In 2012, I was principal of a tertiary college in Somerset and we enjoyed visits from two overseas delegations. Firstly from Central South Technical School in Yeuyang, China and then from Lomet Vocational High School in Lot-et-Garonne in France. At Central South Technical School their 10,000 students were allocated to programmes in hospitality, engineering and paper-folding. At Lomet Vocational High School, 600 students arrived to study on day 1, none of whom the school had met before and therefore there was no sense of whether the student had the prior learning to study beauty therapy or business. In this context, our post-16 system seems to offer both individual choice and institutional autonomy to ensure the right students are on the right course.
The persistent challenge regarding the current approach is that employers perceive that it doesn’t work. Their concerns appear to be threefold. Firstly, young people are not employment ready because they don’t have the necessary skills, often defined rather loosely as “soft” skills or “employability skills”. Secondly, young people study the wrong courses – “too many hairdressers and not enough bricklayers” as was reported in 2015 by the Financial Times. Thirdly, adult education doesn’t meet employer needs because qualifications and individuals that attract funding through the AEB are not the qualifications and individuals employers want.
In this context, government skills policy makes sense. The DfE briefing on the Skills and Post-16 Education Act identifies that “the existing pattern of provision delivered by the system often fails to meet the skills needed by the labour market”. Colleges need to deliver the courses that employers want to meet the local skills needs and devolved authorities can help this process with local flexibilities regarding eligibility. In the West Midlands Combined Authority, for example, priority has been given for using the AEB to deliver Level 3 courses because 3 per cent fewer West Midlands residents are qualified at Level 3 or above, compared with the national average. And colleges should collaborate to create centres of excellence and avoid duplicating provision.
