Ministers have been criticised for refusing to publish details about a team of “independent assessors” who have been tasked with deciding the future of thousands of BTECs and other level 3 courses.
The first provisional list of qualifications that the Department for Education deems to overlap with the first ten T Levels and face being defunded was finally published earlier this month.
In total, just 160 vocational and technical qualifications – including 38 BTECs – of a possible 2,000 courses that were evaluated now face being axed, from 2024. More courses will be removed in future years.
An impact assessment report showed there are 66,000 enrolments on the courses, 27 per cent of which are students deemed to be the “most disadvantaged”.
