UK plans new higher technical qualifications focused on job skills

One might have more confidence in this if the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education had a better track record in supporting existing work. Their approach is random and arbitrary, and it's noticeable that they include representatives of employers and students but NOT educators on their advistory boards and in consultations.

Day by day this Government is moving the line defining University Independence so that the space covered by "independence" is getting smaller and smaller. First they tighten the access to public funding, next they limit the amount Universities get from Government for Research and Development and now they will decide what Universites will teach by declining to fund courses they don't like. Watch out. They may wish to control what staff (including Vice Chancellors and Principals) are paid. Universities as a sector have only themselves to blame. They have been too slow to reform, cut costs and raise standards and quality of teaching and learning. Too internally focussed to realise how fast the world outside their campus was moving and in which direction. You must now engage and fight to improve and survive.