Alongside her campaign to become deputy leader of the Labour Party, the Secretary of State for Education has found time today to announce a new post-16 set of qualifications, called ‘V’ Levels, presumably to bring order to the landscape of such qualifications that she sees as confusing.
As I write this blog, the exact details of the new qualification to sit alongside ‘A’ & ‘T’ Levels has not yet been announced to the House of Commons, so we don’t yet know about the nature and format of ‘V’ Levels in detail.
However, as the following table shows, they may be important to many Labour Party members fighting non-metropolitan seats in the north of England, The Midlands and the South West region.
| Region | Number of pupils completing key stage 4 | Sustained education, employment & apprenticeships | Sustained education destination | Sustained apprenticeships | Sustained employment destination |
| North East | 26,931 | 91.5 | 81.7 | 4.6 | 5.2 |
| South West | 53,111 | 93.9 | 84.1 | 4.7 | 5.0 |
| Yorkshire and The Humber | 58,918 | 92.0 | 82.8 | 4.3 | 4.9 |
| North West | 79,550 | 92.1 | 83.3 | 4.1 | 4.7 |
| East Midlands | 50,002 | 92.6 | 84.2 | 4.2 | 4.2 |
| East of England | 64,445 | 94.2 | 87.4 | 2.7 | 4.1 |
| West Midlands | 64,565 | 92.4 | 85.2 | 3.2 | 4.0 |
| South East | 90,649 | 94.3 | 87.7 | 2.6 | 4.0 |
| London | 84,427 | 94.6 | 92.0 | 0.9 | 1.7 |
| Outer London | 55,921 | 94.8 | 92.0 | 1.0 | 1.7 |
| Inner London | 28,506 | 94.1 | 91.9 | 0.6 | 1.5 |
The data is for 2023 and was published last week by the DfE as Destinations of key stage 4 and 5 students: 2024 – GOV.UK although it doesn’t seem to contain the 2024 data yet.
London students, and especially those in inner London Key Stage providers seem overwhelmingly to remain in a sustained education institution, albeit not necessarily the institution where they undertook their Key Stage 4 courses. Less than 1% of inner London students proceeded to a sustained apprenticeship. Obviously, there is more room for such apprenticeships to be offered to these pupils. By contrast, the further away from London the region, the more likely that over 4% of students will proceed to apprenticeships.
The pattern for employment, not regarded by previous government as a key option after the raising unofficially of the learning leaving age to eighteen, mirrors that of apprenticeships, with higher rates the further away from London students are located. Indeed, London is something of an outlier in respect of employment rates for this group, following the pattern expected after the raising f the school leaving age.
Missing for the table are the NEETS – those not in any category in the table. Will ‘V’ Level qualifications help reduce this number, and might it help if such qualifications started at 14, the age when many NEETS fall out of interest in schooling? I was going to write, ‘fall out of love’, but many, I suspect, were never actually in love with schooling.
Anyway, I will be interesting to see whether the announcement helps the Secretary of State’s own election campaign and, if so, whether she will be in place to take the initiative forward?
John Howson 