Gove and Willetts - greyhounds straining at the leash

As mention in last week’s blog, it was indeed like greyhounds in the slips...

On Monday Lord Baker, Michael Gove and David Willetts addressed a packed hall including David Cameron and George Osborne. They all spoke about the desperate need for greater hands-on practical and vocational education in the UK. Edge research was cited in announcements which included the following (all of which Edge has provided specific advice on over the past few months):

New technical schools in each of the 12 biggest cities in England (these are the University Technical Colleges which, with Edge's close involvement, are being developed by Kenneth Baker and his Baker-Dearing Educational Trust).

Lifting the cap on Young Apprentices, providing 100,000 additional apprenticeships and pre-apprenticeships each year by offering SMEs incentives to take on apprentices.

Freeing up FE colleges to be able to provide more training places for young people who have been on Job Seekers' Allowance.

On Tuesday, Lord Freud said spoke about Working Rite – one of Edge’s investments from the Learning Launchpad in partnership with the Young Foundation, saying; "Inspired by the successful Working Rite model, we will match up 100,000 young people with sole traders for a 6 month’s work experience."

We held our final fringe debate Tuesday evening and it was a corker with terrific panellists (Baroness Verma, Anastasia de Waal from Civitas, and Aaron Porter from NUS) and an excellent audience. I was very impressed with Sandip Verma, who is the Opposition Spokesperson for Education and Skills and Health. As a business woman and a parent, she comes from a different background to some of the other politicians and has a clear and grounded understanding of the issues. Given that she has a foot in both the Gove and Willetts teams, I think she has very important role to play.

We were expecting the Balls challenge on the positioning of vocational qualifications and Diplomas within school performance league tables to be taken up by Gove on the Wednesday - but nothing was said. I like to think it is because the Conservatives recognise that more thought is needed here. After all, the University Technical Colleges they trumpeted will be providing both standard GCSEs as well as Young Apprenticeships, Diplomas and other vocational qualifications as appropriate.

All in all a good conference season from an Edge point of view - but I'm not sorry it has ended!