ABSTRACT
The Conservative governments that held power during the 1980s, and much of the 1990s became steadily more preoccupied with educational matters. The 1988 Education Reform Act, which in part introduced the National Curriculum, was a massive piece of government legislation which heralded radical change within the educational systems of England and Wales. By the mid-1990s, therefore, the 1419 curriculum offered three educational pathways the academic route, the general vocational route and the vocational route. The government sought to address these by commissioning a series of independent reports to target the major educational issues of the day. The introduction of any large-scale educational change is rarely smooth and the birth of the new vocational courses was no exception. The possible implications of the current growth of vocational courses on the standing of geographical education in schools can be gleaned from recent surveys.
