Ruth Kelly’s attempt to address what she terms the ‘intellectual snobbery’ surrounding vocational education is in fact, exacerbating it. What is proving to be an inherent educational snobbery in the DfES towards non-academic skills will undeniably, have the effect of further segregating pupils into two channels of high and low achievement.
Having dismissed Tomlinson’s overly optimistic recommendations to implement a unified diploma designed to create ‘parity in esteem,’ the Education Secretary claims to be pursuing an alternative route to re-balancing the status gulf between academic and vocational subjects. Kelly’s plans for 14-19 education allegedly seek to put an end to the second rate reputation of the vocational subjects through a form of re-branding which will revamp their image and quantifiable educational value.
The very premise of Kelly's plan is counterproductive as she proposes to redress the image of vocational skills by making them essentially pseudo-academic. To raise the status of more practical subjects, the manner in which they are taught as well as their outcomes will now more closely mirror their academic counterparts. Consequently, pupils learning vocational skills are to be formally taught in the classroom as well as through first-hand experience, and grades achieved to be treated as comparable with academic subject grades. Furthermore, the aim is to get those learning hands-on skills not into the job market as soon as possible, but to continue formal education to university level. This appears to be a falsely egalitarian move shrouded only superficially by politically correct rhetoric. Inevitably in this system some courses will enjoy high status and others low, rendering this hybrid model actually damaging, as it undermines both standards in skills acquisition and the value of academic achievement as well as the real scholarly purpose of institutions such as universities. If academic learning is genuinely not superior, why is there a need to get everyone to participate in it? Kelly’s reforms thus reinforce the snobbery she claims to be targeting, by highlighting the monopolising currency and value in education and public discourse of academic-style formal learning.
Vocational skills, common sense would assume, are best learnt in relation to their employment context, not removed to an artificial classroom environment. Indeed, as Kelly herself keeps saying, A levels and GCSEs will remain the gold standard; so new plans for education will simply act to accentuate this dichotomy, reasserting vocational learning as the poor cousin. A public re-evaluation of vocational skills cannot be achieved from within the education system in isolation, particularly not in this artificial and transparent manner. It is unlikely that even Kelly believes this to be possible. However she must somehow reconcile a commitment to tomorrow’s economy with Blair’s pledge to get every child achieving more - in a context where achievement is rigidly defined.
The point is that there are, of course fundamental differences between vocational training and academic learning, and rhetorical attempts to negate these simply highlight the devaluation of vocational skills. Perhaps what really needs addressing is not so much the education system, but the image that non-academic skills have in wider British society. In the 14-19 White Paper Kelly repeatedly refers anxiously to the high number of pupils going into vocational training abroad, misguidedly attributing this to their countries’ education systems rather than to cultural attitudes within their labour markets. Once the DfES is able to banish the notion that success in today’s ‘knowledge economy’ is achievable solely through academic-style qualifications, we may be able to work towards a training system to generate a highly skilled and subsequently highly valued, manual labour force.
Anastasia de Waal
Comments (4)
"Parity of esteem" is not in the gift of government: it is a consequence of the perceptions of the population. Of course, if there were to be an effective system of vocational training, a consequence might be that craftsmen and the like would become held in higher esteem than quarter-educated pen-pushers. But it would be expensive: I can remember my woodwork/metalwork teacher resigning to get higher pay, 45 years ago. It could be funded in part by reducing the pay of people in disciplines with surplus labour and by coaxing the primary school teachers to approach the levels of productivity of 50 years ago. Or, even better, by a great purge of the pen-pushers.
Posted by dearieme | February 27, 2005 12:43 PM
Posted on February 27, 2005 12:43
You don't achieve "parity of esteem" by diktat. There are basically two sorts of people in the world - those that knuckle down and work, be it as street sweepers or rocket scientists, and those that sit around and whine. The first set are worthy of respect, whereas the second set are in government.
Posted by Dave | February 26, 2005 4:12 AM
Posted on February 26, 2005 04:12
James: yes and no, really. If you want more employment, you probably have to grow higher-value manual work too. Outside of the biggest cities, which are natural service industry hubs, a lot of jobs (and profits) come from metal-bashing businesses. This is especially so if you've got a growing workforce, less so in a shrinking one.
Posted about the White Paper myself (you can see it as advertising or sharing opinions, whatever!):
http://blimpish.typepad.com/blog/2005/02/the_1419_white_.html
Posted by Blimpish | February 25, 2005 9:17 PM
Posted on February 25, 2005 21:17
"Once the DfES is able to banish the notion that success in today’s ‘knowledge economy’ is achievable solely through academic-style qualifications, we may be able to work towards a training system to generate a highly skilled and subsequently highly valued, manual labour force." Of course, in the modern economy, most vocational courses are themselves going to be white-collar in character. And the goal of getting one half of our school leavers into university will itself draw candidates away from vocational type courses.
Posted by James Hamilton | February 25, 2005 1:14 PM
Posted on February 25, 2005 13:14