The government’s preferred candidate to become the next Ofqual chief regulator has told MPs that T-levels need the “right kind of reform” to “grow, flourish and succeed”.
Sir Ian Bauckham also suggested that ministers should offer alternative vocational and technical qualifications (VTQs) alongside T-levels, ahead of the outcome of the much-anticipated level 3 review that is expected to be published this week.
Bauckham, the former chair and current interim head of Ofqual, faced scrutiny from the House of Commons education committee today at a pre-appointment hearing for the permanent role as the exam regulator’s top boss.
He was quizzed on the “success” of T-levels, new courses designed to be the technical equivalent to A-levels, since their launch in 2020.
‘A case to improve, streamline and simplify’
Bauckham said the feedback he has had from students and teachers taking the qualifications has been “overwhelmingly positive” for learners who are “able to make a decision about the particular occupational route that they want to follow at the age of 16”.
But he described T-levels as an “all or nothing option” due to their large size, “significant” amount of content and assessment “burden” which means they are not suitable for all young people who want to follow a vocational route.
He suggested this was a key reason for low take-up and high drop out rates on the qualification.
“If you’re a 16-year-old, you do have to be in a position to make a decision about a particular occupational route.
“I think that’s one of the reasons why the inception of T-levels has been relatively incremental, slow, I could say, at the beginning. There were only around 7,000 T-level completers this summer.”
He said T-levels were “deliberately pitched to be at a demanding level in order to have some level of parity with A-levels.
“I think it would be possible to make a convincing case to improve, streamline, simplify, in some ways, T-levels to establish their role more solidly in the market for young people.”
‘Worrying’ drop out rate
Buackham said it was “worrying” that more than one in four students didn’t complete their studies last year and suggested colleges, schools and teachers had not been offered appropriate support in the early years of the rollout.
“There are probably multiple reasons why that [high drop outs] has happened.
The first is “probably associated with just the newness of the qualification, and its pitching in difficulty terms at such a high level for a vocational and technical qualification in this space.
“I think some students were surprised at the burden and the level that was being asked of them in T-levels.”
He added it was “probably also the case that some colleges, but schools as well and teachers didn’t have sufficiently good quality and coherent support for teaching them.
“If you want to get success in a particular programme of study, you need to have in place features like a well worked out, clearly sequenced curriculum.
“We know what it is we’re teaching, we know in what order.
“You need very well trained teachers that deeply understand the content that they’re teaching and how they’re going to go about teaching it, and you need really well tailored teaching materials to enable the teachers to put into practice their knowledge of the curriculum with their in depth understanding of the requirements.”
Bauckham said without “those key features, there will be faltering in the early delivery”.
“And I wonder, and this is outside my brief as chief regulator, I wonder whether all of that was sufficiently strongly in place at the beginning.
“However, I think that with the right kind of reform within the T-level envelope, T-levels, I remain an optimist about this can be enabled to grow and flourish and succeed.”
Arguments for small alternatives
The interim chief regulator went on to explain how T-levels are “almost unique” in the VTQ landscape because they are “explicitly and specifically allied to the occupational standards in the particular occupational area”.
He said having a VTQ which is underpinned by an occupational standard is “anchored in some objective content that we know commands the confidence of the industry concerned, which is a good thing”.
But, he added, “quite simply, there are young people at age 16 who are not yet sufficiently certain about the area they want to go into to commit to an all or nothing option, which is what T-levels represent”.
The government is expected to announce the outcome of its review of level 3 qualifications, launched in July, this week. This will decide whether alternative VTQs, like BTECs and other applied general qualifications, continue to be funded alongside T Levels.
Bauckham, who is on the panel of Becky Francis’ wider and separate curriculum and assessment review, said today: “I think arguments will certainly be made for the inclusion of smaller, nonetheless rigorous, nonetheless good quality, but smaller qualifications in that landscape as well, to allow some flexibility of combination for students.”
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