EVERY MONDAY
on marrying up education and commerce. Not just in the construction industry, but there is simply not enough information and support in all kinds of businesses to help employers take on – and manage – apprentices effectively.
First however, we need to lay a firm foundation. The fundamental and over-riding problem with education is that it has become far too much of a party political issue. Too often, our children’s futures have been held aloft on the altar of political ambition, their learning disregarded in the name of progress.
As a parent, my ideal would be to ring-fence education so that it couldn’t be redrawn every time the political chessboard changes. We need a political consensus and a commitment from all sides to stick with it. This will never happen of course.
The distance between your average state school or college and No 10 Downing Street must be measured in more than miles. There is a distinct lack of understanding – most Cabinet
Young people have been unwitting guinea pigs in experiment after experiment.
ministers have no idea what it is like to work in or learn in one these days.
With some exceptions, their children tend to be educated privately. And they don’t listen carefully enough to what educational experts and school leaders report back. By dint of a Cabinet post, these distant politicians think they know best.
Is it any wonder then that children and young people have been unwitting guinea pigs in experiment after experiment conducted at the whim of whoever happens to hold a majority in the House of Commons? Comprehensive schools, selective grammar schools, academy schools, overdemanding SATs tests at primary level, GCSE rewrites and of course, university tuition fees.
Against this background, the passion for apprenticeships sits oddly. It seems a throwback, and yet it is a vital tool for the future. It doesn’t get everything right. However, at least this Government does recognise that we can’t run a country on a bunch of twentysomethings equipped with nothing more than a 2:2 in media studies.