Introduction

This chapter assesses the aims and content of recent policy for Vocational Education and Training (VET) in England. Since 1945, the period covered here, VET policy has been discontinuous and piecemeal. We have therefore found it easiest to describe it in distinct sections.

Section One deals with a period of some 30-35 years after 1945, during which initial attempts to deliver policy aims by legislating for individual and employer participation were first diluted and then abandoned. Section Two covers a brief period during which government exerted some influence by means of entering into specific contracts for course delivery with VET providers. And Section Three describes a shift to control of VET through the regulation of qualifications.

In the light of these analyses and the overview in Section Four, Section Five identifies a number of assumptions upon which recent policy appears to have been based, but which continue to receive little if any scrutiny. Our concluding section briefly examines some current initiatives and considers whether or not they indicate that the right lessons have been learned.

Policy makers do not begin with a clean slate, and a consideration of recent history may help clarify the context in which policy makers are framing their proposals for the ‘modernising’ of VET for the 21st century. Also, a failure to take account of comparatively recent experience can lead to the repetition of avoidable mistakes, a failure to achieve intended purposes and unwanted but predictable outcomes.

Section One: The coming and going of legislation

The dominant characteristic of English VET, in contrast with that in many other industrialised economies, is that it is voluntary. There is no legal compulsion on employers to provide or support training for their employees, or (in most cases) on employees to have a vocational qualification; that is, a licence to practise their trade. This principle of voluntarism, an aspect of a wider laissez-faire approach to economic policy, has not been unchallenged. Critics have contrasted the lack of a clear and focused VET policy in England with the developed and mandatory systems of VET found in competitor economies like France and Germany.