The measure of success for the government’s technical education reforms will be exporting them on the international market, the skills minister Anne Milton has said.

The Department for Education minister was addressing the Federation of Awarding Bodies annual conference in Leicester.

In a short speech, Ms Milton said the government technical education reforms aimed to close the productivity gap between the UK and other European economies.

She said: “It shouldn’t take a British worker five days to produce what a German can in four.”

‘Learning from us’

On the productivity gap, she referenced her boss Damian Hind’s recent trip to Germany and the Netherlands recently for a fact-finding mission on technical education. “Both countries have post-16 systems that are simpler than ours and they have qualifications that are universally trusted and valued. He was particularly impressed by how enthusiastic children and their families were about non-academic options after school.”

She added: “If you ask me what success looks like in the future, I think it would be a string of German ministers over here all eager to come here and learn from us. When German ministers are queuing up to come here I think we will have done our best.

“One of the first things we would show them would be T levels. We are very proud of them.”

Threat of T level legal challenge

The appearance of the minister at the FAB conference marks a thawing of relations between the government and the awarding bodies sector after a frosty summer where FAB threatened to take the DfE to court over the roll-out of T levels.

Referencing this, FAB’s chairperson Paul Eeles said the minister’s appearance at the conference marked an opportunity to “reset relations” with the sector.

FAB withdrew its threat of legal action in the light of “significant concessions” in the draft invitation to tender documentation for awarding bodies to bid to for T level contracts.