Capital City College Group Respond to the Government’s Consultation on the Future of BTECs

The Government, through its recent further education white paper has put colleges on the map and is embarking on a series of measures to change the face of education for over 16s in this country.

One of these is some significant changes it is proposing to vocational (non-academic) qualifications at level 3 (A Level equivalent).

These changes, if carried out would see almost all current vocational qualifications, including BTECs, cease to exist and replaced by the new T Levels – leaving most 16 and 17-year-olds with a choice between only taking T Levels or A Levels.

Many of our students take BTECs and they are well-regarded and popular qualifications. For a lot of young people, having a BTEC under their belt has been their route into a job, a quality apprenticeship or a degree course at university. Because of this, we feel that BTECs are valuable in their own right, and also give students another option to gain a useful qualification at a key moment in their lives, when perhaps an A or T Level may not be the right choice for them. And we think that getting rid of them would be a mistake.

The Government’s proposed changes are in a consultation paper, published towards the end of October 2020.  As one of the country’s largest providers of further education, we have – along with other leading educational organisations including the exam body Pearson, the Association of Colleges and the Sixth Form Colleges Association – responded to the consultation. You can read our response here: CCCG response to DFE Level 3 consultation