STEM Vocational Qualifications

When did exam results become front page news? It seems that in order to preserve this status each year there has to be a new take on what the exam results show and what this tells us about the education system.

This year it was the turn of BTECs et al to be subjected to the spotlight. The press coverage was largely based on a press release by the think-tank Civitas. The press release describes how these qualifications are insufficiently academic to enable further study but equally not sufficiently vocational to equip young people for work and that the rise in the uptake is a result of schools using them to boost their league positions rather than to enhance the prospects of their students. This appears to be a particular issue in science and ICT where the numbers taking applied qualifications have been rising very steeply.

In the past 20 years there have been a number of failed attempts to develop vocationally related 14-19 qualifications. A key tension in their development has been a desire to try and establish parity with academic qualifications and yet provide an alternative pathway for learners who are not succeeding academically. Now we are set for another review as Michael Gove has asked Professor Alison Wolf to:

"Consider how we can improve vocational education for 14-19 year olds and thereby promote successful progression into the labour market and into higher education and training routes".

It is very easy to be cynical about reviews but a debate about the articulation between 14-19 qualifications and the labour market is long overdue. In STEM education, thinking has tended to be polarised between two distinct purposes; providing an academic platform for further learning in the subjects or a more utilitarian appreciation of the importance of the subjects from the perspective of a citizen, with little or no consideration given to the importance of these skills to the employment prospects of individuals.

It is always dangerous to try and second guess the outcomes of a review based on what you know about the author but a 2005 article by Professor Wolf is interesting:

"English governments have been engaged in hyperactive reform of vocational education for 20 years, and it is still a mess. However, I cannot see why putting everything in the same diploma will give everything the same status. UK degrees are all meant to have the "same" worth but that is not how people treat them. Tomlinson's fate, I suspect, is to become a Bonnie Prince Charlie of school reform, bathed in a romantic glow of what people hoped could be. Now, could someone address the shortage of science and modern language students?"

Does this suggest that we are unlikely to see a revival of the Tomlinson proposals and that perhaps STEM will feature more prominently in the discussions than is sometimes the case with reviews of vocational education?