Put vocational back into education and training

Citation

(2000), "Put vocational back into education and training", Education + Training, Vol. 42 No. 8. https://doi.org/10.1108/et.2000.00442hab.001

"Put vocational back into education and training"

"Put vocational back into education and training"

Keywords Vocational training, Education, Teamwork, Interpersonal communication

The word "vocational" should be put back into education and training, according to Chris Hughes, Further Education Development Agency Chief Executive. He told the new Learning and Skills Council conference: "Vocational education and training do not exist as an institutionalized system in England and Wales like they do in Europe, where specialist institutions are tied to vocational qualifications, the labour market and long-term objectives built on the consensus that vocational education and training are important and distinctive. This needs to change." Hughes argued that education providers have a growing duty to equip potential, new and existing workers with the skills for employment in a changing economy. "The link between education and the economy is vital."

Commenting on the Internet, Hughes reflected that "it could be less central to the future than simple human skills applied in increasingly unfamiliar contexts. Jobs in the manufacturing industry are progressing from physical and repetitive tasks to process controlling, maintaining and monitoring machines, designing, and studying and organizing tasks. New technical skills, teamworking and the use of workers as change agents are creating the need for a new type of employee. The service sector is growing rapidly and jobs are changing. The sector no longer relies on workers with low skills. Many of the jobs are centred on interpersonal relationships. The new skills are perhaps more behavioural than intellectual and jobs are centred on interpersonal relationships." He argued that those in education need to think beyond the current fashionable rhetoric of globalization and new economies. "We cannot predict the sort of economy we are preparing people to work in ten years from now. But, whatever happens, people will need a set of skills that can be adapted to suit the kind of jobs that economic change might bring about."

From April 2001, work-based learning for young people will be funded through the Learning and Skills Council and for adults through the Employment Service.