Peter Aldous
Main Page: Peter Aldous (Conservative - Waveney)Department Debates - View all Peter Aldous's debates with the Department for Education
(10 years, 6 months ago)
Commons Chamber10. What progress he has made on improving the quality of vocational education.
12. What progress he has made on improving the quality of vocational education.
We are making the vocational education system more rigorous and more responsive to employers’ needs, removing thousands of qualifications that are not valued by employers and driving up the quality of apprenticeships.
Absolutely. Tech levels need to be signed off by employers in order to be recognised by the Department. In the past, there were too many so-called vocational qualifications that did not help people to get on in an occupation. We are changing that by insisting that employers publish support for a qualification before it is recognised by us, so that when people embark on a vocational course they know that they will get something valuable out of it.
Lowestoft college is doing excellent work in providing young people with the necessary vocational skills for the many jobs that will be created in the energy sector, but the cut in funding for 18-year-olds will have a significant impact on that work. I should welcome an update from the Minister on what mitigating measures are being introduced.
I strongly support Lowestoft college, and I particularly welcome the fact that the number of apprenticeships in my hon. Friend’s constituency has almost doubled since 2010. As he knows, we are looking into the allocations to individual colleges, and also looking into measures to mitigate the effects of the change we have had to make.