Policy

09 Jun 09

Professor Richard Pring led the NuffieldReview of education and training for 14-19 year olds

A report, published today, is the largest independent review of education and training for 14-19 year olds in England and Wales since the Crowther Report in 1959.

The review by a Directorate led by Professor Richard Pring from the University of Oxford, is an independent review of all aspects of 14-19 education and training including: aims; quality of learning; curriculum; assessment; qualifications; progression to employment, training and higher education; institutional provision; governance; and policy.

Summarising the significance of the Nuffield Foundation-sponsored review, Professor Pring said: ‘The Crowther Report, 15-18, recommended the raising of the school leaving age to 16, but still saw post-16 education to be for the small minority in the sixth-forms of grammar schools. We now live in a different world where most young people participate in some form of post-16 education and training.

'The Review welcomes this, but shows that much more needs to be done if all young people are to live fulfilling lives and if the social and economic problems of the community are to be met. Too many young people are failed by the system and, in the current recession, feel even more frustrated and let down.’

The Nuffield Review, funded by the Nuffield Foundation and started in 2003, has a key question: What counts as an educated 19 year old in this day and age? 

The 230-page report praises aspects of government education policy. It welcomes the aspiration in England to involve all 16-18 year olds in education and training by 2015; the creation of ‘entitlement’ for all young people to a broader range of learning opportunities; the development of collaborative partnerships between schools, colleges and employers (14-19 Learning Networks in Wales) to meet that entitlement; the huge investment in schools through ‘Building Schools for the Future’; and a more holistic and flexible framework for learning through the Welsh Baccalaureate.

However, the Review also sets out a number of recommendations. It highlights the need to address the large number of young people presently ‘Not in Education, Employment and Training’ and asks that measures are taken to involve all 16-18 year olds in some form of education and training through enticement rather than coercion – as in Wales.

The report also recommends that future assessment should be based on the totality of achievement rather than what is calls ‘a narrow vision of learning with its targets and inspection criteria’. Other recommendations include greater collaboration between schools, colleges and work-based learning-providers and giving education professionals more say in policy and curriculum.

The Review criticises the use of business jargon in the language used by policy makers and advisers when describing the educational engagement of teachers and learners. Teachers should not be called ‘curriculum deliverers’ and learners, not called ‘customers’, according to the report.

The importance of apprenticeships is also highlighted in the report, which asks for clear well-funded policies to encourage a better provision of work-based learning. Level 3 apprenticeships should be maintained as a brand name, as a licence to practise and as an alternative route into higher education, it says.