The Labour Government's plan to continue with the Conservative's defunding of certain school qualifications has been branded as a 'mess' by a North East school leader.

It comes as 455 leaders of schools and colleges - including several from the North East - wrote to Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson, urging her to halt the defunding of applied general qualifications (AGQs) such as BTECs.

The signatories of the letter educate a third of all 16 to 19-year-olds in England.

Darren Hankey, principal and chief executive of Hartlepool College of Further Education is one of the school leaders who signed the letter.

He said: "The ongoing uncertainty is unhelpful - our first open event for current year 11 pupils is in a couple of weeks’ time.

"It is unclear what we can tell prospective students and their parents/carers – business leaders are also asking questions.

"All in all, this is a bit of a mess."

Several North East institutions are among the schools and colleges have signed the letter, including Darlington College, Carmel College, in Darlington, Durham Sixth Form Centre and Hartlepool College of Further Education.

The plans were initially proposed by the former Conservative government and Labour, when in opposition, pledged a halt and review of the policy.

However, last month the government confirmed it would not stop the move to defund the qualifications, instead opting to conduct a "focused review" of these programmes, which is set to conclude by December 2024.

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The letter, sent yesterday (Wednesday, August 28), suggests December 2024 is too late to finish the review as education providers would not know which AGQs they could offer for the next academic year, meaning students would be left without effective guidance on their futures.

They further urged the government to pause defunding immediately and confirm that students can enrol in existing AGQs up to and including the 2025/26 academic year, saying: "We urge you to announce an immediate pause to the defunding of applied general qualifications and confirm that students will be able to enrol on all existing AGQs up to and including the 2025/26 academic year."

The schools and colleges suggest that this ask is the "minimum required to ensure that young people are not disadvantaged" by the reforms.

A spokesperson for the Department for Education said: "The government took immediate action to pause the defunding that was due to occur from 1 August 2024 and announced a focused review.

“The review will allow us to support BTEC students, roll out T levels and bring certainty to the sector.

"We are pausing defunding for the duration of the review and we will conclude and communicate the outcome of that before the turn of the year."