ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to review some of the evidence to date about why the design and delivery of strong and credible vocational programmes for post-14 learners has been so challenging and what this means for young people who are now required to remain in some form of education and training beyond 16. Since the 1944 Education Act, and even before, continuous attempts have been made to provide an appropriate curriculum for young people beyond 14 years of age who wish to pursue a vocational pathway. The provision of technical and vocational education was once the monopoly of technical colleges and colleges of further education, outside that provided by employers within workplaces, for young people post-16. The current obsession with qualifications, as the only metric of achievement, results in every proposed reform of vocational education and training being expressed in terms of a new qualification, or suites of qualifications.
