ABSTRACT
Education finds itself particularly vulnerable because it is a direct producer of a major and expensive commodity for industry—labour. The seminal document which influenced the direction which the pre-employment courses have taken was "A Basis For Choice", produced by a study group of the Further Education Curriculum Review and Development Unit in 1979. The Technical and Vocational Education Initiative (TVEI) is unique among the "new vocational" initiatives in that its target group, although as yet not the majority of its clientele, is young people of all abilities. It can be argued that there are several main ways in which the pre-vocational courses can help young people in relation to their life after school. The target group for many of the schemes associated with the "new vocationalism" of the curriculum, excepting TVEI, are the bottom 50% or so, the group identified by Crowther as receiving no education at all after leaving school.
