Nic Dakin – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Nic Dakin on 2016-10-07.
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the Skills Plan, what her policy is on enabling students to continue to study a mixture of both (a) academic and (b) vocational subjects.
Robert Halfon
As set out in our Post 16 Skills Plan, we will take forward the recommendations of the Sainsbury Review to put in place a world-class technical option that provides preparation for highly skilled employment. The technical option will be a prestigious and high-quality option for 16 year olds as an alternative to academic study. Applied general qualifications such as BTECs are not designed to be part of the technical education option. We plan to review the contribution of these qualifications to preparing students for higher education and the impact any reform would have on widening participation. We will announce our decisions later in the year.
It is important that individuals are able to switch between the academic and technical options so that students’ options are not closed down. Flexible learning will be important to learners of all ages, given the changing labour market. We accepted the Sainsbury panel’s recommendation that there should be appropriate bridging courses to make movement between the two options easily accessible and will be looking at options for putting these courses in place.
