The government has a “duty” to press ahead with T levels despite the threat of a judicial review, Anne Milton has insisted.

In an exclusive interview with Tes, the apprenticeships and skills minister said the pre-action protocol letter - the first stage in initiating a judicial review - from the Federation of Awarding Bodies (FAB) was “a bit disappointing”.

Ms Milton also insisted that her comments to the Commons Education Select Committee last week, that, as a parent, she would advise her children to “leave it a year” before taking the first T levels due to be introduced in 2020, had been “taken out of context”. The minister insisted that young people would be “well-advised” to take the first qualifications when they are introduced.

T levels legal action

The FAB has insisted that it does not “disagree with the introduction and purpose of T levels” and “the way the government has gone about the process of implementation”.

It has highlighted concerns over several elements of the procurement exercise, including the timescales and lack of stakeholder engagement. It is also concerned about the approach of licensing a single body for qualifications, rather than allowing several bodies to offer them, as occurs with GCSEs and A levels.

Yesterday, the Department for Education published the draft invitation to tender (ITT) for T levels, which revealed several changes to plans which had been criticised by awarding bodies. These included allowing exam boards to have co-branding on question papers and longer contracts.

Ms Milton also confirmed that, despite requests for a meeting from the FAB, she currently had no plans to meet the organisation, due to the ongoing legal action.

‘Incredibly proud’

“I can’t go into the ins and outs of the judicial review,” she told Tes. “I’ve made myself very available. Up to this point, anybody who wants to come and see me, I would have met with them and I know that the T-level team [has] worked very hard and met with awarding bodies prior to the draft ITT being published,” she said.

“On T levels generally, I’m incredibly proud of the progress we have made. These are really important qualifications. It’s really important people have confidence in them. Officials [at the DfE] and the sector have worked really, really hard to get exactly what we want, which is a real gold-standard technical education qualification. So [the legal action by the FAB] is a bit disappointing.

“But we will press on. It’s important we do this. We have a duty, if you like, to young people to make sure that technical education takes its rightful place as giving young people the qualifications that are on a par with A levels.”

‘Out of context’

When asked to clarify her comments to the select committee, Ms Milton said she had been “quoted out of context”.

“What I was saying, and I was speaking as a mother, was highlighting the importance we place on getting really high-quality qualifications, we want really good products,” she said. “And secondly, in order to make sure that young people and their parents are aware, the first stage in that is understanding why they might be reluctant to do a brand-new qualification.

“So, if you like, I was just talking about the fact you can’t communicate unless you understand your audience. So understanding your audience is very important and that was what I was trying to highlight. What matters, [firstly], is that we get these really high-quality qualifications, which I have absolutely no doubt we will do, and [secondly], the importance of communicating this really well. Not to just to the young people but also to the parents, so the parents are aware that these might be new, this might be the first year, but this is an opportunity to do a really first-class technical qualification. Something that you’ve never seen before, but that will really give your son or daughter an opportunity to get a career through a different route, on a par with A levels.”

When asked whether, speaking as a minister, she felt that young people would be well-advised to take the first T levels in 2020, Ms Milton replied: “I think they would be extremely well-advised to do so… These will be the gold-standard technical qualifications; what, actually, everybody has been waiting for, for a long time.”