« Previous | Contents | Next »
Listen
CHAPTER TWO: STRATEGIC PERSPECTIVE
2.1 This chapter presents the findings from the face-to-face interviews with eight key representatives of the Scottish Government, the SQA, Learning and Teaching Scotland, HMIe, and the SFEU carried out at the start of the pilot between September and November 2005. Interviews were conducted with individuals who the research advisory group had identified as having been instrumental in the development and implementation of the SfW pilot courses.
2.2 The NFER research team used a semi-structured framework, agreed with the research advisory group, which explored respondents' views on the aims and objectives of the SfW pilot, its key measures of success, and potential barriers, as well as more factual information relating to the design and structure of the qualifications. The interviews also provided valuable contextual information, which was used to inform the development of research instruments for the telephone survey and case-studies.
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE SKILLS FOR WORK PILOT
2.3 Interviews with key respondents revealed a variety of shared aims and objectives of the SfW pilot in general and the SfW courses more specifically. Those referred to most frequently included:
- Testing out the design of the new SfW qualifications (including the concept of non-graded qualifications)
- Delivering qualifications that develop young people's general employability skills
- Introducing vocational qualifications into the curriculum that are accepted on a par with academic courses
- Testing and developing schools' and colleges' abilities to work together in partnership to deliver vocational options for pupils in S3 and S4 (and other stages)
- Developing courses for young people of all abilities.
These stated aims and objectives are explored in more detail below.
2.4 All respondents regarded one of the key aims of the pilot as being that of testing out the design of the SfW courses as well as the practicalities of delivering the SfW qualifications, as one interviewee stated:
"The objectives for the pilot are to find out if we have got the Skills for Work design right and if we have got in place effective ways of making sure that the delivery leads to effective learning."
2.5 As part of this, several interviewees were particularly interested in investigating teachers', parents', pupils' and other stakeholders' responses to the fact that in contrast to traditional Standard Grades, SfW qualifications are non-graded - pupils successfully pass the course when they complete all the required units (those not passing the course can still achieve individual units). 5
2.6 Six of the eight key representatives focused on the aim of developing qualifications that engendered young people's general employability skills rather than preparing them for a specific job. Thus, several respondents emphasised that they hoped the qualifications would build young people's "general awareness and skills with respect to the work environment" or "basically to prepare them for later life" but " not necessarily preparing them for a job". In the words of one interviewee:
"We are looking at quite young pupils taking this qualification and I've argued long and hard that we don't want to turn out mini-construction workers, but to give them the whole concept of what it means to be employed. We want to see whether it can keep that broad focus."
2.7 Respondents saw the pilot as a way of testing out the extent to which employability skills were embedded into the qualification and what approaches were adopted to deliver them. As one respondent explained:
"How this is going to be done in college is going to be interesting - because so many college lecturers I suspect will say 'We do this, it's just part of what we do', but whether that is good enough I am not convinced of that. I think it needs to be specifically thought out how they are going to deliver it to young people and then done in a really clever and constructive way just as any teaching can be done."
2.8 Half the interviewees saw one of the key aims of the pilot as being to introduce more of a vocational aspect into the S3 and S4 curriculum with the view of "replacing one Standard Grade with an equivalent, relevant vocational qualification". Of particular importance to these respondents was the hope that the SfW courses would be accepted "on a par with other academic courses".
2.9 The need to test and develop school-college partnerships was identified by the same proportion of respondents as a key objective of the pilot. It was seen as an opportunity to test out "manageability and practicability issues" of school-college partnerships, as well as a way of identifying and overcoming barriers to successful working partnerships. Of particular interest to some respondents was the need to explore "rural issues" related to transport between institutions in order to find out "what is good practice and how can things go wrong?"
2.10 Finally, three of the eight key respondents said that one of the main aims of the SfW pilot was to develop courses for young people of all abilities. On this note, respondents emphasised the need for SfW college courses to be offered not only to low ability students, but be seen as qualifications suitable for all types of young people. As one interviewee explained:
"It should be a type of course which young people of all abilities should be able to benefit from. (..) This is a critical objective - and also a political one. One key theme of political debate was that this should not be one way of dumping low achievers or problem children who are disengaged from school into the college sector; instead it should be a positive opportunity for all."
KEY MEASURES OF SUCCESS
2.11 In contrast with the aims and objectives of the pilot, respondents were less in agreement over its key measures of success. The one mentioned most frequently (five interviewees) was whether those pupils participating in SfW courses regarded it as "a worthwhile educational experience" or not. The main measure of this - apart from evidence from the national evaluation - was seen to be pupils' attendance and retention rates on the courses.
2.12 Pupils' achievements were seen as another hard measure of the success of the pilot by half the respondents, although several emphasised the need also to look beyond pupils' achievement of formal qualifications. In the words of one interviewee:
"On the output side I think there will be some need to try and quantify the level of attainment in respect of both individual units and whole courses, although I think there will need to be some way of trying to quantify achievement in things other than the externally awarded certificates. Particularly in relation to the development of employability skills which are not always explicit within a whole unit."
2.13 On this note, reflecting the perceived key aims of the pilot, four interviewees said that they thought that one of the key measures of success was whether pupils developed their employability skills as a result of participating in the SfW courses. One future hard measure of this was seen to be whether employers subsequently reported that "they were getting young people into the workplace who have the skills and core attitudes that they felt were missing before".
2.14 Finally, several respondents identified how the qualifications were valued by schools and colleges and what status they had with employers and universities as important measures of success of the pilot. As regards employers, interviewees hoped that "those that have interaction with [the pilot] have a positive view of it and value it, and don't see it as a soft option".
KEY FINDINGS
- All respondents thought that one of the key aims of the pilot was to test out the practicalities of design, and the delivery of, the SfW courses.
- Interviewees hoped that the courses would be successful at developing young people's employability skills rather than just focusing on preparing them for a specific occupation.
- The key measures of success identified by key stakeholders were seen to be, in the short term, attendance and retention rates, pupils' achievement on the courses, and, in the medium or longer term, the status the qualifications had with employers and universities.
« Previous | Contents | Next »