The NUT Believes That the Labour Party Should

/ THE NUT’S RESPONSE
TO THE LABOUR PARTY REVIEW
OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION
JUNE 2013

NUT RECOMMENDATIONS

Apprenticeships

The NUT believes that the Labour Party should:

incentivise employers’ investment in training, e.g., through the introduction of fiscal measures such as tax credits for those employers who invest in learning and training or through the raising of a training levy to fund employer engagement in 14-19 education; and

establish apprenticeships which are linked to guaranteed employment for all those who successfully complete programmes.

Equality and Diversity: Apprenticeships

The NUT believes that the Labour Party should:

consider how to target under-represented groups to engage with Apprenticeship schemes as soon as possible if apprenticeship rates for the under-24 age group are to improve. The design, content and assessment of a proposed vocational qualification must seek to address equality and diversity issues, especially in progression routes and entry into HigherEducation (HE) and/or employment.

Vocational Education

The NUT believes that the Labour Party should:

develop an integrated 14-19 education system which has, as a first principle, equality of access and an entitlement to a broad and balanced curriculum for all young people. The NUT believes that all qualifications from 14-19 should be part of a unified qualifications framework and system. Young people’s interests are not properly served if there are separate qualification routes with artificial and rigid boundaries between these routes;

ensure that any new vocational courses proposed will have real currency with universities and employers at atime when some young people are being denied access to university places and are facing the reality of high unemployment;

require that all vocational qualifications, through Awarding Bodies, have HE endorsement and employer endorsement, especially at local level;

review the place of vocational education within the overall curriculum and qualifications offered to all learners;

review and reform the English Baccalaureate measure and consider alternative models, such as the Welsh Baccalaureate, as the basis for developing a new English Baccalaureate that establishes an integrated 14-19 systemof education; and

review and evaluate how University Technical Academies relate to other institutions in their locality and whether the intake to these institutions is truly comprehensive.

Youth Unemployment and Cuts to Education and Children’s Services

The NUT believes that the Labour Party should:

reform a welfare model which requires early recipient of benefits to work without a wage;

oppose the use of unpaid internships;

restore maintenance grants for all students and abolish student tuition fees;

ensure that employers invest in education and training for 16-19 year old young people along with Government, schools and colleges, based on equal partnerships, to meet the needs of these young people for whom an occupational or vocational route will be most suited to meet their aspirations;

guarantee a minimum income for all young people when job seeking;

introduce fiscal measures such as tax credits for those employers who are investing in learning and training, or the raising of a training levy, part of which could be used to fund employee activities in 14-19 education.

Information, Advice and Guidance

The NUT believes that the Labour Party shouldfund a proper all age careers service and restore the funding cuts made by local authorities, to establish such a service.

Conclusion

The NUT believes that the Labour Party shouldadopt a unified baccalaureate framework for the whole 14-19 phase that encourages breadth of learning from pre-16, and a broad common offer post-16 that combines both general and vocational specialist routes.

INTRODUCTION

Apprenticeships

The NUT believes that central to any policy on vocational education and apprenticeships there should be a strategy that addresses the high unemployment rate of young people. Young people are more likely to experience unemployment than adults in the current economic crisis which gives this issue great urgency.

The NUT agrees that apprenticeships should be made more widely available. An increase in the supply of apprenticeship places is needed, with apprenticeships to be paid at least the minimum wage, they should lead to guaranteed and high quality employment on completion.

The Labour Party’s Policy Commission paper states that apprenticeships for the under-24 age groups have a poor start-up ratio. If apprenticeships are to be taken up by young people under the age of 19, they should be paid for time spent in the workplace andshould attract the Apprenticeship National Minimum Wage. There is a clear link between apprenticeship completion rates and pay; completion rates increased by 13 per cent between 2004/05 and 2005/06 when the minimum pay rate for apprentices was introduced.

The NUT endorses the principles advocated by the TUC to ensure that high quality apprenticeships are secured. These are that:

apprentices receive an apprentice minimum wage;

apprentices should have contracts of employment for at least the duration of the training period;

apprenticeships should lead to a guaranteed job;

apprenticeship rates should reflect the job done. If an apprentice does a full-time job, they should be paid for it[1];

apprenticeship programmes should include a clear programme of trainingfor the job, including sufficient time spent in colleges, in dedicated training centres, or in the workplace; and

good apprenticeship programmes should include strategies to ensure that apprenticeships are accessible to the widest possible group. Women are under-represented in sectors such as construction and engineering which tend to have better pay and prospects than sectors such as hairdressing and early years care that are predominantly female and attract lower pay rates and progression opportunities.

The NUT, therefore, believes that the Labour Party should:

incentivise employers’ investment in training e.g., through the introduction of fiscal measures such as tax credits for those employers who invest in learning and training or through the raising of a training levy to fund employer engagement in 14-19 education; and

establish apprenticeships which are linked to guaranteed employment for all those who successfully complete programmes.

Equality and Diversity: Apprenticeships

Recent research by UnionLearn (2011) shows that occupations in the highest paid apprenticeships tend to have a much lower ratio of female apprentices[2]. As well as driving up participation across the board, equality and diversity issues in these programmes must be addressed.

The proportion of young people aged 18-24 from black and minority ethnic communities in the general population was 14 per cent in 2007/08, but the latest Government figures show a significant level of under-representation in Apprenticeship schemes with only nine per cent of young black workers in apprenticeships. Significant investment of time was invested by the EOC, gender experts and by employers and it is vital that the recommendations in the EOC report about gender stereotypes and apprenticeships are needed.

Evidence from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) also suggests that disabled young people are not receiving information about opportunities in work-based learning and apprenticeships[3]. Access to apprenticeships for people declaring a learning difficulty and/or disability has fallen from 11.5 per cent in 2005/06 to eight per cent in 2010/11[4].

The Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) carried out research into apprenticeships and gender segregation in 2001 and all the recommendations remain valid and proportionate.

Specific strategies are needed to ensure apprenticeships are used as a route which can combat stereotypes and provide fairer access to all parts of the labour market.

The NUT believes that the Labour Party should:

consider how to target under-represented groups to engage with Apprenticeship schemes as soon as possible if apprenticeship rates for the under-24 age group are to improve. The design, content and assessment of a proposed vocational qualification must seek to address equality and diversity issues, especially in progression routes and entry into HigherEducation (HE) and/or employment.

Vocational Education

The NUT believes that there should be an integrated 14-19 education system that, as a first principle,must have equality of access and entitlement to a broad and balanced curriculum for all young people.

The NUT is opposed to young people being required to make unnecessary and constricting choices in regard to their aspiration. Given that there are few careers or jobs for life, a decision taken too early in a learning journey could be the wrong decision and may disadvantage a person though life. Deciding on a vocational route at the age of 14 whether at a UTC or a studio school,may adversely affect the opportunities of young people.

Ensure that vocational qualifications do not mirror academic qualifications – this will limit the progress many learners can make between GCSEs and post-16 education. Practical and vocational qualifications involving an increased amount of external assessment will leave some learners adrift in the 14-19 education system.

Schools offering a broader curriculum to meet the needs of young people give more effective support to those young people at risk of permanent exclusion[5]. The research undertaken by the IOE and NFER shows that those schools broadening their curriculum offeringonsite vocational provision helped those young people in danger of becoming disengaged and becoming permanently excluded.

The NUT believes that the Labour Party should put on hold the development of a separate Technical Baccalaureate. Pushing young people into specific pathways at the age of 14 through a highly differentiated qualification risks closing down progression routes at a time when the economy is fast changing. We need to support the development of recognised and wide transferable skills that keep young people’s options open.

The NUT believes that the pupil premium should be ring fenced at school level and that as a general principle it should take into account the widest possible indicator of deprivation to define recipients of the pupil premium. Funding should have been allocated on the basis of pupil, school, or community needs rather than as a proportion of a fixed sum specified arbitrarily.

The Government’s focus on facilitating subjects in performance measures are threatening a broad curriculum offer in sixth form colleges. Seventy-one per cent of NUT sixth form college members recently surveyed indicated that because vocational qualifications will have less weight in performance measures, they are being squeezed out of the curriculum. This will only serve to narrow the curriculum offer for young people in the 14-19 age range.

The NUT has always emphasised, therefore, that all qualification routes should be designed according to content, not by whether they fit into ‘pathways’. All pupils should have access to vocational learning, as well as the arts, humanities, science and technology and modern foreign languages.

It is important that pupils have access to vocational learning as well as the arts, humanities, science and technology and modern languages. This is crucial since subjects such as the humanities, arts, MFL and Design and Technology are no longer statutory after Key Stage 4. The English Baccalaureate measure will do little to deliver access to a broad and balanced curriculum for young people.

With the removal of the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA), many young people will struggle to stay on in education past the age of 16. The EMA helped to pay for course costs, lunch, travel to and from college or sixth form, and for other essentials. Many lower and middle income families are not able to fill the financial gap that scrapping the EMA has created. Many young people from disadvantaged backgrounds depend on these allowances to continue their education and training courses. Social mobility and wider access to education and training must be a principle that steers all Government education policies.

The NUT therefore believes that the Labour Party should:

develop an integrated 14-19 education system which has, as a first principle, equality of access and an entitlement to a broad and balanced curriculum for all young people. The NUT believes that all qualifications from 14-19 should be part of a unified qualifications framework and system. Young people’s interests are not properly served if there are separate qualification routes with artificial and rigid boundaries between these routes;

ensure that any new vocational courses proposed will have real currency with universities and employers at atime when some young people are being denied access to university places and are facing the reality of high unemployment;

re-introduce the Education Maintenance Allowances (EMAs);

put on hold the development of a separate Technical Baccalaureate;

require that all vocational qualifications, through Awarding Bodies, have HE endorsement and employer endorsement, especially at local level;

review the place of vocational education within the overall curriculum and qualifications offered to all learners;

ensure that vocational qualifications do not mirror academic qualifications;

review and reform the English Baccalaureate measure, and consider alternative models such as the Welsh Baccalaureate, as the basis for developing a new English Baccalaureate that establishes an integrated 14-19 systemof education; and

review and evaluate how University Technical Academies relate to other institutions in their locality and whether the intake to these institutions is truly comprehensive.

It is essential to ensure that core literacy, numeracy, ICT, science and wider skills are embedded into all 14-19 programmes. Such skills involve general aptitudes that can provide a basis for the development of specific occupational skills at work. Indeed, all young people should have the opportunity to develop skills which are of benefit to their adult lives. All young people need the wider skills which will enable them to play a full part in society outside the world of work.

Youth Unemployment and Cuts to Education and Children’s Services

The cost of young unemployment is as much as £100million per month. It is almost as expensive to keep a young person out of work as it is to create a job for them. Fifty-five million pounds is needed to ensure that every young person leaving school in Year 11 has the option of a place in education.

The recent slowdown in UK growth has underlined the damage done by public sector cuts. Public sector cuts simply take spending power out of the economy at a time when demand is at a premium. Investing in high quality education is essential to the UK economy, yet the Government is reducing education spending in real terms even as it refuses to make the financial sector contribute to repairing the economic damage it caused.

In the United Kingdom there are continuing high levels of youth unemployment, especially in areas of social deprivation and among the most disadvantaged young people, including those from ethnic minority groups. In the UK, nearly one in five young people are not in full time education. A particularly worrying aspect of this trend is the number of graduates out of work in the UK. Some studies suggest 15 per cent of graduates under24, and 20 per cent of new graduates. Also, social mobility has declined and though the number of professional management jobs continues to grow, there are not enough people qualified to do them. At the other end of the labour market in the UK, there is a large increase in low paid, unskilled work in areas such as retail, catering and the care industries.

The NUT is concerned particularly that existing income inequalities will be exacerbated as access to education becomes increasingly reliant on the ability to pay for participation in higher and further education. Youth employment programmes must also reflect strategies that include under-represented groups such as ethnic minorities.

Young people who leave school with no qualifications, without experience of work, or who have difficult family circumstances, should have alternative provision,such as training and work opportunities made available to them. Thousands of young people are leaving education without being able to find a job, or a job relevant to their qualifications, with more than 150,000 school and college leavers being unable to obtain a place at university despite many students achieving maximum grades. If youth disaffection and youth offending increases, this will involve significant costs to the taxpayer, so investing to present this is a sensible policy choice.

If the 50 per cent target of young people attending higher education is dropped, then opportunities to whole groups of students will be restricted. The raising of tuition fees has impactedimmediately on university access to working class students and BMEstudents in a negative manner. Education is the major factor in social mobility. Raising tuition fees has resulted in a decrease rather than increases in social mobility.

The cohort of young graduates who are ‘overqualified’ and ‘under employed’ is growing. The number of jobs in the UK requiring a degree has overtaken the number of graduates available for employment. It is vital that employers invest in education and training for 16-19 young people.

Youth unemployment is not just a ‘supply’ problem with young people not having the right education, skills or aptitude. The changing nature of the economy, and in particular the decline of manufacturing, means employers do not create ‘youth jobs’ in the way they used to. In the UK, in a service economy, where the growth of part-time flexible employment is increasingly apparent, young people face greater competition as employers look for applicants with experience. The recession in the UK has accentuated youth joblessness, but it is not the cause of it.

The NUT, therefore, believes that the Labour Party should:

reform a welfare model which requires early recipient of benefits to work without a wage as well;

oppose the use of unpaid internships;

restore maintenance grants for all students and abolish student tuition fees;

ensure that employers invest in education and training for 16-19 year old young people along with Government, schools and colleges, based on equal partnerships, to meet the needs of these young people for whom an occupational or vocational route will be most suited to meet their aspirations;

guarantee a minimum income for all young people when job seeking which represents a dignified living wage;

introduce fiscal measures such as tax credits for those employers who are investing in learning and training, or the raising of a training levy, part of which could be used to fund employee activities in 14-19 education; and

Information, Advice and Guidance