Tech Levels Created to Boost Level of Practical Skills: The Department for Education has announced the introduction of ‘Tech Levels’ – new courses designed to increase the standard of practical skills training in the UK. The courses, which will replace a large number of vocational courses which were removed from league tables having been found to be ‘sub-standard’, will be the pinnacle of practical qualifications and will be equivalent to an A-level. They will be available to pupils in 2014, and will feature in league tables from 2016.

Following last year’s announcement that more than nine in ten of the 3,721 vocational qualifications available to learners were below the required level, ‘Tech Levels’ require exam boards to gain endorsement from five companies before they can be offered. The first wave of 142 qualifications which sit under the new banner have been given approval by names such as npower, Proctor and Gamble, Volvo, Honda and Cisco – as well as Arsenal FC and the Royal Ballet School for sports and performing arts courses respectively.

Other topics of study for pupils taking the new ‘Tech Levels’ will include engineering, construction, manufacturing, IT and agriculture, as well as specific titles dealing with motorcycle maintenance and patisserie baking.

The new vocational courses must be seen to lead directly in to the workplace or to further study – including apprenticeships – and must be equal in content to an A-level. In addition, the Government also plans to unveil ‘Applied General Qualifications’, which provide more generic, broader vocational skills and will be equivalent to half an A-level; they have been approved by several universities.

The Skills Minister, Matthew Hancock, has said that too many teenage pupils had been sitting exams and gaining qualifications which fail to prepare them for a career or to go on to future study. Speaking on the new ‘Tech Levels’, Alison Wolf – author of a report in to vocational study and a professor of management at King’s College London – stated she was ‘delighted that the Government has taken this major step towards establishing such a system for England’. She felt the new qualifications would serve the need of ‘motivated and ambitious young people’ and of employers.