11 May 2004

Sir Cyril Taylor, Minister, ladies and gentlemen

I thank you for the opportunity to address the Specialist Schools Trust, and headteachers, principals, sponsors, friends and supporters. I share the respect and admiration of this country for your very great achievements for young people.

In releasing his interim report on 14-19 education, Mike Tomlinson declared that the introduction of possible reforms would be a matter of evolution not revolution, and would be phased in over the next ten years.

The word evolution is of course identified with that commendably personalised learner, Charles Darwin.

And his learning was facilitated by the application of technology in the best modern way - the technology being HMS Beagle, under the command of Captain Fitz Roy, in which Darwin sailed around the world from east to west in from 1831-1836.

During the course of that voyage, he visited my home town. These were his thoughts.

"At last we anchored in Sydney Cove...... In the evening I walked through the town, and returned full of admiration at the whole scene. It is a most magnificent testimony to the power of the British nation. My first feeling was to congratulate myself that I was born an Englishman. Upon seeing more of the town afterward, perhaps my admiration fell a little; but yet it is a fine town."

Thank you Mr Darwin.

At the time of this visit, in 1836, Sydney had been established for almost half a century. Despite the continued transportation of convicts, the bulk of its population by then had been born on Australian soil.

It must have been a great joy to Darwin to witness, again less than half a century later, the successful evolution of this native Australian species to the point at which in 1882, they defeated the English at The Oval - The Ashes of English cricket.

As an exercise in project management, the voyage of the Beagle was meticulously planned. Captain Fitz Roy's task was to survey the coastlines of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, and then to carry out a chain of chronometrical measurements around the world.

So too was Darwin's research systematic and disciplined. His conclusion that the evolution of species was driven by the survival not of the strongest or the most intelligent, but by the survival of those most able to adapt, was the result not of serendipity but of planned observation, testing of hypotheses, and research.

Similarly, and conceding that planned evolution is a contradiction in terms, the evolution of education in England in the next decade must be managed, not left to chance and fortune.

The future of education in England is a voyage to be planned and navigated.

Further, ours is the voyage of a fleet rather than a single ship: a set of interconnected and interrelated components under a single command; each element having a specialised purpose; each captained by an educational professional, a civil servant or a Minister; but each contributing to the achievement of a single united purpose.

That single united purpose is the reform of the entire education and training sector, and not just components of it.

The evolution we must manage, by artificial not natural selection over the next decade, must be treated as a single, complex but essentially integrated education and training strategy, which we will implement through four tactical forces, each directed at an area of reform:

• 3-14 education: the foundation years and the National Curriculum, where the focus is on the appropriateness of the curriculum and its assessment, and improving school performance
• 14-19 education, on which the Working Group will soon report
• Higher education: that period of intensive study in the main taken full time by young adults prior to employment, and intermittently part-time during employment
• The Skills Strategy: adult education and training; the acquisition of skills, knowledge and understanding of a primarily vocational nature, throughout adult life.

The slogans abound. But they remind us of an important truth. It is fundamental to effective project management over the next decade to work from the reality that we are dealing with a single reform, not four.

Key stages 1-3 must prepare all children for 14-19 education, with increasing rates of participation and attainment; that in turn must feed into higher education and lifelong further education, opening up choices and pathways before all learners rather than closing their options down.

How do we create such accessible pathways beyond age 14? How do we establish secure progression routes from 14-19 on? What is the basic building block of the reform? What is the DNA which will shape evolution over the next ten years?

I suggest that the basic building block we need for this reform is the unit or module of knowledge, skill and understanding, from which qualifications can be constructed. It has been drawn here as a little pulsating battery of learning.

These units or components need not be defined arbitrarily; most have an internal coherence and integrity arising from the nature of their content.

Thus they come in different sizes. And that size can be expressed as a credit value or point score, reflecting the time and work involved in mastering the unit.

Each unit can be described by the nature of its content, and its size. They are what they say they are: 12 points of maths or 8 points of engineering, with no real need for other labels such as general, academic and vocational.

And of course some units will be prerequisites to be taken before others.

A qualification - such as an award, a certificate, a diploma or a degree - is thus gained when a number of units, taken according to certain rules of combination, total a certain number of credit points. The qualification is completed when the box is full.

I put the view that it is only by constructing qualifications in schools, colleges, universities and the workplace along broadly similar and certainly compatible lines, that we will achieve the genuine pathways and seamless transitions that the overall reform is seeking.

A qualification - be it an Intermediate Diploma, a specialised adult vocational qualification, or a university degree - might be constructed from a number of core units, optional units and elective units.

For example, in an Intermediate Diploma:

• There might be core units, being those specified by the 14-19 Working Group - mathematical skills, communication, ICT, the extended project, the wider activities, and personal planning review and guidance. Or, as these are intended to be compulsory, the core might be treated as a single large unit.
• The optional units would be the main learning components of the diploma, in subjects such as history, or applied art and design, or German, or health and social care. These would be the units that together construct the specialised diploma.
• An open diploma might be constructed from a mixed pattern of selection from within the optional unit bank, and perhaps adding from the bank of elective units.

Each of the three types of unit would carry a credit value. The award of the diploma might require, say, a total of 120 points, of which a certain number must be earned in core units and the balance in optional or elective units.

And of course the units could vary in size and number and hence in credit value; some units would be prerequisites for others; and there would be rules of combination laid down as part of the qualification design.

An occupational qualification can be constructed in exactly the same way, for example a Level 4 qualification in engineering.

The core units would be generic engineering units; the optional units would be the main learning in electrical engineering or chemical engineering or civil engineering; the elective units might be specific units required by the employer. Or, for engineers who are self-employed, they might be, for example, in taxation or marketing or business management.

Such elective units could be taken from the core, optional or elective units in potentially any other Level 4 qualification which the learner or employer regarded as important.

Again, the units could vary in size, number and credit value according to the nature of the content; there would be prerequisite arrangements and certain rules of combination.

The units in a diploma and those in a higher level vocational qualification would not be identical in size and value, but they would need to be compatible if progression from one to the other is to be achieved.

Unitisation, if not credit rating, is nothing new in the groves of academe; it has in one form or another the norm in many universities. Some qualifications, for example a research-based Ph D, consist of only one unit, but degrees and graduate qualifications are commonly constructed from modules, to which credit values could be assigned.

The design and structure of unit based, credit-rated learning would allow us to develop a framework for recognising achievement to replace the largely unintelligible National Qualifications Framework, which has been ignored by most of the vocational training which occurs in this country.

The framework for recognising achievement could look something like this.

• An entry level, with eight other levels
• Clear pathways post-19 from the diplomas to higher education and adult vocational education at level 4 and above, with perhaps three types of further education qualification at each level - awards, certificates and diplomas, in increasing order of required credit points
• A single framework for all qualifications
  • regardless of where the learning takes place - in the classroom, the lecture theatre, the workplace, in front of the computer at home, or behind the wheel of a tractor
  • regardless of who funds it - the LSC or HEFCE or employers or employees
  • regardless of the body responsible for accreditation and quality assurance - the QCA or the QAA
  • and regardless of the ultimate source for verification of the curriculum - either the universities, or industry through Skills for Business.

Such a framework also gives currency that can be communicated clearly to learners, employers, parents and the public; it is immediately apparent what a unit in hairdressing at level 2, or a unit in biology at level 3, or a certificate in web design at level 4 actually means in the landscape of qualifications. All qualifications are expressed in two dimensions: level and size.

Further, there are potentially no dead ends: learners can progress horizontally by adding optional and elective credits at the same level, or vertically by accumulating units and credits at a higher level.

As the Interim Report on 14-19 reform points out, the regulatory authorities for England, Wales and Northern Ireland have developed a framework which encompasses both subject-based domains and employment sector groupings.

There are 15 areas in the framework: there is no magic in that number, but it is one which we expect can be aligned in a workable way with the Sector Skills Councils, and which provides a list against which units from key stage 4 onwards could be classified.

The important thing is to reach agreement on a common classification system which the DfES, the LSC, the Sector Skills Councils, Ofsted, the Adult Learning Inspectorate and QCA can all sign up to.

This is an example for just five of the 15 areas, showing how each can be broken down into further categories. Importantly, no distinction needs to be made between those that might be said to be general and those that might be said to be vocational.

Now, before I go on, I remind you that despite more than 80 per cent of adult learning taking place unrecognised outside the National Qualifications Framework (including training by the private sector to the value of £23billion per annum), and despite major training programs, such as Modern Apprenticeships and many other government funded programs, being outside the NQF, England nevertheless has over 4000 accredited qualifications.

The NQF cannot be navigated, let alone be understood by a potential learner. It is simply page after page of tables of qualifications by level, type and awarding body, under Sections 96 and 97 of the Learning and Skills Act 2000.

I make that point because it looks complex, but it in fact shows on one page the understandable future towards which we are possibly heading: the fifteen areas, with entry level and eight further levels in each radiating out from the centre, and with the inner five - which represent 14-19 education (both general and vocational) - leading directly to higher education and lifelong further education.

It is what the Galapagos were to Darwin.

It not only creates an ordered and understandable framework of pathways for learning, but it also would allow us to reduce the number of qualifications substantially.

Yet at the same time, because of the combination of core, optional and elective units at each level in each sector, it would accommodate specialist and open diplomas, and deliver to industry the bespoke qualifications increasingly required by employers and employees. The inability of the current framework to anticipate and respond to the needs of industry for tailor-made qualifications has been a major factor in their turning away from the NQF.

So, that's where we need to be. Mike Tomlinson is leading us in that direction; so too is Government with Ministers' remits to the QCA, the LSC and Skills for Business on vocational qualifications, credit and national occupational standards.

But unlike Captain Fitz Roy, we don't have the option of laying The Beagle ashore to effect modifications and repairs; our entire fleet must refit, adapt and evolve under full sail.

The nature of the refit will of course be determined by the Government decision on the Working Group's recommendations, but those decisions must necessarily be taken in the context of other decisions already made. The decade is already densely populated with scheduled commitments which have consequential knock-on effects.

Let's assume that there will be four levels of diploma, each first awarded in 2014. The first cohort will begin the diplomas in 2012. It may well be better to phase the introduction of the four diplomas over four years, but for the purpose of simplicity let's say they all start together.

We have a commitment to Government under the Skills Strategy to have all adult vocational qualifications in all industry sectors fully unit based and credit rated by 2010. We are also locked onto 2007, by which time there will be at least some unit based and credit rated qualifications in all industry sectors.

Now, the general qualifications normally have a lifetime of five years before reaccreditation.

In the normal course of events, criteria for revised A levels would have been agreed by the QCA with the awarding bodies by September last year; QCA would have accredited the new specifications, and new guidance materials would have been published by September 2004; schools and colleges would have had a year in which to prepare to begin teaching the reaccredited qualification in September 2005; the first AS awards would have been in August 2006 and A level awards in 2007.

The GCSE would have been on a similar path, although one year later, with the first cohort starting in 2006 and the first awards in 2008.

Now, this period of review by the Working Group followed by reform yet to be determined is not the normal course of events. Clearly, it is essential that reaccreditation is either consistent with the forthcoming Government decision on the Working Group Report, or delayed until it can be. What we must avoid is one set of modifications to the qualifications in the middle of the decade, and further modifications immediately prior to the introduction of diplomas.

The GCE is of course already a unit based qualification. The alignment of the A-level units with the overall qualifications framework will be considerably less complex than with the GCSE, which is not unit based. While there will be some changes to unit content and arrangement, the major issue which needs addressing in the GCE specifications is the assessment load.

On balance, and if we are to avoid two sets of revision in the decade, 2007 seems a more manageable date for first teaching of revised GCE specifications, with revised AS awards in 2008 and A-level in 2009.

That would also allow an extra year to be taken, to 2008, for the complex task of changing the GCSE qualification to a unit based structure, in preparation for those units becoming credit-carrying components of Diploma qualifications.

By that analysis, taking into account events which are either fixed or must be located within the timeline, the years 2010 and 2011 emerge as the years by which all general and vocational qualifications should be unit based, with credit points being known and understood but not operative until the diplomas come into operation.

I stress that these new GCSEs and A levels should not only be unit based, but that they should include a greatly expanded and specifically vocational offering in each of the proposed 15 area classification.

Now, I am not arguing for any particular sequence or timeline. I am simply pointing out that even stripped down to its bare essentials, the next ten years will be extraordinarily complex. Hence sound planning and good management are essential; what is needed is first class project management on a grand scale.

What the image doesn't show is that over the next four years, there is also an ambitious program for the introduction of new qualifications, and for the expansion of apprenticeships.

Of particular significance are the applied and other vocationally-related courses, which are the key to raising retention and participation by the 16-19 age group.

The current strategy, based on decisions taken by Government in 2000/01, is to replace the GNVQ family of qualifications with two other types of qualification: applied GCSEs and the VCE, for students seeking vocationally related introductory study; and other more vocationally specific qualifications such as BTEC and OCR Nationals.

Two issues have arisen, affecting some but by no means all centres. One is the specific issue of the January 2004 results being below expectation in Applied ICT. As the regulator, QCA has taken steps to ensure that the interests of candidates are protected, as will be known from correspondence I have sent to centres.

The more general issue is that the applied qualifications are being taken by some students who would prefer to do a vocationally specific qualification, but such qualifications have not become available or been accessed quickly enough.

This has caused problems for some schools and colleges, particularly when it has been necessary to withdraw GNVQs with very small entries because the validity of the assessment and awarding process could not be guaranteed.

While the applied qualifications are serving their target group well, we need to expand the offering and take up of more vocationally specific qualifications very considerably, before the GNVQs are finally phased out.

From what you tell me, and it is consistent with my previous experience, well over 10 per cent of young people - some from as young as 14 - are motivated only by real engagement with the fundamentals of an occupation and by teachers who have a real understanding of that occupation - just as other pupils are motivated by French or history.

The aim is not to start them on a pathway that will lead them inevitably to become a builder or a web designer or a childcare worker, any more than a pupil studying French or history is being prepared to become a linguist or a professor of history.

But for many young people, exposure to genuine vocational substance and practice, and successful mastery of the mind/hand/eye coordination that is the essence of every vocation from brain surgery to brick-laying, is the key to educational development and improved self-esteem.

Work-related learning is of course a statutory requirement from September this year. But that is only part of the story. The key strategic objective must be to have vocationally specific courses across the whole curriculum (that is in all 15 areas), even were a diploma structure finally not to be adopted. Clearly, the Sector Skills Councils have a major role to play in the design of these programs.

High quality, low equity is the category into which the OECD currently puts English education: high average results, but low equity because performance at age 15 is strongly related to social background. This expresses itself in poor retention beyond the compulsory years, and in substantial underperformance by certain minority groups.

At the end of the decade to 2014, we must have high quality, high equity provision. Increased participation and retention is a necessary condition if that is to be achieved.

One Tomlinson doth not a summer make. The adoption of a diploma structure, and the creation of more vocationally specific and unit based courses, of themselves will do nothing to increase retention unless there is massive reform in the infrastructure needed to support them.

The whole purpose of the reform in which we are engaged is improved performance and increased retention; a new suite of qualifications is a necessary condition for achieving this, but it is very far from being a sufficient one.

In the decade to 2002 (the year for which we have the most recent figures) we had no significant improvement in participation in education and training at age 17. If that virtually flat line of 75 per cent retention continues on its current trend to 2014, no new diploma will make it then move sharply upward. We need to achieve a trajectory to 95 per cent retention by the time the diplomas are introduced, if we are then fully to realise the benefits of them.

To do that, we need to call in the entire fleet, to achieve six necessary conditions if the reform is to be successful. Much has already been achieved and much more is planned: I simply emphasize that our failure to achieve them would bring the reform program down.

• Teachers with industrial qualifications and experience, who can inspire young people with the richness of their craft
• Teaching in industrial standard facilities
• Industry-verified curriculum: vocational courses which have been developed with strong input from the Sector Skills Councils
• Greater flexibility and coordination between schools, colleges and workplaces: the LSC strategic area reviews are of vital importance as a foundation for this
• Real buy-in from employers, especially SMEs
• Sustained, effective, planned project management over the long haul, a critical ingredient, and perhaps the most difficult of all.

What I have tried to do is:

• look at the current reforms in education and training as an integrated whole;
• argue that this integrity depends upon building qualifications on the basis of units and credit;
  describe a possible framework for recognising lifelong learning and achievement;
• stress that successful implementation of the reforms depends upon detailed planning followed by strong and coordinated management;
• and emphasize that achievement of our ten year goal is dependent on improving performance and participation in the shorter term, through new qualifications and infrastructure support.

You, at the Specialist Schools Trust, are in the vanguard of that reform.

In carrying out the QCA part of the reform program, I would greatly welcome direct input from headteachers and principals, and I shall talk to Cyril Taylor about the best way that might be done.

There will be storms and rough water ahead of us. Being human, we will get some things wrong. And quite properly, the reform program will face public scrutiny, and should be prepared to survive on its performance and its merits.

But whatever the chop on the surface of the water, and whatever the direction of the tide, there is a strong and abiding deep-sea current relentlessly driving this reform forward. It has to do with high quality and high equity, with performance and participation, with access and a fair deal, with scholarship and skill, with profoundly important educational, social, economic and national imperatives, and above all with the futures of our own children.

Since taking up this job nearly two years ago, I have never been more optimistic.

Ken Boston