WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.700 education. He's just completed a project looking at the transition from vocational education 00:00:06.700 --> 00:00:13.220 to higher education, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, and he's currently 00:00:13.220 --> 00:00:19.600 working on a project looking at vocational education across Europe. Welcome, and we're 00:00:19.600 --> 00:00:25.100 delighted that you're going to share your views with us on qualifications, skills, and 00:00:25.100 --> 00:00:26.060 employability. 00:00:27.260 --> 00:00:29.260 Okay, it's very pleasant, very nice to be 00:00:29.260 --> 00:00:31.060 in what we call an Oxford, the other 00:00:31.060 --> 00:00:31.720 place. 00:00:32.860 --> 00:00:35.220 As you can see, I'm soon to be moving to yet 00:00:35.220 --> 00:00:36.720 another place, 00:00:36.900 --> 00:00:38.340 from January to the 1st. 00:00:38.720 --> 00:00:40.940 When I give talks of Brazil, 00:00:41.100 --> 00:00:43.120 I normally start off with Anthony Geller's 00:00:43.120 --> 00:00:44.940 film, The English Patient. 00:00:46.220 --> 00:00:47.120 The only shot 00:00:47.120 --> 00:00:49.240 where the plane is flying across the desert 00:00:49.240 --> 00:00:50.900 is always beautiful, and now they get to 00:00:50.900 --> 00:00:53.320 over and over and over and realize it's hell down there. 00:00:53.320 --> 00:00:56.120 That's how I feel about being in the response of the issues. 00:00:57.660 --> 00:01:01.720 Actually, my text for today is actually taken from that great educator, Nina Simone. 00:01:04.140 --> 00:01:05.260 Seriously, great educator. 00:01:05.720 --> 00:01:08.680 You know, a wonderful protest song called Mississippi God Act. 00:01:09.200 --> 00:01:20.064 It starts off by saying this is a song about a show that ain been written yet but I mean every word of it This is a paper that isn quite written yet but I got that I mean every word of it 00:01:20.484 --> 00:01:24.504 And if you think I'm implementing my screen, I mean every word of it. 00:01:25.804 --> 00:01:28.024 Throughout my career in education, 00:01:29.064 --> 00:01:32.684 we've heard repeated calls for the qualification system to be simplified. 00:01:33.864 --> 00:01:35.104 Lorna Runwin, for example, 00:01:35.104 --> 00:01:39.844 described the system of the 1980s and 1990s as akin to a jungle. 00:01:39.984 --> 00:01:43.264 with young people macheteing their way through it 00:01:43.264 --> 00:01:45.184 and getting very lost on the way. 00:01:46.044 --> 00:01:48.704 Colleagues who visit us in Oxford from abroad 00:01:48.704 --> 00:01:52.784 are always struck both by the complexity of our qualification system 00:01:52.784 --> 00:01:56.404 and the seeming love affair that UK policymakers have 00:01:56.404 --> 00:02:00.324 with qualification reform as a means to lever the performance 00:02:00.324 --> 00:02:03.684 of the education system, to give employers what they want, 00:02:03.684 --> 00:02:07.044 to raise productivity, to promote social inclusion 00:02:07.044 --> 00:02:09.064 and to achieve general nirvana. 00:02:09.984 --> 00:02:15.524 In my judgment, the system has not become any less complicated over the years. 00:02:16.624 --> 00:02:25.184 In their April 2005 report on the market for qualifications in the UK, PricewaterhouseCoopers reported that, and I quote, 00:02:25.184 --> 00:02:29.784 there are currently 115 awarding bodies recognised by QCA accreditation. 00:02:29.921 --> 00:02:35.241 CAC and CCA in the UK, they seem to have left Scotland out for some reason, compared to 00:02:35.241 --> 00:02:40.741 an estimated total number of unrecognised awarding bodies in the region of 900 organisations. 00:02:41.721 --> 00:02:46.881 Some of these are of course tiny, but the point is that five years ago there were in 00:02:46.881 --> 00:02:49.661 excess of 1,000 awarding organisations. 00:02:50.521 --> 00:02:55.841 Potentially with the advent of the qualifications and credit framework, this number may grow 00:02:55.841 --> 00:02:59.621 as employers become awarding organisations. 00:02:59.921 --> 00:03:17.001 Now, for me, the sheer number of awarding organisations isn't actually a problem, unless, of course, they're taking government money to produce qualifications that nobody actually needs, and those qualifications do not produce a social rate of return on that investment. 00:03:17.001 --> 00:03:21.261 the other thing I've noted about my career 00:03:21.261 --> 00:03:25.661 is the growing role of the state in regulating qualifications 00:03:25.661 --> 00:03:30.861 young teachers that I work with now tend to accept that as completely natural 00:03:30.861 --> 00:03:34.281 but again visitors from abroad open your eyes 00:03:34.281 --> 00:03:37.601 so this is a peculiarly British phenomenon in many cases 00:03:37.601 --> 00:03:53.945 in their 2009 report mapping the regulated qualification system of England Wales and Northern Ireland PricewaterhouseCooper again attempted to produce two diagrams that map the current qualification system across the three countries 00:03:55.125 --> 00:04:01.045 I thought about putting them on a PowerPoint slide but realised this would be a futile task, but I did it anyway. 00:04:01.785 --> 00:04:03.725 I don't expect you to be able to read them. 00:04:03.725 --> 00:04:08.925 they remind me of an experience I had as a young lecturer 00:04:08.925 --> 00:04:13.125 being inducted into the governance of Oxford University by Dick Smedhurst 00:04:13.125 --> 00:04:16.905 then the provost of Worcester College. He had a series of acetates 00:04:16.905 --> 00:04:20.105 this is the golden age before PowerPoint arrived 00:04:20.105 --> 00:04:25.125 he had a series of acetates and what Dick did was he put one acetate down on the overhead projector 00:04:25.125 --> 00:04:29.165 and explained that part of the system and then he put the next acetate down 00:04:29.165 --> 00:04:33.345 on the overhead projector and explained that part of the system and slowly he built up 00:04:33.345 --> 00:04:36.785 picture of the government structure of Oxford University. 00:04:36.785 --> 00:04:41.845 Eventually at the end of his talk, he stood back and pointed to this brown, muddy mess 00:04:41.845 --> 00:04:47.845 that was being projected on the wall and said, that's the government system of Oxford University. 00:04:47.845 --> 00:04:53.945 Now people far cleverer than me have taken a lifetime to learn how to navigate that system 00:04:53.945 --> 00:04:59.745 in order to play that particular vicious game which is known as Oxford University. 00:04:59.841 --> 00:05:04.281 I reckon our qualification system makes that look like a child. 00:05:06.401 --> 00:05:14.221 So in this diagram, the primary influences and funding flows for the qualification system in England. 00:05:14.581 --> 00:05:20.161 You only need a level 3 qualification in map reading of organisations to understand what's going on. 00:05:20.461 --> 00:05:26.421 The diagram has got 21 nodes, I have counted them three times, representing organisations and functions. 00:05:26.701 --> 00:05:29.141 Some of the organisations are no longer with us. 00:05:29.141 --> 00:05:33.901 the LSC and the QCDA, but of course there are new kids on the block to replace them. 00:05:34.861 --> 00:05:38.021 Connecting these nodes are a myriad of blue and black lines. 00:05:38.421 --> 00:05:42.101 I tried to count those, but I lost the will to live, so I gave up. 00:05:43.121 --> 00:05:46.441 Underpinning the diagram is that trusty old friend, 00:05:46.921 --> 00:05:50.961 the dichotomy between general and vocational qualifications. 00:05:51.781 --> 00:05:55.041 And yes, the system for producing vocational qualifications 00:05:55.041 --> 00:05:59.081 is more complicated than the system for producing general qualifications. 00:05:59.141 --> 00:06:06.781 Now this diagram requires advanced map reading skills, 00:06:06.941 --> 00:06:21.186 equivalent I suspect to level 8 of the qualification framework in England which is a PhD This is funding flows for awarding organisations in England and Wales and Northern Ireland It a total of 81 bodies identified in it helpfully arranged in 10 00:06:21.186 --> 00:06:25.826 levels, even levels have even got into this sort of diagram now, with not that many arrows 00:06:25.826 --> 00:06:31.106 joining them. Having realised whoever was given the job of drawing this diagram was 00:06:31.106 --> 00:06:36.546 probably carted off in the proverbial straitjacket by people in white coats to the Qualification 00:06:36.546 --> 00:06:41.286 System Designer Rehabilitation Center, I have studied this diagram on health and safety 00:06:41.286 --> 00:06:42.606 grounds only briefly. 00:06:43.986 --> 00:06:47.846 Colleagues, these diagrams speak not of a system, but of insanity. 00:06:50.926 --> 00:06:56.686 The PricewaterhouseCooper carries on in saying, this is a very complex system. 00:06:56.686 --> 00:07:02.846 And I quote, understanding cause and effect and therefore understanding interrelationships 00:07:02.846 --> 00:07:06.486 is complex, yeah, because the system does not operate 00:07:06.486 --> 00:07:09.546 on a linear supply and demand basis. 00:07:09.546 --> 00:07:11.986 Two examples of this are that there often can be 00:07:11.986 --> 00:07:15.426 a disjointed relationship between purchaser and beneficiary, 00:07:15.426 --> 00:07:18.026 and that conflicting demands for qualification development 00:07:18.026 --> 00:07:20.266 can be placed on the system at the same time. 00:07:20.266 --> 00:07:21.806 And I think you just heard about that 00:07:21.806 --> 00:07:24.666 from what Joanne and Joak-Chanette were saying. 00:07:24.666 --> 00:07:28.306 Now, I spent the best part of 15 years of my working life 00:07:28.306 --> 00:07:29.666 working on qualifications, 00:07:29.762 --> 00:07:34.662 and qualification systems, and I have to develop that to conclude that I think you've developed 00:07:34.662 --> 00:07:41.202 a monster which is out of control. Furthermore, neither of the reports that I refer to and 00:07:41.202 --> 00:07:47.202 neither of those diagrams consider the qualifications and credit framework. Now I have tried to 00:07:47.202 --> 00:07:52.802 add it into this map, but as I approached the eighth dimension of time and space, I realised 00:07:52.802 --> 00:07:56.582 that time and space were actually beginning to fracture and further work would be hazardous 00:07:56.582 --> 00:07:57.822 to us all, so I stopped. 00:07:59.022 --> 00:08:05.462 Such complexity can only muddy the signals, coming from users of qualifications to suppliers 00:08:05.462 --> 00:08:07.182 of qualifications like awarding bodies. 00:08:07.902 --> 00:08:13.402 The messages about what is needed are refracted and distorted as they move through the system, 00:08:13.842 --> 00:08:19.922 accommodating the competing beliefs and views about qualification design and fitness for 00:08:19.922 --> 00:08:20.282 purpose. 00:08:20.542 --> 00:08:26.162 The research group I coordinate at Oxford has first-hand evidence of that refractory power 00:08:26.162 --> 00:08:31.522 of competing visions for a qualification through our evaluation of the diploma design process. 00:08:32.482 --> 00:08:37.862 Sensible conversations and conclusions about what was needed in the initial development process 00:08:37.862 --> 00:08:51.306 were in my view completely distorted by the intervention of on the one hand QCDA and on the other hand the then Department for Children Children and Families If those initial conversations 00:08:51.306 --> 00:08:57.146 had involved at least two other stakeholder communities, the awarding bodies and the teachers 00:08:57.146 --> 00:09:00.266 who were supposed to teach these qualifications, I think what would have emerged would have 00:09:00.266 --> 00:09:06.006 been a sensible qualification, rather than what did emerge. Of course, the resulting 00:09:06.006 --> 00:09:11.726 complex brew was then handed over, presumably with crucible tongs and flame-proof gloves, 00:09:11.886 --> 00:09:17.546 to the awarding bodies to make sense of it. The outcome is so complicated that I've had 00:09:17.546 --> 00:09:24.046 to add an extra half an hour to my PGC lecture on the 14-19 system to explain the development 00:09:24.046 --> 00:09:29.226 of diplomas, how they're put together, and how they're assessed. Fortunately, I won't 00:09:29.226 --> 00:09:33.966 be giving that lecture for very much longer, not just because I'm moving, but because the 00:09:33.966 --> 00:09:39.206 local schools and colleges where I am are rapidly distancing themselves from the diploma 00:09:39.206 --> 00:09:45.966 as a vehicle for teaching and learning. The more perspicacious of my visitors also comment 00:09:45.966 --> 00:09:52.086 on how practitioners seem enthralled to qualifications, so that qualifications become the learning 00:09:52.086 --> 00:09:57.166 program rather than a means of certifying what a person has learned and achieved through 00:09:57.166 --> 00:09:59.606 participating in a program of learning. 00:09:59.682 --> 00:10:02.422 That's basically what Paul Black was commenting on. 00:10:03.562 --> 00:10:05.422 Now you may not recognise what these are. 00:10:06.662 --> 00:10:08.002 These are dreadnoughts. 00:10:09.662 --> 00:10:10.222 Battleships. 00:10:11.622 --> 00:10:14.682 And in the early part of the last century, there was a dreadnought race 00:10:14.682 --> 00:10:17.882 between England and Germany to build dreadnoughts. 00:10:18.762 --> 00:10:22.922 And I think in policy terms, what we're doing is we're measuring our success 00:10:22.922 --> 00:10:25.082 in terms of our education and training system, 00:10:25.722 --> 00:10:27.922 in terms of stockpiling qualifications, 00:10:27.922 --> 00:10:30.742 all neatly assigned to levels of course 00:10:30.742 --> 00:10:34.022 and then we compare our stockpile 00:10:34.022 --> 00:10:35.842 with someone else's stockpile 00:10:35.842 --> 00:10:40.202 through publications such as OECD's education at a glance 00:10:40.202 --> 00:10:43.562 the results for policy makers at least 00:10:43.562 --> 00:10:46.602 it seems to me to be a modern day dreadnought race 00:10:46.602 --> 00:10:48.822 the products are less lethal 00:10:48.822 --> 00:10:51.982 but they are still incredibly expensive 00:10:51.982 --> 00:10:54.822 schools and colleges for example 00:10:54.822 --> 00:10:57.302 are paying small fortunes 00:10:57.302 --> 00:11:01.802 to awarding bodies for certification and the cost seemingly inexorably upwards. 00:11:01.802 --> 00:11:09.302 This is how our stockpile of qualifications has increased since 2002, 2008. 00:11:11.302 --> 00:11:19.987 And here are the number of accredited qualifications that are now in the Ofqual and Anzac database There quite a lot of duplications in there 00:11:20.167 --> 00:11:21.827 but nonetheless it's upwards, 00:11:22.367 --> 00:11:24.607 and those are the costs that are being paid 00:11:24.607 --> 00:11:28.367 by schools and colleges over the years, 00:11:28.547 --> 00:11:29.847 schools in this particular case. 00:11:30.527 --> 00:11:33.367 And Ofqual admit it's very difficult to come up 00:11:33.367 --> 00:11:36.867 with an estimate of how much money is being spent 00:11:36.867 --> 00:11:37.747 on qualifications. 00:11:37.747 --> 00:11:39.927 This is just for England. 00:11:44.067 --> 00:11:49.207 It looks like we have a billion pound in the industry. 00:11:51.907 --> 00:11:58.387 And quite a lot of the money that's being spent is public money. 00:11:58.387 --> 00:12:05.387 furthermore employers are actively socializing their training costs 00:12:05.387 --> 00:12:08.947 at the moment by jumping on the apprenticeship bandwagon 00:12:08.947 --> 00:12:12.487 with calls I read in the paper on Tuesday 00:12:12.487 --> 00:12:15.207 for yet further incentives to be provided to employers 00:12:15.207 --> 00:12:18.627 to offer apprenticeships to the most disadvantaged young people 00:12:18.627 --> 00:12:20.767 the notion of dead weight 00:12:20.767 --> 00:12:23.647 and the well-established economics of education argument 00:12:23.647 --> 00:12:27.287 that employers should pay for developing firm-specific skills 00:12:27.287 --> 00:12:29.507 seem to have passed such commentators 00:12:29.603 --> 00:12:36.803 by. Apprenticeship is a regulated system for developing sectoral capacity in countries where 00:12:36.803 --> 00:12:42.503 apprenticeship works well. It works well as a mode of formation training in a regulated labour market 00:12:42.503 --> 00:12:47.783 with licences to practice. It is not intended to be primarily a means of social inclusion 00:12:47.783 --> 00:12:53.563 or a way to subsidise legitimate employer and individual training costs. Though of course 00:12:53.563 --> 00:12:59.083 politically such subsidy may be desirable if it enables us to do better in the dreadnought race 00:12:59.083 --> 00:13:01.463 and stockpile yet more qualifications. 00:13:03.063 --> 00:13:07.743 And what exactly is all of this supposed to be producing 00:13:07.743 --> 00:13:09.723 in terms of social goods? 00:13:11.363 --> 00:13:14.163 What is all this policy business, busyness, 00:13:14.223 --> 00:13:17.223 as we termed it in the Nuffield 14 to 19 review, for? 00:13:18.383 --> 00:13:20.223 Well, arguably, just two things. 00:13:21.023 --> 00:13:23.203 First, improved economic performance, 00:13:23.943 --> 00:13:25.223 largely achieved through the belief 00:13:25.223 --> 00:13:27.423 that increasing the supply of qualified people 00:13:27.423 --> 00:13:31.583 will lead pay presto to an increase in productivity 00:13:31.583 --> 00:13:34.083 and to a lesser extent in innovation. 00:13:35.123 --> 00:13:37.083 Second, increased social cohesion. 00:13:37.863 --> 00:13:49.927 Based on the belief that more qualified people will be better able to secure a job that the jobs they secure will pay more because employers will reward them for increased productivity thereby reducing the welfare bill which George 00:13:49.927 --> 00:13:55.207 Osborne will be very happy about, and greater political and social involvement by better 00:13:55.207 --> 00:14:02.227 educated citizens. Now those are highly desirable outcomes. That's what an education system 00:14:02.227 --> 00:14:09.567 should be doing. Has our complicated qualification delivery system actually delivered? Has it 00:14:09.567 --> 00:14:13.727 actually produced any of those goods. Now there's a huge 00:14:13.727 --> 00:14:17.787 problem here of attributing causation. On the basis of 00:14:17.787 --> 00:14:21.647 what evidence would I know that the changes in 00:14:21.647 --> 00:14:25.967 say productivity in UK PLC can be attributed to reforms 00:14:25.967 --> 00:14:29.687 of the qualification system? Such judgments are almost 00:14:29.687 --> 00:14:33.787 impossible to make. So what we need to do is to sort of collect a basket 00:14:33.787 --> 00:14:35.947 of evidence and see what it tells us. 00:14:35.947 --> 00:14:40.947 I just want to look at two things. 00:14:40.947 --> 00:14:44.947 What's the evidence about productivity? 00:14:44.947 --> 00:14:48.947 Well, if people are being more productive 00:14:48.947 --> 00:14:50.947 because they hold certain qualifications, 00:14:50.947 --> 00:14:55.947 employers should pay them more for that extra productivity. 00:14:55.947 --> 00:14:59.427 Now, there has been an industry running 00:14:59.523 --> 00:15:04.643 linear regression models looking for such returns to productivity. 00:15:07.463 --> 00:15:12.723 The latest report which came out from UKCS in 2009, written by Steve McIntosh, 00:15:13.623 --> 00:15:19.383 has at last found some returns to intermediate vocational qualifications such as NVQs. 00:15:20.183 --> 00:15:21.163 That's good news. 00:15:22.663 --> 00:15:27.743 But when you disaggregate the data by sector or when you look at the size of the returns, 00:15:27.743 --> 00:15:29.523 It's incredibly variable. 00:15:30.863 --> 00:15:34.743 And the judgment you have to make is that this is extremely equivocal. 00:15:36.123 --> 00:15:41.383 All this investment doesn't seem to have produced particularly stunning outcomes 00:15:41.383 --> 00:15:45.623 in terms of people being paid more money because they held certain qualifications 00:15:45.623 --> 00:15:47.643 because they're being more productive. 00:15:48.543 --> 00:15:52.163 Furthermore, when you look at how those qualifications were gained, 00:15:52.163 --> 00:15:57.583 that makes a big difference to how much people get paid. 00:15:57.743 --> 00:16:08.063 If the qualifications are gained while you're in employment, if you get your NVQ2 in employment, that gives you a much, much bigger return than if you get it in college. 00:16:09.283 --> 00:16:24.068 And there a real statistical problem here because employers are selecting their most productive people to go on those courses So getting the qualification is a signal of your productivity which already 00:16:24.068 --> 00:16:28.788 exists. And there's a huge statistical problem here in terms of actually the models you 00:16:28.788 --> 00:16:35.508 specify. What about kids who are actually then in the school system and the college 00:16:35.508 --> 00:16:48.908 system. Well, when you start looking there, the world becomes very, very bleak. We end 00:16:48.908 --> 00:16:59.588 up in search of an extremely elusive quarry called employability skills. Now, I'm not 00:16:59.588 --> 00:17:04.808 going to talk here about apprenticeship. Talking about apprenticeship would require me to spend 00:17:04.808 --> 00:17:07.048 in at least two hours. 00:17:07.048 --> 00:17:08.568 I haven't got time to do that, 00:17:08.568 --> 00:17:10.568 though I do recommend my colleague Susan James' 00:17:10.568 --> 00:17:13.388 recent scope issue paper on apprenticeship in McDonnell. 00:17:13.388 --> 00:17:16.388 This is a very interesting read. 00:17:16.388 --> 00:17:18.128 What I want to talk about is what I'm going to call 00:17:18.128 --> 00:17:20.848 about non-general education programs 00:17:20.848 --> 00:17:24.088 that young people follow in schools and colleges. 00:17:24.088 --> 00:17:26.428 I think non-general is effort and vocational 00:17:26.428 --> 00:17:28.788 because whatever many of these qualifications are, 00:17:28.788 --> 00:17:29.348 they sure as hell. 00:17:29.444 --> 00:17:42.784 These are the qualifications that young people who are described as being less able or lower attained get shunted into at the beginning of these education. 00:17:43.724 --> 00:17:50.964 The evidence we've got, the evidence that we've attached, is that progression for those young people is problematic. 00:17:52.424 --> 00:17:58.324 When you enter this world, you enter the world of employability skills. 00:17:59.124 --> 00:18:01.464 You hear it again and again and again. 00:18:03.064 --> 00:18:05.644 Now there are a number of issues here, it seems to me. 00:18:06.524 --> 00:18:11.484 First, exactly what are we talking about when we talk about employability skills? 00:18:12.084 --> 00:18:16.784 Second, can we measure and certify their acquisition in any sort of meaningful way? 00:18:17.384 --> 00:18:23.524 Is any value placed on that certification, for example, of core, key or functional skills by employers 00:18:23.524 --> 00:18:26.544 and educational gatekeepers such as universities admissions staff? 00:18:26.544 --> 00:18:28.164 The answer is no. 00:18:28.324 --> 00:18:30.664 in the face of the latter group? 00:18:30.664 --> 00:18:32.624 What do young people learn as a result 00:18:32.624 --> 00:18:35.004 of participating in such programs? 00:18:35.004 --> 00:18:37.864 Is such participation in their long-term interest, 00:18:37.864 --> 00:18:50.569 or are such programs really about chilling them out reducing their expectations Is there warehousing of young people in the education and training system who are taking these programs or do these programs really support progression 00:18:51.389 --> 00:18:55.729 Is this therapy, rather than education, as Catherine Ackleston would argue, 00:18:56.169 --> 00:19:00.209 about encouraging young people to internalise a variety of technologies of itself? 00:19:01.609 --> 00:19:04.489 Now, each of those questions, to do them justice, 00:19:04.629 --> 00:19:06.729 would require a presentation of its own. 00:19:06.729 --> 00:19:10.369 I'm only going to focus here on the idea of employability skills, 00:19:10.929 --> 00:19:13.389 which again is another apparent English obsession. 00:19:14.409 --> 00:19:16.969 You do find the same discourse on the continent 00:19:16.969 --> 00:19:19.289 about the idea of core competencies, 00:19:19.409 --> 00:19:20.589 but it's a lot more sophisticated. 00:19:25.429 --> 00:19:27.149 Now, in a telling comment, 00:19:27.569 --> 00:19:29.649 a group of qualifications experts brought together 00:19:29.649 --> 00:19:31.089 by the Learning and Skills Network 00:19:31.089 --> 00:19:33.729 as part of their research for their 2008 report, 00:19:33.829 --> 00:19:35.369 Employability Skills, explored, 00:19:35.369 --> 00:19:37.189 noted that, and I quote, 00:19:37.309 --> 00:19:39.629 participants noted that it's not a new area of work, 00:19:39.929 --> 00:19:41.889 sharing examples of pockets of development. 00:19:42.509 --> 00:19:44.809 Overall, they voiced frustration at the lack of progress 00:19:44.809 --> 00:19:46.949 across the UK over the past 20 years. 00:19:47.489 --> 00:19:51.089 It was noted that the issue had been brought into focus 00:19:51.089 --> 00:19:52.829 by the Leach review of skills 00:19:52.829 --> 00:19:55.049 and the challenges the UK faces to maintain 00:19:55.049 --> 00:19:57.389 and improve its competitiveness in a global economy. 00:19:57.969 --> 00:19:59.269 The timescales and targets, 00:19:59.365 --> 00:20:02.865 recommended by Leach highlight the necessity to act now. 00:20:03.905 --> 00:20:04.525 End quote. 00:20:05.665 --> 00:20:08.505 Rather than acting now, doing more, 00:20:08.825 --> 00:20:11.285 developing even more flexible and inconsequential 00:20:11.285 --> 00:20:14.165 apprenticeship frameworks and vocationally related qualifications, 00:20:14.885 --> 00:20:17.105 subsidising employers, warehousing young people 00:20:17.105 --> 00:20:18.525 in the education and training system, 00:20:19.085 --> 00:20:20.505 a better conclusion to draw might be 00:20:20.505 --> 00:20:22.485 why has this agenda been so difficult to implement? 00:20:25.145 --> 00:20:27.365 Perhaps the analysis on which it's based, 00:20:27.365 --> 00:20:29.465 including the much-vaunted leech review 00:20:29.465 --> 00:20:32.405 and the outcome of burgeoning qualification system 00:20:32.405 --> 00:20:34.065 is fatally flawed. 00:20:35.865 --> 00:20:38.425 Now the following points seem to underpin 00:20:38.425 --> 00:20:42.045 the calls for more teaching devoted to employability skills 00:20:42.045 --> 00:20:42.705 for young people. 00:20:43.325 --> 00:20:47.145 First, that the results of national employer surveys 00:20:47.145 --> 00:20:49.665 can be readily interpreted as meaning 00:20:49.665 --> 00:20:51.525 that there is a national shortage of skills 00:20:51.525 --> 00:20:54.185 because such surveys objectively identify 00:20:54.185 --> 00:20:56.345 skill shortages and skills gaps 00:20:56.345 --> 00:21:00.405 which can be unambiguously mapped to a lack of employability skills 00:21:00.405 --> 00:21:03.385 or soft skills or generic skills or whatever you want to call it. 00:21:04.765 --> 00:21:07.885 Now, given the way that we know how people respond to questionnaires 00:21:07.885 --> 00:21:19.629 and who is actually answering these questionnaires the validity of that interpretation is highly questionable Are we asking them about what they need in their workforce 00:21:19.629 --> 00:21:22.889 or are we asking them about whether they'd like to drive a Ferrari or a Mini? 00:21:25.469 --> 00:21:29.549 Evidence that we've got from employee surveys conducted by scope 00:21:29.549 --> 00:21:31.709 suggests there may be a different problem, 00:21:32.209 --> 00:21:33.589 and that's expressed in this slide, 00:21:34.109 --> 00:21:36.489 which shows the problem of over-qualification. 00:21:36.489 --> 00:21:40.289 people are overqualified 00:21:40.289 --> 00:21:42.269 for the jobs that they're doing 00:21:42.269 --> 00:21:43.389 in their perception 00:21:43.389 --> 00:21:46.929 what this slide doesn't show 00:21:46.929 --> 00:21:48.669 this slide doesn't show 00:21:48.669 --> 00:21:50.269 that there has been a dramatic increase 00:21:50.269 --> 00:21:53.469 in jobs requiring no qualifications 00:21:53.469 --> 00:21:54.969 it actually shows 00:21:54.969 --> 00:21:56.289 the huge increase 00:21:56.289 --> 00:21:59.169 in the level of qualification of the UK workforce 00:21:59.169 --> 00:22:01.229 in that sense 00:22:01.229 --> 00:22:02.249 it's a success story 00:22:02.249 --> 00:22:05.329 what it is showing is the people telling us 00:22:05.329 --> 00:22:12.329 we don't need this level of qualification to do the jobs that we're actually doing. 00:22:12.329 --> 00:22:21.329 Now the counter argument to that is that, aha, the qualifications that people have don't 00:22:21.329 --> 00:22:29.189 actually match the skills that employers value, such as soft skills. Now there is evidence 00:22:29.285 --> 00:22:34.125 in the scope work to suggest there has been an increase in the use of soft skills in UK 00:22:34.125 --> 00:22:40.885 employment over the last 10 years. Thus, according to this argument, people may be overqualified 00:22:40.885 --> 00:22:48.365 but underskilled. If so, that speaks to the futility of much of the development of, for 00:22:48.365 --> 00:22:54.645 example, key skills qualifications over the year. Is it really the case that one more 00:22:54.645 --> 00:23:00.665 push going over the top again, spending yet more taxpayers' money will produce a better 00:23:00.665 --> 00:23:04.105 set of qualifications that will give employers what they want. 00:23:05.365 --> 00:23:12.965 If so, then a third assumption kicks in, that we can unambiguously distill out of the complexities 00:23:12.965 --> 00:23:19.105 of workplace practice, exquisitely documented and ongoing ethnographies of work, the skills 00:23:19.105 --> 00:23:22.105 that people use in such a way that they can be trained 00:23:22.105 --> 00:23:24.025 and they can be assessed 00:23:24.025 --> 00:23:26.705 so that the qualifications they've gained 00:23:26.705 --> 00:23:30.305 have high utility for employers seeking to recruit new staff. 00:23:30.865 --> 00:23:33.625 There is a cottage industry in this country 00:23:33.625 --> 00:23:37.845 of people producing lists of employability skills. 00:23:38.985 --> 00:23:50.210 This is my current favourite representation of that list It very impressive We run into a problem immediately 00:23:51.390 --> 00:23:56.750 What my colleague Jonathan Payne calls the unbearable likeness of the term skill. 00:23:58.010 --> 00:24:01.910 In what sense is flexibility a skill? 00:24:02.850 --> 00:24:05.990 In what sense is motivation a skill? 00:24:06.990 --> 00:24:09.250 The first at best is a personal attribute, 00:24:09.730 --> 00:24:13.110 which means that you're put up with being pushed around and not complain about it. 00:24:14.050 --> 00:24:17.470 The second is the product of a complex interaction 00:24:17.470 --> 00:24:22.290 between a person's identity and the work environment they find themselves in. 00:24:23.130 --> 00:24:27.270 I think it's asking college lecturers and school teachers rather a lot 00:24:27.270 --> 00:24:33.150 to ensure that their graduates are going to be motivated in a dead-end boring job. 00:24:33.150 --> 00:24:40.150 If you want to motivate your employees, make their work interesting. 00:24:40.150 --> 00:24:47.150 I think the definition of an attempt to assess and certify such skills is for the most part 00:24:47.150 --> 00:24:53.150 a fool's errand and a huge waste of public money. We are now beginning to think that the 00:24:53.150 --> 00:24:59.110 same might apply to so-called skills such as communication. Adopting a socio-cultural 00:24:59.206 --> 00:25:03.006 perspective on knowledge and learning, one of our scope doctoral students, Anna Tula-Marcos, 00:25:03.466 --> 00:25:08.606 has been examining the process of communication within the context of HR practice, building 00:25:08.606 --> 00:25:11.966 on previous work undertaken by Cathy Starrs with other professional groups. 00:25:12.886 --> 00:25:18.306 Far from finding a simple set of generic skills like those that can be easily characterized 00:25:18.306 --> 00:25:24.246 and reified, Anna has found that effective communication is a highly contextualized practice 00:25:24.246 --> 00:25:28.986 requiring an integration of know-how and situational knowledge of the firm, 00:25:29.386 --> 00:25:31.846 its practices, values and social systems. 00:25:32.726 --> 00:25:34.786 The skill elements which you can pull out, 00:25:35.286 --> 00:25:39.346 such as speaking clearly, using PowerPoint, can be trained. 00:25:40.246 --> 00:25:43.166 But these will not make you an effective communicator. 00:25:44.246 --> 00:25:48.846 You will have to learn the situational knowledge of the organisation 00:25:48.846 --> 00:25:53.166 in order to become an effective communicator within that organisation. 00:25:54.246 --> 00:25:59.246 Of course education and training systems should be ensuring that young people are literate and numerous, 00:25:59.786 --> 00:26:03.946 not least because it enriches their lives and makes them more human, as well as employable. 00:26:04.606 --> 00:26:07.546 But effective communication involves much more than that. 00:26:08.586 --> 00:26:20.970 The education system and the educational policy makers in my view need to come clean and admit that the education system cannot deliver what employers want and in some cases 00:26:20.970 --> 00:26:23.250 such as compliant employees nor should 00:26:23.250 --> 00:26:25.210 they. The 00:26:25.210 --> 00:26:26.870 system should provide literate, 00:26:27.110 --> 00:26:29.170 numerate, critical thinking individuals 00:26:29.170 --> 00:26:31.010 who have the capacity to learn 00:26:31.010 --> 00:26:33.070 which is what a liberal education 00:26:33.070 --> 00:26:34.350 was always supposed to be about. 00:26:35.210 --> 00:26:36.690 But we cannot do everything. 00:26:36.690 --> 00:26:39.770 that is why we have apprenticeship 00:26:39.770 --> 00:26:42.030 as a mode of formation training 00:26:42.030 --> 00:26:44.330 good employers by providing apprentices 00:26:44.330 --> 00:26:46.210 with expansive learning environments 00:26:46.210 --> 00:26:49.210 enable them to be socialised into work communities 00:26:49.210 --> 00:26:52.550 enable them to internalise the situational knowledge 00:26:52.550 --> 00:26:55.050 that enables them to become effective communicators 00:26:55.050 --> 00:26:56.090 in that workplace 00:26:56.090 --> 00:26:58.710 so where does this leave us? 00:26:59.790 --> 00:27:02.390 I think we need to make a distinction between adults 00:27:02.390 --> 00:27:05.350 and young people and vulnerable adults here 00:27:05.350 --> 00:27:11.250 Vulnerable adults, I mean adults who are in need of support in terms of developing basic skills. 00:27:11.250 --> 00:27:18.450 For most adult employees and their employers, in my view, we should have a completely deregulated market. 00:27:18.450 --> 00:27:25.110 If an employer wants to develop a qualification and get an awarding body to accredit that learning program, what's the problem? 00:27:25.110 --> 00:27:29.030 It should be a private matter involving a private matter. 00:27:29.126 --> 00:27:30.566 No public money. 00:27:31.326 --> 00:27:36.366 If employers want to train their staff in job-specific skills and accredit that, then good luck to them. 00:27:37.666 --> 00:27:41.346 The role of the state should be perhaps to set some minimum level of regulation, 00:27:41.966 --> 00:27:44.406 though what this might be is not at all clear to me. 00:27:45.306 --> 00:27:51.826 The way to get employers to train their staff is not to implement the qualifications and credit framework, 00:27:51.826 --> 00:27:56.566 it's to get them to change their product and competitive strategies, to move them upmarket. 00:27:57.446 --> 00:27:59.726 That way, they will train their staff. 00:28:00.206 --> 00:28:03.386 But that requires an industrial policy, not a skills policy. 00:28:04.266 --> 00:28:06.786 For younger people, we do have a duty of care. 00:28:07.746 --> 00:28:12.746 By and large, in my view, state-regulated general qualifications seem to function reasonably well, 00:28:13.326 --> 00:28:17.186 though there are clearly some contentious issues around some subject areas, such as science, 00:28:17.186 --> 00:28:20.926 and the way that modularity equals good needs to be questioned. 00:28:21.786 --> 00:28:25.906 The challenge is to enable more young people to be successful in this route, 00:28:26.566 --> 00:28:30.726 and that is a pedagogic, not a qualification issue. 00:28:30.726 --> 00:28:33.606 Could more young people, for example, be successful 00:28:33.606 --> 00:28:36.426 if we abandon the discourse of ability, 00:28:36.426 --> 00:28:53.251 which so lowers expectations of what some young people can achieve Influential Cambridge academics such as Donald McIntyre and his colleagues were able to demonstrate that this might be the case Certainly the young people I been working with on the streets of Hackney and Manchester and in the pit villages of 00:28:53.251 --> 00:28:59.671 Northumbria aspire to such general qualifications or apprenticeship, not the non-general qualifications 00:28:59.671 --> 00:29:04.411 offered to them as an alternative. They know the school about what really matters in the 00:29:04.411 --> 00:29:09.811 race to get a good job. That then leaves the idea of a school and college-based vet system 00:29:09.811 --> 00:29:16.091 because we can't expand apprenticeship too much. Can we design something that actually 00:29:16.091 --> 00:29:23.151 works? I actually do think there are some real gems in that part of the system and we 00:29:23.151 --> 00:29:28.431 need to maintain them. But I don't know how to design that system to make it work. But 00:29:28.431 --> 00:29:32.971 when I go to Leeds, I'm going to develop a research program to try and start looking 00:29:32.971 --> 00:29:35.671 for some basic principles for design. 00:29:35.671 --> 00:29:37.911 And I know where to look for them first. 00:29:37.911 --> 00:29:39.751 Austria, thank you. 00:29:47.311 --> 00:29:50.251 Oh, that was my final slide by the way. 00:29:54.251 --> 00:29:55.991 I'm sure there will be some questions. 00:29:55.991 --> 00:29:58.031 Would you like to join us? 00:29:58.031 --> 00:29:58.951 Yeah. 00:29:59.047 --> 00:30:29.027 Thank you. 00:30:29.047 --> 00:30:32.747 Mark Daw, Principal of Oakland's College, seems to be at OCR. 00:30:34.367 --> 00:30:38.407 I've just got to disagree with you about your comments around vocational 00:30:38.407 --> 00:30:41.187 and not calling them vocational. 00:30:42.087 --> 00:30:45.287 I don't think general ed does work for a lot of young people. 00:30:46.287 --> 00:30:49.607 And we see it at the college, sort of disengagement at 14, 00:30:50.127 --> 00:30:52.187 total disengagement by 16. 00:30:53.007 --> 00:30:56.227 They can't read, write, add up when they come to college, 00:30:56.487 --> 00:30:58.727 and that's through a general ed system. 00:30:59.047 --> 00:31:01.887 and a lot of what vocational learning is 00:31:01.887 --> 00:31:06.887 is about re-engaging a learner in an area of interest 00:31:06.887 --> 00:31:19.931 and then developing some of those skills you talked about getting up getting in on time attending behaving teamwork and the literacy and numeracy IT that all the employers talk about that they want We 00:31:19.931 --> 00:31:25.931 have some fantastic examples like a football academy with some 400 learners. Not one of 00:31:25.931 --> 00:31:29.291 them would have come to college if it hadn't been for playing football and thinking they're 00:31:29.291 --> 00:31:33.911 going to be the next David Beckham. By the end of it, none of them will be the David 00:31:33.911 --> 00:31:38.911 Beckham, but a lot progress on to university or further learning. We set up beauty, 00:31:39.031 --> 00:31:43.291 where, again, that's condemned as we don't need any more beauticians, 00:31:43.871 --> 00:31:47.791 83% of those learners either progress on to further learning, 00:31:48.251 --> 00:31:49.671 higher education or work. 00:31:50.271 --> 00:31:53.911 And that's because beauty interests them, they get re-engaged, 00:31:54.231 --> 00:31:57.751 and then they develop the skills that make them worthwhile for the employers. 00:31:59.111 --> 00:32:00.071 John, just wrong, Glenn? 00:32:00.871 --> 00:32:04.791 I can take you around the country and give you example after example like that. 00:32:04.791 --> 00:32:09.791 I have no problem with the system being used in that way. 00:32:10.791 --> 00:32:11.791 It's great. 00:32:11.791 --> 00:32:13.791 The college where I'm, the FE college where I'm a governor, 00:32:13.791 --> 00:32:15.791 engages young people in exactly the same way 00:32:15.791 --> 00:32:18.791 that you described, but what they see the qualifications are, 00:32:18.791 --> 00:32:21.791 the qualification system is a pathway, a learning program 00:32:21.791 --> 00:32:23.791 which they build for those young people 00:32:23.791 --> 00:32:26.791 to proper outcomes and destinations. 00:32:26.791 --> 00:32:28.871 I can also point you to the statistical approach, 00:32:28.968 --> 00:32:34.408 evidence, which shows the appalling progression rates for young people who are on level 1 00:32:34.408 --> 00:32:41.808 and level 2 vocational qualifications, so-called vocational qualifications, in year 12. It's 00:32:41.808 --> 00:32:47.788 appalling. They just don't progress, or only a tiny proportion of them progress. So on 00:32:47.788 --> 00:32:53.308 the one hand, you've got these real interesting nuggets of great practice, which you can find 00:32:53.308 --> 00:32:57.088 all over the place. On the other hand, you've got the brute statistical evidence, which 00:32:57.088 --> 00:33:00.068 suggest that progression rates from these types of programs are not that great. 00:33:01.088 --> 00:33:04.788 And somehow we have to work out, well, what's going on between the two? 00:33:05.288 --> 00:33:11.208 So what we need to find is the good principles embedded in the sorts of programs and the learning 00:33:11.208 --> 00:33:16.028 programs that you've been talking about, because that's how I would construe them, and work 00:33:16.028 --> 00:33:22.948 out how we then deliver the types of learning programs and the types of qualifications to 00:33:22.948 --> 00:33:26.608 those young people in such a way that they actually progress to meaningful outcomes. 00:33:27.088 --> 00:33:30.768 For me, meaningful outcome is transition into a sustainable job in the labor market. 00:33:32.028 --> 00:33:36.208 Can I make also a point about the general education system failure in this country? 00:33:37.668 --> 00:33:49.392 All countries have a problem with young people described as neat It a horrible term I don like it But we seem to have a worse problem Now why is that The main reason is because we don teach young people 00:33:49.392 --> 00:33:52.132 to read and write adequately enough 00:33:52.132 --> 00:33:53.832 for them to cope with a secondary curriculum. 00:33:54.372 --> 00:33:55.812 And we don't have a secondary curriculum 00:33:55.812 --> 00:33:57.852 that engages their interests. 00:33:58.632 --> 00:34:00.672 So what we offer them sometimes, I suspect, 00:34:00.672 --> 00:34:04.972 is a curriculum that engages their interest in the short term. 00:34:05.212 --> 00:34:06.892 But is it in their long-term interest 00:34:06.892 --> 00:34:10.212 to be engaged in that curriculum if it doesn't lead them anywhere. 00:34:10.992 --> 00:34:12.812 I've just come back from a trip to Austria. 00:34:13.512 --> 00:34:17.692 I was just blown away by going into their vocational schools, 00:34:17.792 --> 00:34:18.632 their Handels Academy. 00:34:20.072 --> 00:34:23.172 They're young people that are starting at 14 or 15 in these schools. 00:34:23.852 --> 00:34:27.152 They are following the same mathematics curriculum, 00:34:27.592 --> 00:34:30.912 the same German curriculum, the same English curriculum 00:34:30.912 --> 00:34:33.192 as the young people who are in the gymnasium, 00:34:33.912 --> 00:34:34.832 which is the grammar school. 00:34:34.832 --> 00:34:38.832 And when I asked them about choice in this system, 00:34:38.832 --> 00:34:40.832 they looked at me in a rather puzzled way, 00:34:40.832 --> 00:34:42.832 and they said, well, what do you mean by choice? 00:34:42.832 --> 00:34:44.832 This, of course, is all conducted in fantastic English, 00:34:44.832 --> 00:34:46.832 because my German's not that good. 00:34:46.832 --> 00:34:48.832 And I said, well, how do they choose subject? 00:34:48.832 --> 00:34:50.832 Well, they've chosen to come here. 00:34:50.832 --> 00:34:52.832 That's the choice they've made. 00:34:52.832 --> 00:34:54.832 And that was it. 00:34:54.832 --> 00:34:58.792 And those young people are not that different from the young people I met. 00:34:58.888 --> 00:35:00.048 in general FE colleges. 00:35:00.768 --> 00:35:03.088 So if the Austrians can do that, why can't we? 00:35:03.568 --> 00:35:06.948 And I think it's got something to do with our expectations about young people. 00:35:07.448 --> 00:35:09.628 Go into Norwegian special education classes 00:35:09.628 --> 00:35:12.148 and you can talk to Norwegian youngsters in English 00:35:12.148 --> 00:35:14.148 in special education groups. 00:35:15.088 --> 00:35:16.568 They're expected to learn English. 00:35:17.128 --> 00:35:20.628 And there's a huge, huge problem, I think, of expectation here 00:35:20.628 --> 00:35:23.348 about what young people are actually capable of. 00:35:24.048 --> 00:35:26.888 I can think of a myriad of ways of teaching GCSEs 00:35:26.888 --> 00:35:30.288 which would be engaging, would enable people to achieve them, 00:35:30.728 --> 00:35:32.588 which would be practical and interesting. 00:35:33.228 --> 00:35:35.268 In my view, they'd be better off doing that 00:35:35.268 --> 00:35:37.688 than they would be doing some of the vocational qualifications 00:35:37.688 --> 00:35:38.888 and offer at Key Stage 4. 00:35:41.168 --> 00:35:42.668 Another question, please. 00:35:42.668 --> 00:36:00.368 Tim Oates, Group Director of Assessment, Research and Development here at Cambridge Assessment. 00:36:00.368 --> 00:36:02.948 This is a question for Joanne, I think, principally. 00:36:03.888 --> 00:36:06.608 I mean, the project is an extremely impressive one, 00:36:06.868 --> 00:36:19.833 and the extent to which you sitting on top of an incredible mountain of rich data I think is fascinating interesting and challenging I would apply to a foundation to do further analysis if you can get funding from QCDA 00:36:22.253 --> 00:36:28.053 I'm interested in what you were told was a policy, actually. 00:36:30.253 --> 00:36:32.893 Because there are many things which have kind of accumulated 00:36:32.893 --> 00:36:34.453 by stealth in the system. 00:36:35.713 --> 00:36:38.853 So, for example, if we look at the impact of accountability measures, 00:36:38.873 --> 00:36:44.473 you can say it's not easy to find something which is written down as a policy 00:36:44.473 --> 00:36:48.973 and yet it constitutes a very strong series of policy commitments 00:36:48.973 --> 00:36:53.113 about the nature of the system, how to manage it 00:36:53.113 --> 00:36:57.893 and what the intention is in terms of the implementation of the measures 00:36:57.893 --> 00:37:00.293 which can broadly be described. 00:37:01.773 --> 00:37:05.233 What did you feel about what you were told as being a policy 00:37:05.233 --> 00:37:11.733 and what did you subsequently think about that idea of what a policy is when you were doing the work? 00:37:11.733 --> 00:37:19.233 Yeah, I think actually that's an aspect of our work that is currently under development to be honest. 00:37:19.233 --> 00:37:26.233 It's one of the issues that came out of the research for us. It's really interesting to see that policy documents did not equal policy. 00:37:26.233 --> 00:37:28.713 We kind of, obviously we know that from the literature. 00:37:28.809 --> 00:37:36.049 as well. But there were clear instances where rhetoric and positioning was very confusing 00:37:36.049 --> 00:37:41.209 about whether things were actually going to be policy or not. For example, around APP 00:37:41.209 --> 00:37:47.069 would be a good example of this. For a little while it looked as though there would be quite 00:37:47.069 --> 00:37:53.309 draconian requirements around APP for all teachers in all schools, and the policy environments 00:37:53.309 --> 00:37:58.249 that had backed off from that. There were quite a few other instances where the requirements 00:37:58.249 --> 00:38:00.389 on schools and colleges 00:38:00.389 --> 00:38:02.629 really came from 00:38:02.629 --> 00:38:04.709 a policy maker somewhere 00:38:04.709 --> 00:38:06.809 taking a particular stance 00:38:06.809 --> 00:38:08.649 about a policy 00:38:08.649 --> 00:38:10.749 to get certain 00:38:10.749 --> 00:38:12.269 I can't remember the detail of this 00:38:12.269 --> 00:38:14.069 but to get a particular kind of funding 00:38:14.069 --> 00:38:16.429 one of the head teachers was being required 00:38:16.429 --> 00:38:18.729 to set I think it was five priorities 00:38:18.729 --> 00:38:19.649 for the coming year 00:38:19.649 --> 00:38:21.569 now when she dug around in this 00:38:21.569 --> 00:38:25.149 it was really interfering with all of our other systems 00:38:25.149 --> 00:38:26.869 and how she reported to Ofsted 00:38:26.869 --> 00:38:29.109 and the local education authority and all the rest of it. 00:38:29.649 --> 00:38:30.929 And she took these things seriously. 00:38:31.129 --> 00:38:37.889 She didn't just want to generate another couple to comply with a particular policy, 00:38:38.029 --> 00:38:49.733 maybe if this wasn really needed And it turned out that it was just somebody I think in the department somebody in the department view of how this policy should be implemented So there are 00:38:49.733 --> 00:38:57.213 quite powerful effects of individuals, particularly in the central systems, but actually everywhere, 00:38:57.733 --> 00:39:03.933 that I think have really interesting influences in policy that are not very well documented. 00:39:03.933 --> 00:39:08.373 and I guess that's the sort of thing you mean Tim by this 00:39:08.373 --> 00:39:10.753 and I do think that needs a bit more reflection 00:39:10.753 --> 00:39:15.853 and will influence how we actually conceptualise policy 00:39:15.853 --> 00:39:19.353 Not least of all that as well that 00:39:19.353 --> 00:39:22.493 principals' heads may 00:39:22.493 --> 00:39:25.453 for whatever reason, for good measure 00:39:25.453 --> 00:39:30.833 mediate what's told 00:39:30.833 --> 00:39:33.233 to colleagues and to staff 00:39:33.233 --> 00:39:36.553 because we were actually directly asking teachers about policy. 00:39:36.653 --> 00:39:37.873 Where do they get their information? 00:39:38.053 --> 00:39:39.213 How do they access it? 00:39:39.733 --> 00:39:41.353 And a lot of the time it was coming, 00:39:41.873 --> 00:39:45.273 well, we're told certain things. 00:39:45.793 --> 00:39:49.333 So it's partly about how that mediation of policy 00:39:49.333 --> 00:39:51.393 can be a good or a bad thing. 00:39:51.553 --> 00:39:53.313 You know, heads are trying to protect, 00:39:54.413 --> 00:39:58.633 but in the protection they're also denying information 00:39:58.729 --> 00:40:00.689 and communication as well. 00:40:00.849 --> 00:40:02.349 And so teachers are looking elsewhere, 00:40:03.109 --> 00:40:06.309 subject-specific websites, exam boards, 00:40:06.649 --> 00:40:09.529 and they're just as confused. 00:40:10.569 --> 00:40:12.209 And even the students were saying, 00:40:12.329 --> 00:40:16.069 we can see our teachers are as confused as us, 00:40:16.289 --> 00:40:17.609 and sometimes it's really hard, 00:40:17.669 --> 00:40:19.049 and we can see it's hard for them. 00:40:19.529 --> 00:40:22.429 So the difficulty as well is about how policy, I think, 00:40:22.429 --> 00:40:26.469 gets mediated and how protection goes on, 00:40:26.469 --> 00:40:29.509 but it can create a barrier as well. 00:40:30.229 --> 00:40:34.329 There's also the formal and informal aspects of this 00:40:34.329 --> 00:40:37.409 where particularly around the diplomas, 00:40:37.529 --> 00:40:39.869 people were saying at a national level it's obvious, 00:40:40.089 --> 00:40:42.809 everyone's saying these diplomas are going to be implemented. 00:40:43.269 --> 00:40:45.049 Actually we can see there's a political issue there. 00:40:45.529 --> 00:40:49.109 But the policy makers who were involved in implementing this 00:40:49.109 --> 00:40:50.969 were saying between you and me, 00:40:51.889 --> 00:40:53.589 this is where I think this is heading. 00:40:54.049 --> 00:40:56.389 So there are all sorts of informal conversations 00:40:56.389 --> 00:40:58.609 going on around us. It's all sensible 00:40:58.609 --> 00:41:00.569 stuff actually. If you're 00:41:00.569 --> 00:41:02.489 really trying to manage an education system 00:41:02.489 --> 00:41:03.449 you have to look ahead. 00:41:04.349 --> 00:41:06.469 That was quite interesting as well. 00:41:07.909 --> 00:41:15.914 We probably got time for another couple of quick questions before lunch The lady over there just coming to you 00:41:19.594 --> 00:41:21.334 It's not so much a question, really. 00:41:21.394 --> 00:41:22.114 It's an observation. 00:41:22.334 --> 00:41:26.034 My heart sinks every time I hear of another government reshuffle 00:41:26.034 --> 00:41:28.834 and another minister being brought into play. 00:41:29.294 --> 00:41:31.894 Not just in education, across everything. 00:41:32.114 --> 00:41:37.254 You think somebody new coming in, having to get to grips with some work which has or hasn't been done. 00:41:37.254 --> 00:41:39.874 and again a policy which has been put in place, 00:41:40.314 --> 00:41:42.074 and another interpretation of it. 00:41:42.574 --> 00:41:44.654 Is that anything you can comment on? 00:41:48.734 --> 00:41:53.434 I think it's a much more serious problem than that, 00:41:53.474 --> 00:41:55.634 which I think I can best illustrate by an anecdote. 00:41:56.634 --> 00:42:02.634 I was once called in by two Labour ministers to talk to them. 00:42:02.634 --> 00:42:05.494 Well, they asked me to talk to them about apprenticeship, 00:42:05.494 --> 00:42:09.494 but actually they wanted to tell me what they were going to do about apprenticeship. 00:42:09.494 --> 00:42:15.494 And I walked into the room and there was a whole group of young civil servants there. 00:42:15.494 --> 00:42:19.494 I kind of thought, does your mother know you're out doing this? 00:42:19.494 --> 00:42:21.494 And they're sitting there, they're all there. 00:42:21.494 --> 00:42:26.494 They all have ring bound notebooks now, you notice, and they scribble away in those. 00:42:26.494 --> 00:42:28.554 And we were talking and we were talking about the work that we were doing. 00:42:28.650 --> 00:42:33.530 I said, but Minister, surely if you're going to expand the apprenticeship numbers this much, 00:42:33.550 --> 00:42:35.330 you have to get lots more employers on board, 00:42:35.450 --> 00:42:38.170 because apprentices by definition have to be employed. 00:42:38.510 --> 00:42:41.370 Ah, no, no, no, we've got a cunning plan to deal with that. 00:42:41.630 --> 00:42:44.610 A plan so cunning you get a PhD in cunning at Oxford University. 00:42:45.570 --> 00:42:47.490 What we're going to do is we're going to base, 00:42:47.690 --> 00:42:50.470 we develop what we then came to know as programme-led apprenticeship. 00:42:51.250 --> 00:42:52.950 And they described this to me, and I said, 00:42:52.950 --> 00:42:55.710 ah, Minister, you've just reinvented YTS mode B. 00:42:55.710 --> 00:43:00.230 and the total blank look around the room. 00:43:00.450 --> 00:43:01.790 I mean, it's not that long ago, 00:43:02.150 --> 00:43:03.690 but there's no policy memory 00:43:03.690 --> 00:43:07.910 because they moved the civil servants around very, very, very rapidly. 00:43:08.390 --> 00:43:10.810 And, of course, that turnover of ministers 00:43:10.810 --> 00:43:14.570 means that you don't get that sort of depth of knowledge. 00:43:14.570 --> 00:43:18.430 And they're all looking about moving up from the education department 00:43:18.430 --> 00:43:21.650 or they're looking about moving down as they come down through it. 00:43:22.430 --> 00:43:24.490 I have to say, when I go to European countries, 00:43:24.490 --> 00:43:27.590 it seems to be slightly different there, 00:43:27.590 --> 00:43:29.890 where there does seem to be a much longer term view 00:43:29.890 --> 00:43:31.730 about things. 00:43:31.730 --> 00:43:34.870 And the role of the state seems to be much more about 00:43:34.870 --> 00:43:37.530 holding a ring in which the main actors can actually 00:43:37.530 --> 00:43:48.694 negotiate with each other rather than being directly involved in the regulation of the system So the world seems to be slightly different when I look in other countries But I think it incredibly 00:43:48.694 --> 00:43:49.234 disruptive. 00:43:50.774 --> 00:43:52.594 And I think a lot of the things that Tim's 00:43:52.594 --> 00:43:54.514 just talked about, about slow 00:43:54.514 --> 00:43:57.034 accumulation, is an outcome of that 00:43:57.034 --> 00:43:57.554 process. 00:44:00.134 --> 00:44:00.694 Some 00:44:00.694 --> 00:44:03.034 writers are actually talking about 00:44:03.034 --> 00:44:04.614 problems 00:44:04.614 --> 00:44:06.514 with democracy in this regard. 00:44:06.514 --> 00:44:09.554 why do we allow this to happen to our education system? 00:44:09.994 --> 00:44:11.694 Where are our democratic structures 00:44:11.694 --> 00:44:13.934 that actually hold politicians 00:44:13.934 --> 00:44:17.834 to account for the sorts of change 00:44:17.834 --> 00:44:21.514 or quality, you could think of damage in some regards, 00:44:21.514 --> 00:44:24.774 that they have in our education system? 00:44:25.094 --> 00:44:28.734 It really is quite perplexing why we allow this. 00:44:30.834 --> 00:44:32.614 Another question or comment? 00:44:36.514 --> 00:44:46.514 Sorry, just to add to that, young people themselves are very worried about the continuous change that is happening to them. 00:44:46.514 --> 00:44:52.514 And they voice that quite clearly, that why does it have to be us? 00:44:52.514 --> 00:44:58.474 Why does it have to happen while we're in this programme? And also, when we're in the programme, 00:44:58.570 --> 00:45:00.990 mistakes are made, why is it our fault? 00:45:01.970 --> 00:45:04.490 So they very much see that mistakes, 00:45:04.810 --> 00:45:07.410 because there's so much going on, that mistakes are made, 00:45:08.050 --> 00:45:11.650 and that their futures are then affected by that, 00:45:12.090 --> 00:45:14.210 where the fault doesn't lie with them. 00:45:15.210 --> 00:45:17.790 And so they were, you know, why, and these things aren't, 00:45:18.070 --> 00:45:19.590 I mean, we've talked about this, Tim, before, 00:45:19.710 --> 00:45:22.790 you know, these things aren't piloted, they're not tested, 00:45:22.970 --> 00:45:25.070 they're saying, why do we have to get them, 00:45:25.070 --> 00:45:26.510 and then they all go wrong. 00:45:26.510 --> 00:45:28.190 so there's a 00:45:28.190 --> 00:45:31.110 what was my comment 00:45:31.110 --> 00:45:33.650 yeah just a very brief comment 00:45:33.650 --> 00:45:35.650 first an anecdote, my niece 00:45:35.650 --> 00:45:36.450 was actually 00:45:36.450 --> 00:45:39.210 first year of the national curriculum 00:45:39.210 --> 00:45:41.690 then obviously the first year of the 00:45:41.690 --> 00:45:42.930 revised national curriculum 00:45:42.930 --> 00:45:45.230 and then curriculum 2000 00:45:45.230 --> 00:45:47.750 she was the wrong generation 00:45:47.750 --> 00:45:49.470 she did graduate from here with a PhD 00:45:49.470 --> 00:45:50.810 so she was alright 00:45:50.810 --> 00:45:53.550 no I think international comparisons 00:45:53.550 --> 00:45:54.410 are very important here 00:45:54.410 --> 00:45:57.910 It's something I've written about, that in France, for example, 00:45:57.910 --> 00:46:02.910 it is regarded and has been regarded for centuries 00:46:02.910 --> 00:46:05.910 that education is such an important institution, 00:46:05.910 --> 00:46:18.335 it should not be prone to the vicarious movements of the political process By cultural acceptance it is left alone Any change is actually strongly argued for 00:46:18.895 --> 00:46:20.115 widely consulted upon, 00:46:20.635 --> 00:46:22.695 and then implemented with a dirigiste 00:46:22.695 --> 00:46:24.495 eye on hand, but it's 00:46:24.495 --> 00:46:26.595 all done outside the party political 00:46:26.595 --> 00:46:28.355 process over a much longer time frame. 00:46:29.115 --> 00:46:30.535 Germany took ten years 00:46:30.535 --> 00:46:32.255 to examine whether 00:46:32.255 --> 00:46:34.315 modularisation might be possibly 00:46:34.315 --> 00:46:36.715 a vaguely good idea 00:46:36.715 --> 00:46:38.475 in respect to vocational 00:46:38.475 --> 00:46:40.415 education and training. And they did 00:46:40.415 --> 00:46:42.355 very, very thorough international comparisons 00:46:42.355 --> 00:46:44.435 to understand what the implications 00:46:44.435 --> 00:46:46.575 of moving to modularisation would be 00:46:46.575 --> 00:46:48.555 in the context of the German system 00:46:48.555 --> 00:46:49.675 and whether it would disturb 00:46:49.675 --> 00:46:52.655 very detailed historical 00:46:52.655 --> 00:46:54.015 accumulation of incentives 00:46:54.015 --> 00:46:55.935 and drivers for young people. 00:46:56.295 --> 00:46:58.595 And that contrasts absolutely with what we see 00:46:58.595 --> 00:46:59.835 in our culture, I think. 00:47:01.395 --> 00:47:02.395 Any last 00:47:02.395 --> 00:47:03.635 final points? 00:47:06.055 --> 00:47:08.315 Will you join me in thanking the 00:47:08.315 --> 00:47:10.315 panel for their presentation. 00:47:17.655 --> 00:47:21.155 We have got copies of Jeff's presentation. 00:47:21.155 --> 00:47:24.995 We'll make them available as you leave and go for lunch. 00:47:24.995 --> 00:47:28.395 Lunch is served in the dining room.