Something sensible suggested at last?

The proposals that may be emerging from the review of the national curriculum in respect of Key Stages 3 and 4 look as if, for once, the coalition may be about to do something sensible for education. Tim Oates, director of research at the Cambridge Assessment exam board and chair of Gove's 'expert panel' set up to review the national curriculum has proposed that those students who are less academic could be offered vocational-focused education, leading to an apprenticeship. The figure of 40% of students has been suggested, with vocational lessons starting as early as Year 7.

Now, this is either inspired thinking or it's a return to the sixties - or perhaps it's both. The difference is that, in the 1960s, government policy was always aimed at full employment - which meant an unemployment rate of around 3%. That policy was abandoned by Thatcher and has not returned, even under Labour. Look at it from the fat-cat perspective; high unemployment brings wage costs down and drives profits up.  However, let's go back to this wheeze of Oates's. It has got to make a lot of sense, to provide an education that best meets the needs of the students. Nearly 20 years ago I visited Kernahan High (now Kernahan Park High) School in Niagara, Ontario. This is a school where traditional academic subjects have given way to a whole range of trade-based skills  and it works really well. The School Board support it and the kids service the Board vehicles, cater Board events, maintain Board gardens and fund it all by building a house on the estate each year.

Perhaps this was the kind of thing Oates had in mind when he expressed the view in an interview with the Telegraph that  'England risks being left behind other developed nations because the country fails to offer students the chance to go down a “rigorous vocational route” at the end of secondary education'.  There, it's that international comparison element again.

The Coalition has long condemned Labour's vocational diplomas as too complicated - but then they did not have a lot of chance to get going before the Gove axe fell. Maybe, just maybe, this proposal is a good plan that might just benefit our young people and reduce the chance of their becoming NEETs. However, a generation of apprenticeship-ready young people need a thriving and growing economy in which apprenticeships will flourish - and there doesn't seem to be happening any time soon!