there isn’t anything in there about battery technologies, electrification or power electronics." This is just one businessman, whom I have never met, but he is saying that T-levels look far too academic Therefore, I ask the Ministers seriously to compare the curriculum of T-levels with the curriculum of BTECs. We are doing that with digital at the Dartford UTC and finding out how they differ, and there are differences. We would say that in some areas they do not overlap, but that is a very subjective argument, and the Government may just say, "They do overlap", so this is not a very satisfactory system. I hope that the Government will listen again on the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and think again on how he is adding that one year back, meaning that they could have another year to decide more clearly which BTECs should be defunded My Amendment 16A is altogether quite an interesting argument. In the draft Bill, the Government said that BTECs will survive as single subjects in the future, but no student will be allowed to take two BTECs. This is an entirely original and unique thing to say in the history of education since the great Act of 1870. At no stage have any Government or Minister said that a student cannot take two qualifications that are funded and available. This has never happened before in our history, so why is it being done now? The Government have never justified this, and it is extraordinary.