Editorial

Citation

Holden, R. (2008), "Editorial", Education + Training, Vol. 50 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/et.2008.00450aaa.001

Editorial

This issue is the first in the 50th volume of Education + Training. To mark this 50th anniversary of the journal we have done two things. First, we have republished a selection of the contributions to the very first volume of what was then Technical Education[1]. Following these six articles we are pleased to include eight contributions from the journal’s current Editorial Advisory Board. These have been especially written for this anniversary issue and take a 2008 viewpoint on a range of recurrent themes which have been the stuff of Education + Training over the years.

Technical Education, 1958/1959

The republished article from Sir Willis Jackson, at the time Director of Research and Education at Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Co. Ltd, starts things off and provides a fascinating glimpse of the education and training world in the late 1950s. One observation that springs to my mind is that the distinction between “education” and “training” seems much sharper than it is today. As perhaps befits a journal entitled Technical Education, we look in on the manufacturing and engineering world of the British economy – still enjoying growth and status, though not without some major challenges. This is a male-dominated world. Jackson speaks of the need for more attention to be given to the “specific training as technicians of boys” and Howard, as Headmaster of Forest Hill Comprehensive School, London, of the relationship between school and the “future employment of boys”. University still seems very much the elite route; the pathway to be pursued by particularly academic “boys”. For Longland, reflecting on the work of a careers master, these are the “boys” who are the “easiest to deal with”. Elsewhere, in aspects of the role that are presumably a little more challenging, use of the “old boys” network is critical. It appears to be a world characterised by notions of “jobs for life”, together with a delightful sense of charm and simplicity:

… if he is a likely lad a telephone call to an employer, who trusts the careers master’s judgement and whom the latter trusts, may set the boy on a happy path for life.

I will leave readers to speculate themselves on the possible modern-day equivalent of “a likely lad”!

But … stand back a little. Strip away some of this outdated language and quaint custom and we find themes and issues which resonate sharply with those of today. Jackson is unequivocal: it is the education and training of industry’s “young recruits” that will be a key factor in the country’s ability to compete internationally. In a similar vein Hawkins, as Personnel Manager of Laycock Engineering Ltd, Sheffield, asks “Has industry failed to provide enough apprenticeships?”, before proceeding to elucidate a most interesting assessment of apprenticeship in the late 1950s, and against which we might consider the current UK government’s struggle to re-establish and develop a “modern” apprenticeship programme. Duncan’s account of “co-operative” training in the Sheffield forging industry focuses on the value of partnerships between the worlds of work and education as the key to innovative schemes of vocational education and training (VET). It is interesting to note Duncan’s view that the scheme he discusses was found accessible and valuable by small companies, a theme that 50 years later is championed by one of the 2008 contributors to this Special Issue.

That vocational education and training is problematic, encapsulating significant tensions both in the UK and internationally, will be evident to regular readers of Education + Training today. However, it as apparent in the articles in Technical Education, either implicitly or overtly, that this is far from a modern-day phenomenon. Consider Howard’s words when he writes:

In the past any idea of vocational education at secondary school level was regarded as not quite respectable! […] The great value of technical subjects in secondary school is to give reality to the education and to harness vocational motive.

Now, contrast this with the proposal of the current Labour government to raise the school leaving age from 16 to 18 and the reflections of Frank Field, a former government minister, in respect of this proposal. Field is concerned that simply raising the school leaving age will not adequately address the problem of what, in the UK, we rather unimaginatively call the “NEETS” – young people “not in education or training”. He reflects on the problems in his constituency but it could almost be Howard speaking the same words in 1959 … there is even the focus on “boys”!

In Birkenhead there is a flourishing Polish community doing the jobs these boys have not been trained for. We have given up on the idea of schools imparting technical skills such as bricklaying or mechanics. In Poland they give young men these skills, and they come to Britain and use them. The system is not giving the Birkenhead boys a trade and many of them from broken homes with single mothers are desperately lacking in male role models, of whom there are precious few in schools (Field, 2007).

Clearly new problems complicate the scenario (immigrant labour, single parent families, etc.), but the questions being raised about vocationalism in education seem as troublesome and perplexing in 2008 as they were in 1959.

It was pleasing to find one of the first set of articles mentioning the word “research”. Indeed, it is more than a mention. As director of a training college for technical trainers, MacLennan addresses head-on research in technical colleges, making a plea for subjects needing research, such as the selection of apprentices and the possible relationship between intelligence and application to work. I was particularly drawn by the discussion about the value of a research informed curriculum and by this question in particular: “How does one select the boy with an inventive streak who may later develop into the designer for whom the firm is looking?”. It is just the boys again, I am afraid, but this aside how prophetic in terms of today’s (flavour of the month?) interest in the entrepreneurship education and training curriculum both at school and post-16.

Education + Training, 2008

Turning my attention to the contributions from the journal’s Editorial Advisory Board, it is first of all pleasing to note that that the profile of contributors is not entirely male! Liz Rhodes and Erica Smith provide a thoughtful, woman’s perspective, on their respective journeys through education and training over 50 years. Rhodes, for example, looks at how work experience increasingly helps fill critical gaps in the transition process as part of a more “equal opportunities” scenario. Smith focuses upon qualifications and notes how even in the growth economy of Australia and the “brave new world of work-related qualifications”, gender-based tensions remain very real. Both Rhodes and Smith speak of the greater complexity to the world of transition, and indeed this is evident in all of the contributions. One feature of this greater complexity is the availability and opportunity of higher education. John Sutherland explores developments in the UK, noting the significance of Robbins and Dearing as landmarks in terms of expansion and the financing of higher education, while Tom Clarke, using business schools as his focus, notes a recurring question about higher education’s capability of preparing people to work in the real world. That HE is in a complex dynamic relative to the world of work is undoubtedly the case. Simon Roodhouse takes a challenging position on this issue, arguing that the UK government:

… has substituted technical education with “the skills agenda” and is applying it relentlessly across the whole education system including schools which in turn is leading to confusion, overlaps and needless competition. What we need is not more organisational solutions but an informed debate on an integrated approach to practical learning wherever it takes place whilst recognising liberal education has its place in a developed society. This is very unlikely as it requires engagement with the purpose of learning in our society.

Roodhouse is right to raise such a bold question and it almost seems a little trite to say that Education + Training has attempted to address and explore this theme. But it has and it will continue to do so.

For a company like Kentz the expansion of higher education presents particular challenges as it seeks to manage the “skills crunch in engineering and construction”. The plethora of choice compounds the problem of attracting young people into a sector suffering a decline in popularity just at it is needed the most. Yet Hugh O’Donnell, Takis Karallis and Eric Sandelands provide a glimpse of what a leading employer of apprentice and graduate engineers can do to help young people manage this complex and at times confusing transition to work. Education + Training would be impoverished today without the voice of a company like Kentz, just as Technical Education would have been impoverished in 1959 without the voice of companies like Vickers and Laycock Engineering.

Kentz was formed in Ireland well before the birth of Education + Training and has clearly been able to ride out the “depressing” aspects which Tom Cooney notes have characterised the Irish economy until more recent times. The challenges this company faces in 2008 to recruit and manage young talent are presumably made all the tougher in the context of the rise of the “Celtic Tiger”. Cooney wins my prize for the best viewpoint title: “Celtic Tiger found in education jungle”. Echoing some of MacLennan’s observations in 1959, Cooney discusses the role of education and training in helping to develop a “thriving entrepreneurial culture”. Certainly Education + Training in recent years has seen a very healthy flow of articles addressing issues on and around entrepreneurship education and training. Expenditure on entrepreneurship education and training seems a bit like that on marketing. We know something like half of the expenditure works but we don’t know which half.

Finally in terms of these contributions from EAB members I note, and not without a touch of embarrassment, Harry Matlay’s appraisal of the contribution made by Education + Training to research within VET, and VET in SMEs more specifically. I noted earlier that research was not wholly absent from the published articles of 50 years ago. Matlay argues that this has developed and strengthened over the years. I trust his assessment is correct, for two reasons. First, without a sound research base the journal loses its ability to be critical, relevant, credible and take an authoritative position on education and training issues of the day. Secondly, and more personally, this indeed has been high on my agenda throughout my stint as Editor.

A personal note

In this final section of the editorial I turn to matters a little closer to home. I want to return to a personal encounter some 30 years ago. I had joined Cadbury Schweppes as a graduate trainee. There were 12 of us. As part of our extended induction we were put into two groups to visit and interview a range of staff about a new chocolate bar. To our interviewers we were a group of arts graduates and a group of science graduates; I was in the former group. The Bourneville Production manager had something of a reputation as someone who did not suffer fools gladly. He strode into his office where we sat with our carefully prepared questions. All such preparation went out of the window with his opening remark: “Arts graduates, eh? So what are you going to do – paint the bloody place?”. Our probably feeble reactions are long forgotten. Only on assuming the mantle of editor of Education + Training did I recall the incident. Clearly the debate has moved on somewhat since this time but nonetheless I feel my recollection was stimulated because in a way it captures much of what Education + Training is about: the prejudice, ambiguity, the complexity, the challenges implied in any transition from school/college into work.

In preparation to write this opening contribution to a very special issue I nervously re-read my first editorial published in Issue 4, 1991. What wild assertions and unrealistic aspirations might I have set? Well, apart from a rather frightening picture of myself on page 3 (a practice thankfully now abandoned) a sense of relief was the prevailing emotion. Themes advocated for attention included:

• •

  the relationship between school/college and industry;

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  vocational education and training (and qualifications); and

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  education industry links and enterprise in education.

Still highly pertinent today would be my assessment, although suitably complemented by themes such as e-learning within higher education and a sharper focus on employability, the skills agenda and VET in particular contexts such as that of the small business. My reign has also witnessed a quite remarkable shift in the way journals of this type are managed and disseminated. I have a lingering desire for the paper copy, but clearly the power of online publishing offers much by way of speed of access and depth of dissemination.

It would be remiss of me to end without an acknowledgement or two. In all honesty it should be more like one or two hundred but for the sake of brevity it must be restricted to two broad groups. First, there are all those who have helped me manage the journal and fulfil my role as Editor. So here I include my colleagues at Emerald (formerly, of course, MCB); the various managing editors who have had coped so often with late copy and those associate and assistant editors who have assisted me in terms of editorial copy and the various news, reviews and research sections. Also in this group are EAB members and the small army of reviewers who in many ways are the unsung heroes of such a journal. The second group are the contributors. Of course some fall into both groups and they deserve special thanks. I am indebted to the efforts of all the contributors to the journal; their willingness and commitment to produce material has sustained Education + Training not just over the last 17 years but over the 50 years which we celebrate in this issue.

Education+Training formally came into being as Technical Education, published by Evans Brothers Ltd, London. In 1961 it became Technical Education and Industrial Training and from 1969 Education & Training: Technical Education & Industrial Training. The suffix was dropped in 1995.

Rick Holden