The Government is to scrap a series of vocational courses as part of a review of post-16 qualifications.
Education minister Janet Daby said the current post-16 education environment is “too confusing and fails to provide a clear route to success”, as too many courses, including BTecs and apprenticeships, overlap with T-levels.
More than 200 qualifications that had either no enrolments, or fewer than 100 per year over the last three years, will be cancelled from August 2025.
As part of the review, the Government will keep about 70% of vocational courses, including BTecs, which the previous Conservative administration had announced it would cut.
Courses in manufacturing and engineering will be kept until 2027, as will those in agriculture, environmental and animal care, engineering, manufacturing, health and social care, legal, finance and accounting, business and administration, and creative and design.
A qualification to train teaching assistants will also be kept.
Speaking in the Commons, Ms Daby said: “The priority for this Government is to build a skills system which will drive forward opportunity and deliver the growth our economy needs.
“The post-16 skills system in England we inherited from the previous government fails both these tests. In particular the qualifications landscape is too confusing and fails to provide the clear route to success needed by learners and employers.”
She added: “The last government’s plan to remove level three qualifications and to limit the flexibility for schools and colleges meant they risked leaving students with too little choice and too few opportunities.”
She went on to say: “The approach and timescales I set out today represent a pragmatic and achievable journey to where we want to be. We are putting the needs of learners and our economy at the heart of how we move forward.”
A T-level in construction will be stopped, due to low numbers of students taking it.
Ms Daby said: “Its success has been limited because of a lack of overall demand for a larger qualification at level three.
“We have, as a result, concluded that the needs of learners and the economy are best met through apprenticeships and classroom provision, and decided to cease taking enrolments for the on-site T-levels.
“These changes are a fair reflection of what we have heard, and offer a balanced approach that supports our missions of spreading opportunity and supporting economic growth. We want high-quality options, strong choices and a simpler system that is easier for learners to navigate.”
For the Conservatives, shadow education minister Neil O’Brien said the announcement leaves some “huge unanswered questions” and the Government needs a “vision” for how to simplify qualifications.
He told the Commons: “The minister says things will now be clear up until 2027. In other words, we’ll be back again here in two years’ time. We had a pause and a review and we’re now going to have a longer pause and another review.
“At some point the Government will have to decide. The sector has been wanting certainty but we know from today that it’s not going to get it yet.
“The Government must spell out some kind of vision for how they plan to simplify the landscape of qualifications, which everyone has agreed for my whole lifetime is far too complicated and fragmented.”
Bill Watkin, chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association, said the announcement brought “some good news” for students, the education sector and employers.
He added: “More broadly, there is now a clear recognition from ministers that A-levels and T-levels cannot be the only Level 3 options available to young people.
“More work is needed to ensure the applied route is not only retained but also treated with the same respect as A-levels and T-levels, and we must move away from referring to these qualifications as ‘alternatives’.”
