06 July 2004

Thank you for asking me to your conference today. I understand that you have taken 'improving retention' as your theme, specifically in regard to apprentices in your industry. You believe that - fundamental to achieving this - is giving pupils the opportunities to learn more about industry while still at school. You are absolutely right.

You know better than I do, that one of the issues facing the motor industry today is that employers are struggling to find skilled technicians and other qualified personnel. Because of rapid technological development the modern automotive service industry requires a different kind of technician. The industry is facing a skills crisis.

The Institute of the Motor Industry has quoted me as saying that "vocational education in schools needs to be taken seriously". So how are we setting about creating young learners with the knowledge and drive to enter British industries?

As a friend of this country, I can observe that there is a tendency here to talk as if further study and employment, to which secondary education leads, falls neatly into the academic and the vocational, leading to either a profession or a trade. Vocational qualifications and vocational subjects are talked about as if they are necessarily a different class of qualification from other qualifications.

This is not the case in other countries. A report published by Ofsted earlier this year compared the provision of 14-19 vocational education in Denmark, the Netherlands, and New South Wales, Australia to see what lessons could be learnt for the benefit of this country.

In all three of the other countries staying on rates into full time education or training beyond the end of compulsory education were higher than here. In terms of further education and training pathways, the end of compulsory education is clearly less of a watershed.

So what does this country have to learn from these three other countries?

In general, vocational education in those countries focuses more specifically on the development of skills for particular types of employment. In the Netherlands, for example, there are strong links between education and employment through social partners. The vocational curriculum provided by a college is, to a considerable extent, determined by local employment needs.

For example, when compiling the Ofsted report, Her Majesty's Inspectors visited the Shipping and Transport College in Rotterdam: the only college in the country providing courses within this particular occupational area. Bespoke training for the shipping and transport industries is a feature of the College's provision. In the two classes observed, 16 year olds worked on practical tasks associated with aspects of transportation and inland waterway navigation. These included using a computer programme, designed by the college, to work out appropriate waterway routes for particular kinds of consignments.

Charles Clarke, at the Learning and Skills Development Conference two weeks ago, drew upon the work that Jaguar have been doing at Knowsley Community College. Jaguar (Ford) has been working with the college to address the issue of local employment skills shortages. This is a good example of national employers working at a local partnership level. It is these partnerships that we need to encourage.

The Inspectors were also able to draw some other broad conclusions from their survey of vocational provision across the three countries:

• Firstly, in all three countries, employers are much more directly involved in determining the content of vocational courses than in England. This helps to give the courses and associated qualifications currency and status. It also helps to ensure that vocational provision is more closely aligned to the needs of the economy than it is in England.
• Secondly, vocational courses in the three countries are held in higher esteem by young people and others than they are in England. This is mainly because they are seen as providing clear pathways to higher education and employment.
• Thirdly, teachers of vocational courses are normally required to have industrial experience, which is regularly updated through industrial placements. This helps to ensure that teaching is firmly embedded in current commercial and industrial practice and that strong links are forged with employers.

By no means, is it all bad news in the UK, the Young Apprenticeship Scheme and the Level 1 Pre-Apprenticeship Award offers students at school the opportunity to learn in practical situations with specialists both from further education and the motor industry. The pilot scheme is meeting the objective to provide 14 year olds with genuinely "vocational" education experiences and provide school pupils with generic knowledge and skills for engineering related industries. It also, if I may quote from Epping Forest College, delivers a programme that "fire's students' imaginations and stimulates inquisitive learning".

I'm pleased that Automotive Skills, supported by businesses such as those in the Premier Automotive Group (Aston Martin, Jaguar, Mazda, Volvo, Land Rover), are one of the four pathfinder Sector Skills Councils for the Young Apprenticeships scheme recently announced by the government. I believe that in the first year IMI have registered over 1,000 students aged 14-16.

So you are very clearly committed to the delivery of vocational programmes to school aged pupils 14-16 within the automotive environment. Employers are committed as well. I'm told that the Honda Institute, with IMI, supplied protective clothing and safety footwear for 22 budding technicians at Richard Hale School in Hertford. This makes a difference. We need more of it, and on a national scale. High quality vocational teaching should take place in industrial standard facilities that reflect the working environment.

In Australia we learned from earlier mistakes. We brought teachers from further education, with industry experience, into secondary schools to teach vocational education. Retrained teachers in areas of oversupply. This didn't work - disaffected teachers teaching disaffected young people.

We moved groups of secondary students into further education colleges for part of the week.

And we made it attractive for people from industry to enter the teaching workforce in schools or further education colleges on a part-time basis, subject to some concurrent training as a teacher, and under the supervision of the head of a faculty.

These things contributed substantially to a real lift in the profile of vocational education in schools, which began to attract the brighter students rather than just those who could not cope with the academic stream.

In particular, faculties in schools and colleges have been rejuvenated by part-time vocational teachers who are also running their own businesses or are employees of national or multi-national companies. They bring with them state-of-the-art knowledge, currency as practitioners, and high credibility with industry - and they have had a real impact on the appetite of young people for vocational education.

It has been my experience that it is extraordinarily difficult to introduce a vibrant vocational education programme in schools in the absence of greatly increased flexibility in school and college timetables, in the shared use of industrial standard facilities, and in sharing teachers with a background in industry. It also requires access to the workplace for at least limited periods of genuine on-the-job teaching and learning, rather than work experience.

The significant progress made in New South Wales really came only in 1997, when the schools and the technical and further education colleges were brought together under a single Department of Education and Training.

That made it possible for the facilities of schools and colleges to be managed as a single resource: the most progressive head teachers and principals of nearby schools and colleges took the opportunity to develop complementary timetables, which permitted the movement of students between school and college. This was particularly important in providing school students access to industry-standard kitchens, workshops, laboratories, studios, design centres, information technology facilities and other highly specialised facilities, which in some cases were mainly used by technical and further education after normal school hours.

The amalgamation also made possible the introduction of a common industrial award for schoolteachers and FE lecturers. This did not mean that they had common conditions in terms of salary and hours, but it did make promotion and transfer possible between schools and colleges as well as working part of the week in a school and part in a college.

The result in curriculum terms is that significant and growing numbers of students in years 10,11,12 and 13 are now spending three days a week in school, one day a week in an FE college, and one day a week in the workplace as a paid employee. In years 12 and 13, the three days in school are spent on traditional academic study; one day at the FE college, and the related day in the workplace, leading to a National Vocational Qualification over two years. All five days contribute to completion of the Higher School Certificate.

The response from industry was very supportive. We negotiated with the Toyota Motor Company for every Toyota dealer in NSW, and subsequently across Australia, to take four school students for one day a week for two years, enrolled in NVQs in automotive practice, small business, and sales and marketing. Every country town of any size has a high school and a Toyota dealership. The benefit from the dealers' point of view was that they were able to select from a competitive pool of motivated young people; they received a government subsidy so the investment was of benefit; and they were able to grow young people into the business, recruiting them at the end of the two years.

Now, none of these solutions can be transplanted. They are culturally specific.

Holland, Denmark and NSW have solved the issue in different ways.

In England, we must find solutions to the same problems:

• Vocational curriculum in schools, which is industry verified, and the first rung on the ladder potentially leading to work
• Industry qualified teachers working with young people in schools
• Industry extended families
• Movement between schools, colleges and work - will need on the job training
• Leaders from industry to become involved

At IMI:

• being the sector body and the awarding body
• with employers at the leading edge of developments
• with your initiatives in outline assessment you are clearly in the forefront of developments

I wish you well, and offer the full support of QCA in pursuing our common goals.

Ken Boston