Some colleges say the courses are as hard as a Higher National Diploma and many department heads are switching back to the old BTEC qualifications.

The Advanced Vocational Certificate of Education was designed to replace the old advanced GNVQ with a two-year qualification equivalent to the A-level. But many colleges say some exam boards have made it too academic.

Eileen Carpenter, vocational A-level business co-ordinator for Barking College, said: “AVCEs are as hard as HNDs. Students who would have chosen advanced GNVQ are looking at ASA2 levels because they’ve heard they are easier.” In business studies, for example, she said the vocational qualification assumed more prior knowledge than an AS-level.

Norma Honey, head of High Pavement Sixth Form College, in Nottingham, said:

“There’s a sense that students aren’t enjoying them.”

Wendy Stevenson, head of business and community studies at Isle College in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, said: “We have moved back to BTEC which offers us far greater flexibility to create assignments that are relevant.”

The AVCE courses do have supporters. Phelim Brady, vice-principal of Farnborough College of Technology, Hampshire, said people saw BTEC through rose-tinted glasses. He said the new courses gave vital parity of esteem with academic A-levels.

A third of his college’s 1,600 full-time 16 to 19-year-olds do vocational A-levels. He said. “We had a hideously narrow post-16 provision, dropping everything bar three subjects. Now students are encouraged to broaden their choices.”

Even so there were teething troubles with students switching courses. This, he said, may explain the high drop-out rate.

The Learning and Skills Development Agency, which has welcomed the new exam, said criticism should be treated with caution as institutions would take time to adapt to the new structure.