Bringing Vocational Qualifications into the Inclusivity Agenda: The Case of the BTEC

In this chapter, Mitton and Hensby foreground one of the most under-researched intersections within white-BAME attainment research: the role of entry qualifications. It provides statistical analysis of BTEC access and attainment trends, while qualitatively exploring BTEC entrants’ experiences of transitioning to higher education. The authors find that an increasing proportion of students (particularly BAME students) are entering higher education with BTEC qualifications, but they are often disadvantaged by a learning culture that presupposes and privileges A-level entrants. This undervalues key skills and attributes developed through these programmes, while helping promulgate a stigma around BTECs (along with other vocational qualifications) as inferior to A-levels. Moreover, this stigma risks creating a legitimating discourse that helps obfuscate the structural causes of the white-BAME attainment gap. Mitton and Hensby argue for the need to bring vocational entry qualifications into universities’ inclusivity agenda so that BTEC entrants’ needs and experiences are recognised and supported.