Having spent most of my working life in further education, I am delighted to speak in this extremely important debate. My constituency of Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough is home to two excellent colleges that are well attended by local people of all ages who undertake qualifications of all types. It gives me no pleasure, however, to report that my constituency also has one of
the highest instances of child poverty in the country. It is my firm belief that good education provision is one of the most powerful tools to eradicate poverty, so it is essential that people who live in my constituency can access high-quality education.
I am pleased to hear that, according to the Secretary of State, there is still a promise to keep BTECs, because the previous Ministers and Secretary of State were completely unable to commit to that, but I do have some sense of cynicism about the matter. The roll-back of BTECs would reduce student choice, degrade the variety of qualifications that employers can look for in potential employees and deny existing employees the opportunity to upskill. The education system helps to close the skills gap and also needs to play its part in the levelling-up agenda. I have always been unconvinced that the way to do that is to remove a successful qualification that is being taken by almost a third of 16 to 18-year-old level 3 students.
The success of BTECs as a driving force of social mobility cannot be ignored. The Social Market Foundation found that almost half of white working-class students had at least one BTEC on entering university and that almost two fifths of students from diverse backgrounds enter university with only BTEC qualifications. That clearly means that students from disadvantaged backgrounds could be adversely affected were the proposal on BTECs to go through. Surely pathways should be extended and not closed off.
There are many concerns about what the T-level curriculum will look like and who will be able to access T-levels. If the changes took place tomorrow morning, only 40% of Sheffield College’s 16 to 19-year-old level 3 students would move to a T-level. The rest, who are studying other advanced generals, would be displaced without a full-time level 3 programme.