Finding T-level work placements for students is a challenge – but they will not be dropped from the qualification, skills and apprenticeships minister Gillian Keegan said today.

Speaking at a Public First event – for which Tes was a media partner – Keegan said that she was confident that employers were “fully behind” T levels. 

She said: “Of course it's more challenging because there is more uncertainty. But I think businesses know that this is a very different kind of economic impact than a normal recession.

"It's almost like there's been a handbrake on our economy and as soon as we can get back going again, the skills pipelines that they had, they'll still be there. I think [employers are] more strategic than that. I'm very confident that employers are fully behind T levels.”

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Students studying a T level will be expected to undertake 315 hours of industry placement, but concerns have been raised repeatedly by providers and sector leaders. In July, research from the National Foundation for Educational Research found that a third of the new T-level providers have struggled to find industry placements for their students.

In June, City and Guilds chief executive Kirstie Donnelly warned the Commons Education Select Committee that industry placements were “almost impossible”.

At the time, she said: “The placement is a critical part of the T level and without it, the T level falls down a little. I hear a lot of employers say that it’s going to be almost impossible to deliver because of the other problems they are going to face.”

Virtual work placements

Keegan also said today that some employers had spoken about virtual placements – but that she believed that work placements could not be replicated online.

She said: “I still remember that factory as if it was yesterday. I remember the smell. I remember the people, the environment. You can't replicate that. It's a nine-week work placement, it's an extremely valuable part of the course, and I am certainly not giving up on that part of the T-level experience for young people.”

Keegan added that she was “100 per cent” confident with the decision to roll out the first three T levels this September.