Back to the future with UTC's

Remember failing the 11-Plus then having to go to the local polytechnic to become an engineer or something similar? Those on the 11-plus Grammar school route taking the higher degree route classification and earning more money in the process due to their luck more than anything. Well the re-emergence of the University Technical College's have addressed that old conundrum and now allow a degree level study if required and a partnered transition from the UTC to an actual job with an employer. The employers usually are sponsoring your learning journey with an interest in your skills training being applied to their needs. This is a crucial aspect nowadays as we have found that if you develop a sufficient business in the UK there just aren't the skilled or trained workers you require to move your business forward. I have two anecdotes on this from my previous life and professional experiences. One was as an IT Project manager running one of the first virtual colleges in the UK and having to employ programmers for the project. Whilst on paper they qualified as programmers once in work they failed to grasp what was required leaving me to hire seasoned and expensive contractors to get the job done. The second anecdote relates to my formative years in 1986-7 when visiting Paris and talking to a young man having a break from his studies. He informed me that he was to become an engineer and the company had sponsored his studies and he will just very simply move into his job when he was qualified. To me in 1987 this was unheard of in the UK and somewhat of a dream to think it was that easy to progress from education and training and into work. If you are as old as I am you will fully understand the social and economic times I am referring to in the UK in the 1980's.

Finally in 2016 (That's a long time) UK Government has decided to engage with employers in an educational and training capacity to deliver results for young people and those requiring a skilled workforce. So what of the interim years of millions of pounds of tax payers money squandered on students taking degrees in David Beckham? 'BA Hons David Beckham' has anyone come across this on a CV to-date? Why has it taken so long to understand the need for a skilled work force that would emerge from a school level to then go into positions of employment. Why have we had a series of generations held in holding patterns whilst the governments of the day get their act together and decide that education as we knew it in the 1970's has failed everybody? Yet we have 'dullards' still in the current government wanting to take us back to 1950 with a two tier system of education that again would favor the 'rich' and well heeled to gain the management positions and the secondary citizens a slightly smaller house and car? Whilst my former PGCE tutor informed me on many occasions that education would return to the beginning after so many years and no real tangible reforms ever come in the UK I am tending to believe these days he was right. If we have successful UTC's offering a slightly downgraded degree qualification and Grammar schools offering a route to higher qualifications in this country then we really have gone 'back to the future' indeed. Possibly the current ethos of making all schools academies slightly tempers the old school system of offering a secondary education system that you have to grudgingly exist within. But what of the route for school leavers who do not make the A Level grade and who have not engaged with the UTC program's? Will we still have a lost generation of NEET's and why do we keep repeating this formula? Surely it costs more money keeping people in a holding pattern than offering them a route to actual employment like my young friend I met in 1987? Maybe its time we learned from the past for once and engage with young people in a way that values their skills and determination to make something of themselves rather than confuse them with an educational system that is not fit for purpose and that only serves 15% of the countries population?