T Level Colleges

Over £74 million has been awarded to colleges to develop 86 T Level projects set to launch in September 2023. The funding will be used to refurbish or upgrade buildings as colleges prepare to deliver new T Levels in courses such as agriculture, animal care and catering.

Additional funding will be allocated to colleges in early 2023 so that they can invest in industry standard specialist equipment, which will take the total pot for capital funding to over £150 million for wave four of the T Level rollout.

The DfE said this brings the total invested through the T Level Capital Fund to over £400 million but has however, refused to disclose how much each college has been allocated as this information about public funding is “commercially sensitive”.

Media, broadcast and production is one new T Level course set to launch for the first time in 2023, yet none of the winning building projects announced today were for this route.

Asked why this was, the DfE told FE Week that all applications that “meet minimum criteria are ranked according to the quality of their applications and funding allocated based on that ranking”.

A DfE spokesperson also said that all T Level providers receive payments for specialist equipment before their courses come online, and the amount allocated is determined using a formula. In waves one, two and three the allocation was based on the number of students a provider expected to have in the fourth year of T Level delivery (steady state).

The spokesperson said the DfE will confirm how the department will allocate specialist equipment allocations in wave four “later in the year”.