Executive Summary
In England, today, around two and a half million young people are aged 14 to 19. The vast majority are engaged full or part time in education, and they are growing up in a world where long periods of study and formal credentials are the norm.Vocational education is an important part of that world. Most English young people now take some vocational courses before they are 16; and post-16 the majority follow courses which are largely or entirely vocational.
Vocational education today includes, as it always has, courses and programmes which teach important and valuable skills to a very high standard. It offers a direct route into higher education which has been followed by hundreds of thousands of young people; and prestigious apprenticeships which are massively over-subscribed. Conventional academic study encompasses only part of what the labour market values and demands: vocational education can offer different content, different skills, different forms of teaching. Good vocational programmes are, therefore, respected, valuable and an important part of our, and any other country’s, educational provision.
But many vocational students are not following courses of this type. Alongside the many young people for whom vocational education offers a successful pathway into employment or higher education, there are hundreds of thousands for whom it does not.
For example:
- Many of our 16 and 17 year olds move in and out of education and short-term employment.They are churning between the two in an attempt to find either a course which offers a real chance for progress, or a permanent job, and are finding neither.
- The staple offer for between a quarter and a third of the post-16 cohort is a diet of low-level vocational qualifications, most of which have little to no labour market value. Among 16 to 19 year olds, the Review estimates that at least 350,000 get little to no benefit from the post-16 education system.
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