Question: Why has vocational education been the poor relation for so long?

Ivan Lewis: I think because the way that we’ve presented vocation-based education throughout our history has been to divide people into sheep and goats. What we’ve tended to mean by vocational education is that successful, well-motivated, middle class young people do the academic conventional route and anybody who’s identified as a problem does the vocational route. That’s one reason.

Secondly I think we’ve ripped out the vocational infrastructure in this country over 20 or 30 years. We’ve lost the actual equipment that’s necessary to train people. We’ve also lost the skilled tutors and trainers who can support young people to develop vocational skills.

We’ve really got to change that and I don’t think it’s helped by the debate about higher education. There are some people who are posing a bogus choice between vocational education and higher education. I think that does tremendous damage because what we actually need in this country is actually far more graduates and far more young people qualified to a higher level of vocational skills.

What I mean is that over 50 per cent of higher education courses are of a vocational nature. In terms of the expansion we plan from 43 per cent to 50 per cent of young people have access to higher education by 2010, we imagine a lot of that will come from part-time, foundation or vocational degrees.

It’s absolutely essential that young people doing advanced modern apprenticeships know that there’s an opportunity to progress to a foundation degree. Many young people are doing that. A point worth making is that a growing proportion of higher education is accessed by people studying at further education colleges.

In a way, the danger is that we repeat the same mistakes of the past - that vocational is presented as a second class, inferior educational choice.

What my ambition is, is that we first of all recognise that being skilled to a higher vocational level is every bit as important as being skilled to a high academic level. We should aim for all of our young people to progress beyond 16 and stay in some form of education or training.

At the moment our definition of success tends to be exclusively related to academic success. For me it’s equally successful if a young person decides to stay on and participate in a full-time vocational course or a modern apprenticeship - which we’re very keen to expand.

We’ve got to broaden the way that we define success and achievement. We’ve got to recognise that whether it be the needs or our economy or the abilities of our young people, the capacity to demonstrate vocational ability is every bit as important as demonstrating academic ability.

Question: How do you do that?

Ivan Lewis: Well, first of all you stop perpetuating myths of choosing between further and higher education. But we also celebrate some of the achievements. There are now a record 255,000 young people participating in modern apprenticeships in this country. It’s a fact that is often not known. I speak to business people, educationalists and commentators and they say ‘it’s a shame we don’t have an apprenticeship system’. Well we do and there’s a record number of young people participating.

We also have to improve that apprenticeship system - and we will be announcing proposals in the very near future to do that - by reaching out to a far larger number of employers, urging them to offer more apprenticeship places that are currently being offered currently in this country.

And we should also make sure we design the modern apprenticeship product with sectors of our economy so that they are in the driving seat in creating the right programme that will meet the needs of their sectors. That’s rather than having this separation, which is one of the barriers to success, between the world of education and the world of work.

We’ve got to break down those barriers we’ve got to have a much better dynamic in terms of industrialists and educationalists working together. Certainly in terms of the design and content of vocational courses, we expect that the sector skills councils that we’re developing will have a major input into the design and content of qualifications in the future.

Question: What sort of jobs and industries are we talking about?

Ivan Lewis: We’re talking about industries like engineering and construction but it’s equally IT, retail and the finance sector. We want apprenticeships across all sectors of our economy. And not just in the private sector but in the public sector too if we’re going to attract the brightest and the best into the public sector. We want to see more public sector employers offering apprenticeship opportunities.

Question: Teachers encourage children to aim for university and offer careers advice. But many don’t have an industry or vocational background how do you get round this?

Ivan Lewis: You’re absolutely right. Charles Clarke has made it very clear that we have to at a very local level see a stronger relationship between schools, local communities and employers. There’s already some excellent mentoring going on with employers sending mentors into schools. There’s obviously work experience. For the first time from next year, work-related learning will be a compulsory part of the curriculum. We’re introducing enterprise education into the curriculum.

And if you seek specialist status as a secondary school you have to demonstrate that you’ve been able to raise £50,000 from employers or private sources and how you’re going to engage with employers on a more regular basis. There’s also the Connections service working with careers teachers to talk to young people about their career and curriculum choices.

For me it really has to be a more dynamic, authentic relationship between young people and their future career options than just sitting down with them and having a one-hour chat with a teacher when they get to a certain age.

We have to reach towards a new settlement where we have a much greater two-way dynamic between education institutions - schools, colleges and universities - and employers in the labour market.

Question: Is there a danger of creating "oven ready students" focused on one job sector rather than rounded students?

Ivan Lewis: No, because we’ve made it absolutely clear that there have to be safeguards in the system. So whilst we’re committed to creating a flexible training programme that meets the needs of individual sectors, we also make it clear that if we’re going to put public funding in, employers have to be willing to support young people develop the key skills: good communication skills, basic literacy and numeracy skills and ITC skills. There has to be an element of transferable skills if the government is going to be will to fund and subsidise these courses.

And most employers accept that because in any job if you’re going to help your employer to be competitive and productive, having good communication skills and problem-solving skills are vital.

Question: How do you get employers involved when organisations like the CBI often complain of too many demands from government?

Ivan Lewis: This is one area where we have a mutual interest. Though the UK economy is strong and doing well, the bit of it that needs to be improved is productivity and competitiveness. Employers identify skills being a major barrier in that respect. It’s in their interests then, to be willing to support young people coming through from the compulsory education system into the world of work.

It’s equally important that employers are willing to invest in the skills of their own workforces. That’s why we’re doing a lot of work on workforce development. But we’ve made it clear this is an area where success will be government, employers and trade unions working together to make it happen. This is not one of those policy areas where you can simply look to government or employers for the entire solution. There has to be a partnership.

I think it’s quite exciting: for the first time there’s a national social and economic partnership between the government, the CBI, the TUC and the Small Business Council all sat round the same table driving the skills agenda forward. I think that’s a major achievement.

Of course the CBI emphasise they don’t want regulation, they don’t want compulsion but they are also quite strident in saying to their members that you can’t expect the education system alone to tackle skills shortages. If employers aren’t willing to engage, you’re always going to have continued difficulties. And the deal is: the government will create a far more demand-led education and training system that is responsive to the needs for employers but having done that, we have every right to expect employers to come to the table and be willing to play their part.

Question: This sounds like the government’s got a very radical overhaul of the education system. Is that a fair assessment?

Ivan Lewis: Well you have to put this in the context of the work that Mike Tomlinson is doing on the reform of 14-19 education. Central to the test of whether we’ll be able to implement his recommendations is being able to identify high-quality, high status, vocational pathways that will be available to all young people. That we find a system which can stretch the most able young people but also deals with the fact that we have world class primary and higher education performance but our drop-out rate post-16 is amongst the worst of all OECD countries.

In the meantime we need to get on with the job of putting in place some of the building blocks so that when we get to that full reform programme we’ve already begun the journey. I’m very excited. As I say, we have a record number of young people doing modern apprenticeships; we have large numbers of young people seeking the apprenticeship route who weren’t only a few years ago.

My main challenge now is to expand significantly the number of employers who are willing to offer an apprenticeship and to begin to put in place the blocks that will rebuild the vocational infrastructure in our country. I think it reflects a wide consensus that it’s what we need to do.

Question: Can you give an idea of what the new post-14 education system will look like?

Ivan Lewis: We’ve introduced GCSEs in vocational subjects. They could either do a course that exclusively consisted of those or a mixture of those or more academic subjects. We’re going to be announcing more details soon of a new young apprenticeship for 14-16 year olds which doesn’t exist at the moment. We’ve got an increasing number of young people having a more flexible curriculum than has been available to them in the past. They’re spending a couple of days a week in school, a couple of days a week in college and a day with a local employer.

What we believe is central to the future of education is the concept of personalised learning and curriculum. What that really means is that we want to build a learning programme around the learning needs of every individual young person rather than offer a very narrow definition of how you can progress and succeed. That’s the challenge: creating far more flexibility while no compromising in any way on standards. But we mustn’t confuse high standards with high academic standards.

Question: Will part of that involve young people going out into the workplace?

Ivan Lewis: Yes. There’s going to be an increased element of that and we want the traditional work experience to become a lot more worthwhile. Introducing enterprise education into the curriculum will help.

Young people need to be able to make choices based on authentic experiences not reading about things or looking up things on the internet. Them spending time in the workplace is really important.

I also think that young people are becoming increasingly sophisticated in what motivates them. They genuinely look for what earning potential they will have in a particular career. You can’t knock the fact that these days if you choose to be a plumber or a joiner - highly skilled jobs - you could earn a tremendous amount of money. A lot more than in the traditional professions.

What we underestimate is that young people themselves look at those issues. We know it and the press increasingly cover it as an issue but we shouldn’t underestimate that young people make that connection.

Question: If the skills base is low in those trades and there’s a shortage of skilled people, where will you find people to teach them?

Ivan Lewis: Well that’s something we’ve got to deal with. It is a problem. We’ve got to rebuild not only the vocational infrastructure both in terms of the equipment and facilities but also the trained tutors and lecturers with people from that background.

One of the ways is to probably rebuild the concept of people actually in the workplace supporting young apprenticeships. We’ve got to rebuild that culture. I think many more experienced, older workers would relish the opportunity to do that.

But my major challenge now is to recruit far more employers of all sizes to our mission.

Question: Could we see young people being taught on building sites or schools having plumbing departments?

Ivan Lewis: Why not! Why just look the school. If we’re going build a curriculum around the individual then what we need in every community is for the educational offer that is a combination of schools, colleges, universities and employers. Where a young person needs to be rooted in school, make no mistake, it will happen. At bare minimum people need basic skills. That’s non-negotiable. But then there should be a more varied, flexible timetable that will involve them spending some time in college or on the building site or why not in a modern IT firm.

The other ambition is that we don’t create cul-de-sacs for people but a climbing frame. What I mean is that if you start an apprenticeship course at 14 and by 16 you’ve done really well and you want to go and do A-levels then why not. We must not force young people to stay down a narrow route. The challenge is to make sure they’ve got the skills, the motivation and the flexibility to progress and develop.

Question: This presents a big challenge for teachers, doesn’t it?

Ivan Lewis: Massive challenges for the workforce and the culture of our education system and indeed with employers. Of course there are major changes. Putting the individual pupil at the centre of the offer is a radical departure from the institution determining the offer.

Question: Isn’t there a long-term issue of training people for an industry that might move abroad in 10 years time?

Ivan Lewis: Well, the other thing the government feels strongly about is that the job for life is dead so for 21st century replacement for that has to be employability for life. We can’t pretend that we can cushion people completely from the effects of globalisation but we have a responsibility to help people through and to demonstrate that the government is on their side.

One of the central ways that we can do that in the future is to offer apprenticeships not just to people between 14 and 24 but also to adults because people increasingly in their 30s, 40s and 50s will have to retrain and change career direction. We’ve committed ourselves in the skills strategy to introducing public subsidy for adult apprenticeship.

In the context of people’s anxiety and insecurity about perpetual change and the impact of globalisation on them, their jobs and their communities, the government can either deny the reality and pretend we can stop that happening or you can say the government has no responsibility. What we’re saying is ‘we can’t deny the reality’ nor are we prepared to say ‘we have no responsibility’. One of the central ways we can make people feel they can cope and come out the other end of this change is by replacing the concept of a job for life with employability for life.

Question: This part of the education debate has fallen off the agenda. Given this is going to take years, this will have to be a big part of the government’s general election message, won’t it?

Ivan Lewis: What this government’s got to do is put back at the heart of its message its passion for lifelong learning that’s the key. We’ve always been very strong on this but we’ve stopped using the term as being central to our vision of the society we want to live in.

The way I put it is from a social justice point of view. It’s about supporting every individual to fulfil their potential and to know the dignity of self-improvement. And for the economy it’s about tackling our one remaining weakness which is productivity and competitiveness. It’s a win-win if we do really begin to turn the culture around regarding life-long learning. At the moment we haven’t got a country where life-long learning is sufficiently enshrined into our culture.

There is a massive direct link between adult learning and school standards. If you get parents and grandparents back round that learning table for the first time in 20 or 30 years, imagine the benefit in communities where education is still not seen as important. It could break some of that inter-generational under-achievement and poverty.

I’ve coined this phrase, the dignity of self-improvement. I think it’s a fantastic way of describing how adults feel to go back to education and do well after having had a miserable school experience. The other gain with them is that it has on their families. Suddenly education becomes important to them and they feel they have the skills and the confidence to help their kids and grand kids learn.