Professor warns up to third of 16 to 19-year-olds on courses that do not lead to jobs or training schemes
More than 167,000 teenagers in England are wasting their time on college courses that will not lead to jobs, a senior government education adviser will warn on Thursday.
Professor Alison Wolf, an expert in public policy, will publish her review of vocational courses after Michael Gove, the education secretary, asked her in September to investigate how practical education can be improved.
The number of vocational qualifications has boomed in the last decade and many fear that some courses are not of a high enough quality. One of the leading exam boards, Edexcel, has expanded the number of vocational qualifications it offers from 66,000 in 2003 to more than 500,000.
Wolf, who specialises in the relationship between education and the labour market, will attack the growth in practical qualifications and warn that between a quarter and a third of 16 to 19-year-olds are on courses that do not lead to jobs or training schemes.
An estimated 671,000 teenagers aged between 16 and 19 are on courses with a practical bent, such as diplomas, national vocational qualifications and apprenticeships. This is roughly a quarter of this age group.
Professor Lorna Unwin, chair in vocational education at London University's Institute of Education, said Wolf was right to point out that too many young people were on courses that "aren't good enough" but warned the government not to scrap all vocational qualifications.
Unwin singled out National Vocational Qualifications at levels 1 and 2, which are equivalent to GCSEs. "There are too many people on the low levels. These courses don't give progression because the qualifications just aren't good enough," she said.
However, Unwin warned the government not to scrap all vocational qualifications and start from scratch. "Vocational qualifications have been a playground for policymakers for the past 40 years, with countless experiments designed without any underpinning national vision or consensus," she said. "Whatever the Wolf review recommends, we need a period of public debate before any changes are implemented, otherwise, we will repeat the mistakes of the past."
The Wolf review is expected to encourage the creation of technical schools, which will teach high-level technical skills to 14 to 19-year-olds. The courses could be developed with employers and universities. Teaching unions fear pupils could be segregated into those who are academically gifted and those who are "practical". Others worry that these schools may drain funds from existing colleges.
Experts said Wolf's main task should be to address a tendency in England to denigrate the jobs of plumbers and builders and create a culture, similar to Germany's, in which the skills required for this work is highly respected and those carrying it out have considerable knowledge.
Andy Burnham, Labour's shadow education secretary, said Gove had already undermined the review by reforming league tables to encourage schools to focus on an "extremely prescriptive range of academic qualifications". "It is clear that Michael Gove prioritises academic over vocational learning, and his English Baccalaureate re-erects the Berlin Wall between the two. He risks sending the message that vocational study is second best, and creating an incentive for schools only to focus on those young people pursuing academic courses," Burnham said.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/mar/02/vocational-courses-waste-government-adviser
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