Universities are not the only route

Legislation alone will not level the playing field between how academic and vocational education are presented to teenagers. What is needed is high-quality careers education, and teachers who are confident to discuss modern employment with young people.

Education Secretary, Rt Hon Nicky Morgan MP, wishes to bring in a law to compel schools to give as much time to promoting vocational as academic routes. She hopes that new legislation will address the “outdated snobbery” towards apprenticeships of a “minority” of schools.

The Secretary of State’s goal is a desirable one, but the underlying prejudice she wishes to address is so deeply rooted and pervasive in our educational system and wider culture that it is hard to conceive how a new law alone will help. It would also be surprising if this phenomenon was limited to a small proportion of schools, as her comments suggest.

The problem with legislation is that it can only set out a minimum requirement and hence too often misses a higher aspiration and fails to captures the spirit of the idea. Look at what happened to careers education in England when the Coalition Government decided to confer a statutory duty on schools, shortly after it came into office. Despite a consensus that something needed to be done, the new laws led to careers information, advice and guidance going into a tailspin. There is a widely held view that school careers provision is now weaker than ever.  

UK schools are not currently set up to do careers work well, though we believe they could and should if they had access to adequate resources and expertise.  We have been strong advocates for better career advice; in Social Mobility and the Engineering Profession, we recommended that: “The government should compel its careers and enterprise company to source, promote and record industry placements for teachers alongside meaningful work experience for pupils.”

Though teachers are seen by pupils as knowledgeable about jobs and training, the reality is that, apart from their own career path, a typical teacher will have very limited insights into the breadth of modern work and training opportunities. This is no criticism of the profession – teachers have enough to do. But it does mean that, with the exception of the school-university-profession route, secondary teachers know little about a range of academic options and less still about technical and professional routes.

The Institution continues to fund and advocate the Teacher Industrial Partners’ Scheme which places STEM teachers in modern industry for two weeks so they get to know how a company works. These ten day placements provide a unique and, according to many, professionally life-changing experience. Equipping teachers with knowledge to explore the academic and vocational career paths must surely be the first step in delivering the policy which has wide support through industry, academia and education.

Schools remain accountable for getting as many pupils as possible over the academic hurdles towards university. Though there are new accountability measures in England, these still focus on metrics surrounding academic examinations. They therefore do little to encourage school leaders to implement comprehensive careers programmes that place apprenticeships alongside academia. 

If the Secretary of State is looking to level the playing field between academic and technical futures, she must start with up-skilling and training teachers to help deliver her aims rather than considering punitive legislation against them.