The last government set up T levels. Equivalent to 3 A levels they provide a good education and training in a specific area equipping someone for a job. The current system also requires young people who fail at GCSE maths and English to retake when commencing further study.
This government says it wishes to simplify the BTec work based training certificates and wants to introduce a V Level. Equivalent to one A level, this would provide a general background to careers like engineering, digital or electrical but would require the individual to then undertake an apprenticeship or other vocational training before being ready for the job. They also wish to introduce some different test for English and maths to avoid the need for a resit of GCSE.
I am glad the government wants to improve the chances of young people to get the new jobs emerging in digital, in construction, in energy and the other areas attracting substantial public and private investment. The issue is will these particular changes achieve that progress? The government argument for the V level rather than the T level is many young people at 16 do not know what they want to to do so they do not wish to commit to a vocational course geared directly to a particular skilled job. Maybe they should. Their own careers would advance more quickly if they did, get them into decent pay earlier. If they had made a mistake they can change at a later date.
The issue of a different qualification for Maths and English is also complex. To do many of the skilled jobs that follow people will need a basic competence in Maths and English. Failing particular GCSE s should not bar people from other education and training, but the educators do need to find a way of assuring themselves that the person going on to a new level has sufficient basic skills to be able to read course materials, write replies and undertake calculations sufficient for the task. The current options include Functional Skills level 2 as an alternative to GCSE. How will any new alternative compare to this? Will it ensure sufficient competence to give the young person a decent chance of making a success of A or V level?
I remain to be persuaded about the new V levels. I note that in modern universities that succeed there is much more stress on obtaining work experience and striving to find links between the academic world and the world of work. 16-18 education also needs to be rich in building those links. It would be good if more 18 year olds emerged fully trained and ready to take a skilled job.
October 21, 2025
Much to be said for many people getting a job at 15 or 16 and doing further training on day release or night school as so many did in the past. About 75% of “UNIVERSITY” degrees in the UK almost worthless and often in almost worthless subjects and certainly not worth the £50K of student debt, interest and three years loss of earning and other experience alternative.
If people get to 16 and cannot pass O level maths (you need very little just to pass) it is over too late. But when working on a job you perhaps realise why you might need to work out how many tiles, bricks, tins of paint, length of cable needed. This can then encourage these skills.
One other thing that has changed by the time I was 18 I had already had many jobs gardening, fixing TVs, a bakery, hotel work, Woolworths, newspaper deliveries, dog walking, a band, tutoring in maths and physics… My sisters had also worked in cafe’s and hotels and selling ice cream. So many now even my own children had done very little by 18 often legislation get in the way and it is not worth all the red tape for the employer.
Currently about 58% of undergraduates are female and only 42% male. One reason for this is that it is on average is can be far cheaper for women as they are far less likely to have to repay their loans due to career breaks. lower pay (often related to subject chosen) and more part time working. There is also a huge disparity in subjects some like Physics, Engineering, computer programming are circa 80% male and others like modern languages, nursing up to 80% female.
October 21, 2025
Often too late rather.
A good discussion between you and the rather deluded on all topics Steven Pound on the tax system. We have an absurdly complex tax system creating many parasitic jobs in compliance. Even advisors make many mistakes and even Rayner could not get it right! The HMRC service is appalling complexity is another tax on top of the actual taxes. They often hang up before you get through and rarely bother to reply to letters! Or reply but fail to address the issue raised.
October 21, 2025
Rayner was surely doing he best to get it right given her position!
October 21, 2025
No she was not doing her best, rather she assumed, not unreasonably it is true, that she was in the clear and failed to check with a lawyer until well after the event.
October 21, 2025
@Lifelogic – I too believe the system is made(made) to complex. It started with the extra layers to compensate that they forgot would also be trapped, now it has morphed in to a multiplexity high administration cost system. Now it gives the appearance of a Catch22 system that its administrative cost consume much of the perceived gains.
We mustn’t forget this is Labour that has taken up the banner call. Tax is just as much about bigotry, creating a divide were none previously existed just to satisfy personal political ideology. The real purpose of tax, the funding of infrastructure, our security etc has been lost in a ‘Fog’ of obscuration
October 21, 2025
The more complex it is the more they can fine you for delays and mistakes but they more you have to spend on accountants, tax planners, lawyers… Endless jobs for unproductive workers.
October 21, 2025
Once upon a rime I remember a thriving world of polytechnics where students learned new skills on day re;ease, full time or at night school. One I visited was absolutely buzzing with activity as the students of the day got to grips with the then emerging world of ICs and electronics – before word processors and spreadsheets were invented. Back then they had jobs to go to. But today?
October 21, 2025
Agree ….we don’t need new T or V qualifications, we need new technical colleges and polytechnics employing ex-tradesman to teach
October 21, 2025
Unitechnics.
October 21, 2025
I did a traditional apprenticeship from the age of 15 at Rolls Royce. This gave me skills to work anywhere in the world, retiring aged 72.
Todays youngsters should be looking to train in traditional skills which AI cannot do. Fitters,plumbers, electricians etc will become the masters of the universe without being saddled with enormous debt and a useless degree.
It’s laughable that Milibrain wants to class electricians and plumbers as green jobs because his prediction of thousands of well paid jobs in the subsidy scam are alk in China. Can no one rid us of this imbecile.
October 21, 2025
Too many tradesmen and women don’t want to take on an apprentice nowadays unless they’re family, because they can be too much trouble and expense. I agree with you but you’d have to ask tradespeople what it would take for them to take on a stranger and an apprentice employee.
October 22, 2025
Indeed loads of red tape and risk of employment tribunal and other legal claims!
October 21, 2025
I agree that ‘holiday jobs’, ‘weekend jobs’ and even working-for-pocket money jobs from a young age instills the idea that you can get something for yourself by your own effort. It also highlights why you need to be able to calculate, communicate and manage your time and reputation.
Trying a huge variety of tasks gives you a clue as to what you are good at (and therefore enjoy) and what you are bad at.
I find it hard to comprehend why there should be so many variants in qualifications in basic subjects. Does anyone know what a person with GCSE as opposed to V, T etc in maths means? We don’t need such fine differentials in basic subjects.
Choosing the ‘wrong’ career is never fatal, we all change and refine all through life as the market demands.
Choosing is critical. Plump for something. Get used to making decisions and changing them as required. But that possibility is only open to those with basic education.
October 21, 2025
When I worked as a teenager, age 13 to 16, I didn’t need a permit from the Council. The workplace didn’t have to go through the checks, each Council area has its own set of bylaws. I didn’t only have to do light work, nor was I restricted to 25 hours per week in the holidays.
October 21, 2025
@Lifelogic – the basic point of reference would be PPE, its an interpreted prancing around for some to get away from home. With today’s needs, for our tomorrow STEM degrees should get higher recognition. Universities with a higher percentage of STEM courses should receive additional funding. Basic education facilities that fully prepare candidates for STEM courses should get more funding and assistance (Mind you were would you find the Teachers?)
That is not to denigrate completely alternative interpretive courses, more to highlight what the country needs
October 21, 2025
A lot of interesting comments in your post today Lifelogic, many of which I agree with.
I failed the 11 plus (but was good at football and all sports), so Secondary school education, paper round, part time petrol pump attendant, all whilst at school.
Stayed on for an extra year to complete RSA Group technical Certificate (Maths, Applied Maths, English Language, Technical Drawing, Physics.) no GCE’s taken.
Completed a fully indentured 5 year engineering apprenticeship in the motor manufacturing Industry, with Day release and Night school at Technical college (now a University) ending up with HNC in Production engineering.
All secondary school tuition based on what you would require to earn a living and survive in a competitive World.
Options were simple, as were choices, there was no Benefits system for those who left school and did not work.
If kids did not work, then parents had to support them !
In my leaving year all pupils gained employment or further workplace training of one sort or another, no one from my School went to University, or even expected to.
Result you had to work to survive, and I have done reasonably well, as did many others of my generation !
We now seem to have lost that work ethic by pandering to peoples feelings, and rewarding them for not working !
October 21, 2025
GREAT comment.
October 21, 2025
I agree with you, Alan. Now, lads are put on courses like animal care in colleges with no jobs at the end of them, and no one is ready to hire them; they’re basically unpaid lackeys for two years cleaning out stables if they like horses.
I think a review should be done first before any new changes, to determine how successful each T-level course has been by examining outcomes from the last ten years of trainees in each of the twenty topics. I’d particularly like to know how many of those doing unpaid courses in health and healthcare science end up working in care or the NHS.
October 21, 2025
How money and change works and an analogue clock. Seriously, shop assistants no longer know what change to give you if the bill is £6.30 and you give them £10 and 30p in coins, they can’t calculate in their heads what to give you.
October 21, 2025
GREAT comment.
October 21, 2025
Ed M
I was fortunate to have inspiring male teachers, most of whom had served previously in the armed forces, they had seen life, and you did not mess about in their classes, you called them Sir or Mr, and they called you by your surname, they were not your mates !
A good headmaster then made a good school, simple fact of life.
October 21, 2025
I only had one great teacher at school. English A’ Level. And you didn’t mess with him either.
I’m glad I had him. For me English (compreshension and how to write) some Maths, and a course on how to think logically is all I and most people need (unless you want to become a doctor or engineer etc). And maybe a more general subject where you learn the essentials of history, geography and science, combined (language a complete waste of time. I learned more Spanish in the bars of Spain than I did in Spanish A’ Level).
And for the rest of the time, do lots of sport, try art and things like that, do the school army corps, try some coding. And for many, it should be about leaving school at 16 instead of 18. And 75% less going on to university.
And for kids, after school, do something fun, yes, like travel and work abroad for a year, but then settle down to a job, earn money, and try and get on the housing ladder without wasting lots of money on useless education.
October 21, 2025
They need to change the name ‘nurse’ to make it more inclusive. Since plenty of men train as paramedics, they could use ‘ward medic.’
They need to return to training 16-year-olds of both sexes in NHS hospitals. This program includes day release for earning NVQs in care and health. The brightest students can progress to degree-level training from age 18, attending university two days per week over a five-year period, lower annual tuition loan. Stop letting the unions tell us we need to import staff from abroad, the others training right up to level four just under degree, aim for 50/50 men and women.
October 21, 2025
a-tracy
Never understood why our training of Nurses and Doctors has such restricted numbers (training Places) when we then have to steal such people from other countries (with different training methods/standards and even a different language) to come and work here.
We should offer to train good UK applicants for free, with a contract that means they have to work for the NHS for a minimum of 10 years, then if they do not fulfil that work commitment, then they pay for their training.
Our Armed forces offer a similar contract to the above, so it’s hardly new thinking.
October 23, 2025
I don’t think it’s because Brits won’t do the work; we have adequately trained nursing staff for years. I honestly think it’s now a plan to facilitate easy movement from abroad. NHS-provided care is now mainly for recently arrived men and women, while private care seems to be mainly for British people of all races. It’s the easiest way to get a visa.
October 21, 2025
More vocational training is a good thing, if it’s done for the benefit of the employer & employee and not the certifying bodies and training organisations that are eager to butt in to that process.
We should also cut back on university places for bloated/downgraded/useless degrees, as vocational alternatives emerge. We should rank many vocational qualifications as undergraduate/Masters equivalent where possible, to degrade the degree’s cachet.
Why force people to retake the English and maths GCSE? If employers want them, they will be incorporated in the vocational packages. If they are not needed for the vocation, they can wait until the person wants to enter a vocation where they are needed.
October 21, 2025
Sir John, good morning.
I have said it before and I am sure I will say it again, we had a very good education, yes education system long before politicians got involved.
Different people have different skills and this one fact should be the basis for any education system.
The academically skilled need to be pushed to achieve their potential and thus, grammar schools are required. It is true, some very bright people have great practical skills too and thus, technical Schools are required.
Some people have very little academic bent but, they need a good standard of education which focuses on basic every day skills that will get them through life. Reading, writing and arithmetic, the skills you need to work out which is the best value of two differently priced items, how to work out what two train tickets will cost, what direction a road sign is telling you to use to get to Bracknell etc.
Unsuitable education causes kids to become disinterested in learning and one size fits all, doesn’t work for anyone.
Not everyone wins prizes, some will, some won’t but, people need the chance to excel and to be the best they can be.
We once had a world class education system, now political correctness has ruined it and turned it from an education system, into an indoctrination system.
Not everything in the past was bad.
October 21, 2025
The constant desire to change the foundation of education by renaming levels of achievement are somewhat counterproductive. The employers want a person they can trust, someone who is capable of training up to do the job. They want to be sure the accreditations being presented actually mean something and are not simply an automatic certificate handed out because the student attended the course.
The changes to the previously well understood levels, has not served us well. We used to have GCEs, CSEs, then GCSEs O levels, A levels, Craft courses, Technical courses, B techs, Nationals, along with career specific accreditations during training. Then came T levels and now we are getting V levels to replicate GCSEs/A levels.
The uncomfortable truth is education is completely impacted by the quality of the teacher/lecturer. The endless changes dreamed up to gauge/define the students level of competence is necessary, but inspiring the student to achieve is the key. That is what good teachers/lecturers do.
Sadly we now have the unfortunate situation where some of our university courses have become degraded. Degrees are being awarded that are nothing more that attendance certificates, degrees of questionable value.
The internet is thankfully available to rescue those who are failing or flailing around looking for their direction in life. The wider interactions the net provides, is also able to correct some of the bias present in our education systems. That opportunity will hopefully generate more balanced adults. We can but hope
Sadly it isn’t all positive influence on the net either…..
October 21, 2025
So Chris Whitty finally admits Covid Rules were too strict. But still absurdly claimed that had schools not been closed in England from March 20, the pandemic would have been “significantly worse”.
This is clearly nonsense (as was quite clear at the time – to sensible and honest scientists). The best any lock down could do was to delay by a few months deaths of some elderly or ill people. Keeping the schools open would have caused many more & earlier natural vaccinations of the young which would have been a net good.
Also it is clear the artificial manufactured vaccines (as was clear even from the trial data) did net harm. So £400Bn spend doing net harm – well done Whitty, Boris, Sunak…
It not why not get the NHS and ONS to release death and illness figure by covid vaccine status and prove this wrong instead of hiding it?
October 21, 2025
It seems to me they are over-complicating the “Prizes for All” qualifications system.
I don’t understand how a child can go through 11/12 years of formal Education and not emerge with BASIC competence in English and Maths (basically arithmetic). If they and their teachers have failed so spectacularly over that period of time I very much doubt that a further 2 years and the prospect of a new Prize is going to make a scrap of difference to their actual abilities.
October 21, 2025
I agree, Donna. Let’s investigate why kids are failing what should be an easy pass after 11/12 years of formal education, doing English and Maths every week.
How many fail in each school?
Were they born here or entered our education system late?
Should they just do English and Maths topics if they enter late and leave other subjects until they are competent?
If they’re not capable by 16 they’re not going to suddenly fix that by 18, it was one big policy of Sunak I completely disagreed with. Much better to give them a life skills qualification in being able to work out their tax and tax bandings, national insurance, sizing up walls for pain, sizing up floors for flooring, learning about cooking temperatures in maths, etc., % of how much of the council tax they pay goes to each function of the local council, % of how much of the taxes they pay go to each service in the country, functional mathematics they’ll use every year of their life.
October 22, 2025
The schools we had in Victorian times inculcated those basic skills by age 14. Children were taught how to calculate in multiple number bases to handle weights and measures and currency calculations.
Learning by rote and drill ensured that even the dullest minds managed.
October 21, 2025
Another load of pointless tinkering. Young people here will not be getting jobs all the time millions of immigrants continue to arrive (legally or illegally)
October 21, 2025
Meanwhile, the over-educated lunatics in the Establishment are destroying the country with the Net Zero nonsense, so the Prizes for All qualifications they’re dreaming up for young people are pointless.
“Windless Week Leaves Britain Totally Dependent on Imported Electricity. From Sunday through to Friday, wind power was only running at an average of below 2 GW, which is around 7% of demand and, coincidentally, also 7% of its potential capacity:”
https://dailysceptic.org/2025/10/21/windless-week-leaves-britain-totally-dependent-on-imported-electricity/
October 21, 2025
As at 12:00hrs we’re importing via europe interconnoctor 20% of electrcity …..Amount of imported Biomass and LPG unknown
October 21, 2025
We need a qualification in work ethic and realistic expectations.
Turn out literate, computer savvy pupils who can add and subtract and who do not think the world owes them a living.
October 21, 2025
@ Narrow Shulders – It is much worse than you suggest I think, for it is not that young people “… think the world owes them a living rather that they have become convinced (with cause) that the world cannot now offer them a living.
October 21, 2025
I remain to be convinced that very much was wrong with the education system in circa 1968. Perhaps better Technical schools post 16 were needed, and more university focus on tech rather than humanities, but that’s about it. The system that led to the country being relatively well positioned in the 80s and 90s.
October 21, 2025
The other big mistake was the move away from vocational & technical qualifactions to academic ….vocational nurses to academic degree nurses, and police with academic degree
October 21, 2025
I haven’t been following the changes in this area closely but clearly the best route is one that combines on the job experience with technical studies. I was chatting to the young ‘heating engineer’ who was helping install our new (gas) boiler a little while ago. He enjoyed the job (and pay) and although not very academic (to use his words) realised that he needed the technical qualifications and liked that his Boss helped him with his studies too. He was nearly at the end of a three year apprenticeship and was going to stay with the company once qualified. No debt and a well paid job that he knew & liked. I’m sure his Boss was happy with the deal too, I would have been.
What a contrast to someone going to University, coming out ‘educated’ but not neccessarily ‘trained’ and with a pile of debt and no guarenteed job. Let’s halve the number of Uni’s, focus on the good ones and fire up our Tech Colleges..maybe we could start earning our living as a Nation again..
October 21, 2025
I am sceptical of the Functional Skills Level 2 alternative to GCSEs. How can anyone not pass Maths and English GCSE if they have adequate teaching and they apply themselves?
There is a famous case in Garfield High School, California in the early 1980s (link below, ‘National Attention’ segment). A new calculus teacher arrived to teach a new intake of apathetic, rebellious and gang inspired Latino teenagers. It was an impossible task yet he got every one of them to pass calculus. It bucked the trend and the US schooling system investigated him and them for cheating. The pupils had to resit the exam. They all passed again. The teacher then went on to successively pass every student in every subsequent year achieving record top results too. The teacher then went on to work for NASA. How did he achieve this? It was by correctly impressing upon the pupils that every one of them can pass this calculus exam irrespective of poverty, violence and troubled family life but they need to apply themselves and he will provide the extra help where needed.
Why don’t teachers in State Schools adopt this approach and thereby get every pupil in Britain to pass GCSE Maths and English because the above proves every non-mentally-disabled pupil can.
We do not need Functional Skills Level 2. We need to teach the kids well, inspire them, help the weaker ones and encourage them all to apply themselves:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaime_Escalante
October 21, 2025
Paul F
Perhaps it is the “sillybus” that is the problem with Government rules as to what should be taught.
What should be the end goal of education ?
Why do teachers need extra term days off every year to prepare for the new “sillybus”
2+2 has always been 4 and always will be (unless your are Madam Reeves)
History is history, but I suppose it depends how you write and record it. !
October 21, 2025
Maybe we need a higher standard of teachers Alan
October 23, 2025
Alan, they need to do extra training now in special education needs, new safeguarding rules, and meeting reporting standards; those days are rarely for curriculum changes other than incorporating new changes that governments throw in each year.
October 21, 2025
https://northumbria-pcc.gov.uk/new-migrant-myth-busters-leaflet-launched-to-tackle-misinformation-and-rising-hate-crime/
Is anything in this “misinformation” leaflet publication true. Do the people composing it know it is not true but are lying or are they daft enough to actually think it is? Should my taxes pay for this propaganda?
October 21, 2025
More direct link
https://northumbria-pcc.gov.uk/v3/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Myth-Busting-Migration-Facts-FINAL.pdf
October 21, 2025
Basic competence in Maths wouldn’t get you past go for careers like engineering, digital or electrical. The UK educational system no longer accommodates learning and in particular learning maths.
The hold back is not additional training, but being taught how to learn in the first place. The need is for basic education to catch up before worrying about the ‘skill’. Our future generation is held back, meaning the dire need to catch up starts out harder.
October 21, 2025
The Vocational levels are I understand intended to offer courses for students not suited to T Levels’ intensity, support flexible progression to jobs, apprenticeships, or university and aim to reduce NEET rates and widen access. Prima facie the proposal seems reasonable.
I am very much more in favour of this development than Sunak’s damaging baccalaureate notions.
It is disconcerting that 37 per cent. (per data from 2022-2023) of school students have not achieved at least a grade 4/C in both GCSE English and mathematics by the end of their Key Stage 5 studies (typically age 19). What do they spend their time doing in school now, why are professional educators content to run a system that delivers such poor outcomes?
October 21, 2025
They should look at Michaela and focus on fewer subjects, placing more importance on the essentials.
October 21, 2025
OFT – today but continuing the previous days subjects. From the MSM
“The Foreign Office’s top civil servant described China as “essential” to Labour’s growth plan
Sir Keir Starmer’s government has been doggedly pursuing Chinese investment as part of its election manifesto pledge to “kickstart economic growth” and bring about a “decade of national renewal”.
I personally read that to mean this government will feed the Chinese machine with UK Taxpayer funds at the expense of ensuring the UK has a future and develop business and wealth.
A lot of what is called an investment in the UK turns out to be the UK People funding someone else’s lifestyle at the expense of their own. Countries that have protective barriers to trade such as China, the EU and India, do not reciprocate they just take. Their so-called investment is the setting up of an income stream that will pay tax and contribute to their own ‘home’ markets, at the expense of the UK’s. Buying from these Countries is not ‘cheap’ it is actually the most expensive source of everything.
It’s not a two-way street, and a minnow like the UK is abused and stripped every time.
October 21, 2025
And yet our government is in love with china ….we’re about to give them control of the chagos islands and therefore the indian ocean
And you’re correct, for every chinese EV bought in the UK, is a lost manufacturing job in the UK
October 21, 2025
+1
October 21, 2025
1. The current education system does not fire up teenagers who are more influenced by social media outside than inside school.
2. Unless you or have parents motivated to achieve and better your life the default rely on the state will be used especially when it’s seen as low hanging fruit.
3. Employers cannot afford to train unproven achievers.
4. University degree = Debts huge barrier for start in life.
5. SME s are being driven out by Labour, Health and Safety and other bureaucratic means so reluctant to employ teens, especially when minimum wage involved.
6. Teens don’t want to do jobs often done by immigrants (as the shocked MP Frank Field observed years ago) so miss out on key link for work experience.
I could go on but getting a V level would be regarded as a joke among streetwise teens and just another gimmick sadly. It is a diversion to the fact that Education under Labour and woke culture is not working and you ultimately end up with the Oxford Union debacle and teens unfit for work or further education.
October 21, 2025
@Ukret123 – “University degree = Debts huge barrier for start in life.” enlightened employers will pay that debt for them if the degree was real and worth having. Degrees no longer demonstrate an ability to learn making them suitable for all fields, to many now are just a personal interpreted view of the Teacher
October 21, 2025
England expects every man to do his duty .. Prepare to anchor after the close of day .. close action
Trafalgar, 220 years ago.
October 21, 2025
God I would hope so but I fear that there aren’t many english men left ….and willing to do their duty as their allegiance and loyalties are no longer towards our country and our flag
October 21, 2025
Then we need more Training Ships.
October 22, 2025
Lynn
It used to be the case that we had more Admirals than ships such has been the depletion of our Navy and the other armed forces.
Good grief we cannot even stop illegal rubber dinghies, carrying a possible secret army from entering our waters on a daily basis.
October 21, 2025
I should have thought all these further qualifications, after whatever letter of the alphabet you name them, were irrelevant if the educational system cannot to bring its pupils to a level where they are able to pass a basic examination in their own country’s language, and mathematics. At this point the Government should be making putting this right its priority, rather than what happens next.
October 21, 2025
@William Long +1 Yup it demonstrates they just ‘don’t get it’
October 21, 2025
The core subject content of a course doesn’t change ….just changing the programme title is political and confusing to employers, many of whom are still trying to get their head around the constant curriculum NVQ and Apprenticeship changes
October 21, 2025
Glad to see Dixie’s comment, remembering that it is Traflagar day today. We have much to be proud of as a nation.
Education is important, but far too many young people go to University these days, running up debt. I left school at 15 with no qualifications, but did get some at night school and then went on to study management, also at night school, in my late teens and twenties. We need more young people as apprentices to Electricians, plumbers, gas engineers, decorators and bricklayers. Not every job needs qualifications, and in many cases, in nursing, for example, it is better to learn by doing the job, combined with time in college.
However, what really matters is a government that lets the economy grow, so there are plenty of jobs to be had and employers are not tied up in regulations and red tape. No chance of that with this low calibre Labour government.
October 21, 2025
There are a range of further education apprenticeship options promoted by secondary schools now and there is not the stigma there once was about apprenticeships rather than university degrees (and there are degree apprenticeships combining both). It would be better if the government stopped tinkering and focussed on making the existing range of school and university options work properly – but of course that is far more difficult and gains less headlines for the politicians involved. School standards in English and Maths measured on an international scale improved greatly under the last Conservative governments – one of their few successes – I suppose now in pursuit of fairness and equality of outcomes Labour will reverse this trend.
October 21, 2025
Technical College
Polytechnics providing one year in industry
University
This was the best model providing for a range of different people with different skills
Employers make the point that people leaving University now are unemployable
Polytechnics is the way to go where people can hit the ground running
Most people do not need to go to University
October 21, 2025
Simplification is better, but too much irrational change generates muddle and lacks performance comparison.
The purpose of examinations is to produce failures, so that those with adequate levels of capability can be identified.
An employer trying to assess an A attainment against others with A* and added distinctions with inflated descriptors is often wandering in darkness.
October 21, 2025
Agree Sir John, the T Level system best covers needs of young people. Assume the lowering in standards of English & Maths is to accommodate the (failed) multi-cultural experiment? Also presume it would give rise to another dedicated “department” at a time when most wish for smaller government. Apprenticeships could work for say the 16 year olds who don’t or can’t undertake the 2 year T Level training?
October 21, 2025
I have an old friend, a school friend. No University and with a couple of GCE’s under his belt he managed to get a job with an accountancy firm – principal tea boy. But with a bit of studious work managed to get what in accountancy terms was his ‘articles’ becoming a chartered accountant by the age of 21. A little while later he was ‘headhunted’ by a large American Bank reaching the level of Vice President at the Bank at the age of 32.
The US doesn’t discriminate they see and nurture talent.
He has since received a degree from Harvard, not needed but felt he should test himself.
We grew up as Kentish Men, the other end from SJR’s Man of Kent. Schooling I am told by education professional was always a bit different in Kent to other areas, Grammar Schools alone had a different meaning, connotation, from elsewhere, they were not for the elitists as Labour saw them. There was more inter melding (if that’s a word), there was a virtual 14plus on top of the 11 plus. Pupils got to move between them in ways intended to suit how abilities evolved. Ability wasn’t pigeon-holed as it is now, the tiers of schools were for different outcomes – to enable the pupil the best they could be. Along with the Grammar and the Secondary Modern, there was a Technical School, so we had 3 layers all with different purposes. Labour of course thought schooling should be indoctrination into socialism not learning for a future, a lot of good schooling practices has been abandoned in an endeavour to clone the individual into to a personal egotistical image of political ideology.
Schooling shouldn’t be about indoctrination, bending minds to suit personal ideology, usually political, it should be to, stretch pupils, nurture pupils, teach pupils how to learn – to be the best they can at whatever they want. That’s the important bit grasping how to ‘learn’, that means thinking outside the box. Trying to plaster over the inabilities at the schooling stage with extra anything to bring someone up to scratch is too late. Today’s theories of extra tuition to get into Vocational training demonstrates the ‘boat has already sailed’ and it is a convoluted way of plastering over other failures
In Sales there is a phrase that telling isn’t selling. That translates into schooling as well, being told, isn’t being given the ability to learn. Wonderful sayings that float over the heads of those with other agendas
October 21, 2025
Great story Ian, and I agree with your comments.
October 21, 2025
Why do governments constantly tinker around with education? Many youngsters have no idea what they want to do at 18 or indeed after a university course let alone 16. Blair’s 50% target for university entry has proved, like so many of his policies, a failure, saddling youngsters with considerable debt once they earn £25kpa. Those that don’t reach the salary threshold have their university debt paid by the taxpayer! Many former colleges are now universities dumbing down academic standards and offering courses unworthy of a degree. It’s essential however there are courses for trades,eg plumbing, plastering, painting, roofing and scaffolding, gas heating and ventilation, tiling, carpentry, electricians, mechanics etc covered now by T level courses. Why change anything. Securing a trade qualification with experience and hard work can and does result in a rewarding and lucrative career often linked to running a business. Many of these trades are far more interesting and technically demanding physically and mentally than many of today’s half baked university courses.
October 21, 2025
An inclusive Education system is key to creating an Economy that works for everyone! I that we can all agree on!
The very fact that we do need extra “Vocational training” says a lot about our School system?
But, we are not all the same, so we do! I personally believe we should fix the problem of poor schooling by setting three/four core subjects Math’s, English, Engineering, Language, before any could leave! Staying on until they get an acceptable pass!
With Vocational training narrowed down to area’s needed; e.g; Maths, Design, an Engineering subject, Languages, Trades.
University should be about ‘Learning how to Learn’ (Reasoning about things, Challenging idea’s, etc,…). In narrow ranges of the mostly STEM subjects (And, some others may be?), meaning not silly subjects, do them Vocationally!
All Key to an Enterprise Culture!
October 22, 2025
@RDM +1 – aggeed
October 22, 2025
miss-typed ‘agreed’