Monday 20 July 2015

Where next for post 19 vocational education and training?

via UKCES (UK Commission for Employment and Skills) and Department for Business, Innovation & Skills

In our latest guest blog, Professor Ewart Keep, Director of Oxford University’s Centre on Skills, Knowledge & Organisational Performance discusses the key points from his latest UKCES Masterclass on the future of vocational education and training.

You can watch the session in full on our Youtube channel, and find more information on past and future UKCES Masterclasses on our website.

Post-19 vocational education and training (VET) is a foggy old issue, but certainly a pertinent one. It’s also one to which clarity has not been brought by an undulating policy landscape. The first step to clearing the clouds then is identifying the problems – something I aimed to do at the latest UKCES Masterclass session, asking “Where next for post-19 VET?”.

There is now a (largely-unacknowledged) underlying crisis regarding concerning the basic aims and function of skills policy at government level in England. Over the last 30 years or so, the implicit assumption developed that policy’s function was to deliver ‘world class skills’ as measured by various international benchmarking exercises, such as the OECD’s PISA and PIAAC surveys, and the Leitch Review of Skills’ league tables of qualification stocks.

Continue reading the blog


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