Meaningful Employer Engagement for the new BTEC National in Engineering

There are twelve Technical Level qualifications in the new BTEC National Engineering Suite.  

For the twelve Technical Level qualifications, centres are required to ensure that during their programme of study every learner has access to meaningful activity involving employers.

Involvement should be with employers from the engineering sector and should form a significant part of the delivery or assessment of the qualification.

It will be monitored at programme level as part of the standards verification process to confirm that plans for employer involvement meet the requirements of the specification. These approaches are designed to ensure additional activities can be scheduled where necessary so learners are not disadvantaged.

We know that the vast majority of programmes already have established links with employers. In order to give you maximum flexibility in creating and strengthening employer involvement, we have not specified a particular level of input from employers.

Meaningful Employer Involvement

Activities that are eligible to be counted as meaningful engagement are:

• structured work experience or work placements that develop skills and knowledge relevant to the qualification
• projects or assessments set with input from industry practitioners
• master classes or guest lectures from industry practitioners
• ‘expert witness’ reports from practitioners that contribute to the assessment of a learner’s work.

Requirements for Standards Verification

As part of the standards verification process for the new Technical Level BTEC Nationals in Engineering (2016) you must submit, along with your assessment plan, an ‘Employer Involvement Plan’, to your allocated Standards Verifier.

There is an Employer Involvement Plan template on our website for you to use.

Get employer involvement plan template

Employer involvement is subject to verification as part of the standards verification process.