Results 2024
Students across the UK have now received their exam and assessment results for a range of qualifications. For GCSEs in England results have returned to pre-pandemic levels, with 67.4% of students achieving grade 4/C or higher in their exams. These students will now be deciding from a range of offers for the next stage of their education or training, but it is their recent results that determine what is actually available to them.
Opportunities and Barriers
What this year’s GCSE results in England reveal is that approximately one in three entrants did not achieve a grade 4/C or higher in English and maths.
Recent reforms to the vocational training offer in England have seen the launch of T-Levels, which have now been available for four years and whose wider roll-out remains a major commitment for the Department for Education.
T-Levels, which are intended to replace longer-established qualifications, such as BTECs (that have traditionally offered an entry route to a range of careers) are large, academically demanding Level 3 programmes that are equivalent to three A-Levels, with a substantial practical industry placement.
T-Level providers set the entry requirements for access to the programmes and because of the degree of challenge that T-Levels present, typically five GCSE passes (grade 4/C or higher) including English and maths are needed. Some providers look for “good/strong passes” meaning grade 5 GCSE or higher. This year’s results show that only 42% of entrants achieved grade 5 or higher in maths, and 46% in English.
This means that the Department for Education’s flagship vocational education programme’s entry requirements potentially exclude a great many young people who at 16 would value a high quality entry route to jobs and careers that are in demand from employers.
Energy & Utility Skills’ most recent employer research forecasts that over the next 10 years the sector workforce will need to grow from 642,000 to over 800,000. During the next 5 years alone, we will need to find an estimated 293,000 new workers because of the new roles being created by the transition to net zero and to replace workers who are retiring. The sector will need to draw on a wide pool of students who choose vocational pathways leading to critical technical occupations.
Pause and Review
New Secretary of State for Education, Bridget Phillipson, recently announced that the Department for Education would “undertake a short pause and review of post-16 qualification reform at level 3 and below”. The immediate impact has been that the defunding of some BTECs and other alternative vocational qualifications deemed to overlap with T-Levels has been paused.
This year’s T-Levels results showed that 1500 learners started on Engineering & Manufacturing programmes in 2022, with 1128 completing the programme, meaning that one-in-four learners did not complete. Previous years’ research had shown that 90% of those who do not complete T-Levels go on to other courses, many of which are amongst those scheduled to be defunded.
Clear Vocational Pathways
While Energy & Utility Skills welcomes both the focused review of the post-16 qualification reforms at Level 3 and below, and also the forthcoming independent Curriculum and Assessment Review, what is urgently needed is a review of post-16 Level 2 provision that focusses on vocational pathways, that understands the impact of the defunding programme, and that acknowledges that strong and inclusive pathways are needed in addition to T-Levels in order to, as the Secretary of State has said, “ensure breadth of opportunity for every young person.”[1]
[1] Letter from Secretary of State to Becky Francis (publishing.service.gov.uk)