A consultation into qualifications at level 3 and below is not motivated by a feeling that qualifications like BTECs and Cambridge Technicals are of insufficient quality, skills minister Anne Milton has said. 

Speaking to Tes, she said: “All qualifications are up for grabs, it is a good time to do this. In terms of classroom-based, we want A levels and T levels, and the work-based option is apprenticeships.” 

However, she acknowledged that, with the broad range of learners taking part in post-16 education, including students with additional support needs, there was a need for additional qualifications. “We will be mindful that there needs to be a suite of qualifications,” Ms Milton said. 

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The government earlier today announced plans to review which post-16 qualifications will, in future, be funded for young people in colleges and sixth-forms. It launched a two-part consultation on qualifications at level 3 and below.

In the first stage of the consultation, the Department for Education will ask key stakeholders for their thoughts on only providing public funding for qualifications that meet key criteria on “quality, purpose, necessity and progression” and then not providing public funding for qualifications for 16- to 19-year-olds that overlap with T levels or A levels.

“We listened to both the Wolf review in 2011 and the Sainsbury review,” Ms Milton said, stressing that any qualifications available to young people needed to “have currency” in the job market. “They need to be easy to understand by employers and they need to give students who gain them currency. They also need to have progression.”