ABSTRACT
There have long been worries that the bias towards academic values which has characterized the school-based education system in England and Wales until the recent past has affected even the vocational sector. It is suspected that too much assessment efficiently tests whether candidates know what to do, but not how to do it. However, history has not been kind to previous attempts to introduce systems of learning and training which have emphasized the assessment of outcomes. A trail of pejorative labels runs from the time of payment by results in the last century, via Taylor and Bobbit in the 1920s, through to the revival of behaviourism in the 1940s and 50s which fed into programmed learning and teacher proof curriculum packages. But the approach has been persistently followed, even if along different tracks.
