Ministers defend proposed vocational reforms
The recently appointed education secretary, Lucy Powell, used her speech to the Labour party conference to defend the government’s recently announced plans to introduce new vocational pathways. Speaking to delegates in Liverpool last weekend, she called being education secretary ‘an enormous honour’ and ‘the best job in government’ and said ‘Education is hope. In many ways I lead the Department of Hope’.
She went on to say that while ‘our schools are now some of the best in the world and we should celebrate that’, it was also important to recognise that ‘it’s not working for everyone.’ Noting that former education secretary Michael Gove had suggested Labour’s proposed reforms would be ‘bringing back stupid’, she argued that instead they were about ‘bringing back hope’. She continued: ‘We have to be relevant as well as outstanding. More pathways not fewer, more choice not less. Taking down barriers, not putting them up. Engaging not disconnecting. Closing the gap between the classroom and work. Always high standards but looking to the future not the past. That’s why I am putting technical and vocational qualifications on a par with academic ones’. She accused Mr Gove of wanting ‘all the plaudits for the good bits’ but taking ‘no responsibility for the bad’, and said without change some young people were at risk of disengaging from education completely. Ms Powell also pledged that she would ‘always value school leaders and the school workforce’, and noted that a School Support Staff Negotiating Body would soon be established.
Elsewhere at the conference, other ministers also made the case for Labour’s reforms, which will see new vocational pathways from the age of 14, with vocational GCSEs rolled out in some subjects as early as 2029. Addressing a party conference for the first time since he became Prime Minister, Andy Burnham said that too many young people had been ‘cast adrift by a school system built for some, not all’ but that Labour’s plans would ‘rebuild a system of comprehensive education in this country with parity between academic and technical’. He also said there would be ‘the right support for our young people when they need it’, including a 45 day work placement between the ages of 16 and 18, apprenticeship opportunities for 18 year olds, and shorter waiting times for mental health support.
Meanwhile, speaking at a fringe panel on school attendance, recently appointed early years minister Paul Waugh described the vocational reforms as ‘radical’. He said: ‘It’s not about sorting kids into sheep and goats at 14 and going back to secondary moderns versus grammar schools. It’s about making sure that those kids who currently are disengaged from school and are not going to university have got world class options to go into hands on careers or vocational or other training’. He also argued that with persistent absence it was important to offer the right tailored support to parents rather than just threaten fines, but he ruled out removing the courts and fines as part of the process.
Greensheets will have news from other party conferences later this month.