The government is taking the wrong approach by teaching vocational qualifications in the classroom (Editorial, 15 March). Vocational training should take place primarily in the workplace and employers should be forced to include relevant training and qualification packages for all staff.
I have had two different experiences of this. When I first left school I entered an apprenticeship in my local printing firm. They made me competent in what they did but refused to allow me to take a day-release course (that I had arranged for myself) for fear that it would lead to my leaving the company. I left the industry for tertiary education.
In my 40s I decided to enter the baking industry and took NVQ 2 and 3 courses at the National Bakery School before working in two local bakeries. The NVQs were useful but I found myself really learning the trade in employment from people who had never done a college course of any kind. When I came to employ people in my own business I was faced with two classes of candidates. There were people who had worked in supermarket bakeries whose “training” was so specific that they were unable to function in general bakery: and then there were largely Polish bakers who had been given years of training and had a wide experience in the trade by the time they had qualified (and, mostly, a work ethic any employer would dream of).
British industry and further education colleges must work together to rebalance training and get it out of the classroom, but one of the biggest hurdles to that is the low quality of the present workforce who need in-service training. Instead, we import overseas-trained workers and keep young people in unskilled work – and are surprised that they resent it.
Alan Ackroyd
Cambridge
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