Young people directed into 'dead-end' courses

Thursday, 3 March 2011 12:00 AM

By politics.co.uk staff

Young people are being pushed into "dead-end" qualifications, according to an independent report.

Professor Alison Wolf's report into vocational education found that between a quarter and a third of all 16- to 19-year-olds are on courses of "little value".

She said the league table system encouraged teenagers to take certain courses, many of which have no practical worth.

Prof Wolf recommended the system be reformed to be more honest and simple, following the example of countries like France and Denmark.

More apprenticeships should be on offer, with government incentives for companies that offer them to young people.

The King's College London professor said the current system created "perverse incentives".

"The system is complex, expensive and counterproductive. We have had 20 years of micromanagement and mounting bureaucratic costs," she said.

"The funding and accountability systems create perverse incentives to steer students into inferior courses," she said.

"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."

Prof Wolf recommended that every child receive at least a 'C' in English and maths at GCSE - with the subjects compulsory until that grade was reached.

"A lesson from abroad is that 14-to 16-year-olds should spend 80% of their time on a shared academic core of subjects," she said.

Education secretary Michael Gove said children had been "misled". He promised the government would reform the system over the coming years.

"The system that we have inherited is very damaging. It is unfair for children and it is harming the economy. Millions of children have been misled into pursuing courses which offer little hope," he said.

"High-quality vocational courses can give access to great education and great jobs. They are immensely valuable. We must 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."

But teaching unions responded to the report's publication with scepticism.

Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT, the largest teachers' union, said the recommendations would lead to "educational segregation" and benefit employers, not students.

"The review's recommendations will not deliver equity for all post-14 learners or secure parity of esteem between academic and vocational learning, but it will contribute to educational segregation," she said.

"The proposals on funding for 16-19 learning have the potential to create a market in education that will undermine the breadth of study opportunities available to young people.

"Unfortunately, the review is riddled with the elitist strategies for education that this coalition government finds so attractive."

The National Union of Teachers (NUT) said the report was right to highlight the distorting effect of league tables and the importance of a vocational education, but argued the problem was ultimately a lack of employment opportunities.

"The harsh truth for many young people is not the nature of their qualifications but the desperate lack of employment opportunities," the union said.

"Coupled with the axing of the Educational Maintenance Allowance and the raising of tuition fees their future prospects look bleak and this is something the government urgently needs to address."

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