Home > News > February 2005 > 24-Feb-2005

Kelly sets out 14-19 reform

A major shift towards vocational education was announced yesterday by Education and Skills Secretary Ruth Kelly in the White Paper 14-19 Education and Skills.

The key proposal areas detailed in the White Paper are:

• Vocational opportunities from 14 which give clear routes to higher education and/or employment
• A renewed focus at secondary level on the basics of Maths and English for all
• Stretch for the most able students
• Ending the disengagement that leads to some pupils leaving education early

Ruth Kelly said, "We have a lot to be proud of in our education system. It educates the vast majority of young people very well. We have seen continued rising standards in primary and secondary schools - in fact standards have never been higher. But we are not complacent – there is more to do.

"I want every teenager educated to the very limit of their ability. That means ensuring that we have an education system that tackles the historic weakness in the system; so that every single teenager, not just the vast majority, get the education they need and deserve to get on in life.

"A key weakness has been vocational education. Today will mark the end of the divide between vocational and academic study. We will move to a truly comprehensive education system for every teenager by ensuring real choice from the age of 14.

"We can’t have second class, second best vocational education – it is valued abroad and it must be valued here. We must have a truly world-class workforce. It is vital to the future prosperity of the country. I would like to thank Mike Tomlinson and the working group for all their hard work. All our thinking behind the White Paper has been informed by their excellent work."

The White Paper sets out a range of proposals for reform including the intent to rationalise the 3,500 vocational qualifications currently available and introduce 14 specialised diplomas covering a broad range of sectors and skills available at levels 1, 2 and 3.

Other proposals announced in the white paper include:

• Offering high quality, high status vocational routes of learning that offer young people real choice and opportunity
• Developing diplomas that combine the best of academic and vocational content appropriate to the sector. All diplomas to include study in functional Maths and English
• Working with employers through their Sector Skills Councils and with Higher Education to ensure that diplomas are both relevant and respected
• Securing the basics – every young person to be secure in the basics that they need for life and work.
• Awarding a new general (GCSE) Diploma to those that achieve 5 A*-C GCSEs that include English and Maths
• Giving every child the opportunity to develop to their full potential and be rewarded for their success
• Letting young people take qualifications sooner if able (for example GCSE in Year 10 and moving onto AS in Year 11)

Responding to the Government’s White Paper, TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said, "For far too long vocational education has been desperately undervalued. We have to turn that around and in the process open up new routes to learning for all those our system has been failing. If we can make that difference new generations of learners and our economy will both derive immense benefit.

"While it is disappointing that the Tomlinson proposals have not been fully adopted, the White Paper does at least lay the foundation for an improved vocational approach, which represents a real challenge for business. For years employers have been complaining that school leavers of all ages lack the vital skills to succeed in the workplace. They will now have a much greater role to play, especially in providing a wider range of work placements for young people, and they must prove that they can deliver and make real improvements in areas they have been criticising for so long.

CBI Director-General Sir Digby Jones said, "Nothing can be more important than equipping young people with the basic skills they need to compete in the globalised economy. Illiteracy and innumeracy must be eradicated from the workplace. Employers have been urging governments for years to accentuate and prioritise vocational training so young people, parents and teachers do not feel their efforts in this direction are inferior to Higher Education initiatives.

"Keeping GCSEs and A-Levels is essential for employers who depend on recognisable standards when employing young people and stretching the brightest pupils is vital if we are to win as a nation in the globally competitive race."

Chris Humphries, director-general of vocational awarding body City & Guilds, said his organisation was disappointed with today's announcements.

"Whilst we were delighted when Tony Blair recently expressed his commitment to vocational education at the Labour spring conference, we are very disappointed with today’s decision to reject Mike Tomlinson’s proposals for an overarching diploma bringing together academic and vocational learning for 14-19 year olds. This is a retrograde and damaging step for Britain’s educational system, which goes against the advice and opinion of thousands of educationalists across schools, vocational colleges and universities who contributed to the Tomlinson review.

"One key thrust of the Tomlinson proposals and the government response that City & Guilds fully supports is the determination to ensure that every young person in the school system is properly equipped with the basic skills (especially literacy and numeracy) that will enable them to fulfil their potential in work and further learning.

"However, the other two main thrusts of the government’s response – that A-levels and GCSEs are fine and don’t need fixing, and that a new vocational diploma is all that is needed for the future – are fundamentally wrong.

"There has been a growing consensus in recent years that a system that only produces success for 50% of students (as current GCSEs do) cannot be adequate in a competitive and economically inclusive society, and that young people need a broader curriculum which better prepares all of them for future learning, work and adult life. Every other country in the world that used to offer the British A-level system has changed to one that expects greater breadth and choice for all its young people – the UK needs to ask why it should remain the exception.

"In addition, we see institutions across the UK University sector – from Oxford and Cambridge through to the newer and more vocationally oriented universities - calling for the end to A-levels and offering broad support for the Tomlinson diploma proposals. Seldom has there been such a level of unanimity across education and training – the government appears to have allowed electoral concerns about middle England to override the most significant opportunity for beneficial educational change since the 1944 Education Act.

"City & Guilds fully supports the need for high-quality vocational provision in our 14-19 system, with a sound technical knowledge and skills base, offered by qualified vocational teachers within workplace quality teaching facilities – and would be fully committed to working with government to help build such a system for our14-19 year olds.

"However, there have been at least five separate attempts to change vocational offerings within the existing school system over the last 25 years, and they have all failed because they continue to be embedded inside a system in which academic education and assessment continues to be seen as the gold standard. As a result, vocational provision has remained weak (in Ofsted’s words, “not seriously vocational”), subject to inappropriate assessment regimes, and taught in inadequate facilities by staff who are often weak in the appropriate technical skills. This must not be allowed to happen again.

"We are therefore very concerned that the introduction of a vocational-only diploma, alongside the maintenance of existing GCSEs and A-levels outside that diploma, will only serve to further strengthen the existing misconception that vocational education is a second rate option, and fundamentally undermine the principles of comparability and equal status that were at the heart of the Tomlinson proposals.

"City & Guilds is thus extremely disappointed by the government’s overall response to the proposals of the Tomlinson Review. We believe it has failed to grasp the real opportunity for positive and beneficial change for future generations that was created by the 14-19 Review, and would call on Ministers to reconsider their position.

Skills for Business' workforce policy advisor, Leigh Hackel, was upbeat about the proposals: "The Government's 14-19 White Paper spells out a series of educational reforms that will mean young people will now attain minimum standards in functional mathematics, literacy and ITC.

"The proposed strengthening of the vocational routeway for 14-19 year olds means that Sector Skills Councils will have a new and important role in developing a genuine curriculum that meets employers' needs.

"In turn plenty of opportunities will exist for employers to provide work experience, input to classes and establish mentoring programmes.

"With these reforms young people will have the flexibility of choosing what environment they wish to learn in, be it with schools, colleges or work-based learning providers."

External link

For further information and a copy of the white paper visit: www.dfes.gov.uk/publications/14-19educationandskills

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