Sir Michael Barber is an educationalist whose own academic background and career reflects those of other recent ‘skills advisers’ to occupy the space: Baroness Wolf, Lord Sainsbury and Sir Philip Augar.
Like these other luminaries, Barber went to an independent fee paying school followed by Oxbridge.
To many who have spent a lifetime working in further education, it is more than a little odd that the choice of people to review the post-16 skills and vocational system over the years have (more often than not), originated from a background, with little or no personal experience of the state education sector.
State schools were certainly not where these advisers were taught themselves; and it is very unlikely they have sent their own children to an FE college or enrolled them in a formal apprenticeship. Yet still, these are the people government regularly ask to pontificate about skills and FE.
