ABSTRACT
As the latest of a series of initiatives to motivate more 16-year-olds to stay on in full-time education and to raise the status of vocational education GNVQs were announced in the Conservative 1992 election manifesto, introduced in 1992 after nine months of development and funded until 1995 by the Employment Department (ED). GNVQs were introduced initially at Advanced and Intermediate (Key Stage 4) levels as a parallel to jobspeci®c NVQs and to provide a route into higher education. They were developed between 1992 and 1999 in a rolling programme of fourteen vocational areas at three levels (Foundation and Intermediate (post-14 and post-16) and Advanced (post-16) and re-launched as `vocational GCSEs' (Intermediate GNVQ) and `vocational A-levels (Advanced) in 2000. The new quali®cations are therefore a major route at Key Stage 3 and KS4.
