Hundreds of school and college leaders are pleading with ministers to delay their “reckless” plan to scrap most BTECs and other applied general qualifications by 12 months.
In a letter to education secretary Gillian Keegan, 360 headteachers and principals warn that without the postponement they will not have sufficient time to ensure that “students are on the right courses, or the right staff are in place with the right level of training”.
The Department for Education is working to introduce a streamlined system for students finishing their GCSEs that pushes them to study either A-levels, their new technical equivalent T Levels, or an apprenticeship from 2025.
Alternative applied general qualifications (AGQs), like Pearson’s popular BTECs, will only continue to be funded if they do not overlap with T Levels or A-levels and pass a strict new approvals process.
