News: Hundreds of vocational courses to be axed

Hundreds of vocational courses will effectively be axed under a Government overhaul of qualifications for teenagers.
Ministers will step in to prevent pupils opting for "dead end" courses that fail to prepare them for higher education or the world of work.
The Coalition will today outline plans to ban many of these qualifications from official school or college league tables - stopping heads pushing pupils onto courses simply to inflate their ranking.
Ofqual, the exams regulator, will also be told to take a tougher stance towards exam standards in a move designed to ensure many poor-quality courses fail to win state accreditation. It will enable more money to be spent on higher level apprenticeships.
Under Labour, the number of vocational courses on offer to teenagers more than doubled.
In 1996/7, some 2,254 different qualifications could be taken, but by 2009/10 that number had ballooned to 5,620.

For the Full story: Vocational Qualifications Axed

News: £60m Youth Jobs Package

£60m youth jobs package unveiled
David Cameron wants to reverse the trend of rising youth unemployment
The Government has moved to tackle rising youth unemployment by announcing a £60 million package aimed at boosting work prospects and "transforming" vocational education.
With youth unemployment nearing a million, the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister issued a commitment to get more vulnerable youngsters into work by tackling some of the long term "structural barriers" they said stopped some young people starting their career.
The Government said it will provide funding for up to 250,000 more apprenticeships over the next four years, and fund 100,000 work placements over the next two years.
Ministers also announced that more than 100 large firms and tens of thousands of small companies around the country had pledged to offer work experience places.
Measures in a new paper called Supporting Youth Employment are designed to ensure that young people have the opportunity to get work, advance their career prospects and encourage social mobility and help fill some of the 500,000 vacancies in the job market, said ministers.

For the full story read: £60m Youth Jobs Package

News: More Graduates taking low-skill jobs

More graduates taking low-skill jobs

University leavers have faced a tough jobs market since the economic downturn

University leavers are increasingly taking non-graduate jobs, according to research.

Six months after leaving university, about 40% of last year's graduates were "underemployed" in lower-skilled jobs, up from about 30% four years before.

The research, published by the Association of Accounting Technicians, says new graduates have been among the worst hit by the economic downturn.

A degree remains a "good investment", says a government spokesman.

The research, carried out by the Centre for Economics and Business Research, forecasts a worsening jobs market for graduates who will leave this summer.

For the full story visit: More Graduates taking low-skill jobs

News: Apprenticeships v Degrees

Degree or apprenticeship: which works best in the job market?

With fees rocketing, the cachet of a degree is becoming too expensive - and may not lead to a job. We asked employers for their views on old-fashioned work experience

The head of McDonald's in Britain caused quite a stir last week when she suggested that some school leavers would be better off getting a job in a burger joint than going to university. Jill McDonald, who coincidentally shares a name with her employer, called for an end to education "snobbery", arguing that university was not for everybody and promoting apprenticeships at companies such as hers as a good alternative.

It's easy to sneer at this sentiment, and plenty of commentators did. But with 42% of this summer's university graduates expected to take jobs that do not require a degree - known as being "under-employed" - and plans for undergraduate fees to jump to £9,000 a year, would-be students and their parents are increasingly asking if it's worth going to university at all.

This, in turn, is prompting companies to look at ways to bring in more school leavers, predominantly through apprenticeships. They have differing motives for wanting to do so, but most say they want to ensure that they do not lose out on any talent that cannot afford to go to university, as well as broaden the diversity of their workforces.

For the full story visit: Apprenticeships v Degrees