Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the potential short-term effect on students’ educational prospects of replacing current applied general qualifications with T-Level qualifications; and what steps he plans to take to ensure that students across the country can continue to access a wide variety of educational pathways following the proposed rollout of T-Levels.

Plans for the reform of level 3 qualifications were published in July. Students will continue to access a wide variety of high-quality level 3 pathways in future. They will continue to be able to study applied general qualifications (AGQs) as part of mixed programmes alongside A levels, where they meet new quality standards. Students will also be able to study AGQs as their full programme of study where there is no T Level and are in areas less well served by A levels.

There will be a range of technical qualifications that will be offered alongside T Levels. The first will be qualifications supporting entry to occupations where there is no T Level. The second will be ‘specialist’ qualifications that develop more specialist skills and knowledge than could be acquired through a T Level alone.

The accompanying impact assessment did not distinguish between short and long term impacts of change but set out our expectation that the educational impact of the reforms will be positive for most students. This is because students will have access to higher quality qualifications in future, including new T Levels. This will put them in a stronger position to progress onto further study or skilled employment.