'GOLD STANDARD' TECH EDUCATION PLEA
The Government is "failing" young people who want a "gold standard" technical education, Labour has claimed.
Shadow Education Secretary Tristram Hunt accused the Coalition of focusing on "tinkering with the curriculum and a free schools policy" and not the vocational demands of the education system.
Speaking at the start of an Opposition Day debate on reforming technical and vocational education, Mr Hunt said Labour wanted a "skilled Britain not a little England".
He said: "If we want to build a high skilled, high wage economy we need to build a recovery that delivers for working people. We need an education system that marries the vocational with the academic. Values what people can do alongside what they know. "
The "sad truth", Mr Hunt argued, was that on education the country was "still waiting for this new Jerusalem."
He said: "Our ambition in office is to right that wrong and to do what this Government with its narrow focus on free schools and curriculum tinkering has singly failed to achieve. We do so because our economic future depends upon it. Our shortage of technicians, engineers and skilled apprentices is hindering growth and a more balanced UK economy."
Education, he argued, offered the "surest means to deliver social justice, economic competitiveness, and a route out of the fearful, isolationist impulse adopted by Ukip and increasingly by the Conservative Party".
He said: "The Government's focus as we've seen has not been on the vocational demands of our education system, it's been focused on tinkering with the curriculum and a free schools policy."
He added: "It is on vocational education where their negligence hits hardest. This Government is failing young people who want a gold standard technical education and it is not securing our skills base."
Mr Hunt claimed the Government had "undermined" careers advice, adding: "Thanks to this Government's reforms prisoners have more access to careers advice than school pupils."
Intervening, Conservative Sir Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire) said he was "sightly disappointed" by the "partisan note" being struck.
He said: "The truth is that apprenticeships were ignored by generations of politicians. The last Government to its great credit started the process of rehabilitation, this Government is continuing the good work. We should be celebrating that consensus, that spirit of shared endeavour, not scoring party points."
Labour's motion states the UK needs a "new settlement for those young people who do not wish to pursue the traditional route into university and the world of work".
It adds that the UK "needs a new Technical Baccalaureate qualification as a gold standard vocational pathway achieved at 18, a new National Baccalaureate framework of skills and qualifications throughout the 14 to 19 phase, the study of mathematics and English for all to the age of 18, for all large public contracts to have apprenticeship places, new employer-led apprenticeships at level 3 and new technical degrees".
Labour MP Ian Austin (Dudley North) said: "We should agree as a country, all the parties, Government, schools, universities, the teaching profession, universities, clear long term targets to transform education and ensure we have the skills we need to compete as a country.
"I think we should set an ambition for Britain of producing the best educated and most highly skilled young people in the world. I think someone is going to do that, why can't it be us?
"I think we have to drive up standards in our schools, we have got to get behind headteachers and teachers working to improve standards."
Graham Stuart, the Conservative chairman of the education select committee, said: "I think too often we focus on that part of our education system in which there are the fewest problems - that is the more academic routes and we need to spend more of our time focussing on the vocational routes that the majority of the population go through.
"They are harder to navigate, need to be made more navigable, and need to be linked more closely to the needs of employers and so to the long term earnings potential of the people who take them, whether they are young or not.
"Vocational courses too often have been the Cinderella element in our education system, denied the limelight given to academic qualifications that are sometimes perceived as more glamorous or socially informative."
But Education Minister Matthew Hancock defended the Government's record, saying it had set out "strong and clear" vocational pathways, doubled the number of apprenticeships over the current Parliament and set up the National Careers Service.
"We are making sure all young people get the chance to succeed," he told the House.
"Instead of the mushy muddle that went before, we have strong and clear vocational pathways endorsed by employers.
"In the previous Parliament, there were just over a million apprenticeship starts. I can tell the House we are on track to deliver two million over this Parliament.
"We have doubled the number of apprenticeships and driven up quality too."
The minister stressed there could be "no higher justice" than equality for all, which he said the Coalition was focused on achieving through its education policies.
He continued: "Our task is to ensure high quality options for both - to bring together the world of work and the world of education, to break down the apartheid between academic and vocational education, to give all young people the skills, knowledge and behaviour they need to succeed.
"This task is vital, yes it is part of our long-term economic plan but it is more than that.
"It is a battle for social mobility, it is a moral mission for social justice and we know on this side of the House that social justice is about earned reward, that jobs are created by endeavour not handouts.
"There can be no higher justice than equal opportunity for all. That is our policy, these are our tools. We are ending a decade of neglect."
Mr Hancock also used his speech to attack Mr Hunt's "unremitting negativity" and accused Labour of being the "anti-business" party.
He added: "It's good news for the nation that the Opposition, in their motion, have now accepted their failures in office, how in their words, they forgot half the population and how they now back our reforms.
"Some say that imitation is flattery and I suppose they are right."
