Examination of Witnesses (Questions 920
- 939)
MONDAY 26 APRIL 2004
PROFESSOR DAVID
RAFFE
Q920 Mr Gibb: This is new, this idea
of a vocational-type general education between 14 and 16 is innovative,
is what you are saying, or is it based on something in Australia
and New Zealand?
Professor Raffe: If by innovative
you mean is no other country doing it then that is not the case,
because Australia and New Zealand certainly are doing similar
types of things. In the sense that we are consciously imitating
them in specifics, absolutely, no, we are working from where we
are starting from.
Mr Gibb: We should look at Australia
as an example, perhaps, but not by going there.
Chairman: We have been there already.
Q921 Mr Gibb: Are you saying that
after 16, if you opt for the vocational options, that would start
to become seriously vocational in nature, the genuine training
taking place?
Professor Raffe: Yes. I think
it is a fairly simple principle. It is a matter of value judgment,
as much as anything else. Beyond 16, one allows people to make
choices that may be more committing. I think up to the age of
16 there is the expectation, because people are in compulsory
schooling and the National Curriculum applies, that it is legitimate
to put stronger constraints on their choices in their longer-term
interests.
Q922 Mr Gibb: Where should that vocational
training take place? Should that be within the comprehensive school,
or should it be in specialist FE colleges?
Professor Raffe: I think where
it takes place is less important than whether young people want
to do it and where it is going to lead them. I think that is a
second-order question. Obviously, a third option would be in the
workplace, and the best answer might be some combination of more
than one of those.
Q923 Mr Gibb: Can I ask you about
PISA and TIMSS. I do not know whether you have looked at these
two studies. Can you understand why they perform quite well in
PISA and appallingly badly in TIMSS, and what the difference is?
Professor Raffe: The short answer
is that I do not have any certain knowledge of why. Possibly there
are three conceivable explanations. One is that one or other of
those was a rouge sample in some way, in other words, that something
went wrong either in the sample selection or a bias in the schools
which did not take part which otherwise would have been selected.
That could work either way with respect to the comparison. I have
no particular reason to believe that is the case. The fact that
Scotland and Northern Ireland came out with broadly similar PISA
results to England's makes me feel that—possibly indirectly,
it gives me a little bit more confidence that the samples were
actually telling us the real story in their own terms. A second
possible explanation is that England has improved very dramatically
over a number of years, relative to other countries. Personally,
although I have not tried to work out the arithmetic of this,
my guess is that is at best a part of the explanation. I am not
saying it has not improved, but I do not think that would explain
the difference. A third explanation could be simply that they
are measuring rather different things. TIMSS was trying to measure
the National Curricula as delivered in different countries, and
obviously it was trying to go for some kind of lowest common denominator,
although probably it would not have called it that, of very different
National Curricula. PISA was trying to go for skills that are
used in adult life, and I think the way in which the curriculum
was defined, and possibly more subtle ways in which the actual
testing was done and the tests were defined, possibly could account
for the differences.
Q924 Mr Gibb: Scotland appeared much
higher in the TIMSS survey than England?
Professor Raffe: Scotland appeared
lower than England in the science, and I think it was broadly
similar in maths.
Q925 Mr Gibb: Why do you think it
was lower in the science?
Professor Raffe: I am not sure
I can give you a detailed answer to that. That is actually something
where, at least on the margins, PISA comes out with the same direction
of difference.
Q926 Chairman: David, do you think
that the Government wants you to do something with 14-19 that
is revolutionary? People say to this Committee and the advice
that is given to this Committee is that a unified system of education,
where you take the academic streams and more practical streams
right through together, in house, and see them as parity of esteem,
and all that, has such radical implications for our country that
you are introducing some kind of educational revolution. Whereas
others might say, "Well, we're just trying to join them up
a bit, pragmatic, good old British tradition, tinker a bit more
than we have in the past." Which do you think you are doing
in 14-19?
Professor Raffe: In a sense, both.
I think, quite clearly, what we are doing is evolutionary. In
a sense, I do not believe in revolutions in education, because
even if you think you have done it, you have created a revolution,
people carry on doing the same old things and they simply convert
the new structures into their old ways of working. Obviously,
we are trying to allow for that, in how we are setting up the
Tomlinson diploma framework. In terms of what the implications
are of a unified framework, I am trying to give you a general
definition of what I understand a unified framework or unified
system to be. In a way, it is trying to co-ordinate diversity,
in other words, what I want to emphasise is it is not the same
as a uniform system. We are trying to encourage what is already
a diverse system—and one of its strengths, I think, is that
it does have a lot of diversity within it. We are trying to put
that diversity into a more coherent framework. I am conscious,
having studied the Scottish experience of trying to unify a system
over the last few years, the trick is always to know which bits
you try to make uniform and which bits you allow to be diverse.
In very general terms, I think that is the big problem we have
got to wrestle with over the remaining months of the Tomlinson
Group.
Chairman: Thank you for that. Can we
turn now specifically to the Scottish experience for a while.
Q927 Jonathan Shaw: You said that
in your studies you talked about comparing the Scottish system.
As a parent, if you had the choice to send your child to one or
the other, which would you choose and for what reasons?
Professor Raffe: Both my children
went to a comprehensive school in Edinburgh. I think probably
they did better there than they would have done at a comprehensive
school in England.
Q928 Jonathan Shaw: Can you tell
the Committee why that is?
Professor Raffe: I think primarily
because the Scottish system had actually taken the comprehensive
principle more seriously, which, in the first place, is not trying
to treat it as a dumbing-down system. It is a way of trying to
deliver education which caters for the needs of all young people,
including the academic. In many respects, the Scottish system
is a very traditional, conservative system. A lot of the concepts
of an academic education in Scotland are quite traditional, and
Scotland embraces that within its notion of a comprehensive system.
A second reason is that, in Scotland, and this is something which
we have demonstrated through our research, choosing one school
compared with another school is much less consequential, in terms
of, for example, the exam results which your children achieve
at the end of the day, than it would be in England. I think that
again reflects the fact that comprehensive education is understood
to be not a uniform system in that sense but certainly a uniform
system in that the arbitrary choice of a school is not too consequential
for your child's performance.
Q929 Jonathan Shaw: What about in
terms of the comparisons to have both those systems embrace vocational
and skills training?
Professor Raffe: We have been
studying how the Higher Still reforms of post-16 education in
Scotland have tried to introduce a more unified system. I think
there are issues there that the Tomlinson Group has learned from.
In particular, when we outlined our general strategy we identified
trying to get the best from, on the one hand, the Baccalaureate
model, but on the other hand from the sort of climbing-frame model
that Scotland exemplifies. Our main conclusion was that,[1]
although the Higher Still reforms were trying to encompass school
and post-school college provision, (they were not actually intended
to encompass the workplace provision as well) they worked better
in the school system, and they remained more marginal in the college
system (in Scotland, college equates more closely with vocational).
We are aware also that it has proved harder than anticipated to
design a unified system that will have a relatively tight system
but a fairly stringent assessment regime that can cover the board
and embrace the diversity of experience. A very practical conclusion
which I draw from that, and which I think possibly did not need
to be learned so much in England, is that a unified framework
or system should have a much more relaxed attitude towards the
different approaches to assessment and to various other things
that could apply in different parts of the system.
Q930 Jonathan Shaw: Just coming on
to the 14-19 programme, on which you are a member of the Working
Group, you said that at the moment we are at the motherhood and
apple pie stage, so obviously a lot of work and some difficult
decisions have to be made in the coming months before the final
report to the Government. If you were asked to identify particular
aspects, that you feel there are serious tensions it is crucial
that we get right, what would those be?
Professor Raffe: Where do I start.
Q931 Jonathan Shaw: For example,
teaching methods, institutional change, work-based groups?
Professor Raffe: I will probably
give you the things which are currently on our minds, because
we are wrestling with a lot of issues at the moment. I think we
are trying to see how we can get, for example, the notion of interlocking
diplomas, which are an attempt to realise the climbing-frame principle,
how we can make that work. In other words, the idea that you are
not necessarily committing yourself wholly to a diploma at one
level or the next level but some of your credits at one level
could contribute towards the next level. That requires some quite
complicated arithmetic, or geometry, whatever the term would be,
in the design process. I think that is fundamental. The intentions
of the Tomlinson diploma, in particular, is to get around the
existing sort of post-GCSE blockage, where essentially the sheep
and the goats get sorted out and people feel that if they have
not actually passed that hurdle they are going to lose their way.
The notion of a flexible climbing-frame is one of the principles
underlying the diploma. I think that will be crucial. We are working
our way towards it. A second area is very clearly, and of course
this has been well flagged in our discussions and other discussions
as well, assessment. We must reduce the assessment burden overall,
but we have to do so in a way which does not unduly restrict the
flexibility of choice within the curriculum. How small do you
allow the units to be, if they are going to be assessed individually?
That is a very practical decision to be taken, so assessment would
be a second issue. I think a third issue which will be quite important
to help the overall spirit of the diploma will be how we actually
design the—whatever their title will be—more vocationally
oriented pathways, because in some respects these are going to
be the parts of the diploma that will best express how well we
have joined things up. On the one hand, they have got to articulate
well with more general diplomas, and clearly I do not think that
there should be a sharp division between them, people should be
able to, at least to a reasonable extent, pick and mix. Also,
if they are going to have credibility and parity of esteem, I
think also they have got to offer genuine opportunities for access
to higher education, which probably then has further implications
for assessment and grading, and so forth. I think there is another
question as to how they are going to relate to Modern Apprenticeships.
Again, some countries, The Netherlands would be quite a good example,
France, I think, would be another, would allow the work-based
and the school-based routes to lead to the same qualifications.
Ideally, we would allow that as well within this Diploma. I am
pausing for words. We do not have a good vocabulary to describe
this, but the more vocationally oriented pathways, as distinct
from Modern Apprenticeships, which we have identified already
as a distinct issue, I think will be crucial.
Q932 Jonathan Shaw: I suppose the
concern is that in order for it to be widely embraced, which is
essential if we are going to have the evolution, the one chance
to get it right, there needs to be some broad consensus. If you
are having difficulty in finding the words to articulate it, I
suppose the concern is, are you going to be able to find the words
to explain it? I think that one of the concerns raised by some
of my colleagues on the Committee with Mike Tomlinson was the
impenetrable language used within the 14-19-year-old interim report.
Have you got any comments? Do you agree?
Professor Raffe: Leaving aside
whether or not the interim report was opaque, which I can quite
believe was not very clear, I am absolutely certain, and here
again I think that particular type of pathway would be a good
example, if you cannot make this fairly easily intelligible it
will not work. Of course, the challenge with a unified system
is that, in order to make one pathway intelligible, because it
is a unified system you have got to make all pathways intelligible.
In the past, you could say, "You're going down the apprenticeship
route, you don't have to worry about any of the other pathways,
you don't need to know what they're like, just mug up on apprenticeships
and see what the choice is there." Now, because of the way
that the system is being defined, everybody who is going to play
a part in it will need to understand at least the basic outline
of the whole system. If I can give a very particular example,
I think that one of the tensions that those vocational pathways
will need to reconcile will be, on the one hand, having a fairly
small number of well-defined, well-understood labels, that this
is a diploma in engineering, a diploma in whatever, it might be
in care, however broadly those areas are defined, and not too
many of them. On the other hand, having genuine employer ownership
of the qualifications and the competences that they certify, and
typically, and I guess again that a lot of European experience
would agree with this, the difficulty is that if you are not careful
you end up with hundreds and hundreds of different diplomas, because
each little occupation wants its own place in the sun.
Q933 Jonathan Shaw: Is that a tension
you have been picking up in your discussions?
Professor Raffe: Our working assumption
is that we will go for something like 20 such specialist areas.
On the `plane down I was reading a report on a very large-scale
Dutch reform, one of the conclusions of which was I think they
have got 21 lead bodies and these bodies should be reduced to
4,[2]
so even 20 itself does not necessarily lead to absolute clarity.
But maybe it's just that the Dutch system does tend to fragment.
Q934 Jeff Ennis: In your evidence,
Professor Raffe, to the Scottish Education Committee, you said:
"Compared with European or OECD norms, Scotland has a more
polarised pattern of participation; more people complete higher
education, but more people leave education by the age of 17 or
18." Why is that, do you think, in comparison with our system,
why is it more polarised?
Professor Raffe: I think it would
be true of England as well. I think a combination of two reasons.
One is that higher education has expanded and it has been allowed
to expand, and also that the labour market tends to recognise
and reward higher education qualifications. In Scotland there
is quite an important component of those, which would include
Higher National Certificates and Diplomas, which actually I think
are very valuable qualifications nevertheless. They are recognised
and rewarded by the labour market. Intermediate qualifications
tend not even to be recognised, let alone rewarded. I think one
of the issues and one which I hope Tomlinson will achieve is actually
putting a stamp on an intermediate level of diploma, (it would
be advanced in the Tomlinson terminology) and define a level of
qualification that would have more general currency within the
labour market precisely because it came to be recognised as something
that everybody should have. The other side of that coin would
be to do with the nature of the demand in the labour market. There
is an analysis, which I am not sure I am competent to discuss
in detail, which suggests that labour market demands in the UK
tend to be more polarised than in many other European countries.
Certainly we do not follow, for example, the examples of countries
like Germany or Denmark, where you would actually require a certificate
in a large number of occupational areas before being allowed to
practise those occupations. So another part of the answer has
to do with labour market demand.
Q935 Jeff Ennis: Just to try to get
a bit more information from you with regard to what you perceive
to be the sort of intermediate diploma-type system that you are
referring to, will that be based on GNVQs, or will there be a
more general diploma?
Professor Raffe: I think, if you
wanted a single example, quite a number of them are based on BTEC,
that would be the kind of starting-point which you would certainly
recognise as being an example of a fairly successful qualification
in the existing system. I would not want to be much more specific
than that because these things are still being thought through.
Q936 Jeff Ennis: In effect, I am
trying to tease out of you what you feel about the comparison
between the two systems. Obviously, you feel that the Scottish
system is a more successful system, certainly a more comprehensive
system than our system that we enjoy. If you actually did a swat
analysis of the two systems, other than that the Scottish schools
are more comprehensive, to use your parlance, what would be the
main differences, other than that?
Professor Raffe: I think quite
a lot of the features of each system would be in common. One of
the strengths, I think, of the English system which Scotland does
not have to the same extent is a tradition, and I am using that
term possibly somewhat advisedly, of school-based or local innovation.
In Scotland, for example, when TVEI came along 20-odd years ago,
it was a relatively new thing for teachers to have that amount
of opportunity to innovate within their own schools within a national
framework. To some extent, that has increased more recently in
Scotland because the modular system has made it possible. My perception
is that in England they have a much stronger tradition of that
capacity to innovate. Maybe it has been squeezed out more in recent
years by National Curriculum, by some of the regulatory requirements.
I think there is quite a strong desire that the Tomlinson framework
should be broad enough to allow that spirit of local innovation
to be expressed but not to be marginalised by saying, "Well,
you can only do this for low-status qualifications". You
can innovate locally for a mainstream diploma.
Q937 Jeff Ennis: Whenever I have
an interface with different trade associations, for example, I
am going to a lunch this afternoon with the Silicate and Sand
Association, an esteemed body, and whenever you get to meet these
trade associations they always refer to the skills gap that we
have in places like England and Scotland. I guess one of the tricks
to overcoming the problems that we have currently, in terms of
the vocational education gap, or whatever you want to call it,
or the fact that it appears to be secondary in comparison with
academic subjects, is the failure or apparent failure to engage
more with employers. Is the Scottish system more successful in
engaging with employers and trade associations than we are and
getting them on board in terms of delivering a better vocational
education system? How can we engage employers and trade associations
better within the academic world?
Professor Raffe: Historically,
I would have said that the Scottish system probably was worse
than the English system, certainly at a national level. This goes
back essentially to the time when things like training and education
were administered separately in Scotland, training was administered
from here, education was administered from Edinburgh, and as
a result there was not the organisational infrastructure on the
industry side to liaise with the education system. I think things
have developed quite a bit in Scotland since then. I do not see
that it has got to the point where I can say that the situation
is better than in England. Of course, a lot of the institutions
are the same, the Sector Skills Councils, for example, their remit
covers the whole of the UK. I think I would accept the analysis,
and again one of the concepts was when we tried to do different
comparative analyses of transition from school to work, although
it is a rather loose term, one of the concepts which a lot of
the comparisons tend to boil down to is the notion of linkages
between education and the labour market. Obviously that covers
a whole range of different types of linkages, it is to do with
the extent to which employers and unions are involved in planning,
delivering, sometimes assessing vocational or sometimes even general
education. Clearly it has to do with the way in which the labour
market is structured. Clearly it has to do a lot with the way
in which employers actually have the incentives to engage in education.
I am not sure that, in a stroke, I could solve the problem of
why it is that we do not have adequate linkages.
Q938 Jeff Ennis: Is it enough just
to have business representatives on the local Learning and Skills
Councils, for example, or do we need to have more in-depth interlinkages
between schools and colleges and employer organisations?
Professor Raffe: I think it has
to be more in-depth. My perception is that part of the problem
is, and a lot of this applies to Britain and not just to England,
in a sense, institutions tend to get reshuffled every five or
six years, and often they do so on a different basis, are we organising
around occupations, are we organising around areas, are we organising
around industries and sectors? We keep shuffling between those
different possibilities or different mixes of them, things have
never been allowed to settle down. I think there are additional
reasons why it has been difficult to engage employers, partly
because the incentives to the employers that take part are not
very strong, but there is an institutional problem there.
Q939 Jeff Ennis: Referring to one
government initiative which has been fairly popular in recent
years, that is the implementation of specialist schools, recently
we have had the addition of the engineering specialism to the
number of specialisms, I think it is about nine specialisms now
for which schools can aim to have specialist school status. Will
the addition of an engineering specialist school status for schools
to aim at assist the relationship between schools and employers
and help the drive on the vocational education agenda, do you
think, or is it just a side issue?
Professor Raffe: I think, in a
sense, there are too many ifs and buts before I can answer that
question, but I could make a comment, which I think is true of
England and Scotland. It is that in some European countries, when
you are talking about employers linking with the education system,
with vocational education, this is understood to include full-time
as well as work-based education. Here (Scotland is an even more
extreme example than England in this respect) employers often
see the work-based route as their province, they do expect to
have an influence there, and so do unions, but when it comes to
vocational education as provided in a school or in a college that
is something else. They might be supportive and offer a little
bit of work experience or offer a little bit of equipment here
and there, but it is not actually seen as their problem. My perception
is, although I have not tried to look systematically at other
European countries in this regard, that this is not true to the
same extent of other countries. In a sense, that might answer
your question, because I suspect that if it is a school, in the
institutional sense of a school, then probably it will not have
the same degree of employer ownership that it would have if it
were a place where, for example, Modern Apprentices were being
trained.
1 Note by witness: This refers to the conclusion
of the witness's research on the Higher Still reforms, not necessarily
of the Tomlinson Group. The research showed that it was difficult
to apply a uniform approach to curriculum design and (especially)
to assessment across different subjects, levels and modes of learning. Back
2
Note by witness: That is, the bodies responsible for broad
vocational programmes, on which employers are represented. Back
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