Introduction to the VQ Symposium

1. Introduction to the VQ Symposium Ewart Keep SKOPE

2. Form and Purpose: • Small gathering • Chatham House rules – with a note of the meeting circulated afterwards • Chance to compare notes – across UK nations and with other countries • Chance to indulge in some ‘blue skies’ thinking • The big issues not the technicalities • Trying to set a potential agenda around reform – the substance and process thereof

3. Background to the symposium • Some kind of activity around VQs was built into our 3rd research programme (2008-2013) • Despite long-standing concerns about the English system of VQs, it was unclear what SKOPE might do that would be useful (to us or anyone else) • Things changed with the Wolf Review – reform of some kind was suddenly ‘on the table’ (maybe)

4. Wolf Review The problems revealed were well-known and of long-standing (see Nuffield Review for example), but it was the first time an official report had ever admitted to them head on: • Use of VQs as KPI for E&T system and institutions therein leads to ‘gaming’ • Large raft of low level VQs (L2 and below), especially NVQs, that appear to generate low/nil wage premia in labour market. • These qualifications do not support progression (in either the labour market OR education)

5. Reform or inertia? • A key issue in terms of how the Wolf Review’s recommendations for change are acted upon is the split in responsibilities between DfE and DBIS. Wolf was a DfE review, and the bulk of resultant action has been by DfE. • DBIS are, at best, ambivalent about reforming VQs. We don’t have separate VQs for initial VET for young and for adults. DBIS ‘own’ the SSCs, who in turn own the NOS. Most SSCs are now probably too poor and feeble to react, even if they wanted to – we will return to this.

6. And now everything’s up for grabs…… • Although this symposium is about VQs, it is worth noting that academic qualifications are now all to be reformed – GCSEs have ‘failed’, and A and AS levels are also in need of radical re-design (according to Mr Gove) • The Red Arrows analogy • Significant levels of protest miss the underlying point, that the Secretary of State has the unilateral power to do almost anything without parliamentary approval. From evidence based policy to ‘the Secretary of State believes….’ • 2015 is going to be an exciting year!

7. VQs and ‘academic’ quals With the academic track up in the air, should any reform/re-thinking of the vocational: • Be shelved? • Proceed in tandem or be conducted entirely independently? • Is parity of esteem a pointless goal, and if it is not, how best can it be achieved? • What should be the linkages/commonalities between academic and vocational quals? • Who is allowed to answer these questions?

8. Current ideas around VQ reform: • Lord Adonis’s Tech Bacc (already adopted by Labour Party) and, apparently, the government • Richard Review of Apprenticeship • Policy Exchange’s Technical Matters report

9. The Tech Bacc • 2.5 pages in Lord Adonis’s latest book. • Process problem – no one consulted – it’s just a great idea from a great man (c.f. Mr Gove’s mode of ‘reform’ – great men think alike!) • English/Maths, “a reputable qualification in an occupational area or areas” + some work experience (what does reputable mean???)

10. The Richard Review: • New apprenticeship qualifications to replace existing apprenticeship frameworks. • No to continuous assessment in workplace – i.e. little or no workplace assessment of competence • Final practical test, with examiners who are “neutral parties with no interest in the outcome” • New quals to be established via ‘contests’ – contestants will be employers, professional or trade bodies. Who will judge contest unclear! • DBIS Ministers minded to accept Review’s recommendations

11. Questions and issues • Given the preceding brief overview, what follows tries to flag up some of the questions and issues that now confront us, at least as I perceive them. • I constructed this list before I read any of the papers for symposium. The contributors will be bringing their own issues to the table.

12. Employer demand for skill In 2009 the government consulted on the Specification of Apprenticeship Standards in England. There were 357 responses. • A large majority (70%) rejected the idea that maths and English should be required in all frameworks. • 68% did not want an ICT qualification in all frameworks. • Only 53% agreed that all 6 of the Personal Learning and Thinking Skills were needed in all frameworks • Only 35% thought 250 hours off-the-job learning was needed. Most wanted far less (and they got it – the government set the bar at 100 hours).

13. Employer demand for skill 2 “Britain has long been caught in a low-qualifications trap, which means that British employers tend to be less likely than in most other countries to require their recruits to be qualified beyond the compulsory school leaving age. Among European countries only in Spain, Portugal and Turkey is there a greater proportion of jobs requiring no education beyond compulsory school”. – Green, 2009: 17

14. Employer demand for skill 3 “There is a mismatch between employer requirements and learner aspirations. We still have a large number of jobs which are level 2 or below. The drive for more and more advanced apprenticeships is creating an expectation among young people and parents who then become unwilling to consider the lower levels” – Shropshire Training Provider Network – evidence to H. of C, Business, Innovation and Skills Committee inquiry into apprenticeship.

15. Low returns to Level 2 VQs – VQ design or labour market structure? Some L2 VQs show poor returns because: • They are poorly designed and specified • The problem is a reflection of wage, employment and progression structures • The problem is a combination of 1 and 2 If either 2 or 3 are the case, reform of VQs in and of itself may achieve little.

16. Employer demand as a spectrum Within individual sectors or sub-sectors, employer demand for skills (in terms of depth and breadth) often spans a spectrum, from high to low. At what point on that spectrum does the specification of VQs take place. We have some evidence that with some NVQs the answer was a lowest common denominator. What might be done to tackle this?

17. Who represents employers? The SSCs no longer receive a core grant, just project funding from government. Some have already collapsed. For example, in September 2012 the retail SSC (Skillsmart) was effectively wound up by its backers (the British Retail Consortium), and most of its responsibilities handed on to People 1st – the SSC for hospitalityand tourism. We now have industries into which large numbers of young people go covered by one huge, weakly resourced SSC, whose contact with its employer base is, at best, open to some question. How will SSC cope with fresh VQ reform?

18. And who represents the individual? In many other countries, the social partners help ensure that both employer and individual interests get a seat at the table – but not here. Previous attempts at reform of VQs have done precious little to involve anyone who might speak on behalf of individual interests – yet these are often liable to be at variance with those of employers – on issues such as breadth, depth, transferability of skill, etc.,

19. APL or upskilling – the dangers of confusion in T2G and ‘apprenticeship’ “They wasn’t actually giving us any training…It was a total waste of time. It’s like, if the government really wants everyone to have qualifications by their name, yeah sure it’ll work, but it’s not gonna achieve anything” “This woman would come in once a week and review us serving a customer or something and then ‘wahey’ we got a certificate…[employers] are not sitting there saying, ‘I hope someone with an NVQ in retailing comes along because we could really do something with someone like that” Roberts, 2012.

20. Policymakers’ qualifications fetish Achieving a qualification - any qualification –it seems has become a proxy measure of successful outcomes over and above what people actually do in their job, what they are actually paid, what they can afford, or whether they have genuinely improved their capacity to be more productive” Roberts, 2012: 6

21. Quals as KPIs for institutions and the E&T system: • As Wolf pointed out (entirely correctly), the use of quals as high stakes KPIs creates a huge moral hazard, as gaming and cheating ensue. • The Ebacc and the threat of a suite of A level choice combinations around enabling subjects sets a new incentives regime around what is on offer

22. What and where next? • It looks likely that ‘things’ are going to happen, whether we like them or not. • These may turn out to be just another ‘spin of the wheel’. • Is it possible to try to set some guidance for direction of travel around both the what and the how of reform, either with the aim of influencing what is about to happen, or longer term developments?