Stephen Tetlow, chief executive of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, has issued a response to the government's announcement it would be downgrading more than 3,000 vocational qualifications:
"It is welcome that engineering diplomas will still count towards GCSE league tables, but worrying that they will be downgraded to count for just one GCSE instead of five.
"An engineering diploma takes about 20 hours study time a week so this downgrade will deter schools from offering this subject.
"It is vital that we encourage more young engineering talent in this country but this decision does the reverse. Government must either urgently reassess this decision or say what it is going to do to instead put engineering back on the map in schools."
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