Lib Dem Conference 2011: DfE's academic focus 'alienates young people'
Janaki Mahadevan
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
The Department for Education (DfE) is failing to work with other government departments to prepare young people for the world of work, the Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP) has claimed.
Reigniting calls for a single cross-government strategy on training and apprenticeships, AELP chief executive Graham Hoyle said while the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) are focused on getting people into "sustainable employment", the education system is not.
Speaking at a Social Market Foundation fringe event at the Liberal Democrat Party Conference, Hoyle said the fixation on academic qualifications and the route to university was alienating half of young people.
"Interestingly, BIS and the Skills Funding Agency are using the term ‘sustainable employment’ and that has not been there before. DWP also talks about this as part of the Work Programme," he said. "The DfE has never heard of the term. The DfE, which has responsibility for statutory employment, quite frankly has yet to grasp the fact that nearly all of their charges will spend nearly all of their life in a place called work. This is not being grasped by the education system in this country.
"DfE education policy must focus on preparing all young people for the world of work. They must deliver basic skills and generic competences for all. BIS and DWP policies are converging, but the DfE is currently on a different track."
Other panel members, including Liberal Democrat MP for Eastbourne Stephen Lloyd, agreed with Hoyle that a cultural change is needed to encourage a greater emphasis on work-based learning for those young people that do not want to take the academic route.
Lloyd said: "We have to change the narrative that says you are only of value if you go to university. I know kids who are just as bright as someone who goes to university but they don’t want to be there or they don’t have the particular type of intellect that suits that. They could end up as extremely successful small or medium business owners, or electricians, or selling things in shops and be fine with that.
"I am completely fed up with all these children and their parents who could have better lives if they were working."
Hoyle warned that with the participation age set to rise to 17 by 2013 and 18 by 2015, the focus on work-based learning is of vital importance.
"We say university and higher education is the route to a good job, ignoring the likely future of more than half the population we are dealing with," he said. "Coming up is the raising of the participation age. The academically able will continue getting their A-levels and going on to university; others will go for full-time courses at college; however, the people who are getting lost at the moment are the people who turn their back on sixth forms already and we’ve got to make sure they are collected into the work-based learning group."