Speeches by Dixon.

“Group-based sexual abuse is among the most heinous of crimes, and our priority must always be to listen to victims and survivors. I recently attended an event organised by West Yorkshire’s Mayor Tracy Brabin and the deputy Mayor and police and crime commissioner, Alison Lowe, where I had the opportunity to meet victims…”

“In the NAO Report, paragraph 2.8 shows the year-on-year decline in the number of students passing. I also understand from my local college that it only really counts for anything if you pass with merit. I did not see a breakdown here about the pass with merit ratings. If we compare the numbers with A Levels and other t…”

“Are you confident, then, that by both making it more attractive and doing your public awareness campaigns you are going to close the gap? At the moment, half of prospective pupils are still unaware of T Levels. Where do you expect that to be in another year’s time?”

“You are confident that it is value for money for the colleges, in terms of both the quality and the fee that these awarding organisations are going to be charging.”

“When I say providers, I am talking about colleges, not the awarding organisations. Where does it leave colleges in terms of any uplift in their funding to reflect the higher fees per student that they will be paying to awarding organisations?”

“Did they then not put the prices up? They were not fixed to stick with the original thing they had bid for. When they realised the numbers were going down, did they not put the prices up?”

“Providers will continue to be price-takers.”

“Just for clarification, it seems that these awarding organisations effectively had a monopoly in this first period. Therefore, the providers were a bit at the mercy of the fees that these awarding organisations wanted to charge. I have understood that you have changed that with the adaptive pricing so that, if student …”

“Ironically, if I may, Chair, I would suggest a reverse innovation. I went to Zimbabwe, where I was looking at an amazing programme of re-engaging adolescent girls in education and vocational training. The Open University here had partnered with them in rewriting the school curriculum. In one of the lessons that I obser…”

“Yes, but it is more of a problem in vocational technical qualifications.”

“If I may, I will come on to those who are enrolling on to T Levels and in which subjects. Again, looking at the data—you started to mention it there—some groups are under-represented in general compared with some of the other vocational qualifications. People with special educational needs seem to have a higher propens…”

“I am sorry. I just want to get something clear. You have pre-empted where I was going next, but I was talking about those who are not completers. I mean the 26%—I cannot remember where it was—of people who are starting a T Level and not completing. Among the group of people who are not completing, is there a disproport…”

“It is very important to listen to those students who are exiting early and understand why. It sounds like you have done some of that work and are now seeking to address those factors. Have you done an analysis to break down by socioeconomic status, race and gender who is dropping out and who is sustaining to completion…”

“In terms of completion, the other factor in the Report is about students who do the foundation but do not necessarily progress. Again, what would you want to do to ensure that more of those who start end up completing? In particular, how can we ensure that more of those who take the foundation go on to complete the ful…”

“We have talked a little bit about the take-up of T Levels. I want to particularly look at this from the student’s perspective. Obviously there will be a number of factors in students’ choices around whether T Levels are the right thing for them. The NAO Report sets out some issues about awareness, the appeal of T Level…”

“Probing on that peer point, Shipley college pointed out that one challenge is that it is a lot more demanding. It is many more hours both of study and in placement. For some students, perhaps in terms of affordability, they might need to be working part time to earn some money. They have other interests in life outside…”

“I would not want to suggest that our UK students are workshy in any way and would be put off by that. They are extremely studious. There was no doubt that the ones who I met at Shipley college, who were doing their healthcare and doing an amazing placement at the local Bradford Royal Infirmary hospital, were very commi…”

“This is the key point. You talked about half of them perhaps wanting to pursue university entry. If there were a delay on completion, that would affect people’s ability to take up places at university. Has that problem largely been solved by giving UCAS points?”

“It sounds like you do a lot of engagement on the employer side and these decisions are being very driven by employers. Are you doing student engagement? Do you look at where the demand is for different subjects and what choices students would like to have available to them? From what I have heard, that seems a bit lack…”

“It will be essential to deliver on these T Level numbers to get that recruitment and retention and level the playing field between colleges and schools, which is obviously another issue. Thank you for your responses.”