Stop trying to make technical education look academic

Most of us could easily name a few GCSE subjects. The same goes for A-levels. And while degree titles are a little more complex, ask any person on the street and most will give you a recognisable summation of said subject.

These qualifications are familiar. The academic journey is, by and large, linear: school, then sixth form or college, then university – with a well-known single door of entry in UCAS. It’s neat, tidy and widely understood.

Now consider vocational and technical education through the lens of the labour market. How many occupations are there in the UK? In the NHS alone, there are over 350, many of which even seasoned professionals might struggle to define. What exactly does a clinical coder do? A phlebotomist?

Multiply that complexity across the economy and you get an ever-changing, sprawling network of routes, job roles and specialisms. The labour market is constantly evolving.

If academic qualifications develop at the pace of a gently flowing stream, then vocational and technical ones should move like a raging torrent – because the labour market does too!

Unlike the academic route, technical education doesn’t have a single path with a clearly marked entrance. Today’s economy demands breadth, depth and talent wherever it can be found. That means many paths and doorways to jobs and better jobs.

Some roles are hyper-specialised, requiring mastery of a focused skill set. Others, particularly in SMEs, demand versatility; from multi-disciplinary technical skills to running a business end-to-end.

So, when people talk about simplifying technical education, making it ‘more like academic education’, they’re misunderstanding the complexity and dynamically changing  nature of the economy and labour market. 

Edward De Bono said it best: “Simplicity before understanding is simplistic; simplicity after understanding is simple”.

The age-old trope ‘can’t vocational and technical qualifications just be a bit more like GCSEs and A-levels’ isn’t just tired, it’s deeply flawed. The labour market isn’t simple. To simply reduce the complexity is to ignore the reality of what employers need to grow and how all learners can succeed throughout their lives. 

As a wise boss once told me: “One person’s simplification is simply another person’s lack of important detail”. 

So, the better exam question is: What should a system optimised for coherence and high-quality look like? 

Coherence gives learners and employers the ability to navigate complexity. High-quality delivers the requisite trust and confidence.

Skills supply must keep pace with the labour market. When my sons sit GCSEs three years apart, I wouldn’t be overly comfortable if the content changed radically. But if they started the same apprenticeship three years apart, the idea that nothing would have changed is frankly ludicrous. 

I’ve long felt that comparing technical to academic education is like comparing my two sons. One is a natural sportsman, the other has to work at it. One is naturally academic (i.e. good at remembering and regurgitating information), the other needs to study hard and often needs to learn in a few different ways before things really sink in. One follows the rules, the other challenges them without hesitation.

Would I ever say one is better than the other? Absolutely not. They’re different – and that difference is what makes them brilliant in their own way. Do I hold one or the other in higher esteem? No, I love them for their differences, because that’s what makes them who they are.

It’s the same with education. Different doesn’t have to mean unequal.

That applies to assessment, too. Written exams are still seen as the gold standard. Ironic that we don’t think this for the driving test, yet this glaringly obvious fact has become increasingly obfuscated by our years of ‘simplification’. Written examinations are absolutely right for some disciplines or situations, but they are deeply inadequate for others. 

Would you hire a chef based on an essay about sauces? Or would you rather taste their cooking? 

The obvious fact is that practical skills need practical assessments. The relentless push towards written exams as the default smacks more of academic elitism than real-world relevance. And skills policy could do with a good seasoning of real-world relevance.

All this said, employers do say they want simplicity, but not necessarily in the qualifications themselves. Yes, maybe a greater degree of standardising the qualification labels that we use would help. But what employers are really calling for is certainty in policy, funding, eligibility, provision and pathways. A joined-up system that makes sense. 

Why don’t T Levels align better with apprenticeships or Higher Technical Qualifications? Why are English and maths seemingly crucial to underpinning competence in an apprenticeship at 16-18 but not at 19+? Why do skills bootcamps offer huge flexibility while other provision is prescribed in fine detail? 

There are, of course, answers to these questions, but they fall short of describing a coherent system. Without coherence, simplicity is simply a dream – one we’ve had for 20 years or more. And this is what we need to fix.

So let’s stop chasing simplicity through false comparisons. Let’s build a system that’s coherent, high-quality, responsive and empowering. One that gives real agency to both learners and employers.

Vocational and technical education doesn’t need to be more like academic education. It just needs to be properly understood, respected and given the latitude and resources to grow into the very best VTQ system in the world. Simple.