文章基本信息

标题：Learning and working from the MSC to new labour: young people, skills and employment.
作者：Unwin, Lorna
期刊名称：National Institute Economic Review
印刷版ISSN：0027-9501
出版年度：2010
期号：April
语种：English
出版社：National Institute of Economic and Social Research
摘要：Keywords: Youth; skills; recession; apprenticeship; demand
关键词：Apprenticeship;Apprenticeship programs;Recessions;Teenagers;Youth

Learning and working from the MSC to new labour: young people, skills and employment.

Unwin, Lorna

The 'guarantee' for l 8-24-year-olds comes on top of the guarantee of a place in training for 16 and 17-year-olds that has been in place since the 1980s and was introduced when the Thatcher Government removed the right of young people who had left school to claim welfare benefits. Some 16 and 17-year-olds are eligible for assistance in extreme circumstances, but the vast majority who remain out of work or do not join a training scheme become classified as NEET. The new 'guarantee' is for 18-24-year-olds who have spent six months officially looking for employment and are in receipt of the 'Jobseekers Allowance'. It 'offers':

* the opportunity to apply for new jobs created through the Future Jobs Fund;

* support to apply for an existing job in a key employment sector;

* work-focused training;

* a place on a Community Task Force;

* help with self-employment;

* internships for Graduates and non-Graduates.

From April 2010, young people will be required to take up one of these offers by the end of the 10-month point of their claim. According to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) website, "This will ensure that no young adult is permanently disadvantaged by the recession" (http://research.dwp.gov.uk/campaigns/ futurejobsfund/youngpersons.asp). The guarantee forms part of the Government's 'Backing Young Britain' campaign, which the DWP describes as "a rallying call to businesses, charities and government bodies to create more opportunities for young people" (ibid), who are being asked to commit to at least one of the following initiatives:

1. to become a volunteer mentor for school or university leavers to help them find their feet in the jobs market;

2. provide work experience places, volunteering places or a work trial to help young people learn about work, make contacts and fill their CV;

3. offer an internship for a graduate;

4. create a new internship for 18-year-olds and non-graduates to give them a chance to prove themselves;

5. provide an apprenticeship for 16 to 24-year-olds;

6. joining a Local Employment Partnership to make sure job vacancies are advertised to local unemployed people;

7. bid for one of the 100,000 lobs for young people in the Government's Future Jobs Fund.

Whilst both lists could be said to show an active desire on the part of government to respond to the challenges of the recession, they are not intended to tackle the underlying problems that have dogged the country for so long. An acute sense of deja-vu permeates analyses of labour market and skills' policies over the past ,30 years (see, inter alia, Finegold and Soskice, 1988; Keep, 1999; Wolf, 2002; UKCES, 2009). When the economic crisis and subsequent recession began to hit the UK in 2008, it was the rapid growth in youth unemployment that dominated the media, just as in the 1980s, though so far, today's headlines have not included reports of city-centre riots. Another recurring theme is the complaint from employers that young people leave the education system without the necessary skills to enter the labour market. In 2009, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) returned to the theme of its 1989 report, 'Towards A Skills Revolution', by calling for schools, colleges and universities to ensure they arm their students with 'employability skills' (CBI, 1989 and 2009).

This paper argues that successive governments since the 1980s have struggled to establish the necessary foundations to enable the majority of young people to make effective and supported transitions from education to the labour market and, further, to create labour market conditions that protect and nurture young people's potential. Whilst the focus is largely on young people, some of the argument, particularly in relation to the discussion of competence-based qualifications and the role of employers vis-a-vis the demand for skills, also applies to adults. The paper sets its analysis within a time-frame that began in 1981 with the publication of two landmark MSC reports: A New Training Initiative: A Consultative Document, and A New Training Initiative: An Agenda for Action. Much has been written about the work of the MSC and the Thatcher Government's development of education, training and employment policies in response to the economic crisis of the early 1980s (see, inter alia, Ainley and Corney, 1990; Finn, 1987). It is important to remember, however, that the legacy of those policies continues to inform and underpin contemporary policymaking in relation to the design, organisation and delivery of vocational education and training and employment initiatives for young people and adults. (1) This continuity deserves more attention for two key reasons. First, greater knowledge and understanding of the continuities would enable more people to challenge the chimera of newness as successive ministers introduce their latest initiatives. Second, and relatedly, the appropriateness and likely effectiveness of the new initiatives could he subject to greater scrutiny.

The paper is divided into four sections. It concludes with an appraisal of the extent to which New Labour can be said to have made improvements over thirteen years in government since 1997.

A game of two halves: the important role of the Level 2 benchmark

In 2001 and 2002, the National Institute Economic Review published a series of articles assessing attempts by government to improve Britain's performance in vocational skills and the quality of school-leaving standards in the decade following 1991. Governments had intervened as never before in the work of schools and in the design and delivery of vocational qualifications because of concerns about Britain's industrial competitiveness, the employment prospects of less-skilled workers, lack of progress in narrowing social inequalities, and the higher levels of school-leaving attainments and economic productivity in other comparable countries. In his introduction to the series, Prais (2001, page 73) wrote:

"Of course it should not be expected that deep-rooted problems of this kind can be resolved in a single decade. But whatever has been achieved positively so far, worries continue to be expressed from time to time that in some important respects the country has gone backwards."

Another decade has now almost passed. In an annexe to the publication of a new 'national skills strategy' in November 2009, the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (DBIS) provided an assessment of the extent to which improvements had been made vis-a-vis the numbers of people qualified to Level 2, the benchmark for 'employability' and the standard expected to be reached at the end of compulsory schooling. DBIS stated that the UK currently lies 18th out of 30 OECD countries in terms of the proportion of adults who have achieved at least Level 2 and, hence, the UK was behind, 'among others', the Netherlands, Germany, Japan, Canada and the US (DBIS, 2009b). At Level 4 and above (equivalent to a university degree), the UK was 11th out of 30 OECD countries, but improving at a slower rate between 1998 and 2006 than most other OECD countries. Given Prais's (2001) concerns noted above, the current Government would of course point out that these figures need to be set in the context of an historically low base. Accordingly, DBIS states that there has been a fourfold increase in the numbers of adults gaining Level 2 qualifications since 2003.

Very careful attention needs to be paid to the meaning of Level 2 in the UK context if we are to develop a better understanding of the extent to which young people and adults are developing sufficient skills and knowledge to both enter and progress in the labour market and in further education and training. Academic and vocational qualifications in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are organised within a national framework of eight levels stretching from Level l (basic skills--foundation level) to Level 8 (doctoral or expert professional level).2 The alignment of academic and vocational qualifications means that very different types of qualification, in terms of content, length of study, assessment procedures, and pedagogical delivery, appear to be 'equal' in that they appear in the framework at the same levels The levels do not require that a qualification should be gained following a specific length of study. Thus, Level 2 includes the attainment of five GCSEs at grades A*-C, a competence-based National Vocational Qualification (NVQ), a vocational qualification obtained in a college, or a 'Skills for Life' qualification in Literacy or Numeracy assessed through a multiple-choice examination. An NVQ Level 2 may be acquired over a short time in the workplace through largely oral on-the-job assessment of existing competencies (though some may require off-the-job study and written assessment). To acquire five GCSEs at grades A*-C, young people will normally have studied full-time for the final two years of compulsory schooling and been assessed through a combination of coursework and final written examination. To further complicate matters, there are two forms of the Level 2 GCSE classification: (a) the five GCSEs can be made up of any combination of subjects; or (b) the five can include Mathematics and English. The latter combination is now regarded as the more prestigious and, in international comparative terms, the more meaningful.

In 2009, 50.7 per cent of school pupils in their final year of compulsory schooling in England gained five or more GCSEs at Grades A*-C (including Mathematics and English), an increase of 2.2 percentage points on the previous year. The data show girls outperforming boys with 54.4 per cent of girls compared to 47.1 per cent of boys achieving the benchmark (DCSF, 2010) (4). These national figures mask significant regional and local differences that reflect socio-economic conditions, school quality and other factors that contribute to the unequal pattern of educational attainment in England and the UK more broadly.

The promotion of the separation of attaining a qualification from participation over time in a programme of learning was very much part of the MSC's progressive project to reform education and training. In 198 I, its landmark report, A New Training Initiative: A Consultative Document, called for the end of time-served apprenticeships, and for vocational training to develop competencies (including generic, transferable skills) based on national occupational standards. Existing approaches to education and training were seen as outdated and failing to meet the needs of employers. Whilst there is a substantial and highly critical literature on the development of competence-based qualifications from the mid-1980s onwards, it is salutary to note that, 25 years later, the consequences continue to affect the prospects for jobs and further education of young people and adults, as well as the skill needs of employers.

One of the problems with trying to shed light on the complex and shifting system of qualifications in the UK is that behind the bureaucracy lies a real world of individuals developing their skills and knowledge supported by a range of teachers and trainers in a range of settings. Their experiences will differ enormously. Over the years, both academic and vocational qualifications have been constantly adapted and changed, and despite their outwardly common exteriors, they are delivered in very different ways that reflect the values and commitment of institutions, occupational sectors, and the individuals concerned. Hence, some NVQs bear no relation to the stereotype of a knowledge-light qualification that can be achieved by simply performing routine tasks. Similarly, achievement of some academic qualifications may require little more than passive regurgitation of facts and figures learned by rote. Fuller and Unwin's (2004) and (2008) case study research has shown that where NVQs form part of an expansive (as opposed to restrictive) approach to apprenticeships and workforce development, they do facilitate new learning as well as the accreditation of existing skills. This has been supported in Cox's (2007) study of NVQs in the training of low-grade employees in the National Health Service, and by Rainhird et al.'s (2004) research in the social care sector, both of which have used Fuller and Unwin's expansive-restrictive framework in their analyses. Vignolles and De Coulon (2008) argue that we need much more of this type of qualitative research to help deepen our understanding of the quantitative evidence which has, over a number of years, identified low or negative economic returns to NVQ Level 2, particularly for men (though with some sectoral difference), but which also shows some labour market value for women.

So does the permissive approach to the categorisation of qualifications by level still matter? There are three key answers. The first answer relates to currency of the qualifications. Those young people who achieve five GCSEs at Grades A*-C (including Mathematics and English) can progress relatively painlessly to advanced level study (in school or college) and entry to higher education, and gain access to decent (and where available, prestigious) apprenticeships. Those who fail to reach this benchmark will have to navigate their way through a much more complicated and fragmented post-school landscape. Employers as well as educational institutions and society at large have come to accept GCSEs (rightly or wrongly) as an indicator of ability at 16. The second answer to the question relates to the extent to which young people who have failed to achieve the Level 2 GCSE benchmark will be able to improve their general education within vocational education or in employment. (5) If they leave school and enter a vocational pathway leading to an NVQ Level 2 that does little or nothing to improve their general education through the development of vocational knowledge that extends beyond their current job requirements, they may tread water and hence find it difficult to progress further at a later stage if they want to change career. This problem also affects adults who acquire NVQs either as part of their employment or for entry to employment. The third answer relates to the potential sleight of hand that governments can exercise when presenting data on qualification attainment. Growth in the number of people with Level 2 qualifications does not necessarily mean growth in the quality of people's skills and knowledge.

For all young people, even those who have acquired the magic quota of GCSEs, the end of compulsory schooling is a time for serious decision-making. For those who choose to and/or are allowed to remain in full-time education, the choices will boil down to where to study (school or college) and what type of qualification (academic or vocational or a mixture of both). For those who choose to or have no alternative to leaving full-time education, the decisions are riskier and more complex. In times of recession, their horizons narrow and the risks increase.

Vocational education and training: social inclusion or skills?

Significant numbers of young people continue to leave school in the UK between the ages of 16 and 18 to enter the labour market and/or to combine part-time study with work. The current participation rate in post-compulsory education and training has hardly changed since 1994 when it plateaued at around 75 per cent for 16-year-olds, dropping further at 17 and then 18. When recession hits, the fragility of the work-based and part-time routes becomes more visible. From 2013, young people in England will still be able to enter the labour market at 16, but will be legally required to 'participate' in some form of officially recognised and government-subsidised education or training to the age of 17, and to 18 in 2015. Here, again, we reel from the sense of deja-vu.

There have been calls for the school leaving age to be extended to 18 since the end of the First World War (see Simon, 1986). The current age at which young people can leave school has stood at 16 since 1972, having risen from 14 to 15 in 1947 following the 1944 Education Act. That Act added, however, that, although young people could leave school at 15 and enter the labour market, they would be required to attend county colleges for the purposes of part-time 'continuation education'. Tinkler (2001, page 79) explains that policymakers of the time felt that anyone who left school at 15 had "received an education inadequate to their needs as individuals, citizens and workers" and that, "no wage earning occupation could in itself be a 'proper' education for those who had left school at 15". It was also argued that young people would be happier and have richer lives if they remained in contact with an educational institution for some years after entering employment, particularly as the jobs they were likely to get might promote "physical, mental and moral degeneration" (ibid). These sentiments also lay behind the introduction of liberal and general studies to the day-release curriculum followed by apprentices in further education colleges from the 1950s to the early 1980s (see Bailey and Unwin, 2008, for a discussion).

The County Colleges were never built and the call for 'continuation education' was dropped, but the same arguments have infused today's policy. Now, as before, the focus is on the economic and social consequences of early leaving (for the individual, the economy and society), plus a desire to arrest England's poor showing in the OECD's league tables for national participation and 'drop-out' rates.

The new legislation will mean that young people have to find a place in one of the following parts of the English system:

* full time education--including school, college and home education;

* work-based learning--such as an apprenticeship or other form of government-supported training programme;

* a job with training--where the employer's training programme is recognised by the Government;

* part time education or training- if they are employed, self-employed or volunteering more than 20 hours a week.

Those who refuse to 'participate' will be subject to a series of penalities, the highest level of which would result in them appearing before a youth court and their parents or guardians being subjected to a 'parenting order' (DCSE 2007). Yet the current concept of 'participation' does not mean exposure to the kind of enriching education proposed in the 1944 Education Act. It simply means being part of a recognised activity. There is no aspiration in the Government's plans to develop the type of broader curriculum for young people common in many continental European countries. What remains is a continued adherence to the illusory power of what are now called 'functional skills', the new term for what, over the past 30 years, have been variously called 'core', 'generic', 'transferable', 'personal effectiveness', and 'key' skills. These terms cover a curious mix (if the basic literacy and numeracy skills that employers hope school leavers will have acquired alongside more subjective capabilities such as being able to work in a team and showing initiative. Yet these latter capabilities are highly contextual and are subject to the nature of the way work is organised and how much discretion an employer gives to their workforce.

In her detailed critique of the core skills element of the Youth Training Scheme (YTS), Jonathan (1987, page 100) argued that, "Though there is nothing to teach in the Core, and little to learn which could claim value in either educational or training terms, there is much to assess." Twenty years later, teachers and trainers are still struggling daily with these so-called skills which are said, on the one hand, to be embedded within the performance of everyday tasks whilst, on the other hand, capable of being isolated for assessment. Studies have identified examples (if teachers arid trainers using highly innovative pedagogical strategies and creative resources to help their learners achieve what now forms a mandatory part of many courses and all apprenticeships. Yet, at the heart of the problem lies a troubling conundrum for government. Too many young people, as was shown earlier in the discussion of GCSE results, are not reaching sufficient levels of literacy and numeracy at school and so vocational education and training programmes are expected to correct this deficit. At the same time, many young people enter these programmes hoping to have left behind the areas of their education in which they feel they have failed.

Despite almost continuous changes to the Government's institutional architecture in relation to the organisation, funding and delivery of vocational education and training and the re-branding of programmes and qualifications, there has been remarkable underlying continuity since the early 1980s. As the economic crisis of the late 1970s hit the UK, the Thatcher Government responded to the massive rise in youth unemployment by opening up the market for youth and adult training schemes to a new breed of provider. Alongside the move to decouple vocational qualifications from programmes of learning through the introduction of competence and outcomes-based accreditation, the MSC gave licence to private sector organisations to challenge the longstanding further education colleges for a share of the new business. Most of the remaining apprenticeship schemes that were struggling to survive in the wake of recession were incorporated into the new YTS launched in 1983 for 16-25-year-olds. The new breed of target-driven providers took to the streets to persuade employers to give placements to YTS trainees. Despite the rhetoric that the new qualifications were 'employer-led', employers were able and willing to hand over responsibility for assessment and, in some cases, training itself to the providers (see Raggatt and Williams, 1999). Thus government could be seen to be, on the one hand, socially inclusive by offering those young people who were at risk of unemployment a work placement, and, on the other hand, developing the skills which employers said they required. As Fuller and Unwin (2009) explain, the major impact of YTS was to establish the state as the purchaser and driver of vocational training rather than employers.

In 1994, the then Conservative Government under Prime Minister, John Major, announced that the UK was still failing to match its competitors in terms of the production of technicians and people qualified to intermediate level. The Modern Apprenticeship was launched as a separate Level 3 programme alongside the existing youth training schemes (see Unwin and Wellington, 2001). It would revitalise the concept of apprenticeship by getting employers to recruit well qualified young people according to business need. In one of the most telling quotations from their interviews with the first cohort of Modern Apprentices, Unwin and Wellington (2001, page 35) report this comment from Joe, an apprentice in the chemical industry,

"I heard about the Government being involved and that got me started again, wondering if I should go for it cos I wasn't happy about staying at school, and so I thought, 'oh they must have changed it, changed YT', and I read a bit, and it seemed like the Government had realised it (YT) was a bad idea and changed it again, so it seemed to be a really new idea based on the old idea. I'm waiting to see if this is any different."

Joe's healthy skepticism about the motive and ability of government to conjure up a new take on youth training out of the older clothes of the past demonstrates how wise the young can be. It would be interesting to know his thoughts when in 2001 the New Labour Government, under Tony Blair, decided to re-brand all youth training as 'Apprenticeships', thus overturning John Major's aim to create a distinctive, Level 3 pathway. Fast forward to November, 2009, and the foreword to the Brown Government's White Paper, Skills for Growth, in which Lord Mandelson declares: "To tackle the gap in intermediate skills in this country, we will expand our apprenticeship numbers to create a modern class of technicians" (DBIS, 2009c, page 3).

In order to create the new technician class, serious attention will need to be paid to the quality and rigour of training in the current Level 3 apprenticeships, as well as to employer demand for apprentices. At the start of the 2000s, persistent concerns about the quality of apprenticeships and low completion rates in several sectors in England led the Learning and Skills Council to introduce two reforms. First, a more rigorous system for appointing training providers led to poorly performing providers having their contracts terminated. Second, an extra qualification, known as a 'technical certificate' was added to all apprenticeship frameworks in recognition that the competence-based NVQs, which, up to then, had been the only mandatory qualifications, were failing to ensure apprentices developed sufficient knowledge to perform at Level 3 and to progress. The requirement for a Technical Certificate was, however, suddenly removed in 2006 as a result of some employer bodies' objections. As Ryan and Unwin (2001) noted in their comparison of the German and British systems of apprenticeship, a key difference concerns governance. Until 2009, apprenticeship in Britain functioned under what Ryan and Unwin referred to as 'leaflet' law, that is "ministerial powel's, legislated in the 1970s, to modify labour market programmes such as itself and YT" (ibid, page 104). Thus, ministers could interfere as they wished in the operation of apprenticeship. In 2009, apprenticeship was put on a somewhat firmer footing following the passing of the curiously named, Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act. For the first time since the repeal of the Statute of Artificers in 1814, apprenticeship was given a legal basis. The extent to which this will prevent interference from ministers is, however, not guaranteed for the new Act provides a relatively weak framework for the design and content of apprenticeship programmes (see Fuller and Unwin, 2009).

One important change resulting from the Act is the stipulation that all apprentices, on Level 2 and 3 programmes, must spend a set number of hours studying away from their work site for qualifications as well as being trained on-the-job for a certain length of time. To have to state this would seem extraordinary to apprentices in many other countries, but it marks a significant break with the concept brought in by NCVQ that qualifications should be assessment-led and outcome-based, and, hence, could be gained completely separately from participation in a programme of learning.

In relation to employer demand, the current and future Governments also face a considerable challenge. Since 2001, Level 2 apprenticeships have grown far quicker than Level 3 apprenticeships. The former now stand at 158,500 and the latter at 81,400. These are largely spread across ten sectors of the economy, including both service and manufacturing sectors, and involve private as well as public sector employers. The majority of apprentices in the 19-25 age group are 'conversions' in that they were already in work with their employer before being classed as an apprentice (see Fuller and Unwin, 2008). The concern here is that some of them may be unaware of their apprenticeship status and may simply be acquiring the specified qualifications through the accreditation of their existing skills. On the other hand, it could be argued that these older employees are being given the opportunity to train to a higher level and this, in turn, could be a reflection of increasing interest in training on the part of their employers. The problem is that there has been insufficient research to examine these concerns.

In their pre-election statements on apprenticeship, the Conservative Party tinder David Cameron has also declared the intention to re-launch and expand a form of advanced apprenticeship. To pay for this, the Conservatives would use the existing funding allocated to the Train to Gain programme which funds training towards NVQs for adults in employment. Introduced in 2006, Train to Gain had cost l.47 billion [pounds sterling] by March 2009 and has a budget of 925 million [pounds sterling] for 2009-10. A National Audit Office evaluation of the initiative found that 50 per cent of employers surveyed said they would have funded the training themselves and that, overall, Train to Gain had "not provided good value for money" (NAO, 2009, page 7). By focusing on the Government's desire to increase the stocks of qualifications, particularly among the existing workforce, Train to Gain is emblematic of a series of initiatives over the past 30 or so years that have seen successive governments assuming that they can align their goals with those of employers. It is to employers that we now turn.

The problem of demand

Despite the fact that the UK is, according to the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES), the sixth largest economy in the world, the sixth largest manufacturing nation, and the sixth 'best place in the world for doing business', it is 'not world class in skills and not on a trajectory to be so by 2020' (UKCES, 2009, pages 4-5). These are brave words from a government-funded quango. And here we go again in terms of that sense of deja-vu, for the Commission identifies three root causes that have been identified by a range of commentators over many years (paraphrased from the original).

1. Relative to other industrialised nations, the UK has too few businesses in high skill, high value added industries. There is not enough employer demand skills.

2. Too many young people in the UK fail to gain the basic, employability and lower level skills needed to progress in work.

3. Current employment and skills systems in the UK are neither fully integrated, nor sufficiently aligned to labour market needs.

As Keep and Mayhew (2010) have pointed out, however, this list includes a somewhat startling admission for a government-funded organisation. The UKCES's reference to the problem of employer demand for skills smashes through years of fudging. Without sufficient employer demand, the endless attempts to improve and promote the UK's vocational education and training (VET) system (and to raise standards in education more generally) have been and continue to be severely hampered.

A range of reasons for the insufficient demand for skills from UK employers have been identified. They include long-standing concerns that too many employers are happily making money out of low quality products and services, whilst others manage polarised workforces in which a small core of highly trained knowledge workers operates separately from a larger pool of operatives restricted to routine tasks. It is argued that the shift to an economy dominated by service industries has stripped out the trade and craft skills associated with manufacturing and is reliant on so-called interpersonal skills that are acquired on-the-job without the need for substantive off-the-job training. There is also criticism of the way some UK workplaces are organised such that not enough employees are allowed or encouraged to use their discretion in making judgements or to make a contribution to the way decisions are made (see, inter alia, Felstead et al., 2009).

The long-standing problem of employer demand for skills is still being highlighted. New research by Mason and Bishop (2010) on the effect of the recession on employers" training behaviour has shown that, across the UK workforce as a whole, average levels of job-related training have returned to the level of 1993, having declined during the 2000s. Worryingly, in light of the current Government's advocacy of the importance of growing stocks of skills at Level 3 and above to achieve greater competitiveness, the data show declining training rates for younger age groups holding higher education qualifications.

It may also be time to acknowledge that many employers will themselves have low levels of basic skills due to poor educational attainment at school and the subsequent lack of opportunity to improve their skills through work. In that sense, these employers have not benefitted from working with more enlightened and skillful employers and hence perpetuate the work and business practices they encountered as employees. Government policies with regard to skills and employment continue to treat employers as an homogenous group with the ability to capitalise on the expertise of well-trained employees. Attention has been focused on raising the aspirations and developing the skills levels of individuals seeking or already in work, and far too little attention has been paid to the capabilities of employers.

The recognition that workplaces are sites of learning has emerged over the past 30 years or so and has helped to fuel an increase in the numbers of work-based and work-related courses organised by further and higher education institutions in collaboration with employers. These collaborations have led to the development of new hybrid qualifications such as Foundation Degrees and innovative forms of assessment. There is a new emphasis on ensuring students on vocational courses (including apprenticeships) can progress to higher education. As Carter (2009) has shown, however, measurement of progression is still hampered by the lack of accurate and consistent data. This is partly due m the different and confusing ways in which vocational qualifications are categorised in official statistics. More could be done to develop a more seamless tertiary education sector, one that recognises the complementary strengths of further education colleges, private and third sector providers, and higher education institutions. At the time of writing, teachers in further education colleges in the UK are still paid less than their colleagues in schools, less funding is allocated to college students than school pupils, and colleges continue to struggle for the type of independence and respect government affords to universities (though, given the increasing demands placed on universities, the higher education sector might query this).

One area in which New Labour governments have put a great deal of faith is in employer demand for graduates. Since 1997, opportunities have expanded for young people to enter higher education. Data show that for the 2009/10 cohort, 36 per cent of 18-year-olds in England entered full-time higher education, an increase from 32 per cent in 2004/5 and from 30 per cent in 1994/5 (Hefee, 2010). The participation rate rises to 4,3 per cent if 18-30-year-olds are counted. The goal of 50 per cent of 18-30-year-olds in higher education (set in the Labour Party's Manifesto for the 200l general election) remains (DBIS, 2009a). Young people from the most disadvantaged backgrounds are 30 per cent more likely to go to university now than was the case five years ago (Hefce, 2010). In 2009, however, graduate unemployment reached its highest level (7.9 per cent) for twelve years, coming close to the mid- 1990s level of just over 8 per cent (HECSU/Agcas/UCAS, 2009). These figures, based on a survey in January 2009 of people who graduated in 2008, showed that, in line with unemployment more broadly, graduates had struggled to find jobs in construction, financial services, IT and business. There were increased job opportunities, however, in the public sector, notably in healthcare, teaching and social work. However, cuts to public sector jobs have already started and further cuts are predicted over the coming months. Having a degree will certainly still be an advantage and the concern will be the extent to which graduates displace employment opportunities for non-graduate young people.

Under New Labour, more attention has been paid to the spatial dimensions of the economy and of labour markets. The creation of the Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) in 1999 and the establishment of various forms of 'partnership' to co-ordinate the planning and organisation of education, training and employment services are examples of how a highly centralised policymaking machine has attempted to engender cooperative activity at the local level. Research by Green (2009) has shown that geography is still very important when considering the extent and type of employment and training opportunities to which individuals have access. She writes that, given that the gap "between regions in employment 'quality" has grown over time", rather than seeing the UK as a single 'UK labour market', we need to recognise that "there are a multiplicity of sub-markets demarcated by occupation, sector and geography". This may demand more specific localised intervention to ensure that young people (and adults) in certain parts of the country are not left behind (see also Dorling et al., 2007).

Concluding remarks

From their analysis of life history data from the 1958 and 1970 Birth Cohort Studies, Schoon et al. (2001, page 19) argue that, "... over the last three decades youth transitions have been increasingly associated with rising risks of unemployment" and that "the experiences of young people are susceptible m the overall socioeconomic conditions, especially in the aftermath of the recession of the late 1980s and early 1990s". As the effects of the 2008 economic crisis turned into recession, it is young people again who have suffered the consequences. As this paper has tried to show, the UK has long-standing problems that successive governments have found difficult to solve or ease.

Over the past 30 or so years, more and more people have gained qualifications and attended training courses. More young people now remain in some form of education or training and rising numbers progress to higher education. Yet there is a profound unease about the extent to which this expansion of participation is being matched by a demand in the economy for the increased levels of skills and knowledge. At the same time, there is also concern about whether existing patterns of education and training are appropriate for the new ways in which skills and knowledge are emerging in the economy in the day-to-day activity in dynamic workplaces (sec, inter alia, Guile, 2009).

This paper has argued that today's initiatives and policies related to the development of skills are too constrained by thinking that emerged in the later 1970s and early 1980s. In particular, there is an adherence to outdated and flawed notions of how skills and knowledge related to work should be acquired and assessed, and an overly centralised approach to the organisation, design, and funding of the system. Furthermore, those young people who are most dependent on vocational education and training are not being given the opportunity to develop a sufficiently broad and enriching range of skills and knowledge to enable them to fulfil their potential. This leaves them overly exposed to the consequences of economic downturns.

This paper concludes by appraising the extent to which New Labour governments under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have helped to improve the situation they inherited from the Conservatives in 1997: The clearest achievement relates to the continued expansion of students in higher education (which had begun in the late 1980s), both in overall numbers and in the widening of access to young people from disadvantaged hackgrounds. Behind this expansion lies a cultural shift that has seen New Labour's mantra that the future lies in the so-called knowledge economy permeate the national consciousness to the extent that higher education is seen as the main route to achieving financial and job security. Despite the introduction of fees, significant levels of students, and fears about an over-supply of graduates in the labour market, applications to university have continued to rise. In addition, higher education makes a substantial contribution to the British economy.

New Labour's record is much more questionable, however, when we look outside higher education. One possible reason for this is that Tony Blair's 1997 campaign slogan of "'Education, education, education" referred to a very limited notion of education as being comprised of school followed immediately (albeit after a 'gap' year) by university. This neat linear trajectory was aligned with New Labour's vision for a knowledge-based economy (employing graduates) based on financial services, IT, and the creative and cultural sectors. So-called low-skilled and unskilled jobs would disappear through the outsourcing of manufacturing to China, India and Eastern Europe. There seemed no room here for intermediate skills, no recognition that many important jobs in society, particularly in personal services, could not be done overseas, and no strategy or vision for the skill formation and development of non-graduates. Following the 2008 banking crisis, questions were raised in many quarters about whether New Labour had abandoned manufacturing and, in essence, failed to develop an industrial strategy. In 2009, government responded with the report, New Industry, New lobs (DBIS, 2009) in which Peter Mandelson announced a series of measures to revitalise manufacturing and the new mantra of 'skills activsm". This recognition of the need for a more balanced economy could have important implications for the role of further education colleges, for the FE-HE interface around Level 4 programmes, and for skills training more broadly.

For much if its first decade in government, New Labour focused its education and training policies on the supply-side and continued with the flexible labour market policies it inherited from the Conservatives. Targets were set {through the use of Public Sector Agreements) to raise the stocks of qualifications for the whole population (see Keep, 2006). A complex (and constantly re-forming) administrative architecture was established to organise, fund and performance-manage education and training providers. At the same time, and again maintaining procedures instigated under the Conservatives, government took increasing control of qualification design, curricula, and pedagogy. This has steadily turned the key stakeholders (providers, teachers and trainers, awarding bodies, government agencies, local authorities, employer associations) into passive actors, unlike the much more active and collaborative role played by the social partners in many other European countries (see Guile, 2009; Keep, 2006).

There is a further failure of New Labout to break with the past in relation to the faith that government continues to place in employers. Since 1997, governments have been very reluctant to introduce measures to regulate employer behaviour, through such mechanisms as "licences to practice" or through restricting government-funded training programmes to workplaces that have qualified trainers. One notable departure was the introduction in 2003 of the requirement that 50 per cent of the workforce in organisations providing social care must be qualified to NVQ Level 2 and for managers to be qualified to NVQ Level 4. Although the caveats about NVQs discussed earlier in this article must be taken into account, research suggests that this has had a positive impact on the levels of training and skills in this sector (see Rainbird et al., 2009). A further potentially important development is the Brown Government's announcement to use the public procurement process to bind contractors into providing apprenticeships and other forms of training. Again, more could be done. Those employers, and particularly the large firms, who have consistently shown they provide excellent skill formation and workforce development opportunities for young people and adults could be funded to take on more apprentices (perhaps distributed through supply chains) and offer more short-term work placements.

Finally a serious indictment of New Labour is that, despite the commitment to education in its 1997 manifesto and the vision outlined in one of its first Green Papers, entitled, The Learning Age: A Renaissance for a New Britain (DfEE, 1998), it has overseen the removal of around one million places for part-time adult education (see Schuller and Watson, 2009). As Evans et al. (2010, page 4) argue, the complexity and 'riskiness' of life today demands a much more flexible and diversified concept of the life course with, "broader definitions of 'successful' transitions and outcomes". To date, in their approach to skills and employment, New Labour has been rooted in more rigid, and even idealised, concepts of the past.

doi: 10.1177/0027950110372443

REFERENCES

Ainley, P. and Corney, M. (1990), Training for the Future: the Rise and Fall of the MSC, London, Cassell.

Bailey, B. and Unwin, L. (2008), Fostering 'habits of reflection, independent study and free inquiry': an analysis of the short-lived phenomenon of general/liberal studies in English vocational education and training', Journal of Vocational Education and Training, 60, 1, pp. 61-74.

Carter, J. (2009), Progression from Vocational and Applied Learning to Higher Education in England, Bolton, University Vocational Awards Council.

CBI (1989), Towards a Skills Revolution--A Youth Charter, London, CBI.

--(2009), CBI proposes five-point plan to tackle youth unemployment, Press Release, 24 August, London, Confederation of British Industry.

Cox, A. (2007), 'Re-visiting the NVQ debate; 'bad' qualifications, expansive learning environments and prospects for upskilling workers', SKOPE Research Paper no. 71, Oxford, SKOPE.

DBIS (2009a), Higher Ambitions. The Future of Universities in a Knowledge Economy, London, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

--(2009b), Skills for Growth -Analytical Paper, www.bis.gov.uk/assets/ biscore/corporate/docs/s/09-1468-skills-strategy-analyticalpaper.pdf

--(2009c), Skills for Growth--The National Skills Strategy, London, The Stationery Office.

--(2009d). New Jobs, New Industry, London, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

DCSF (2007), Raising Expectations: Staying in Education and Training Post- 16--From Policy to Legislation, Nottingham, Department for Children, Schools and Families.

--(2010), Key Stage 4 Attainment by Pupil Characteristics, in England 2008/09, SFR 34/2009, London, Department for Children, Schools and Families.

DCSF/BIS (2010), NEET Statistics--Quarterly Brief February 2010, available at www.dcsf.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/STR/d000913/ index.shtml

DfEE (1998), The Learning Age" A New Renaissance for a New Britain, Norwich. HMSO.

Dorling, D., Rigby, J., Wheeler, B., Balla, D., Thomas, B., Fahmy, E., Gordon, D. and Lupton, R. (2007), Poverty, Wealth and Place in Britain, 1968 to 2005, Bristol, The Policy Press.

Evans, K., Schoon, I. and Weale, M. (2010), 'Life chances, learning and the dynamics of risk throughout the life course', LLAKES Research Paper no 9, London, LLAKES Research Centre, Institute of Education, University of London.

Felstead, A., Fuller, A., Jewson, N. and Unwin, L. (2009), Improving Working for Learning, London, Routledge.

Finegold, D. and Soskice, S. (1988), 'The failure of training in Britain: analysis and prescription', Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 4, pp. 21-53.

Finn, D. (1987), Training Without Jobs: New Deals and Broken Promises, Basingstoke, Macmillan Education.

Fuller, A. and Unwin, L. (2004), 'Expansive learning environments: integrating organisational and personal development', in Rainbird, H., Fuller, A. and Munro, A. (eds), Workplace Learning in Context, London, Routledge, pp. 126-44.

--(2008), Towards Expansive Apprenticeships, A Commentary for the ESRC's Teaching and Learning Research Programme, London, Institute of Education.

--(2009), 'Change and continuity in apprenticeship: the resilience of a model of learning', Journal of Education and Work, 22, 4, pp. 405-16.

Green, A.E. (2009), Geography Matters: The Importance of Sub-national Perspectives on Employment and Skills, Praxis Paper 2, Wath-Upon-Dearne, UK Commission for Employment and Skills.

Guile, D. (2010), 'Questioning the simplistic link between qualifications and labour market entry: new forms of expertise and learning in the creative and cultural sector', LLAKES Research Paper no. 2, LLAKES Research Centre, London, Institute of Education, University of London.

Hefce (2010), Trends in Young Participation in Higher Education: Core Results for England, Issues Paper, Bristol, Higher Education Funding Council for England.

HECSU/Agcas/UCAS (2009), What Do Graduates Do?, London, Higher Education Careers Services Unit.

Jonathan, R. (1987), 'The Youth Training Scheme and Core Skills: an educational analysis', in Holt, M. (ed.), Skills and Vocationalism: The Easy Answer, Milton Keynes, Open University Press.

Keep, E. (1999), 'UK's VET Policy and the 'Third Way': following a high skills trajectory or running up a dead end street?', Journal of Education and Work, 12, 3, pp.323-46.

--(2006), 'State control of the English education and training system--playing with the biggest train set in the world', Journal of Vocational Education and Training, 48, I, pp. 47-64.

Keep, E. and Mayhew, K. (2010), 'Some comments on Skills for Growth, Issues Paper 21, Oxford, SKOPE.

Mason, G. and Bishop, K. (2010), 'Adult training, skills updating and recession in the UK: the implications for competitiveness and social inclusion', LLAKES Research Paper no. 10, London, LLAKES Research Centre, Institute of Education, University of London.

NAO (2009). Train to Gain: Developing the Skills of the Workforce. London, The Stationery Office.

ONS (2010), Labour Market Statistics, Statistical Bulletin March 2010, London, Office for National Statistics.

Payne, J. (2008), 'Divergent skills policy trajectories in England and Scotland after Leitch', SKOPE Working Paper No.82, Oxford, SKOPE.

Prais, S.J. (2001), 'Developments in education and vocational training in Britain: background note on recent research', National Institute Economic Review, 178, October.

Pring, R., Hayward, G., Hodgson, A., Johnson, J., Keep, E, Oancea, A., Rees, G., Spours, K. and Wilde, S. (2009), Education for All, London, Routledge.

Raggatt, P. and Williams, S. (1999), Governments, Markets and Qualifications, London, Falmer.

Rainbird, H., Leeson, E. and Munro, A. (2009), Skill Development in the Social Care Sector: An Assessment of Institutional and Organisational Capacity, a research project commissioned under the Department of Health, Policy Research Programme Social Care Workforce Initiative, available at: http://www.kcl. ac.uk/content/1/c6/03/89/18/FinalReportSkilldevelopment inthesocialcaresectorAug.pdf.

Ryan, P. and Unwin, L. (2001), 'Apprenticeship in the British 'Training Market", National Institute Economic Review, 178, pp. 99-114.

Schoon, I., McCulloch, A., Joshi, H.E., Wiggins, R.D. and Bynner, J. (2001), 'Transitions from school to work in a changing social context', Youth, 9, 4, pp. 4-22.

Schuller, T. and Watson, D. (2009), Learning Through Life--Inquiry into the Future of Lifelong Learning, Leicester, NIACE.

Simon, B. (1986), "The 1944 education act: a conservative measure?', History of Education, 15, 1, pp. 31-43.

Tinkler, P. (2001), 'Youth's opportunity? The Education Act of 1944 and proposals for part-time continuation education', History of Education, 30, 1, pp.77-94.

UKCES (2009), Towards Ambition 2020: Skills, Jobs, Growth, Wath-Upon-Dearne, UK Commission for Employment and Skills.

Unwin, L. and Wellington, J. (2001), Young People's Perspectives on Education, Training and Employment, London, Kogan Page.

Vignoles, A. and De Coulon, A. (2008), 'An analysis of the benefit of NVQ2 qualifications acquired at age 26-34, Centre for the Economics of Education Discussion Paper no. 106, London, London School of Economics.

Wolf, A. (2002), Does Education Matter?, London, Penguin.

NOTES

It should be noted that different approaches to skills' policy have been emerging in Scotland and Wales since political devolution in 1999. Payne (2008) argues that, in particular, policymakers in Scotland have stressed the importance of boosting the demand for skills from employers, alongside improvements on the supply side.

(2) The Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework has twelve levels starting with two 'Access' levels. Level 5 equates to Level 2 as used in the rest of the UK.

(3) Many other countries have followed the UK's example and have created frameworks. In 2008, the European Parliament approved the introduction of a European Qualifications Framework (EQF) based on eight levels with qualifications expressed in 'learner outcomes'.

(4) The total of young peop!e achieving five or more GCSEs at Grades A*-C not including Mathematics and English was 69.8 per cent, with girls (73.9 per cent) again outperforming boys (65.8 per cent). The number gaining five or more GCSEs at the full range of grades from A*-G was 97.8 per cent.

(5) It is too early to assess the extent to which the introduction of the 14-19 Diploma in England or the Welsh Baccalaureate will provide an alternative means for young people to achieve the GCSE Level 2 benchmark. See Pring et al. (2009) for a discussion of the aspirations for these new forms of qualification.

Lorna Unwin *

* Centre for Learning and Life Chances in Knowledge Economies and Societies (LLAKES), and Institute of Education, University of London. E-mail: L.Unwin@ioe.ac.uk