T-level delays: Colleges face disruption after courses are pushed back

The government has delayed four of its flagship T-levels, which had been due to roll out in England from September.

Technical qualifications in areas such as hair and beauty are among those that had been planned for the coming academic year.

But the Department for Education (DfE) said more work was needed to ensure they were of sufficient quality.

The Association of Colleges (AoC) welcomed that decision but said the news had caused "massive disruption".

School leaders' union ASCL was concerned about the impact on students who had planned to start the courses in September.

The first T-level results were given out to 1,029 students in England last year - with a 92% pass rate.

Six further T-levels were due to launch in September - but three of them are now being delayed until 2024:

• hairdressing, barbering and beauty therapy

• craft and design

• media, broadcast and production

A fourth, in catering, is being delayed until "beyond 2024".

Education Secretary Gillian Keegan said T-levels would give post-16 students a technical option of equal quality to A-levels.

"T-Level technical qualifications will only be approved for delivery where we are sure they are good enough and can be delivered to a high standard," she said. And more work was needed, which would "not be possible in time for launch this September".

Kevin Gilmartin, of the ASCL school leaders' union, warned that Year 11 students who had planned to study the delayed T-levels "may now have missed the opportunity to apply for alternative courses and this will be a real distraction just months before they sit their GCSEs".

He added that the DfE's timescale for broader changes to 16-19 qualifications by 2025 - which includes approving funding for Level 3 qualifications other than A-levels and T-levels - was "simply unworkable".

AoC chief executive David Hughes said the DfE was "right to ensure only T-Levels of high enough quality enter the market", but added: "Colleges will be massively disrupted by this announcement happening so late in the year.

"Colleges already had plans in place for how to deliver these now delayed T-levels, and have been marketing them to potential learners.

"Alternative arrangements will now need to be made urgently."

Technical levels (T-levels)

• developed alongside employers

• two-year courses

• equivalent to three A-levels

• accepted by 134 universities and colleges

• 80% classroom learning

• 20% industry placement - at least 315 hours (about 45 days)

• successful students are awarded a pass, merit, distinction or distinction*

Qualifications that overlap with the delayed T-levels, such as BTecs, were due to have their funding cut from 2025, by which time the T-levels were meant to have been in place for two years.

However, Ms Keegan said this time frame would remain the case for the three qualifications being pushed back to 2024, despite the delay to their introduction.

She said there would be "at least one year" between the introduction of a T-level and the removal of funding for overlapping qualifications, and that the implications for qualifications that overlap with the catering T-level - being moved to 2025 - would be announced at a later date.

Mr Hughes said that, while T-levels were "an important addition to the qualification landscape", they should be completed by two year groups of students before other qualifications were defunded.

James Kewin, of the Sixth Form Colleges Association, said it made "absolutely no sense to press ahead with plans to scrap existing Level 3 qualifications" in the delayed subject areas.

A total of 18 T-levels will be available from September - and the following new courses will roll out as planned:

• legal services (2023)

• agriculture, land management and production (2023)

• animal care and management (2024)

• marketing (2025)