England’s beleaguered vocational education system has been subjected to wave after wave of reform. Yet improving the quality of technical education has eluded governments of all colours. University technical colleges (UTCs) are only the latest example of a shiny innovation that ran on to the rocks. Seven UTCs have now announced they are closing their doors, and Michael Gove, the former education secretary who introduced them, says the idea has “all gone a bit Pete Tong”.
UTCs were intended to provide quality vocational education, combining technical and academic learning, for young people from the age of 14. Despite the millions the government has invested in them, they have on the whole been plagued by poor GCSE results and an inability to attract sufficient numbers of young people.
The idea that 14 is the right age to choose between an academic and a vocational pathway was made popular by the 2004 Tomlinson review of 14-19 education. But since then, several attempts to establish quality vocational education from 14 have failed. The issues affecting UCTs provide an opportunity to revisit whether this merits continuing support. We should take it.
Barely a year passes without a lament about the low status of vocational qualifications. These often fail to recognise the chicken and egg that holds vocational learning back. Its status will only improve when it is not seen as the preserve of those who have been failed by the school system. But while its status is low, these are the only young people likely to try something unproven and untested.
This dynamic means new institutions often replicate the problems of the old secondary moderns. Young people who attend UTCs are more likely to be from poor backgrounds, have made poor progress in primary school, and have attended secondary schools rated poorly by Ofsted. They are children who have been failed by the school system.
In this day and age, there is no such thing as a career that does not require functional literacy and numeracy. Yet drawing low-achieving children out of mixed-ability schooling at age 14 makes them less likely to get the decent GCSEs in maths and English that are so critical in the eyes of employers. Setting up alternative vocational institutions for 14-year-olds thus risks closing down future vocational options, rather than expanding them. For example, the best-quality A-level equivalent apprenticeships require young people to have good GCSEs.
There was much to criticise in Mr Gove’s approach to education. But he was right to warn of the danger of the “soft bigotry of low expectations” for children from poorer backgrounds. Vocational education is often posited as an alternative for those who are not “academically minded”, often a code for those who have disengaged from school. Yet this is far more likely to be a symptom of poor teaching and a lack of adequate support rather than a young person’s inability to engage with a broad pre-16 curriculum that includes both academic and applied learning.
Selection by academic ability at age 11 is wrong. But so is backdoor selection by academic ability at 14. The right to experience an engaging curriculum and finish school with adequate levels of literacy and numeracy is best achieved by options at 16 not 14. This will not solve everything; but it is a better basis for ensuring 16-year-olds have the skills they need to flourish in any job.
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