Developments In Technical Education

– By Vicky Linsley, Chief Executive, Hive Education Trust

On 23 September, the Department for Education issued a press release announcing New Vocational GCSEs for students. This is focused on vocational courses at school – with nationally-set content, grading and assessment – alongside a strong academic core of English, maths and science. You can read the full DfE release here.

Technical Education has of course been a hot topic for some time. I was recently impressed by the response from Leora Cruddas CBE. As Chief Executive of the Confederation of School Trusts, Cruddas took part in a summit focusing on 14-19 education at Number Ten North, hosted by the Secretary of State, alongside mayors, sector representatives and employers. At the summit, Cruddas spoke to a discussion paper published by The Confederation. It's a well-considered and informative discussion paper: well worth a read.

In brief, Leora Cruddas says, 

‘As our paper on technical education makes clear, it is important that we do not inadvertently pursue a policy of selection at age 14 which locks young people into a ‘pathway’ – in fact the language of pathways should be avoided. Instead, we need serious reform of technical awards at age 16, with a clear focus on underpinning these with national standards, nationally determined content, and strong regulation as we currently have for GCSEs. In reforming these awards, we must also make sure that there is alignment with V-levels and T-levels and the Higher Technical Qualifications landscape in HE. 

As we say in our paper, if we are going to make the case for parity, technical education should not be positioned as a lesser form of education for students who don't like formal learning, nor should be it positioned as a 'skills' curriculum for students whose behaviour is maladapted to school. It must be demanding, clear, hard work, and rewarding, but in a different type of domain to the traditional ‘academic’ subjects. This is about holding on to the principles of a socially just education system.

While it is clear that young people need a ‘line of sight’ from schooling into economic activity and work, we must not allow educational purpose to be purely driven by economic interest. 

We think the economic issues driving young people not in education, employment or training are serious and need our collective attention. Our position as outlined in our technical education paper is that strategic authorities can play in working with employers to ‘open up the civic economy.’ This is much more than careers education or work experience placements – it is the deliberate act of reopening entry points into local labour markets. 

Our paper, which I think is now influential, puts forward a sensible case, and timeline for reform. But we are clear that this requires a carefully considered pace that is realistic and with sufficient funding. We must not end up putting so much weight of reform on the school system, that in the end, the school system does not cope with the burden. It is also clear to us that there are some key risks in devolving 16-19 funding that the government must recognise and mitigate.'

You can read their full paper on the link below.

Technical Education, Knowledge and the Purposes of Schooling

And you can find out more about the Confederation of School Trusts on the link here.