BTEC – shaping a new landscape
Dear colleagues
In March, I wrote to you sharing our plans to build a new generation of BTEC qualifications, and asking for your views.
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Thank you for your incredibly supportive responses, which underline BTEC’s educational value in developing problem-solving, team-working and independent study skills. You’ve affirmed my belief that a balanced curriculum with well-respected academic and vocational pathways is central to social mobility.
But you’ve also said you want us to make the changes we’re proposing, doing more to help all learners study a varied curriculum and keep their options open post-16. We can also improve on the perceived reliability of BTEC assessments, and give you more support with the associated workload.
Learners rightly want their qualifications to have credibility across colleges, universities and employers which is second to none. While BTECs have already helped hundreds of thousands of learners to progress to further study and employment, we’re going to raise the bar again. |
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So, for first teaching in September 2012:
- We will redesign a suite of BTECs at Levels 1 and 2 for teaching in the school environment
- This suite will be developed in subjects which are not solely occupationally focused, and which support a range of progression pathways – in the first instance, Art and Design; Business; Health and Social Care; IT; Performing Arts; Applied Science and Sport
- We will offer BTECs in sizes, which fit more easily into broader curriculum models, alongside - and in support of - academic options
- We will introduce additional support, training and sampling for teacher-led assessment to ensure consistency, rigour and reliability
- All BTECs in schools will contain a minimum of 20% externally assessed content.
Combined, these changes will improve student performance around knowledge retention, numeracy and literacy; raise confidence in assessments; and, ultimately, guarantee the continuing value of the BTEC against other qualifications.
A word about GCSE and A Level. These qualifications are the gold standard for academic learning. We’ll continue to promote their take-up in schools and strive to improve them too because, currently, they offer the most widely recognised currency for progression to university. But with your support for developing BTEC, and because practical learning is of increasing importance in the global economy, we’re confident BTEC progression will increasingly keep pace with academic qualifications. Indeed, we’re already seeing widespread evidence of this happening.
Implementing these changes commits us to an investment in time - and in your support. We’re already working with you to get your views, and to explain our thinking in more detail. Please visit www.BigVocationalDebate.com for details of the 150+ events we are holding around the country to start this process.