Should V Levels be digital by default?

Another part of England’s qualifications landscape is changing. The first V-levels for vocational subjects will be launched in 2027 with finance and accounting, digital, education, and early years. Alongside A and T Levels, a V Level (equivalent to one A Level) will allow learners to mix and match academic and vocational subjects, focusing on "learning by doing".

Given how much vocational assessment has been digitised for decades, and we have a nascent route-map for school exam digitisation, shouldn’t V Levels be digital by default? What an opportunity to showcase what already works, and the proven benefits that digital provides.

Use proven digital assessment tools, and design V Levels as digital first from the start.

This is a rare moment for V Levels to show the (digital) way – improving assessment for everyone. Designing digital-first V Levels can provide a play-book on how school exam assessment can evolve to a digital-enabled future.

It’s interesting that the BBC’s coverage showed a stock image with learners using VR headsets. That tech is proven in medical education, it’s not bleeding edge. And of course, most of the coverage shows pen and paper images! The good news is that the regulator already approves a multitude of digital assessment instruments. I’ve written about this before – England’s use of digital exams and digital assessment at scale is hiding in plain sight.

England’s post-16 qualification landscape with A, V, and T Levels.

But here’s a secret - few people know that the regulator actually codifies what assessment instruments are used for each qualification. How about V level designers taking proven digital best-of-breed instruments to create better qualifications? Accessibility designed in from the start? Boost learner equity immediately without having to wait for field-tested tech?

Sadly, there’s a problem. And it’s called credibility. Too many times, policy and education leaders finger wag and patronise about making vocational qualifications more robust and rigorous. They totally miss the point and come across as sanctimonious. The constant churn and introduction of new vocational qualifications, to keep pace with the evolving sector, does not play well at all with the conservative academic arena. One is tuned-in to the demands of employers. The other is a bastion of tradition, hoping to keep things simple for university admission officers.

Policy folk, lobbyists, and blow-hards deride or ignore vocational, repeating the tropes that ‘vocational is too easy, just coursework and simple to cheat, not credible’. And policy folk do themselves no favours by demanding 'past exam papers' for V Levels. Once again, a lived experience of A Levels and university degrees with paper exams in a hall is a flimsy foundation for determining robust and progressive (digital) assessment policy.

Derision and nose-holding is often smeared on assessment which isn’t high-stakes paper exams in a hall – how will V Levels be different?

So, are V Levels doomed because of the vocational sector’s constant evolution? The churn often means educators try in vain to keep mastering different assessment instruments. The vocational subject content often can’t keep pace with the changing assessment process. Too much training becomes embroiled in tailoring assessment to frameworks, rather than teaching the learning material. Digital done properly should alleviate the educator’s and learner’s cognitive overload. The quest for parity with A Levels is laudable, but attitudes need to change, not just acceptance of digital’s omnipresence.

Parity across pathways is a laudable goal – but attitudes need changing, not just qualifications.

The government V Level announcement should have included reference to contemporary assessment design. Not just digital-first, but an assessment regime that is accessible, fair, and transparent with the input of the country’s best assessment designers and psychometricians. It’s encouraging that the regulator is active on reviewing qualification design, to expedite creation and delivery in streamlining existing processes and building better ones.

A demanding roll-out timetable for V Levels should light a fire under exam owners – they need to solve the puzzle of why high set-up costs and lengthy implementations continue to be barriers to qualification development and delivery. Workforce innovation is rapid. V Levels need to match not just the speed to market, but also give employers comfort that the qualifications are modern, contemporary, and are credible. Hopefully ultracrepidarians showing the Dunning-Kruger effect, who deride vocational assessment and hold their noses at anything but paper exams, will be sun-setted.