Scottish Government

CHAPTER 5: VIEWS OF OTHER STAKEHOLDERS

In this chapter we look in turn at the evidence on attitudes of others involved, or potentially involved, in young people's decisions about vocational learning, in four sections:

• schools: those who teach, those who manage the systems of collaboration with partners, and those who provide information, advice and guidance about opportunities for further education and preparation for employment
• colleges and higher education: those who teach, those who manage collaboration and those who control admissions procedures
• parents and other family members who may support and advise young people
• employers

5.1 Attitudes to Vocational Learning in the School

Attitudes to vocational learning of both teachers and managers in schools are likely to be influenced by the impact that the introduction of programmes such as Skills for Work have had on their systems, professional practice and workload, and we have therefore looked for evidence of such impact in three recent reports of Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education. In 2005, HMIE recommended that "all partners in vocational courses, including education authorities, schools, colleges and other providers, should communicate effectively with each other to enable well-planned recruitment, delivery, pupil support, assessment and quality assurance arrangements for these courses." ( HMIE, 2005, p.25) They also urged school staff to inform themselves more fully of the range and the structure of qualifications available in colleges, to enable them to inform and support decision-making for pupils. In their subsequent evaluative report on the pilot of Skills for Work, the Inspectorate judged that

"partners did not yet collaborate effectively enough with each other to share good practice in learning and teaching. In a few cases, staff from schools and colleges had engaged in joint staff development sessions, but these sessions were mainly limited to discussions on behaviour and behaviour management rather than on approaches to teaching and learning" ( HMIE, 2007a, p. 20).

It was perceived as a problem that, although learners could make connections between, for example, science subjects and care courses, teaching staff did not make such connections explicit or use them to help learners deepen their understanding of other subject. HMIE noted with regret that school teaching staff were unaware of their learners' progress on Skills for Work qualifications, especially in the development of core, personal and employability skills: clearly teachers of academic subjects were expected to make a commitment to understanding the content of their pupils' college courses. The NFER evaluation of the pilot of Skills for Work also identified challenges to partnership working, "insufficient links being made between what students were learning in college and the rest of the curriculum" (Spielhofer and Walker, 2008, p.iii). HMIE (2007a) also indicated scope for development in partnerships in the areas of communication, selection, information about course content and timetabling.

A third report from HMIE (2006), Missing Out, makes recommendations on children at risk of missing out on educational opportunities, stressing the importance of ensuring every young person leaves school with the maximum level of skills and qualifications possible, and reminding schools of the goal, set out in the Scottish Executive's (1999) report, Social Justice, of making sure every 19 year old is engaged in education, training or work. Schools and education authorities are exhorted to "pay more attention to leavers' destination figures" ( HMIE, 2006, p.6), to use alternative approaches to learning, including Skills for Work, with lower attaining pupils, and to build good links with partners, including

"carefully chosen vocational courses at colleges of further education, provision of training courses for some of the pupils' time at school, extended work experience at S4, and high quality provision from independent training providers" ( HMIE, 2006, p.14).

In the context of this report, vocational learning for pupils still at school is clearly presented as a potential solution to problems for disadvantaged, lower attaining pupils, rather than as a valuable opportunity for all.

The three reports taken together highlight some of the issues around the promotion of vocational learning in schools. Firstly, the organisation of partnership requires a significant commitment of time and energy in collaboration, and therefore represents a reorganisation of priorities, which may cause friction, or possibly political tensions in schools and local authorities. Timetabling to ensure that pupils' work on academic subjects in school is not threatened may be difficult to achieve, and if teaching staff are to make explicit connections between school-based and college-based subjects, the time commitment for collaboration increases. Secondly, the issue of selection recurs throughout the literature in Scotland and beyond: how practicable is the idea that school and college should collaborate in the selection process? We have found reports of collaborative schemes peppered with comments which imply that the schools were sending the colleges pupils whom they did not want: for example, McCrone and Morris (2004) cite an Increased Flexibilities Programme co-ordinator who suspected that, although schools identified pupils who would benefit from courses,

"the reality was more probably that 'the schools will benefit from not having them in school'." (McCrone and Morris, 2004, p.21)

We note, however, that Spielhofer and Walker's (2008) evaluation of the pilot of Skills for Work found

"virtually no evidence that schools were using SfW courses specifically for disengaged or problem students especially in the second year of the pilot, although some colleges felt that higher ability students were often dissuaded from participating in courses." (Spielhofer and Walker, 2008, p.iv)

Given the focus of this literature review on attitudes towards vocational learning, rather than on the management of partnership schemes, critique of partnership arrangements is not central to our purpose, but we note that if the arrangements are seen as burdensome or distracting from other priorities in school, the attitudes of teachers and other school staff to vocational learning may become more negative, and 'parity of esteem' with academic courses may become more difficult to achieve. Neither lack of parity (see Hodkinson, 1999) nor the difficulties of co-ordination in partnerships (see Golden et al., 2004) are uniquely Scottish issues.

Foskett et al. (2004) undertook a research study commissioned by the Department for Education and Skills to enhance understanding about the role of the school in shaping the perceptions and choices of post-16 pathways among young people at school. Their primary aim was to identify the nature and influence of school based factors in young people's choices about their post-16 education, training and career pathways. The research was based on data collected through interviews and focus groups in 24 schools across 9 local education authorities, with pupils in Years 10-12, head teachers, heads of year and heads of careers, as well as a postal survey of parents. They found that

"schools, particularly those with sixth forms, often actively promote post-16 academic routes, compared to other forms of post-16 participation which were much less clearly promoted." (Foskett et al., 2004, p.1)

Awareness of work-based learning routes was found to be low across all schools, but pupils in schools without a sixth form were better informed about post-16 training and labour markets, while those in schools with sixth forms knew more about post-16 provision in schools and colleges.

Individual schools, and the ways they were organised, made a difference: that research team identified six school factors which influenced pupils' choices: type of school; available careers programme; socio-economic status of the school catchment; teacher influence; subject-curriculum issues; and school leadership, culture and ethos. In explaining this last factor in more detail, the authors noted that schools with a strong ethos of high academic achievement in high socio-economic status localities expected pupils to continue at school and had 'minimal connection with mediating agencies or school inputs that provided information, advice and guidance on options other than staying on at school' ( ibid., p.5). By contrast, schools with a student-centred orientation, especially those without sixth forms, provided a wide range of events, and pupils could access information, advice and guidance from a network of mediating agencies, so that the researchers discerned "a structured whole-school commitment to supporting students in their decisions about post-16 pathways" ( ibid., p.5). In other more administratively focused schools, however, careers advice was dealt with by only a few specialist staff.

Many of their findings have potential relevance in Scotland. They found, for example:

• that school was a less important source of advice than parents or home-related influences for pupils likely to pursue academic pathways, although the school was an important source for pupils from a low socio-economic background;
• a growing tendency to opt for subjects combining vocational and academic learning; and
• a desire amongst pupils for

"more direct experiential learning to inform post-16 choices, rather than information ... The prominence given to work experience highlighted the need for an experiential careers curriculum, rather than one based on text and the transmission of information" (Foskett et al., 2004, p.2)

They also identified a demand from pupils for earlier career advice and guidance.

Whittaker et al. (2004) review the literature on information, advice and guidance for adult learners, a definition which includes young people in transition at 16. They draw attention to the difficulties which young people have reported about finding adequate careers information (Morris et al., 2002; Kidd and Wardman, 1999; HMIE, 2002) and how decisions to continue in education may be constrained by difficulties in finding information about possible financial support. The introduction of the Education Maintenance Allowance may have obviated some of the financial difficulties, but information about all possibilities, including college courses and apprenticeships is not always easy for young people and their parents to access, nor - in the light of the findings of Foskett et al. (2004) - are all schools well equipped to provide that advice and guidance. Reporting on feedback from over 1,000 engineering apprentices, Berkeley (2004b) found that over a third of the Advanced Modern Apprentices "said that the careers advice they had at school seemed to them to be influenced more by what their school wanted, than by what would be best for them" (Berkeley, 2004b, p.25). Similarly, in their report on engineering in Scottish colleges, HM Inspectors found that:

"A common view was that school guidance staff had not told them much about Modern Apprenticeships, although some learners had received general advice to "get a trade". Learners often felt that they received more information in school about the qualifications needed for university entrance than about vocational opportunities in colleges. A few learners found school-arranged visits to college or to an employer's premises helpful." ( HMIE, 2007b, p.14)

Understandably, evaluations of most vocational learning initiatives (e.g. Spielhofer and Walker, 2008; Carole Millar Research, 2004) have tended to draw on interviews with participants, project co-ordinators and managers, rather than on the views of a broad cross-section of teaching staff who may be feeling the 'ripples' - or possibly 'waves' - caused by new initiatives. None of the research we have reviewed attempts to take the temperature of attitudes towards vocational learning in the secondary teaching profession in general, although, in their evaluation of Higher Still, Inter-ed Ltd (2003) found that school staff believed - mistakenly - that the level of esteem in which the new National Qualifications system was held by both employers and higher education institutions had fallen considerably between 1999 and 2003 (Inter-ed, 2003, p.75). Mullin (2003, p.7) also found many complaints were made by the 1100 school participants in his survey especially about the assessment of the new qualifications. By contrast, however, Raffe et al. (2007) found that the staff in their case study schools believed that the new National Qualification levels "facilitated more appropriate course choices" and "considered that the new provision at these levels was better quality and offered more worthwhile opportunities than the provision it replaced" (2007, p.495). We also described in Chapter 3 how a drop in number of candidates for Highers is accompanied by a rise in entries for Intermediate 1 and 2.

5.2 Perspectives of Staff in Further and Higher Education

McCrone and Morris (2004), researching the impact of pre-16 vocational education in England, found that "from the college's perspective these [Increased Flexibilities Programme] courses were a very effective marketing tool" (p.23), and this view is corroborated by students interviews noting that some of their friends were jealous of their opportunities in college. College co-ordinators also believed that there was a positive effect on progression on to post-16 courses, as those taking pre-16 courses had had a chance to understand the expectations on them and were familiar with the environment. The downside included dealing with some disruptive behaviour, to which some lecturers were not accustomed, and difficulties in monitoring attendance and communicating with schools. They also noted that, although IFP courses were open to all students regardless of ability, it appeared that only pupils of lower ability were encouraged to take part, and college staff also suspected that poor behaviour might be a trigger.

Much has been written in recent years about the professionalism of staff in further education, and the difference they can make to the lives of young learners. Attwood et al. (2004) found that all the college tutors in their small-scale study of 90 early entry students taking 16 different college courses were positive about working with early entrants. Tutors "saw an important aim of the programme as supporting young people's early adjustment" and sought to provide a "vocationally relevant curriculum for students who had not succeeded at school ... equipping the students with the skills and personal attributes for employment" (Attwood et al., 2004, p.113-114). While researching the impact of policy on learning and inclusion in English colleges, Edward et al. (2007) found resourceful tutors coping with endless change, in government and institutional policy, in funding, in paperwork, in assessment requirements, in teaching approaches and in many other aspects of their work - but still managing to maintain commitment to their learners' ever changing needs. The cornerstone of the findings of that long research project (which included 349 interviews with learners, of which almost half were with young people in further education, and the rest with adult learners in the community or the workplace) was that so many learners interviewed described their relationships with tutors as the key to their learning, progress and success, with the implication that

"It's not simply learners who are at the heart of the system, but the learner-tutor relationship. Policy needs to recognise and support this." (Coffield et al., 2007, p. 1)

The tutor's influence - as a potential role model, as well as a tutor - was particularly noticeable in vocational areas, such as Construction and Childcare. Hodkinson et al. (2005) also stressed the importance of the tutor-learner relationship. The very positive evidence from analysis of student comments in the literature, and the evidence of studies of college staff working with older age-groups, suggests that Scottish college staff are achieving similar results with young people who attend their courses. Gallacher et al. (2000) stressed the key role that FE staff play in encouraging and retaining 'fragile' or unconfident learners, and Crossan et al. (2005) described how they had often found tutors who "worked well beyond normal contractual obligations, not only in the hours that they work, but in the type of work they undertook" (Crossan et al., 2005, p.6) to shape learning cultures in the community sites. Gallacher et al. (2007) drew on the same project to illustrate the complex and demanding roles which FE tutors take on in such settings. Currently 35% of 17 year olds study in Scotland's colleges (Scottish Funding Council, 2007, p.5); but the SFC figures also show that while numbers of students under 16 have risen sharply, from 47,552 in 2004-05 to 57,209 in 2005-06, the numbers in the 17, 18 and 19-24 age group have all declined slightly. It will be interesting to see whether the current efforts of FE tutors with young people still at school will halt the decline and even lead to an increase in admissions of older learners. If Skills for Work experience is successfully enhancing the preparation of those young people who, on leaving school, take up vocational courses in college or apprenticeships, we may also be able to look for improved completion and achievement rates in future.

The perspectives of HE admissions tutors on the changes in the school curriculum, including both Higher Still and Skills for Work, are also important. We cannot yet know whether university medical schools and schools of education will come to expect applicants with high academic grades also to demonstrate that they have taken advantage of opportunities at school, such as Skills for Work, to deepen their understanding of care environments or of working with young children. We do, however, have evidence, in the evaluation of Higher Still (Inter-ed, 2003, p.74) that admissions tutors continue to rate Highers as a valuable "skills indicator" and that, when surveyed, they gave a much higher rating to the new Advanced Higher level in 2003 than they had accorded to the Certificate of Sixth Year Studies in 1999.

5.3 Attitudes of parents and other family members

Payne's (2003) review of the literature on choice at the end of compulsory schooling concludes that parents are "probably the most important source of advice and help when decisions about post-16 routes have to be taken" (2003, p.2), although advice from other family members, especially older siblings, is often valued. Moreover,

"parents appear to set the boundaries within which choices are made, so that young people do not even consider some options as possibilities" (Payne, 2003, p.3)

Payne notes that both parental occupation and parental education affect the possibility of staying on in education after 16, and that low family income and cultural alienation may restrict young people's options. On the other hand, a parent who has missed his or her own opportunities for education may still encourage a young person to persevere and obtain qualifications.

McCrone et al. (2005) in their review of literature on pupil choice at 14 noted socio-economic circumstances and parental advice had strong influence on pupils' choice of options. They also reported that young people's views varied widely on the degree of influence they attributed to their parents when they made their subject and career choices. A structuralist view, as discussed above on p.32-33, would suggest that the parents have had influence long before any career decision is to be taken, by virtue of their socio-economic status and / or their own level of education, choice of school and expectations of their offspring. The study of the impact of schools by Foskett et al. (2004) supports the view that schools with pupils of high socio-economic status will reinforce those expectations by encouraging pupils to focus on academic pathways and limit information about alternatives. Also, given the evidence of the influence of peers on career decisions discussed in the previous chapter, fellow pupils in a very academically-orientated school with parents of high socio-economic status would further reinforce those expectations, and make it unlikely that an academically successful pupil would choose a route into vocational learning.

To counterbalance this trend, the Edge Foundation, an independent charitable foundation and campaigning organisation, has recently been using a high profile television commercial and website ( www.edgecampaign.co.uk) aimed at reducing parental prejudice against vocational learning. Edge bases its work on findings from an on-line survey of 5,271 parents of a child aged 11-15, and from a YouGov survey in July 2007 of 2000 GB adults, of whom 533 were aged 18-30 year olds, and asserts:

"One in five young people think they have been led down the wrong educational path, with almost half of these being misdirected by their own parents. In directing people down the wrong path, many parents are influenced by ingrained prejudices against vocational qualifications - with 35 per cent believing that vocational learning is just for people who don't do well at school. ... The campaign will challenge all parents to stop thinking of academic qualifications as the only route to success. Parents will be encouraged to reassess their own views about their children's education, listen to what their children really want from work and life and discuss all their education and career options available." (www.edgecampaign.co.uk)

The website is also designed to offer advice and information direct to parents about a full range of learning opportunities, including further education, Apprenticeships and jobs that offer workplace learning and vocational degrees. A complicating factor for the campaign in Scotland is the fact that much of the material on the website is specific to England, in particular reference to the new Diplomas being offered in schools there. In England, the Learning and Skills Council (2008) has recently also announced a campaign directed at parents, which it bases on a YouGov online survey in November 2007 of 563 16-19 year olds, and 593 adults with children aged 16-19. It claims this research shows that 80 per cent of parents encourage their children to follow academic routes, although "some young people may be better suited to other types of learning, but leave education thinking it will be like school and, therefore, is not for them". The survey also suggests that 68 per cent of young people turn to their parents for advice, and urges those parents to become better informed about alternative routes and about Education Maintenance Allowances.

Three further articles on this topic demonstrate that the debate about the level of parental influence and the degree of agency of the young people making career decisions continues beyond the borders of Scotland. Elliott et al. (2001) reported on an international project which included a questionnaire enabling them to compare the views of secondary pupils' parents in terms of satisfaction, expectation and attribution in three cities in Russia, England and the USA, and found English and American parents complacent in comparison with their Russian counterparts. They concluded that the

"role of parents in instilling important attitudes and behaviours in their children is undermined by the current emphasis upon schools as fundamentally responsible for ensuring high levels of achievement." (Elliott et al., 2001, p.179)

Secondly, Jacobs and Harvey (2005) used a structured questionnaire with 432 parents in Melbourne, Australia to investigate their attitudes towards the school environment, their aspirations, expectations and interest in their child's education. They concluded, using multiple regression analyses, that parental expectations of children's educational level made the strongest unique prediction of high achievement, followed by the length of time they had maintained those expectations. Thirdly, Bartram (2006) conducted a PhD study of foreign language learners aged 15-16 in England, Germany and the Netherlands, observing that parents influenced their offspring in a number of ways, including as role models and through "the communication of educational regrets". He concluded that the ways in which parents contribute to their children's understanding of the utility of languages may be a key factor, explaining why German pupils displayed more positive attitudes towards language learning than the more negative English participants.

Finally we note the many references in the literature, to the influence of siblings and other family members. For example, On Track (2004) notes that learners from the most socially deprived areas are more inclined than those from other areas to find siblings helpful (34 per cent compared to 28 per cent), and that 15-19 year olds are more likely than older young people to value the advice of a sibling. Scottish engineering apprentices ( HMIE, 2007b, p.14) were sometimes strongly influenced in their choice by a parent or other relative, as a role model, in the same career.

5.4 Employers' Attitudes

Unwin et al. (2004), reviewing the UK literature before the recommendations of the Working Group on 14-19 Reform (2004), chaired by Tomlinson, had been received and set aside, reported evidence of a significant demand for vocational qualifications that are delivered off-the-job and which combine theoretical knowledge and practical skills. They also found suggestions that employers' reliance on qualifications in selection and recruitment might be diminishing, but nevertheless report that qualifications were still seen as important in recruiting young people with no labour market experience, and that perceptions of the value and worth of vocational qualifications varied considerably between employment sectors, being promoted in some sectors (e.g. Care) for regulatory and accountability purposes, while other sectors saw them as less relevant to their needs.

Generalisations about the needs and attitudes of employers to vocational qualifications are notoriously difficult to sustain. Unwin et al. emphasise throughout their report that 'the role and value of qualifications is context dependent' (2004, p.65), noting, for example, research by Pratten and Curtis (2002) into a small business which found a preference for informal, on-the-job training, and a larger survey of qualifications in the steel industry (Fuller and Unwin, 1999) which found that almost half the workforce had no qualifications, but also that there was no evidence that workers were underskilled for their jobs. Futureskills Scotland's (2007) survey of 6,276 Scottish employers in 2006 found that most employers train their staff, that many Scottish employees routinely receive off-the-job training, and that skill shortages are uncommon, though serious where they arise. The employers identified 37,000 vacancies as "hard-to-fill", either because of a lack of applicants, or because of the employer perception of applicants' attitude, motivation and personality, or because applicants lack the required skills, qualifications and experience. Of those vacancies, 23,200 (30% of the total 76,700 vacancies) were identified as skill shortage vacancies (2007, p.16). In the same survey, 75% of employers reported that FE college leavers were well prepared for work, while 61% believed that was true of school leavers (Futureskills Scotland, 2007, p.42).

In Scotland, Futureskills Scotland (2005) produced an extended study, based on responses to their 2003 Employer Skills Survey, of school leavers' preparedness for the world of work. Given that apprenticeships and other opportunities for work-based learning are part of our concern here, their perceptions of young people emerging from schools at 16 are very important. More than half the employers reported impacts on the quality of customer service and staff morale when young people with negative attitudes to employment were hired, and such impacts were more significant in smaller workplaces. Almost two thirds of employers claimed that school leavers had poor literacy and numeracy skills, although their IT skills were thought to be good, and further complaints emerged about poor communication, unreliability and poor ability to work with others. Attitudes to work were seen as more important initially than technical skills, which, with the right attitude, could be learned. Because of the belief that core skills could best be developed through experience, employers felt that better work placements and encouraging pupils to have part-time jobs while still at school would help this situation. Improved careers information and mentoring, providing positive role models, were seen as possible ways of improving the situation, in conjunction with parents, schools, Careers Scotland and training organisations and industry bodies.

The Confederation of British Industry ( CBI) took up these themes in 2007, acknowledging the recent Government focus on raising attainment in schools and basic skills in the workforce and unemployed, but expresses "business concern about the low levels of literacy and numeracy among school leavers" and falling numbers of science and engineering graduates, and sees "a mismatch between business needs and the young people emerging from our education system" ( CBI, 2007a, p. 5). Since their surveys had shown that many employers were dissatisfied with the level of skills of young people entering the workplace, they surveyed 140 employers in 2006 with a more detailed questionnaire on workplace numeracy and literacy, and found one in five had encountered frequent problems with employees' literacy - priorities being writing skills, oral communication skills, ability to understand written instructions and improvements in grammar and spelling - and one in five reported similar problems with numeracy. Further research by the CBI (2007b) analysed the types of employability skills which employers said they wanted, and to explore the structure and effectiveness of current work experience programmes, and, in addition to the full report, produced a short guide for employers and students ( CBI, 2007c), designed to ensure that the school, the student and the employer all fulfil their parts.

Back in Scotland, employer responses in the evaluation of Higher Still (Inter-ed Ltd., 2003, p.71) are difficult to interpret. They show very low ratings of usefulness for the Intermediate awards, much lower than for Standard Grade, and comments indicate this may be because the reforms are not understood. On the other hand, their ratings of Highers and Advanced Highers (when compared in 2003 with the Certificate of Sixth Year Studies in 1999) have risen, while ratings for SQA modules and SVQs remain stable. When asked to rate qualifications as skills indicators (Inter-ed Ltd, 203, p.74), employers rated Higher National Awards highest (7.3), followed by Highers (6.7); SVQs (6.3); and Advanced Highers (5.9). While this order may be difficult to explain, there is a clear message about the difficulty of ensuring that employers understand new and potentially confusing qualifications, and the need to keep everyone up to date. Even if some employers are involved in the design and delivery of new qualifications, that does not ensure that all employers will understand and value them. We note too that even employers who express support for vocational qualifications may still rely on 'academic' qualifications when selecting recruits.

There are undoubtedly barriers to effective collaboration between employers and education, and the Edge Foundation, the National Education Business Partnership and Business in the Community (2007) are also collaborating on research to support a campaign to develop employer involvement in education, and highlight the need to improve the flow of information between education and employers. On a more positive note, Morris and Wade (2004) conducted research into views of employers on the provision of work experience for school pupils, and in interviews with 22 employers in the West of England found evidence of

"strong employer commitment to the principle of providing work experience for school students, with a widespread view that it was a community service that they were pleased to provide, regardless of any challenges." (2004, p.1)

Although the lack of employee time to support work experience and health and safety regulations were seen as challenges, employers valued contact with the schools.

To sum up, the messages about employers' attitudes, as always, are mixed. The two worlds of education and employment are mutually dependent: the employers need a supply of people with the right skills, and schools, colleges and universities need a supply of placements and apprenticeships to ensure that their learners have a good chance of employment. Employers clarify their expectations of educators, and the skills required of prospective employees; educationalists adapt their provision to better fit those expectations and worry about the quality of placements and the supply of apprenticeship places. Each needs the other, and it is important that they continue to collaborate.

5.5 Conclusions

In this chapter we reviewed the literature on attitudes to vocational learning in schools, which suggests that those who are managing the introduction of Skills for Work in the schools are enthusiastic about the project, and are overcoming some of the problems inherent in collaboration with colleges and employers. Nevertheless, it is clear from the evidence of recent research (e.g. Foskett et al., 2004) that not all schools are equally enthusiastic, and that possibly the teaching and guidance staff within schools may vary in their commitment to promoting it. While this evidence does not relate specifically to Scotland, and predates the introduction of Skills for Work, nevertheless it seems likely that some 'resistance' to vocational learning for all may persist, particularly in strongly academic Scottish schools. In colleges, the staff involved with school pupils' courses appear to be appreciated by their learners, but less is known about the attitudes of those who teach than about the attitudes of those who manage the collaboration with schools. Efforts to improve parents' perceptions of vocational learning are being made, although it seems likely that for the foreseeable future most middle class parents will continue to prioritise academic courses, recognising these as essential for entering higher education. Finally, we note the diversity of employer needs and attitudes and continuing complaints about the skills and attitudes of school leavers, and the need for continued and improved communication between employers, schools and colleges. A key issue, which will be returned to in Chapter 6, is the difficulty of achieving parity of esteem between academic and vocational courses.