Source · Select Committees · Education Committee
Recommendation 32
32
Not Addressed
Paragraph: 136
Equalities assessment reveals disproportionate negative impact on vulnerable student groups from qualification reforms.
Conclusion
We are disappointed that the Department’s equalities impact assessment identifies that students with special educational needs and disabilities, Asian ethnic groups, students from disadvantaged backgrounds, and males are disproportionately likely to be affected by the Department’s qualification reforms. The Department’s ‘expectation’ that its reforms will be “generally positive” for these groups is an insubstantial premise on which to defund a significant number of tried and tested Applied General Qualifications. It does not offer the evidence-based assurance that we would expect for a reform of this magnitude.
Government Response Summary
The government defends its Level 3 qualification reforms by highlighting issues with existing qualifications, such as low enrolments, lack of employer standards alignment, and poor progression to related occupations or university outcomes, particularly for BTEC students. It does not directly address the committee's specific concerns regarding the inadequacy of its equalities impact assessment.
Paragraph Reference:
136
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government
Not Addressed
The Government is reforming qualifications at Level 3 because too many qualifications have low and no enrolments, are not sufficiently based on IfATE’s employer led occupational standards, and do not progress young people to related occupations. For example, on the recently published provisional list of 92 qualifications that overlap with wave 3 T levels, we know there were 36 qualifications which had no enrolments and a further 24 had fewer than 100 enrolments in 2020/21 academic year. All too often, young people who have taken a qualification in a particular subject end up in an unrelated field. For achievers of qualifications in 2018/195 there is no clear relationship between most sector subject areas of qualifications and employment in specific industry sectors. For many qualifications, the retail sector is the most likely destination for those in sustained employment. On average, for example learners achieving Agriculture, Horticulture and Animal Care qualifications are more likely to be employed in the retail sector (28%) than in the Agriculture sector (10%). For Construction, Planning and the Built Environment sector qualifications, learners achieving them are also more likely on average to be employed in the retail sector (21%) than in the construction sector (10%). Our reforms are designed to change this. They will ensure that young people study technical education options that have been designed against IfATE’s employer led occupational standards and that give them the skills they need to enter their chosen occupation. We will also be asking for evidence the qualification is valued by employers. Where young people need support to progress to T Levels, they will be able to access the T Level or other Level 3 provision, transition programme, or other reformed Level 2 provision more clearly designed to help them progress. There is evidence that current AGQs are less effective than A Levels when it comes to university outcomes. For example6, research for The Nuffield Foundation found that BTECs provide a route into university for one in four young student entrants from England, and BTEC entrants are more likely to be from disadvantaged backgrounds than their peers with A Levels. However, students who take A Levels are less likely to drop out of university and more likely to graduate with a 2:1 or a first than those with BTECs. Students who entered with just BTECs are almost twice as likely to drop out before their second year compared to similar students who have just A Levels, around 1.7 times more likely to repeat their first year and around 1.4 times more likely to graduate below a 2:1.