T levels “got off on the wrong foot” according to the chief executive of the Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA).
Eileen Milner spoke to the Federation of Awarding Bodies annual conference in Leicester. Ms Milner said T levels were the centrepiece of the government’s technical education reforms.
She said: “Clearly, as there has been some concern and debates around the timetable for the qualifications, we may well collectively have cause to think that we have got off on the wrong foot on this.”
In May education secretary Damian Hinds rejected a one-year delay to the implementation of the new T level qualifications, going against the advice of the department’s permanent secretary Jonathan Slater who had said the delivery window would be “challenging”.
In July, skills minister Anne Milton told the Commons Education Select Committee she would advise her children to “leave it a year” before starting a new qualification like T levels. However, she later claimed her comments were “taken out of context” and said young people would be “well-advised” to take the first qualifications when they are introduced in 2020.
‘Resetting of relationship’
Speaking today, Ms Milner said: “So I want to take the opportunity to re-introduce you to T levels from the perspective of someone who has been responsible for them.
“Technical routes to skilled employment - that’s what T levels are about. They should be rigorous and underpinned by technical study programmes at level 3.”
The ESFA chief’s remarks come a day after skills minister Anne Milton spoke to the same conference, in a move FAB chair Paul Eeles described as the “resetting” the awarding organisation sector’s relationship with the government after they levered the threat of legal action over the T level rollout against the DfE in the summer.
