Boris Johnson and his ministers have made clear the importance of higher technical education to ensuring individuals and the economy have the skills to be successful in a post-Brexit and post-pandemic world. BTEC Higher Nationals, designed with employers, are an integral part of this landscape and have been for decades.

As well as providing students with the knowledge and skills needed for the workplace, they can also lead to a degree. Underlining this second point, Pearson is proud to announce a new collaboration with Coventry University to offer a new integrated pathway from Higher National to degree. We have always been committed to ensuring that graduates of Higher Nationals are able to continue their higher education learning to degree level, and we know that many Higher National students progress to a ‘top-up’ programme. Now this entire learning journey to degree is able to be offered to students at the start of their higher education learning.

The collaboration will provide two primary benefits to students:

• The ability to study a for a UK honours degree, powered by a Higher National, within their home country and while remaining at their learning provider.
• A seamless, integrated learning pathway, from Pearson and Coventry University.

Higher National students will now have a clear line of sight as they start their learning, through the Higher National to a UK honours degree, as a coherent and integrated offer. This will essentially be a degree “powered by Higher Nationals”.

The new integrated Higher National Degree pathway will initially be offered in key markets, with selected Pearson Approved Centres.

This is yet another exciting partnership, similar to the recent one with Amazon Web Services (AWS) in developing a Higher National in Cloud Computing, which will help to further grow the Higher Nationals brand around the world in the coming years, as well as contributing to the future of UK economy.