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Ivan Lewis, Under Secretary for Skills and Vocational Education gave an inspiring speech at the Federation of Awarding Bodies Conference. Lewis raised the need for change in the awarding body system and the perception in both learners and employers that vocational skills are equal qualifications to GCSE’s and A-Levels. Lewis saw the “Existing System to be inappropriate and unresponsive. The qualification System is too complicated, too bureaucratic… Vocational skills have failed the people they are meant to serve. They are turned off by endless form filling and bureaucracy. The individual shouldn’t have to meet the needs of the qualification, the qualification should meet the needs of the individual.”
Lewis explained that Vocational Skills has made it to the main Governmental agenda, “For too long education has been Schools and University, everything else was on the margins. This is very much changing.” In the past week he spent an hour with Tony Blair talking about vocational skills and the Chancellor paid a visit to the DfES.
Lewis backed up Mary Curnock Cook the Director of Qualifications and Skills, QCA who hinted at the areas to be covered in Monday night’s presentation on the framework for achievement consultation. Curnock Cook sees the need for increased flexibility, reducing the amount of duplication and bureaucracy from qualification to qualification and awarding body to awarding body. Lewis also saw the need to accredit learners for prior learning and experience.
Lewis stressed that education reform is not easy and has to be done right with the help of multiple stakeholders, “qualification reform in the past was not great and can be seen to have been a knee jerk reaction, and we need to get this right. We can’t pretend to do this over night, we need a staged implementation, sector by sector with transparency between employers, learners and awarding bodies.”
Lewis saw the immediate need for Level 2 and Basic Skills, so as to enable the country to compete on a global scale, but still saw the need for learners or employers to contribute to their education at level 3 or above. He saw the main challenge for Awarding Bodies, Colleges and Training Providers to be the change of perception from learners and employers. The public understands the value of GCSE’s and A-Levels, but does not know what the difference between Level 2 and 3. Lewis gave a target of 2006- 2007 for a change in the public perception and wanted to see job adverts asking for Level 2 instead or GCSE’s.
Lewis’s frank speech was very inspiring for the vocational skills industry. “The job for life is dead. We want to replace the job for life with employability for life. Making the Qualification system support this is very important and is our challenge.” It will be interesting to see how the QCA reform announced on Monday evening responds to the challenge set by Lewis.
Gavin O’Meara
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