Oral Answers to Questions Debate

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Department: Department for Education

Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts
Monday 16th June 2014

(10 years, 5 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Matt Hancock Portrait Matthew Hancock
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Yes, absolutely. One example is the introduction of tech levels for those between 16 and 19 who want to go into vocational education, which will get them into a job. These qualifications have to be signed off as valuable by an employer before we will accept them as tech levels, thus demonstrating the line of sight from work that exists in all educational vocational education.

Caroline Dinenage Portrait Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
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As the Minister said, it is vital for schools to forge strong links with businesses to ensure that school leavers are not just numerate and literate, but employable. Does he agree that organisations such as the Education Business Partnership can often play a significant role in building these links?

Matt Hancock Portrait Matthew Hancock
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Yes, I do. There is a huge array of organisations. Only this morning, I was launching Careers Lab with Steve Holliday, who runs National Grid. That is another organisation, like the one my hon. Friend mentioned, that can help to broker links between employers and education, which are so important after the systems were separated for far too long.