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Skills for competitiveness
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In the drive for basic skills, will level 4 qualifications be left behind?
In July 2004, the Secretary for Education and Skills announced that the UK is at last closing the skills gap with its major competitors and, at level 4, is ahead of all countries except the USA.
However, proposals to reduce funding for level 4 qualifications in favour of lower level courses could threaten to undermine this previous good work by dis-incentivising the delivery of these much-needed level 4 courses.
Barrier to growth
Less credibility
Fewer opportunities
Restrictive framework
Barrier to growth
A shortage of skills at level 4 will prove a major barrier to growing UK productivity, not least because it is difficult, if not impossible, to enter most level 4 occupations without formal training. Indeed, research from the Institute of Directors (IoD) showed that the proportion of employees in the business and professional services sector that required level 4 skills was 58%.
Less credibility
A weighting of vocational learning at the lower end of the skills spectrum also seems to be at odds with the Government’s own policy of achieving parity of esteem between vocational and academic qualifications.
Much work has been done to position level 4 qualifications as a credible route of worth in the employment market, as well as an alternative to a degree. However, an unintended consequence of the focus on funding level 2 qualifications, at the expense of higher-level qualifications, may be that these opportunities disappear and vocational qualifications therefore lose their appeal.
Moreover, vocational qualifications will only be accepted if they open up real career opportunities. There needs to be a clear vocational ladder from level 1 to level 5. Foundation Degrees may achieve this in part but, with only 1% of students in higher education currently taking these courses, they are unlikely to address this skill shortage alone.
Fewer opportunities [Back to Top]
Thirty per cent of students completing the AAT Accounting Qualification (NVQ/SVQ level 4) currently progress to senior professional qualifications with exemptions that place AAT entrants on a par with university graduates. One in twelve chartered accountants now qualify via this route, showing how an internationally competitive sector such as accountancy can develop the higher level skills it needs through high quality vocational learning.
Reducing funding for level 4 qualifications will remove a vital rung on this vocational ladder, serving only to encourage learners at levels 2 and 3 but stifle them later on – an outcome clearly in conflict with Government’s own target of encouraging 50 per cent of the population to enter Higher Education.
Restrictive framework [Back to Top]
Even if the funding structure for level 4 remains unchanged, its delivery mechanism is fundamentally flawed. The bureaucratic burden imposed by the Government’s delivery agencies - the DfES, QCA, LSC and SSDA – on vocational qualifications is discouraging both employers and training providers from offering these much-needed courses. These agencies must be streamlined and work more effectively together, as without consistent implementation the Government’s education and skills policy will fail.
Ultimately the UK needs qualifications that deliver practical work-place skills at ALL levels required by the economy. By adhering to a funding regime that is both myopic and inflexible, training providers and colleges are being prevented from providing courses that they know are effective and that UK employers need and want.
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