A week in the press – the critical importance of vocational routes

On Sunday the Telegraph reported that the Awarding Body OCR had sent a letter to Ofqual warning them about the new Diplomas: “Exam board poised to withdraw from ‘poor man’s A-level’ Diplomas.” Apparently the letter spoke of ‘a fundamental difficulty in creating a qualification that is both work-related and academic’. What poppycock! A fundamental difficulty for whom?! The most powerful and successful qualifications for over a century, and the true ‘gold standard’, have been both work-related and academic – professional qualifications. The fundamental difficulty is that, as the recent social mobility reports highlight, these have traditionally been the ‘rich man’s qualifications’ because entry has often been restricted to those who excel academically from the top academic private schools.

On Tuesday David Willetts wrote a terrific article in the Guardian about young people from disadvantaged backgrounds not having low aspirations, just less information and guidance on the options. He also went on to advocate much better vocational routes into University. Now that starts to address the fundamental difficulty. Well done David!

He might well have been taking his inspiration from Coventry University’s Vice-Chancellor, Madeleine Atkins, who was interviewed for the Independent on Thursday. She has reinvented the university by reviewing every degree programme and course to ensure they were in-line with the skills and knowledge required by the regional and national economy. In addition, enterprise and entrepreneurship have been introduced to all students. So Coventry University don’t seem to have ‘a fundamental difficulty’ (but then OCR are owned by Cambridge University). I have met very many senior people over the past few years who advocate bringing back the Polytechnics. Actually what we want is more Coventry Universities. Why can’t we establish a brand that signifies a really high-quality vocational university? Where are the vocational Oxbridges?

Meanwhile that nightmare called the Gifted and Talented programme is changed for the third time in seven years because the £42m invested in it is not having much impact. Apparently (I have just read this in Friday’s TES and not yet checked with original sources) the emphasis will now be on getting more teenagers from deprived families into ‘top universities’. Of course they probably won’t go through vocational routes because ‘gifted and talented’ only means academically ‘gifted’ (sic!) or talented in art, music and sport. Outrageous! I have a better idea – just scrap the whole programme.