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A joint discussion paper by Collab Group and Emsi
T-LEVELSEmployability in a Changing Economy
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Contents
1. Introduction
2. T-levels and employability skills
3. T-levels and local labour market alignment
4. The work placement question
5. Student engagement
6. Conclusion
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INTRODUCTION 1
FOOTNOTES
1. Office for National Statistics, International comparisons of UK productivity (ICP), final estimates: 2015.
2.Office for National Statics: Migration since the Brexit Vote: What’s changed in six charts, 30.11.17
Figures released by the Office for National Statistics show that UK productivity is falling well behind other G7 countries, with overall output per hour worked falling to 15.9% in 2016
The reforms to technical education initiated through the Sainsbury Review could be game-changing. T-levels, along with other major reforms to the skills system represent the biggest change in a generation.
The current technical education landscape contains over 13,000 post-16 technical courses and has left both students and employers bewildered by the range of choices available.
The attempts to simplify technical qualifications into 15 broad occupational pathways is ambitious and will hopefully improve its acceptance as a real alternative to academic progression routes. Whilst this is not the first wholescale-reform of technical qualifications, there is some tempered optimism that this time may be different…
After all, the reforms come at a crucial time when we are facing a host of broader economic challenges. Figures released by the Office for National Statistics show that UK productivity is falling well behind other G7 countries, with overall output per hour worked falling to 15.9% in 2016.1 The uncertainty created by Brexit threatens to exacerbate skills gaps in key industrial sectors as immigration from our EU neighbours has reduced and will likely continue to do so over the next decade.2 This will have an immediate impact on the demographic and skills profile of the UK, necessitating the provision of high quality training for UK workers in priority sectors.
1Introduction
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The Government sees technical education as vital to address these broader challenges, as demonstrated by the £500 million commitment to fund the reforms outlined in the Industrial Strategy and Further and Technical Education Act 2017. But funding is just one piece of the puzzle. There are still a range of questions about how this new system, and specifically T-levels, will work.
How can T-levels be designed to target skills gaps in key industries, how can providers and employers gear up to deliver substantial work experience placements, and perhaps most importantly: how can a larger cultural shift around the prestige of technical education be inspired to convince learners that T-levels and A-levels could deliver the same outcomes and opportunities?
T-levels will not offer the whole solution; there is a wider conversation that needs to be had about how you truly create an employer-led skills system which is able to address broader macro-economic problems. Our national productivity mystery will not be elucidated by a new qualification alone.
But the focus should be on ensuring that T-Levels can be effectively delivered to align with regional and local economic priorities. The success of these new qualifications will depend on ensuring clear progression routes to further study and employment, and that both learners, employers and their parents, regard T-levels as credible and robust routes to career success. T-levels need to be about employability, and so understanding how they align with the needs of the labour market is so crucial.
This paper examines these issues in detail and considers the principle determinants to the success of these new qualifications. This paper has been produced in collaboration between EMSI and Collab Group through data analysis and interviews with employers and Collab Group members.
We will consider four issues which we see as critical to the success of T-levels.
– T-levels and employability skills – T-levels and local labour market alignment – The Work placement question – Student Engagement
INTRODUCTION 1
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If T-Levels are to be regarded as a viable alternative to A-Levels, young people will need convincing that these new qualifications can enhance their career prospects and not restrict them.
For example, a young person considering pursuing the Financial pathway within the Legal, Financial and Accounting T-Level, might assume that they will be limited to a financial occupation. This could raise some immediate questions: what if I am unable to find employment in finance after graduating? What happens if I do find such a job, but decide that it’s not quite what I wanted to do?
For the T-Level system to really work, young people will need a compelling message about how T-Levels can give them a much wider variety of options than first meets the eye. But how can this be achieved?
The answer lies in tapping into employability skills, by which we mean the skills and knowledge that people learn in their training—as well as from on-the-job experience—which give them the key competencies that make them more employable. Every T-Level will train a person in a set of skills and competencies, and these will tend to lend themselves to individual occupations. However, quite often, these employability skills map quite closely with occupations associated with other T-Level streams; this dynamic needs to be explored.
Every T-Level will train a person in a set of skills and competencies, and these will tend to lend themselves to individual occupations.
2T levels and employability skills
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To demonstrate what we mean, we can compare the employability skills for a couple of pathways that would seem to be very different: Media, Broadcast & Production, which is within the Creative and Design T-level route, and Community Exercise, Fitness and Health—part of the Health and Science route.
To make the comparison, we can draw on the Occupational Information Network database (O*NET), which is a comprehensive set of information on key attributes and characteristics of workers and occupations developed by the US Government, and which includes the identification of a total of 35 different skills across all occupations. Emsi has adapted this programme for the UK, mapping the 35 skills to the 369 Standard Occupation Classifications in
this country. Furthermore, since T-Levels have been mapped to occupations by the Gatsby Foundation, this means that we can effectively identify the skills competencies for all routes and pathways.
According to the O*NET system, skills can be classified using a variety of different metrics, but for the purposes of this exercise we will use two: Skills Importance and Skills Levels.
Skills Importance represents the degree of importance placed on a particular skill (on a scale of 1-5 with one being “Not important”, and five being “Extremely important”), and we can use this metric to compare the 35 skills across the Media, Broadcast & Production, and Community Exercise, Fitness and Health pathways.
T LEVELS AND EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS
Figure 1. Skills Importance Across the 35 O*NET Skills Competencies for the Media, Broadcast and Production, and Community Exercise, Fitness and Health Pathways
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There are a good number of differences, but overall there is a close correlation between the two pathways – certainly a closer correlation than we might have guessed. So, whilst skills such as Quality control analysis, Troubleshooting, and Programming play a much more important part of Media, Broadcast & Production, and skills such as Speaking, Instructing and Service orientation are more important for Community Exercise, Fitness and Health, there are a lot of skills that cut across both pathways. Out of the 35 skills competencies, 15 of them are within 0.25 points of one another on the scale of 1-5, indicating a high degree of skills similarity.
In addition to looking at Skills Importance, we can also look at Skills Levels. This is measured on a scale of 0-7. Where Skills Importance measures how much the skill matters to doing the job, Skills Level measures how good you need to be at it. For instance, the skill of “speaking” is of high importance for both lawyers and hairdressers. However, because of the nature of what is involved in being a lawyer, the actual Skills Level for speaking is far higher than that needed for a hairdresser.
The chart below shows the Skills Levels for the 35 different skills for the two pathways:
Figure 2. Skills Levels Across the 35 O*NET Skills Competencies for the Media, Broadcast and Production, and Community Exercise, Fitness and Health Pathways
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T LEVELS AND EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS
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As with the Skills Importance it is very noticeable just how similar the Skills Level requirements are for both pathways.
By comparing these two very different pathways and discovering that their Skills Importance and Skills Levels metrics are closer than we might have expected, we can draw some important conclusions:
Firstly, although it might seem that doing a specific T-Level and choosing a certain pathway will prepare learners for a specific occupation, they will be acquiring a set of highly transferrable skills.
By understand these underlying skills and ensuring that there are mechanisms that facilitate transferability across pathways, T-levels can be seen to offer a broader range of options to learners.
The fact that different T-Level routes and pathways often have a highly compatible set of employability skills means that there is a real opportunity to chart viable career pathways for young people. Not only do different pathways have employability skills that are transferrable to numerous occupations, but comparison of Skills Importance and Skills Levels can also be used to highlight where there are employability gaps, and therefore which areas a person would need to upskill, on order to pursue a different career.
The employment landscape is rapidly changing, and increasingly businesses are looking beyond qualifications to determine who is employable. By exploring and articulating the employability skills within T-Levels, there is a role for colleges not only to give young people a much more compelling route to success, but also to rise to the changing skills dynamic that businesses are seeking answers to.
T LEVELS AND EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS
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INTRODUCTION 1
As we stated in the introduction, a central aim of T-Levels should be ensuring that they can be effectively delivered to align with regional and local economic priorities. In fact, according to the Post-16 Skills Plan, the whole purpose of T-Levels is to create:
The work placement requirement makes this a necessity, given that each T-Level must relate to actual employers. However, this means that colleges will need to have a good understanding of the needs of employers in their area, to plan a T-Level curriculum that responds to demand.
A dynamic, high-quality technical option, which is grounded in engagement with employers, fits soundly with the rest of the system and is responsive to the changing needs of the economy.3
FOOTNOTES
3. Post 16 Skills Plan, p6, July 2016
3T-levels and local labour market alignment
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Some colleges may be tempted to offer all 15 routes. However, doing so is premised on the following questions. Firstly, is there actually sufficient demand in our region to warrant offering all 15 routes? Secondly, how can we identify how much of each route we should be offering?
Most colleges use some form of Labour Market Insight (LMI) to shape the courses they offer, but the added element of the industry placement means that T-Level provision will need to be aligned especially closely to employer demographics and needs. But how can this be done?
USING LMI TO IDENTIFY DEMAND FOR THE 15 ROUTES
The Gatsby Foundation have mapped the 15 routes and pathways to occupations using Standard Occupation Classification codes (SOC). By taking this mapping and plugging it into Emsi’s localised LMI, we can establish employment needs for T-Level routes for any part of the country.
Figure 1 offers a high-level overview of what this looks like using two anonymised areas – a rural and an urban college region – showing how all 15 routes map to the expected number of annual job openings for associated occupations:
Figure 1. Annual Job Openings for all 15-T-Level Routes Across a Rural and Urban College Region
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T-LEVELS AND LOCAL LABOUR MARKET ALIGNMENT
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As you can see, there are several routes where demand is reasonably similar in both areas. For example, annual openings for the Hair and Beauty route in the rural and urban areas are 73 and 65 respectively, whilst routes such as Transport and Logistics, and Creative and Design, are also similar. But there are also
routes which have very different associated demand between the two regions. For example, there are significant differences in the Catering and Hospitality; Agriculture, Environmental and Animal Care Sales; and Sales, Marketing and Procurement routes.
Mapping the routes to job demand in a region is a good base point for any college to begin their T-Level strategy. However, we can dig deeper to go beyond the routes themselves and open the pathways within the routes. In Figures 2 and 3 below, we have again used
USING LMI TO IDENTIFY DEMAND FOR THE 35 PATHWAYS
the anonymised rural and urban regions, but this time instead of looking at the 15 routes, we look at the Top 10 pathways in these areas in terms of projected job growth between 2017 and 2022:
Figure 2. Top 10 Pathways According to Projected Job Growth in Rural College Region (2017-2022)
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3T-LEVELS AND LOCAL LABOUR MARKET ALIGNMENT
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Figure 3. Top 10 Pathways According to Projected Job Growth in Urban College Region (2017-2022)
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As with the routes, there are a number of similarities and some differences. In terms of similarities, both areas have significant associated job demand for the Hospitality, Management and administration, and Care services pathways. In terms of differences, the data is extremely interesting. The college in the urban area might assume that there will be high occupation demand in pathways such as Financial, Marketing and IT Support & Services. Yet these are actually more in-demand in the rural area. Intuition might tell us that demand for Agriculture, land management and production will be higher in the rural region than the urban region. And yet the data actually shows that – at least over the coming years - there is likely to be
higher demand for occupations related to this pathway in the urban area.
This is perhaps counterintuitive, but it underscores a crucial point: colleges need to take an evidence-based approach to T-Levels if they are to understand and respond to the needs of the labour market. A college may be in an area which is known for particular types of employment, but if demand for these occupations is declining, then simply assuming that they should be offering a high number of places on T-Level routes and pathways associated with those jobs, may well be counterproductive and is unlikely to help learners and employers.
3T-LEVELS AND LOCAL LABOUR MARKET ALIGNMENT
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As demonstrated above, identifying demand for associated routes and pathways is crucial for colleges in terms of planning a T-Level curriculum that – in the words of the Post-16 Skills Plan that we quoted above, “is responsive to the changing needs of the economy.” But there was another part of that statement, which also deserves our attention in connection with LMI – the need for T-Levels to be “grounded in engagement with employers”.
The data shown above links routes and
USING LMI TO IDENTIFY INDUSTRY NEEDS
pathways to occupations, but it doesn’t tell us much about the industries which employ these jobs. However, by running an Inverse Staffing Pattern, we can begin to see which sectors actually employ these occupations, which in turn can help to inform employer engagement around T-Level planning.
To give an example, Figure 4 shows insight on the Construction industry in the rural college region, with the occupation numbers within the industry broken down into the 15 routes to which they relate:
Figure 4. Job numbers in 2017 for the 15 Routes Connected With the Construction Industry in the Rural College Region
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3T-LEVELS AND LOCAL LABOUR MARKET ALIGNMENT
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Some of this data probably looks very surprising. It would be natural to suppose that the route to which the Construction industry relates is the Construction T-Level. For the most part, this is true, with by far and away the most jobs in the industry related to the Construction T-level (8,685 jobs out of 20,000). However, the fact is that the industry also employs a lot of occupations that are connected to other T-Level Routes. For example, the industry employs managers and administrators, which explains why of the 20,000 jobs in the sector, 1,077 are linked not to the Construction T-Level, but to the Management and Administration T-Level.
Understanding this is crucial for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it means that there will often be multiple sectors that those doing T-Levels can consider working in, many of which they might not automatically consider. For instance, someone doing a T-Level in Legal, Financial and Accounting might feel that their employment options are limited to working for a legal, financial or accountancy firm. But as the insight above shows, the Construction industry employs people with these skills, as will most other sectors. Colleges can use data like this in their careers advice to show young people that their options after gaining their T-Level qualification are perhaps much greater than they might suppose.
The second reason this is important is that it can be used to inform the college’s employer engagement strategy, especially regarding work placements. For instance, if we were thinking about industries connected to the Sales, Marketing and Procurement T-Level, Construction is probably not one that would automatically spring to mind. Yet, as the chart above shows, the Construction sector in this rural college region actually employs 737 occupations related to the Sales, Marketing and Procurement T-Level.
What the data shows, therefore, is that whilst a college may associate certain types of employers for specific work placements, by digging into the data to see which industries employ occupations related to that T-Level, what they will often find is that there are far more employers out there with whom they could engage with than they first suspected.
3T-LEVELS AND LOCAL LABOUR MARKET ALIGNMENT
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...importantly to secure the greatest proliferation of T-level enrolments, providers will need to shape their offering based on labour market demand...
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It is undoubtedly true that the work or industry placements element is one of the most crucial aspects of the entire T-level programme.
As we have outlined, by understanding the local labour market providers will be able to offer T-levels that correspond to the needs of local economies, and the provision of opportunities may not necessarily correspond to sector-associated employers.
But importantly to secure the greatest proliferation of T-level enrolments, providers will need to shape their offering based on labour market demand, and where there is a higher density of employers, the chances of being able to secure relevant T-level industry placements increases.
Each learner on a T-level course will be required to complete a mandatory 315-hour work placement and integrating them successfully into the T-level programme will be crucial to ensure that both employers and learners recognise the T-level programme as robust and credible.
The Department for Education has been clear that no work experience means no certification, and this is understandable—but the blanket requirement of a 45 to 60-day placement over the duration of the programme may be difficult to achieve across some routes. This will depend on the route, the pathway and the availability of employers offering work experience opportunities within a given locality.
4The work placement question
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FOOTNOTES
4. Implementation of T Level Programmes: Government Consultation Response, p31, May 2018
5. Learning the ropes: Skills and Training in Small Business, p37, December 2017
It is welcome to see that in response to the consultation on the implementation of T-level programmes, the Government has recognised that when it comes to work placements “one size doesn’t fit all,” and different sectors will likely have to adopt different approaches.4 This could include a mixture of day release, single bock placements, multiple blocks at different times, or a mix of day release and blocks which can be determined by the provider. Models are currently being piloted across the country, and it will be interesting to see what emerges from these early pilots. But the issue is not so much about how the placement will be delivered, but whether employers will be sufficiently incentivised to offer them in the first place.
After all, the T-level work placements will be substantially longer than traditional work experience placements, so there is a danger that some employers may be dissuaded from offering them. Taking on a learner for a T-level work placement will require significant supervision, support and resources. This will be a challenge for small businesses— demonstrated by research from the Federation of Small Businesses which found that only 6% of small businesses would be willing to offer a T-level work placement.5
Another key requirement made by the DfE is that the work placement is external, i.e., not college-based. But this demarcation between college-based and work-based learning is not so easily established. Take students studying hospitality and working in a college-owned restaurant as one example.
Core skills such as being accountable to an employer, team-work, working to deadlines, etc. are all being developed, even though they are not in an external work place setting. Or what if a learner was tasked with an “off-site” employer-designed project that requires the learner to respond to real-world business issues or scenarios in a remote setting? In the digital and technology sectors, work placements could conceivably be delivered through these types of projects which enhance relevant skills and allow opportunities for employer guidance and feedback. In the University sector, there are lots of good examples of this model which equip learners with specific occupational skills outside of the workplace through practical project work.
In some sectors, on-site experience is crucial to embed core employability skills, but to create additional flexibility a mixture of on and off-site work experience could be offered as a reasonable work-around. The use of realistic working environments could also be employed to provide accurate simulations that develop technical skills outside of work place settings.
THE WORK PLACEMENT QUESTION 4
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It is positive that the government has pledged extra support for colleges through the capacity development fund to support providers to gear up work placements.
In some cases, these may not be ideal solutions. Ideally, every learner that wanted to undertake a T-level would secure a high-quality placement with an external employer in their locality. But if there is a shortage of work placements, and if a lack of work placements would prevent a provider from offering a T-level, some degree of flexibility or a reinterpretation of the internal/external divide might be needed.
Above all else, there is a need to think creatively about how work experience could be delivered.
It is positive that the government has pledged extra support for colleges through the capacity development fund to support providers to gear up work placements. The additional functionality given to the national apprenticeship service to provide an interface between providers and work-experience opportunities is also welcome. But the big challenge will be to provide the incentives and convince employers that offering T-level work placements is in their best interests.
By allowing work placements to remain as flexible as possible – and thinking creatively about how they can be delivered – the willingness of employers to offer them may be better ensured.
THE WORK PLACEMENT QUESTION 4
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T-levels need to be accessible to a broad range of learners. Given that they will not be fully available until 2024, it is not surprising that they are not yet well known outside education and employment circles. Significant work will need to take place to ensure the T-Level “brand” gains currency with both learners and employers.
As we have shown in this paper, the skills incorporated within a T-level programme can be considered as broadly transferable. It is therefore critical that they are not seen by learners to close their options. Importantly, they will need to correspond to sufficiently flexible pathways that highlight the different ways in which the underlying skills, in addition to the qualification, can support a range of career and employment options. This is where mechanisms such as bridging courses between academic and technical divides will be so important. T-Levels need to be flexible to support credit accumulation and recognition of prior learning and attainment, even when a learner may not have completed the entirety of their programme.
The roll out of T-levels will need to be supported by a national publicity and promotional campaign modelled on the apprenticeship “Get in Go Far” campaign. Key messages need to reinforce the link between these qualifications and progression onto employment and higher-level study. Universities have taken a wait-and-see approach to T-levels, so we don’t know whether they will be accepted as part of the UCAS application process— although DfE has now confirmed that this is something that they are looking into. There will need to be a
clear line of sight from these qualifications to enable progression onto HE courses, whether a higher or degree apprenticeship or another form of higher level study. Without this flexibility the uptake of learners undertaking T-levels may be supressed. But admittedly, this form of progression could undermine the Sainsbury principle of the academic/technical divide.
Crucially, the challenges relating to engaging learners with T-levels will be around access to high quality information, advice and guidance. Technical education providers will need to be able to engage with students to demonstrate the benefits of the technical route. The Baker amendment to the Technical and Further Education Act requires schools to produce an open policy on how they will permit access to technical education providers. This is a welcome development, but there is no mechanism to enforce this rule and technical education providers are still being shut out of schools. The reality is that many young people are not well served by our current education system which has inculcated a systemic bias towards academic education as the most viable route to secure long-term and sustainable careers. The issue, however, also extends to parents who have a considerable influence over the educational choices of their child.
5Student engagement
As we have shown in this paper, the skills incorporated within a T-level programme can be considered as broadly transferable.
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FOOTNOTES
6. EY, Parents lack confidence to support their child’s career aspirations, 22. 08.17
5STUDENT ENGANGEMENT
portion of learners undertaking T-levels, at least initially, is going to be relatively modest. But longer term, the option should remain available to learners from all background, and all attainment levels, to access these programmes.
Despite the important role that this transition period could play in supporting learners to progress to a T-level course, there is still uncertainty about what this will look like. Hopefully providers will be granted the flexibility to the models that will stand learners with the best change of success to progress to L3 study. This could be facilitated through existing study programmes, or through a sector specific approach, aligned to the relevant occupational groups from which learners can specialise and progress.
There will be no one-size-fits-all approach, and so to ensure that T-levels are not held as an exclusive qualification, engaging and providing support for learners of all abilities will be fundamentally important.
Ultimately, what needs to be overcome is this cultural bias that technical education is only an option for “other people’s children.” A survey from EY found that 95% of parents agreed that more young people doing apprenticeships straight out of school is a good thing for the UK, but this drops to 63% when they are asked directly about whether their child should do an apprenticeship rather than go to university.6
But to engage with all students, consideration needs to be given to the learners who may need extra help and support. This is where the proposed transition offer will be so important. The Sainsbury panel recognised that not all 16-year-olds will be ready for a level 3 course or employment at 16, so specific provision will need to be designed to support those who leave school with little or no qualifications. For these learners the transition period will be crucial to ensure that T-levels can be accessible to learners from across the attainment spectrum. Ensuring clear progression routes into T-levels and making them attainable to all learners will be necessary to widen the uptake and appeal of these new qualifications. Realistically, the
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This paper will hopefully add to the debate about how we create T-levels that have currency with both employers and learners
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The overwhelming conclusion emerging from the conversations and analysis we have undertaken is that T-levels need to be sufficiently flexible for both for employers and for providers. The industry placement, the transition period, the design and offering of programmes, all need to permit flexibility to ensure that best practice and truly innovative models of delivery can emerge.
The use of data to map an offering that is in line with labour market demand will be crucial to ensure that the link between T-levels and employability can be highlighted in the popular imagination.
T-levels will form an important part of how we talk about technical education in the UK. We need to be able to send a positive message about the opportunities they can give to prepare young people for the world of work, whilst also not boxing people in too tightly. As we showed in section one, even distinct specialisms do have overlapping skills which can be transferred to a broad range of occupations. Ensuring that T-levels enable progression, both at the lower levels through the transition year or at the higher levels, through to university or a degree apprenticeship will be crucial.
There now seems to be more clarity on the work placement issue, and time will only tell whether the measures that have been proposed will result in demand being met. The timescale for delivery, especially for the first three pathfinder routes, are very tight.
This paper will hopefully add to the debate about how we create T-levels that have currency with both employers and learners. We need to change the conversation around technical education and ensure the links between T-levels employability, a well-paying job and future career success, are made clearly and explicitly.
Together we can shape T-levels that will create opportunity for the next generation of talent and raise the profile and prestige of technical education for a new generation of learners.
6Conclusion
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We want to contribute to the debate around how to make T-levels a success.
