Unleashing Aspiration

The big news this week has been the cross-party report on Unleashing Aspiration, chaired by Alan Milburn. A proper review of the professions is long over-due - and very important. It really is an area that governments completely ignore, even though huge numbers of people carry out highly effective professional development and training, which is very often self-financing and self-regulated. Endless reviews of FE and HE do not even consider the professions – simply because government do not control them.

The professional model is so successful because entry is controlled and a strong link is maintained between achievement of a professional qualification and occupational success/financial reward. What we have, in fact, are ‘vocational qualifications’ that are high quality and aspirational - and more highly sought-after by parents and young people than academic degrees. This is a stark contrast to many lower level vocational qualifications!

The down side of the professional model is that there is a tendency for professions to become elitist, in the sense of barriers being erected that hinder access through merit. So, the challenge is not only how to ensure such barriers are not erected (on which the report has some good recommendations), but also how the model can be employed more extensively as more jobs and roles become ‘professionalised’. Professional control is, in essence, the same as imposing a licence to operate. Sadly the report does not consider this aspect.

The general thrust of the report about the critical importance of social mobility for our future well-being and the fact that it is decreasing is right. And so are the comments about widening the talent pool and changing attitudes; indeed many recommendations are very closely aligned to Edge’s own manifesto Six Steps to Change. However it is a shame that there are more than 80 recommendations, many of which are unclear and seem to be just vague ideas. If implemented effectively the following four (which are combinations of recommendations from the report) would make a fundamental difference:

• Overhaul work experience, introduce more work tasters and enable more extra-curricular activity – this will ‘unleash aspiration’ and provide more effective and explicit development of the core ‘softer’ skills now required for success in life and work
• Improve careers advice – including on-line mentoring and introducing new forms of profiling records of achievement (there should also be annual reviews between students, teachers and parents)
• Stronger vocational routes into HE (including the importance of gaining HE qualifications at work, which the report omits) and integration of practical professional experience into all higher education courses
• New vocational routes into the professions

Dangerously, despite its strong assertions about widening the talent pool, the report sometimes drifts into an unquestioning acceptance of the out-dated approach that the answer lies in encouraging, cajoling and bribing more young people through the same, limited, ‘academic’ channel. This model can never bring about a ‘wider pool of talent’, change attitudes about inherited intelligence or bring about fair access. As the report makes very clear, there are many talents – and thus there need to be many paths to success. QED.