Vocational education review

Young people in England on ‘dead-end’ courses that ‘will not lead to jobs’ 

The low-level vocational courses taken by many young people have little or no value in the labour market, suggests an independent review published today by the Department of Education. The report suggests funding should be focused more on high-quality apprentice schemes and that all young people who do not have good English and maths GCSEs should continue to study these subjects. The review was compiled by Professor Alison Wolf, Sir Roy Griffiths Professor of Public Sector Management at King’s College London.

Vocational qualifications, such as BTEC Diplomas, City and Guilds and OCR Nationals, are taken by 16-19 year olds as an alternative to traditional academic courses. A  majority of over-16s are on vocational programmes. Many lead to higher education and skilled jobs, but many of the lower level qualifications have no labour market value and young people are getting no benefit from them.

Professor Wolf’s review found that vocational qualifications do not always provide good quality workplace training and experience. ‘The system is complex, expensive and counterproductive,’ she says. ‘We have many vocational qualifications that are great and institutions which are providing an excellent education and are heavily oversubscribed. But we also have hundreds of thousands of young people taking qualifications that have little or no value.’

The review recommends that all pupils should study a core of academic subjects until they are 16, and if they do not pass GCSE English and maths, they should be made to continue. More than half of 15-16 year olds currently fail to get good grades in maths and English at GCSE level.

Professor Wolf also highlights the value of quality apprenticeships for young people aged from 16-18, with employers part-subsidised in order to offer the schemes. ‘Doing a good apprenticeship is worth far more to you in all sorts of ways than going and doing a university degree that doesn't interest you very much, and which often doesn't actually have that much value either,’ says Wolf. ‘What they need is to get into the workplace and to get some real skills that will serve them well in life.’

Education Secretary Michael Gove, who launched the review findings today with Professor Wolf, reflected on the value of ‘high-quality vocational courses,’ which he said can provide ‘access to great education and great jobs’. He said it was important to ‘fix the system’ to give all children the chance of these high quality courses. ‘We will reform league tables, the funding system, and regulation to give children honest information and access to the right courses. Implementing these reforms will be hard and take a few years but we cannot afford another decade of educational failure.’

Notes to editors

Department for Education Press release

Download the full report from the Department of Education

Professor Alison Wolf is the Sir Roy Griffiths Professor of Public Sector Management at King’s College London and specialises in the relationship between education and the labour market. She has a particular interest in training and skills policy, and universities. She has been a specialist adviser to the House of Commons select committee on education and skills; is the Council Member for the UK on the Council of the United Nations University; writes widely for the national press and is a presenter for Analysis on BBC Radio 4.

King's College London
King's College London is one of the top 25 universities in the world (2010 QS international world rankings), The Sunday Times 'University of the Year 2010/11' and the fourth oldest in England. A research-led university based in the heart of London, King's has nearly 23,000 students (of whom more than 8,600 are graduate students) from nearly 140 countries, and some 5,500 employees. King's is in the second phase of a £1 billion redevelopment programme which is transforming its estate.

King's has an outstanding reputation for providing world-class teaching and cutting-edge research. In the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise for British universities, 23 departments were ranked in the top quartile of British universities; over half of our academic staff work in departments that are in the top 10 per cent in the UK in their field and can thus be classed as world leading. The College is in the top seven UK universities for research earnings and has an overall annual income of nearly £450 million.

King's has a particularly distinguished reputation in the humanities, law, the sciences (including a wide range of health areas such as psychiatry, medicine, nursing and dentistry) and social sciences including international affairs. It has played a major role in many of the advances that have shaped modern life, such as the discovery of the structure of DNA and research that led to the development of radio, television, mobile phones and radar. It is the largest centre for the education of healthcare professionals in Europe; no university has more Medical Research Council Centres.

King's College London and Guy's and St Thomas', King's College Hospital and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trusts are part of King's Health Partners. King's Health Partners Academic Health Sciences Centre (AHSC) is a pioneering global collaboration between one of the world's leading research-led universities and three of London's most successful NHS Foundation Trusts, including leading teaching hospitals and comprehensive mental health services. For more information, visit: www.kingshealthpartners.org

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