On Monday 15 November 2021, Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi announced that the Government will delay its planned changes to education reform by a year. This follows criticisms over Government plans to cut funding for BTECs.
The Department of Education confirmed plans to replace most BTECs with T-Levels earlier this year. Along with A-Levels, these would become the main options after GCSEs.
A limited number of T-Levels were introduced in 2020 and the Government intended to increase the roll out to cover more subjects, ultimately replacing most BTECs with T-Levels by 2023. This has now been delayed until 2024.
Education leaders had warned that getting rid of BTECs risked harming the prospects of pooper pupils. See more on this here.
The Government also announced that the English and Maths requirement for T-Levels will be removed, to prevent unnecessary hurdles inhibiting talented children.
Speaking at the Second Reading of the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill, Nadhim Zahawi argued that reforms were ‘rightly ambitious’ but it would be wrong to ‘risk compromising quality’.
The extra year is expected to allow providers, awarding organisations, employers, students and parents more time to prepare for the changes.
The decision was welcomed by leaders in the education field, who had previously warned that scrapping qualifications such as BTECs would leave young people without viable options following GCSEs. See TIGA’s previous statement on this here.
Dr Richard Wilson OBE, CEO of TIGA said:
“TIGA strongly supports the Government’s announcement to delay defunding BTEC qualifications for a year and instead continue to retain funding for AGQs, as an important alternative to A-Levels and T-Levels.
“The original proposal to remove funding for AGQs and BTECs was unnecessarily restrictive, potentially damaging and risked reducing the supply of talented people available to work in creative sectors such as the video games industry.
“BTECs should be retained, supported and enhanced to bolster the supply of talented people who can pursue rewarding careers and contribute to the success of the UK’s thriving video games sector and other creative industries.”