Clause 35
Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill
2:30 pm
John Hayes (Shadow Minister, Innovation, Universities and Skills; South Holland and The Deepings, Conservative)
As I said in an intervention, Kieran Gordon referred to the 2008 Act, and although it is certainly true that he would not have heard the Minister for Schools and Learners today—unless he had the power of prophecy or something similar—he understood that the 2008 Act was firmer about this issue than is the Bill. I think that what he had expected was, as I indicated earlier, a Bill that mirrored the 2008 Act with a firm commitment.
Let me put this issue in context. In 2008, a study by YouGov found that only 24 per cent. of teachers agreed that apprenticeships are a good alternative to A-levels. That is a far smaller proportion than the same survey found among parents, for whom the figure was 43 per cent., or among young people themselves, for whom the figure was 52 per cent.; as for employers, 55 per cent. felt that apprenticeships were a good alternative to A-levels. The Skills Commission’s report on progression through apprenticeships, which will soon be published, reveals that teachers consistently underestimate the extent to which young people, parents and employers value apprenticeships. For example, although 47 per cent. of teachers believe that young people think that apprenticeships are not a good alternative to A-levels, only 19 per cent. of young people think that they are not a good alternative.
The 2008 YouGov survey also found that teachers have less knowledge of apprenticeships than of any other learning route, except for the Welsh baccalaureate. I know almost nothing about the Welsh baccalaureate, but I am sure that either the hon. Member for Bristol, West or the Under-Secretary will be able to enlighten us about it in due course.
That is why we need this all-age professional career service. The hon. Member for Bristol, West is right that it needs to be independent, but it also must have empiricism and offer advice that is not slanted and gives real emphasis to the vocational pathway. That means talking about apprenticeships to people who are not yet ready to pursue them, so that they can understand where they might end up. If we do not articulate a strong case for apprenticeships at all stages, people will not dream of an apprenticeship as the outcome that they might achieve.
Young people start to think about university long before they can go there—when they enter secondary school, perhaps even earlier. My own son told me when he was five that he wanted to go to Trinity college, Cambridge. I said, “Why Cambridge?” He replied, “Because it is in the fens and you could still read me my bedtime story and I would be able to come home for my hot dinners.” That seemed to me as good a reason as any to go to Cambridge. However, it illustrates that, very early in their lives, people start to dream of what they might achieve. If we do not make enough of vocational pathways, those dreams will be slanted very much by their familiar experience, the social group to which they belong and the interfaces that they enjoy during their childhood.
The amendment, as the Minister fairly said, does not go as far as we would wish. A new clause might do just that. Perhaps we will have a chance to debate one later on. But the amendment would at least take us further than the Minister is prepared to go and further down the line that Mr. Gordon wants us to take. It would take us towards the elevation of the practical, which lies at the heart of all of my considerations of this matter. In so doing it would feed social mobility by adding opportunity to those across society, but particularly those who are most disadvantaged. For that reason, and because of our passion for vocational education, because of our belief in independent, free and fair advice, and because of our support for the careers profession too, which we feel has lost out since it was absorbed into Connexions, we will press this amendment to a vote.