Education: Vocational Education

Lord Baker of Dorking Excerpts

Monday 3rd March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness is quite right. The first thing we can do is to reform the standard of our previously existing vocational qualifications, which were nowhere near good enough, with far too many that were not doing our pupils any favours. However, for the first time we now have a high and equal status pathway for pupils through the tech bacc.

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that in Germany 60% of school children enjoy some form of technical education? The figure in Britain is 15%, and that is one of the reasons why at the moment Angela is the rooster in the walk. Will he ensure that the expansion of UTCs continues? We have 50. There should really be 100 as these colleges are the only colleges that produce employable engineers and technicians and so far none of their students has joined the ranks of the unemployed.

[Lord Nash]

I pay tribute to my noble friend’s passionate enthusiasm and drive in support of the UTC programme. It is admirable. As he knows, we welcome as many high-quality UTC applications as we can get.