Academic & Vocational

Listening to this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b01bbd95/

Jonathan Dimbleby chairs a live discussion of news and politics from Wirral, with Andy Burnham, Maria Miller, Tim Farron and Steve Jones.

They are all talking twaddle, all over the place. Ironically, the scientist 'steve jones', is the only one who cuts to part of the truth!

about 31 mins in.

yeah, he is cutting to part of the truth being lets satisfy league tables and there was/is no doubt incentives that increase their league table position with so called 'easier' courses.

but i have to say, with the whole debate between vocational and academic, instead of just dropping vocational course as Gove has done, if they wanted to improve it, and i think someone mentioned it in that talk, why dont they try and blend the two? embed the numeracy, english, IT into the vocational courses, or make it more explicit and assessable that it is in there.

they use maths when planning out a business, comparing prices for equipment, they do maths in engineering (the one that has so drastically been cut apparently).

embed these skills in the vocational courses they want to do. blending the academic with vocational. this maybe a drop in the ocean 'tid bit', but stop with this class divide of get them into uni, or get a job. those in uni end up wanting to get a job at one point. i dont think the league tables make one smidging of difference when someone with a degree ends up in a position they could have got from school or college.

the league tables arent the measure of success, 'look at all these a-c english and maths', how many of them get jobs, an income, at the end of it?

anyhow, yeah. hopefully we can provide this blend of vocational with academic.