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UK Music calls for pause on plans to withdraw funding from post-16 music qualifications

Some 30,000 young people are set to be affected by plans to defund vocational Level 3 qualifications for music by 2026.
Adobe Stock / lovelyday12

UK Music’s interim chief executive Tom Kiehl has urged Education Secretary Gillian Keegan to pause plans to defund Level 3 music qualifications for 1619 year-olds. The government has planned a phased pause in funding for the qualifications over the next two years.

In a letter to the Cabinet Minister, Kiehl states: ‘In the absence of a T-Level for Music, defunding for existing qualifications places a massive administrative burden on many in the music education sector, with qualifications having to be rewritten as Alternative Academic Qualifications (AAQs) and approved by the Department for Education.  

‘This could leave the approximately 30,000 young people a year that study vocational music qualifications with the main providers RSL Awarding Body, Pearson (BTEC), NCFE, and University of the Arts London (UAL) Awarding Body without a viable alternative.’

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