New T-levels are not ready for my kids, says Skills Minister

THE Skills Minister was criticised after admitting she would not encourage her own children to act as guinea pigs by taking the new technical qualifications.

Anne Milton said she would probably encourage them to ‘leave it a year’ before studying for T-levels because they are not yet tried and tested. The beefed-up qualifications, which aim to make technical courses as prestigious as academic A-levels, will be piloted from 2020.

They were designed in partnership with employers and replace a range of vocational courses that were criticised for failing to equip youngsters with the skills they need.

Mrs Milton is responsible for implementing them but yesterday she told MPs on the education select committee it could be ‘quite tough’ to persuade parents that their children should take the new qualification. She added: ‘I’m a parent of four children. If somebody said to me, “Your children could do this new qualification,” I’d say, “Leave it a year.”

She said her department would make it clear ‘what you are getting’ in addition to existing qualifications but Labour MP James Frith said he found the minister’s comments ‘quite remarkable’.

He added: ‘Why shouldn’t every other parent of the children considering what they do next also say “leave it” when the minister in charge for launching this believes they are not ready?’

In February, Theresa May said the notion that vocational education was for ‘other people’s children’ needed to change when she launched a review of post-18 education. She urged people to ‘throw away the outdated attitude’.