The government’s ambitious technical education reforms have received a stamp of approval from one of the world’s foremost education experts.

After addressing the Association of Colleges’ Annual Conference in Birmingham, the director for education and skills at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Andreas Schleicher, said the T-level programme was a “good step”.

He said: “I think T levels are a good step that’s building more credibility into the education system.

“I think that it’s going to help FE colleges in building partnerships with employers. To do this, you need the best in industry to teach, or else it is hard to build trusted long-term partnerships.”

Much-needed boost

The praise comes as a welcome boost for the new qualifications, which have suffered setbacks in the early stages of their development.

In May, the Department for Education’s permanent secretary, Jonathan Slater, expressed concerns about the ambitious timescale for introducing the first wave of the qualifications in 2020. This led to a ministerial direction being issued by education secretary Damian Hinds to push through the plans in line with the proposed timescale.

The Federation of Awarding Bodies also threatened legal action to instigate a judicial review over how the tendering process would employ a single-awarding-body approach. However, it later rowed back on the threat.

Apprenticeships and skills minister Anne Milton also faced embarrassment when she admitted that, as a parent, she would advise her children to “leave it a year” before taking the first wave of qualifications.

Declining apprenticeship starts

Mr Schleicher also urged patience regarding the government’s target of creating 3 million apprenticeship starts during the current parliament.

Since the apprenticeship levy was introduced in April 2017, the number of people starting apprenticeships has dropped dramatically.

Some 41,700 starts were reported between August 2017 and June 2018 for the 2017-18 academic year, which is down 28 per cent on the 2016-17 total of 472,500 starts. In 2015-16, there were 458,500 starts.

Mr Schleicher said getting the reform right should be a higher priority than hitting the target.

He added: “I think that the 3 million target was always very ambitious. It takes a long time to build up a successful system and this is something that will take time.”