Education and Skills Bill
12:00 pm
Trish Hartley: We have a worry that they might avoid employing 16 and 17-year-olds because I think that we have not got some of those messages across to employers as well as we should have done, but we have the opportunity between now and when the Bill comes into force to do something about that. You are right that most responsible employers have already done a lot informally, and we welcome the increased flexibility around the qualifications and curriculum framework that will allow for a more unitised approach so that somebody can get credit for what they have done rather than having to look at a monolithic qualification.
It is a question of how we sell it to employers. We are back to the issue that Graham raised around brokerage and people who are face to face with employers. How are they going to get that message across to say, “Actually, you are already doing most of this. All you have to do now is that, and that will help you to be quite clear about what you have got with the young person. It will give the young person a qualification that they can then carry on through life.”?