What do you think of when you hear the phrase “vocational education”? Perhaps it’s the student-staffed auto-shop in your high school, the ivy and red brick of the IIT campus, or those late-night UTI commercials (which, by the way, I totally thought was a urology program–it’s not, in this case). But you probably don’t think of local artisans or DIY types, woodworking craftsmen, or white-toqued culinary students doling out oysters on the half-shell. I didn’t, until fairly recently–right around the time I was trying one of those oysters (with a tangy, well-balanced mignonette sauce, no less) on the second floor of the City Colleges of Chicago. The world of vocational education is changing–and Chicago’s French Pastry School is helping to make that happen.

The second floor (as well as the eighth, part of the first, and soon most of the fourth) of the CCC building at Jackson and Franklin is home to the French Pastry School, a labyrinth of white-tiled kitchens, coolers, and stock rooms doubling as faculty chefs’ offices. Everything is neat and gleaming, though at times a bit crowded, and the narrow aisles buzz with the motion of white- and houndstooth-clad teaching chefs and interns, a mix of English and French, and the intoxicating smell of chocolate. Wafting from the tempering machine, from the chocolate cooler–the stuff is everywhere. And in its complexity, chemistry, and malleability, it’s an apt metaphor for education itself at the school.

The French Pastry School is certainly not the only culinary arts training program in the city. Washburne Culinary Institute (also a CCC school) has been around since 1937, and you’d be hard-pressed to get on an early morning Chicago Avenue bus without seeing a Cordon Bleu CHIC student on their way to class. Kendall College–alma mater of such culinary kitchen-table names as Jose Garces, Doug Sohn, and Mindy Segal–has a relatively young culinary arts program, started in 1985. Now widely decorated with accolades, includingIACP Cooking Teacher of the Year (for deanChristopher Koetke), the genesis for the culinary arts program was largely market-driven. What was, in 1985, a growing interest in cooking schools has since exploded–and the curriculum at Kendall has adapted to new industry trends, including sustainability and nutrition. A student garden has blossomed on the North Branch campus, filling the space between the parking lot and Chicago River. But Kendall continues to define itself as a liberal arts college that happens to house a thriving culinary and hospitality program that attracts some serious talent.

The French Pastry School, by contrast, grew out of the expertise, relationships and pastry world reputation of its founders, Jacquy Pfeiffer and Sébastien Canonne, who founded the school in 1995 as a way to teach the methods they themselves had mastered. It was incorporated into the City Colleges in 2000, possibly as a way to retain chocolate-making in Chicago after the Frango manufacturing move and rumors of cutbacks at Tootsie Roll. The new affiliation did allow the school to provide financial aid to potential students. (Chocolate is expensive, and the school’s tuition is high, in part because of the resources needed in the kitchens.) With working kitchens, a demonstration-based approach, and the technical language of the industry, French Pastry School’s programs may seem to fit the bill for vocational education. Interestingly, recent graduate Mandie Dakarian stresses a difference between “vocational” and “technical.” While technical may be about gaining or sharpening a particular skill, vocational seems to broaden the focus to gaining access into an entire industry. Dakarian notes the 24-week program is “definitely more vocational than technical. It doesn’t matter how much experience you have in the kitchen, the chefs are there 100% to help you learn and prepare you for a career in pastry.”

The subtlety of the distinction is not insignificant. Wikipedia defines “vocational education” as training in procedural knowledge, for manual or practical jobs. But the article also seems unsure of how to differentiate between vocational and technical, and notes that the neutrality of the entire article is disputed. Little consensus seems to exist as to what exactly “vocational education” means. And there’s even less about the difference, either in method or mode, of teaching academic versus vocational information. In his slim but thoughtful treatise Why School, Mike Ross notes the longstanding divide in education between teaching the work of the mind and the work of the hand –and its anachronistic assumptions about intelligences. “The trouble is that this kind of talk is inaccurate in its portrayal of so many kinds of work. Most characterizations of the new information economy and the new knowledge worker ignore the rich knowledge base of traditional labor,” he writes.

What was once the purview of community colleges and institutes of technology, however, is expanding–no longer toeing the definitive line between vocational and academic, but rather taking advantage of it’s blurriness. Even the ivory tower has recognized the importance of enforcing of core technical competencies and career-placement skills. Conversely, vocational programs are broadening their academic content–a Kendall hospitality degree program includes courses in Spanish, environmental science and statistical literacy, for example.

The French Pastry school seems to find its academic foothold in both the artisanal nature of its craft and the technical rigor of its standards–the work of the thinking hand, one could say. Perfect pastry comes from a perfect combination of chemical and mathematical knowledge, as well as technique. Most chefs, savory or sweet, would agree: pastry chefs are scientists. At the school, ingredients are all measured on the metric scale, in grams rather than cups or teaspoons–you can’t feel your way through making a croissant and have it turn out right, and Chef Jonathan Dendauw reminds seminar participants that most mistakes come from mis-measured ingredients. Marie Donovan, an associate professor and interim dean at DePaul’s School of Education notes, “You can’t be not-smart and not-curious and be good at pastry.”

If the precision of pastry-making is representative of the work of the hand, Donovan’s involvement with the school is very much about the work of the mind. Originally approached to evaluate the teaching abilities of the faculty chefs (after four other area schools of education had passed on the offer), Donovan has become the school’s pro bono ambassador into the world of professional pedagogy–while she, in turn, studies the school itself. Donovan calls her relationship with the French Pastry School a dream job–”I mean, I get four cooking magazines a month!” she laughs. Founders Pfeiffer and Canonne wanted to know if they were good teachers–and Donovan has since helped formalize and Americanize their instruction as they moved away from the French style of paper and pencil exams.

The academic and demographic terrain of vocational schools in general and cooking schools in particular is changing, and Donovan is fascinated by it. Enrollment trends began to change about six or seven years ago, she says, though it’s not clear where the tipping point was. In among the traditionally tracked voc ed students (aimed by high school guidance counselors towards vocational programs as an alternative to college), a mid-career lawyer who’d always had a passion for chocolate would suddenly show up. And would soon be followed by another.

Attendees at a recent “French Pastry Experience” introductory seminar reflected this new diversity. In addition to a handful of recent high school and college graduates considering culinary arts (spurred by a blurb in the Trib in one case, a recommendation from Washburne in another), were several pairs of middle-aged baking enthusiasts, a few mother-daughter-outing types, and a few visiting the city. Including Sally Perry, executive director the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts conservatory, interested in the introduction because of her involvement bringing culinary arts under the institute’s umbrella for a new program alongside music, dance, theater and other “traditional” arts areas.

While not all, or even many, of these individuals may enroll in further courses at the school, the trend is undeniable: 75% of the school’s enrollment today is career-changers, and classes have become very mixed-ages. A recent alumni reception, my first introduction to the school, showcased this diversity (many, many alumni are women, in a traditionally male-dominated field) as well as former students’ success. In among various hors d’oeuvres stations, display tables overflowed with alumni business cards, menus and press packets by night’s end. Director of operations Franco Pacini anticipated my question about having the school cater an event or private party–they don’t, sadly, but instead eagerly refer potential clients to alumni.

The balance French Pastry School has achieved between incredibly specialized instruction and a breadth of career opportunities is not accidental. The stand-mixers at each workstation, the giant flash freezers in each kitchen, the chocolate smell that permeates the entire operation–each is courtesy of the French Pastry School’s stable of corporate sponsors (specifically, Kitchenaid, Irinox and Barry Cacao). The 29 sponsors and “endorsed brands” not only fray the high costs of tuition, support the school’s scholarships, and donate expensive products–they also form a foundation of familiar products for each new cohort of future French Pastry School-trained chefs. Relationships are built not only with professional teachers and techniques, but with brands. It’s a symbiotic relationship worthy of a biology textbook.

If product sponsorships seems like a marketing tool very much of the modern era (and of an entirely different industry–think TV product-placement!), there’s still a traditionalism within the school that extends beyond the use of full-fat butter. The newest academic program, a professional cake decorating and baking program, actually seems to work against current culinary world trends. Stressing the program’s focus on flavors and textures over fondant architecture, school founder and dean Jacquy Pfeiffer wheeled around to shout “Exactly!” when I suggested the new program was a kind of anti-Cake Boss on a walkthrough of the 4th floor construction. Donovan sees the model French Pastry School has created as something radical–students are going back to the guild, both in their training and their professional networking.

Which is not to say that the school is immune to all trends–broadening lay interest in cooking at home and as a hobby is served by a full slate of non-professional programs, like the 5-day Pastry Camp, similar in scope (and tuition) to the Chopping Block’sculinary boot camp, or what Kendall tellingly calls its “avocational” programming. Dakarian notes that her own experience in Pastry Camp was a deciding factor in her attendance at French Pastry School: “The other schools I looked at only offered full time classes; they didn’t have any short programs for food enthusiasts, like FPS’ pastry camp… I got to see what class would be like if I was to enroll in the 24 week program, and I loved it.”

So there I was, with my oyster, reeling a little from the alumni reception’s bounty and rethinking everything I’d ever assumed about a vocational education. From cod-garlic brandade and braised beef with foie gras, to homemade vanilla bean ice cream with mango-banana-cilantro ceviche and lychee gel, and lemon cream with sable breton and olive oil mixed berries. All of it conceived by the executive chefs and executed by the students. And all of it, excellent. “This isn’t exactly pastry, is it?” I asked the student behind the ladle of a spring pea soup shooter with crème fraîche and bacon. “We like to dip our hands into lots of different areas,” she replied with a shrug and a smile.

Even given the laser-like focus of the academic programs, this still seems like an understatement. The school’s roots are in the apprenticeship models of the late 18th century, but a bloom of 21st century innovation is also visible. One-on-one relationships and formative instruction and attention, coupled with the market reach of sponsoring corporations, create an entrepreneurial engine within the school. In that sense, it’s no different in its goals from a business school or pre-professional program at a four-year institution. It’s not just vocational education–it’s a new kind of education for the modern age. It’s vocational education finally getting its just desserts.

French Pastry School
226 W. Jackson Boulevard
312.726.2419 
“French Pastry Experience” seminars are held all summer–check the website for more details and to register.

A Wall Street investor today warned a U.S. Senate committee that defaulted student loans from those who enroll at a for-profit vocational college will reach $300 billion over the next decade unless regulations are adopted forcing the industry to share some of the risk.

Steven Eisman, a portfolio manager at FrontPoint Financial Services Fund LP in New York City, told Senators that for-profit colleges play an important role in training workers, but regulations or a lack of them permit schools to manipulate placement data and default rates to ensure their students still will be eligible for large sums of federal grants and loans.

Eisman, who is known for forecasting the collapse of the subprime mortgage industry and real-estate burst, testified Thursday before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health Education Labor & Pensions.

The hearing was the first of series the committee is planning to look into recruiting and management practices of for-profit or proprietary schools, a number of which are being investigated by the U.S. Office of the Inspector General for over-promising high-paying jobs to students.

Harris Miller, president and CEO of the Career College Association, which represents a large number of for-profit schools, issued a written statement criticizing Eisman’s testimony.

“Comparing the for-profit career college sector to the subprime mortgage banking industry is as silly as it is simplistic,” Harris said.

The subprime debacle was based on the sale of loans in the security markets to buyers who had little to no knowledge about the value of what they were buying, Miller said. The value of an education is much easier to define.

Yasmine Issa, a single mother of two from Yonkers, testified that the degree she earned as an ultrasound technician from Sanford Brown Institute in White Plains was not as valuable as she was told.

She paid $32,000 to attend the school, borrowing $15,000 only to learn that she could not find a job because the program was not accredited even though the school was accredited. After she graduated, Issa said she found a community college that had an accredited program at half the cost.

For-profit colleges, which have had many success stories around the country, have been under scrutiny in the past few years as more complaints have been filed from students who claim they did not receive what they were promised.
Most students who attend for-profit schools have low-incomes or they are unemployed. And most are women or minorities.

According to a report issued by Senate Committee Chariman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, for-profits colleges have seen the amount of revenue from Pell grants increase dramatically.

They received nearly one-quarter of all Pell grants last year, compared to 13 percent in 1999.

“As these schools have increased their percentage of revenue from Federal student aid, for-profit education companies have become increasingly profitable,” Harkin’s report found.

Operating profit margins have increased at the same time.

“For [fiscal year] 2009, one company reported an operating profit of $489 million on revenues of $1.3 billion, a 37 percent margin. By comparison, this margin was more than triple that of Raytheon, and double that of Apple,” the report read.

“We really have to question the profit margins of these companies.” Harkin said. “It seems we have a situation where the bad actors are pulling the good actors. Other companies are being pulled into this vortex because their competitors are doing it.”
Harkin said he wants to address the problems before they get too big. New reporting requirement may be necessary.

Sarah Zander and Ashley Jacobsen are like many teenage girls. Sarah likes soccer. Ashley was captain of her school’s team of cheerleaders this year. They are also earning good money as nursing assistants at a retirement home. Sarah plans to become a registered nurse. Ashley may become a pharmacologist.

Their futures look sunny. Yet both are products of what is arguably America’s most sneered-at high-school program: vocational training.

Vocational education has been so disparaged that its few advocates have resorted to giving it a new name: “career and technical education” (CTE). Academic courses that prepare students for getting into universities, by contrast, are seen as the key to higher wages and global prowess. Last month the National Governors Association proposed standards to make students “college and career ready.”

But a few states, districts and think tanks favor a radical notion. In America’s quest to raise wages and compete internationally, CTE may be not a hindrance but a help.

America has a unique disdain for vocational education. It has supported such training since 1917; money now comes from the Perkins Act, which is reauthorized every six years. However, many Americans hate the idea of schoolchildren setting out on career paths — such predetermination, they think, threatens the ethos of opportunity.

As wages have risen for those with college degrees, skepticism of CTE has grown too. By 2005 only one-fifth of high-school students specialized in an industry, compared with one-third in 1982.

The share of 17-year-olds aspiring to four-year college, meanwhile, reached 69 percent in 2003, double the level of 1981.

Read more: http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20100620/OPINION/100619478/1042?p=2&tc=pg

Nearly 700 students enrolled in specialized programs will be uprooted Wednesday if Los Angeles County education officials proceed with plans to close nearly two dozen alternative schools because of budget cuts.

Students, teachers and some county leaders are mounting a last-ditch effort to keep the schools open, at least temporarily.

“I don’t think I have a place to go, to tell you the truth,” said Gabriel during a break between classes at Downey Community Day School, one of those slated to close. Like many of the students, Gabriel had been in trouble, running with a gang and ditching classes at his regular school.

At the Downey school, his grades improved and he passed the mandatory California High School Exit Exam. He fears that all of the gains he made may be erased if the campus closes.

“It’s hard for me to stay out of the streets,” said Gabriel, who, like other students in the programs, can’t be fully identified because of their status. “When I’m here, it takes my mind off things. If the school closes, I worry it might be a big fall for me.”

Operated by the Los Angeles County Office of Education, the community day schools and independent study programs serve juvenile offenders on probation, students who have been expelled, pregnant teens and new mothers and those who can’t return to traditional schools for various reasons. Most of the schools operate year-round.

County officials said the alternative schools are closing because of low enrollment and financial constraints. The schools are $3.8 million in the red after state funding was reduced 20% for the 2009-10 fiscal year, said David Flores, director of the county’s alternative education division.

The alternative programs also have been hurt because not as many students are being referred by school districts experiencing their own budget problems, Flores said.

“It’s been multiple compounding issues that have hurt funding,” Flores said. “In a perfect world, we would be opening new programs instead of closing them.”

Currently, 53 of these schools operate throughout Los Angeles County and serve 1,683 students; 28 of them will remain open. The fate of three others has yet to be determined.

About 30 teachers will lose their jobs when the 22 schools close June 30, Flores said.

Officials are working to help students stay either in remaining alternative programs or in high schools or continuation schools in their home districts.

“We’re reviewing every student’s case to determine what’s best,” Flores said. “But our programs are not intended to keep kids for their whole high school education, but to help them get right and stop bad behaviors.”

County officials said news of the program cuts caught them by surprise. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors will consider a proposal at its meeting Tuesday to request that the schools remain open for at least 30 days. That motion, by Supervisor Don Knabe, urges the office of education to work with local districts to find a way to keep the schools open, including cost-sharing arrangements.

Supervisor Gloria Molina said she supports those efforts.

“We want to make sure that students are being accommodated,” Molina said. “We appreciate there are funding issues, but many kids unfortunately need to attend these schools and we need to try to find a way to fund them and keep them intact.”

Many students said they fear returning to volatile situations and huge classes that hinder learning. Others said that only the alternative programs offer the kind of individualized support they need to succeed.

Ana Karen came to Downey Community Day school in November after being expelled from a traditional school for selling drugs. Her teachers and classmates at Downey have become like family, and she said they have changed her attitude. She now aspires to attend nursing school.

“I don’t think they would take me back at my other school,” said Ana, 17. “If this school closes, I wasn’t really thinking of going back to school. I’m thinking of dropping out.”

Rudy Spivery, a teacher at the Downey school, is scheduled to be out of a job July 1, but he has focused most of his attention on his students’ plight.

“This is morally wrong to me to put kids out like this,” Spivery said. “It’s a shock to the psyche and unfair.”

Teachers said students do not have enough time to find and enroll in new schools. Many face an uncertain future back on the streets, squandering opportunities as well as taxing county law enforcement and welfare services, the instructors said.

At the Mission Independent Study Program in Pomona, most of the 16 students are teenage parents who also have jobs and can’t attend regular classes, said teacher Pamela Wright. In the four years since it began, the program has had a 100% graduation rate and a 100% passing rate on the High School Exit Exam, Wright said.

She has presented a plan to Supt. Darline P. Robles to continue her program by taking on more students without a teaching assistant.

“My students and their parents are very fearful and very upset,” Wright said. “I understand that we’re in a budget crisis in California. I’m trying to present something that is solution-oriented.”

The Los Angeles County Education Assn., which represent teachers, has proposed keeping the schools open for 90 days to allow county probation, mental health and welfare departments, community-based providers and others time to collaborate on a plan, said president Mark Lewis.

“Many of these students are going to fall through the cracks,” Lewis said, “and the county as a whole is going to suffer.”

California stands to receive as much as $700 million next month in federal Race to the Top funds, which are to be used to improve the state’s lowest-performing schools. Unfortunately, the funds are unlikely to reach California’s lowest-performing students – the 100,000 a year who drop outbefore obtaining a high school diploma.

That’s because the federal funds will be used almost exclusively to promote college preparatory instruction, whereas one in five California high schoolers have little or no desire to pursue post-secondary education.

Rather than force those students to take three years worth of college preparatory classes, California should offer them the alternative of vocational education.

The education establishment tends to view vocational education as somehow inferior to college preparatory instruction. Most share the view of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that “every student is capable of success in the classroom.”

But the question is how California defines “success” in the classroom. If it’s based on how a student performs in such college prep classes as Algebra or Chemistry or European History, then every student will not succeed.

If the definition is expanded to include vocational prep classes – curricula that has relevance to students uninterested in spending four years in college – then Gov. Schwarzenegger is right on.

Indeed, California should acknowledge that it is quite possible for students to enjoy productive lives and successful careers without college, as several well-known state residents have proven.

Steve Jobs doesn’t have a college diploma, but he is co-founder and CEO of Apple. Hilary Swank didn’t even graduate high school, but she’s a two-time Oscar-winning actress.

Wolfgang Puck eschewed higher education, yet the celebrity chef boasts more than a dozen restaurants around the country. Gisele Bundchen never set foot on a college campus, yet she is the highest-paid model in the world.

Why shouldn’t California high schools offer career prep coursework for aspiring entrepreneurs like Jobs, actors like Swank, chefs like Puck and models like Bundchen?

Or how about instruction in other fields and industries that do not necessarily require a college diploma such as automotive services, computers and information technology, home building, hotel and restaurant management, and sports and entertainment?

The 100,000 or so youngsters who drop out of California high schools year by year represent unrealized potential. Many, if not most, could be encouraged to stay in school and to earn a diploma if they had the option of taking classes that prepared them not for college, but for a vocation.

The terms “vocational education” and more recently “career and technical education” have served historically as codes for programs or schools serving young people–often poor and minority youth–who are judged not capable of going on to post secondary education and, therefore, must be provided with a set of skills so that they can enter the workforce directly from high school. This judgment has created a two-tiered caste system of college-bound and work-bound education that is hardwired in our collective societal consciousness as the latest in a sorrowful lineage of caste systems that schools have created to funnel youth into pathways and bins based on such characteristics as disabilities, race, and class.

Those caste systems are defunct.

The world has changed. The economy has changed. The nature of work and the workplace have changed. Most everyone understands that there is, or certainly should be, a “career” and a “technical” aspect to all learning, just as there is, or should be, an applied, “hands-on” aspect to all learning. Can you imagine high school students aspiring to be architects, doctors, or lawyers who would not want to learn about the career and the technical aspects of their preparation for those professions? All high school education is, in large part, career education, just as all high school education is preparation for post secondary–make that lifelong–learning.

Consider what many see as essential features of excellent career and technical education.

• A personalized learning program focused on each student’s career interests.
• A thoughtful integration of academic and technical skills development.
• Opportunities for each student to engage with adults working in the student’s career interest area.
• Requirements that students exhibit skill and understanding through authentic performance demonstrations.
• Opportunities for students to obtain, in addition to a high school diploma, multiple forms of certifications and credentials in their career interests.
• All of the above provided in the workplace and community as well as the school.

You might conclude, as we have, that all high school students would be well served by programs with such features. Few high schools, however, offer them.

Consider also the by-now familiar list of skills employers want in their new hires, whether they arrive with a high school diploma or a two- or four-year college degree.

• The ability to construct and apply new knowledge across varying work activities.
• The ability to generate innovative solutions that require predicting, analyzing, forecasting, forming perspective, and recognizing patterns.
• The ability to communicate, using a variety of tools in multiple situations and cultures, particularly as a member of a team.
• The ability to integrate knowledge from multiple disciplines, including both the arts and sciences.
• The ability to transition across projects, firms, disciplines, and work/learning experiences.
• The ability to organize work and persist in its successful conclusion.

Again you might conclude, as we have, that all high school students need to demonstrate competence in these skills by graduation. Few high schools, however, teach or assess them. Even in our Big Picture Schools, focused as we are on learning in the workplace and the community, we are challenged to do so.

Observing the new world economy, we are reminded that it is not the career we choose that provides job security but our ability to use these essential skills, always prepared to make the inevitable shift to new work, perhaps in new industries, which the new economy will require.

All high school students need to have access to diverse program options that match their career interests and the ways they wish to pursue them. And within those programs, they need choices that allow them to customize their learning plans. Such programs will go a long way toward eliminating the caste system and turning America’s promise of universal equity and access into programs and practices for all youth.

Might educators and policy makers, therefore, eliminate the increasingly useless separation between traditional college preparatory and career and technical education programs? Might it be more productive to envision one high school system with a continuum of multiple pathways and choices for students, all incorporating those features listed above, and leading to multiple destinations, not just traditional four year colleges, but community colleges, technical schools, even work or, in some cases, a year off for travel?

A small number of school districts throughout the country already provide multiple pathways through career-themed programs of study. Many more high schools need to follow their lead and go beyond that focusing on individual interests, essentially wrapping a career academy around each learner. Offering such choices will keep many more students from leaving school before graduation and ensure that many more graduates are prepared for success in their post secondary learning and careers.

The caste system is defunct. Let’s get over it.

Readers have asked for more articles written from a personal perspective. In this series, we commission Cif commenters to write about their own experiences. Each person will tackle a subject from a distinctive angle in the hope that they will inspire others to comment below the line. After examining mental health, fatherhood, unemployment, care and rural life we’re now looking at vocational education.

Because of the personal nature of the debate, moderation will be strict.

#1

For the last three years I’ve worked in a library – sorry, learning centre – which serves an inner city further education college. Over the years, the college has seen the erosion of academic courses and the growth of vocational ones. My new MP did her politics A-level here via night classes. But we don’t do GCSEs anymore, let alone A-levels. All our current pedagogy is aimed at teaching hairdressers, beauty therapists, chefs, travel agents and plumbers on vocational, classroom-based courses.

I’m not disparaging our students, those trades or the tutors here, but there’s a limit to the number of hairdressers a city needs, and not all are guaranteed to work in the hair industry. The same goes for 90% of the vocational courses we run. I believe what most of these students actually need is to learn basic, functional skills – maths and English to level 2. Believe it or not, a large proportion of them don’t have a basic level of literacy and numeracy, and have to be taught alongside their main course.

We need to get these students out of the classroom and into basic employment. I say this from experience. I came out of school with only Bs and Cs at GCSE, failed to get decent grades at A-level but scraped into university anyway – and didn’t complete my degree. However, I don’t consider any of that time to be wasted. I spent that time learning for the sake of knowledge, not to get grades: a concept increasingly alien to our education system.

Call me naive, but I’ve always thought school and college was about acquiring knowledge, not employee training; surely that is the job for employers. Thankfully my employer agrees – last year I completed an 18-month, on-the-job NVQ3 in library and information services. I earned a transferable qualification, which helped my employer as much as me: the need to gather NVQ evidence focuses the mind on quality of work, policies and procedures. The point here is that my employer paid for the course as part of continuing professional development (CPD); vocational qualifications are great for this.

The difference between me and the hairdressers, you ask? Most of my students don’t know what they want to do; vocational education is best saved for those who’ve found a career. Forcing students to choose their vocation at 16 is unfair on them and useless to society.

#2

My experience of vocational education is restricted to a youth training scheme (YTS) I did at a London council. Once a week, I went to college to study a BTEC course that was completely unrelated to the work I was doing at the council. I detested the YTS and couldn’t understand its purpose. I asked myself: why does vocational education involve doing the job while training for it?

In my opinion, vocational education fails to satisfy the needs of students, businesses or society. Students need work experience, businesses need motivated staff and society needs a skilled workforce. Vocational education provides none of these at present. The connection between what I studied at college and did at work was unclear and this confused me. Is vocational education here to help me learn how to do a job? Is it an afterthought for students who didn’t do well at school? Is it a route to lifelong learning?

Vocational education needs simplifying. It should link the academic study of a subject to its practical application in the “real world”. Courses at college could include vocational modules that are not subject to examination or coursework upon completion. In order to complete these modules students would work in their local community, and students would receive study credit in payment for the work they did. If a student completed vocational modules while at college, the government would pay all the student’s university fees should they go to university, or could be used for any professional training the person wants during their chosen career.

Adding vocational modules to college courses would allow students an opportunity to discover where their talents are (or not!), and gain valuable work experience. Teenagers would discover that the real world is not always the world they learned about at school. Students could compare the academic and working worlds. Finally, students would have the opportunity to pay for their university education before they went, leaving students in credit when they finish university, and not in debt.

#3

At 18, I went to university to do Hispanic studies. After a semester, I realised that I hated full-time study – I had 10 hours a week of lectures and the timetabling meant that it was almost impossible to get a part-time job other than weekend work. I decided to leave university and got a job in a bank while I decided to what to do next.

I was still interested in academic study, so I looked into the availability of part-time and distance-learning degrees. The following September I started a part-time BA in business and management while working at the bank. It was two evenings per week, 6–9pm and lasted four and a half years I completed the course in February 2010 with first-class honours, having made a career change to export sales in the meantime.

It wasn’t easy to study and work at the same time, especially as my last job involved overseas travel around 50% of my time, so I had to miss tutorials and do a lot of followup work with tutors via telephone and the internet, but I found them incredibly supportive. Upon finishing the degree I moved to Spain and found another job in export sales.

When my current employer decided to hire me, they said one of the things that attracted them to my CV was that by working full time and studying part time, I’d gained a lot of practical experience while having related academic theory to back it up, and I’d also demonstrated motivation and dedication to balance the two things. I’ve now started an MSc in leadership and management via distance learning.

I don’t think there is enough information about part-time and distance learning available to 16- and 17-year-olds; I definitely was not made aware of it when the time came to choose a university. Being able to link your degree into your work at the time that you’re studying it gives you a much greater understanding than reading about it – especially if you’re doing a course in business, HR, media or any of the applied subjects – and it’s useful to have a practical and theoretical understand of what you’re doing.

Alternatively, if you’re studying a course for purely academic purposes, doing it part time enables you to gain work experience at the same time, so people aren’t left, as many of my friends were at 21, with a degree but no work experience, which makes getting a job even more difficult than it already is.

#4

I graduated from the University of Nottingham in 2009 with a history degree – by no means a vocational course. I’m now training to become a journalist, and retrospectively this degree stood me in good stead in terms of my transferable skills. I developed some useful skills in terms of research, forming an argument and writing cohesively – all relevant to my chosen career. I also developed some industry contacts and sought some work experience within the media. And so, from my personal perspective, I don’t feel that my lack of “vocation” has had a great impact.

However, when I look at the experiences of my friends, it seems obvious that degrees should be more vocational. Of those who did sandwich courses, all are now employed – either by their placement-year employer or through a contact they met during that year. Friends who studied for vocational degrees in medicine, engineering and architecture had, as you would expect, a much greater career focus during their university years and took it upon themselves to seek work placements and forge contacts.

This was in stark contrast to the career focus of my fellow humanities students, many of whom only stopped to think about their career path in the final term of their last year. While we had an excellent career’s advice service to support us, it was very much a case of being pro-active; attending workshops and seeking advice. If course departments were more closely linked to the careers services, non-vocational students might be able to get a better idea of the kind of transferable skills they might be able to apply to their future career.

Needless to say, students are adults and they shouldn’t need to be spoonfed career’s advice. However, graduate unemployment has increased by 25% within the past year alone, with another 400,000 students graduating this summer. Something needs to be done to help students while they are still completing their studies, so they are not allowed to drift through university and graduate with nothing but a piece of paper and a large debt.

According to the Higher Education Careers Service Unit (HECSU) in Australia, employers have actually expressed dissatisfaction with the performance of their graduates in terms of their work readiness. As a result of this, various new schemes are being introduced in Australian universities as a means of incorporating work experience into the undergraduate qualification. By doing this, students can develop employable skills alongside their academic studies and will likely require less on-the-job training.

If we can make some similar changes to our system, non-vocational students, too, will be encouraged to think much more about their career goals while they are studying and, as a result, will find themselves much more equipped to tackle a difficult job market after graduating.

A common entrance examination for engineering and medical streams is on the cards as the government moves towards making education more student friendly.

Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal Friday said that the All India Pre-Medical Test and All India Engineering Entrance Exam will be combined as both have common subjects.

‘Physics and chemistry are the common subjects for the entrance exam. Depending on their choice, students can take maths or biology,’ Sibal said.

The minister was speaking to reporters after a meeting of the National Foundation for Teachers’ Welfare attended by state education ministers in the national capital.

‘It will reduce the pressure on students who have to appear for 10 or 15 entrance exams,’ he said.

Sibal’s announcement comes as the government is making a slew of efforts to reduce the burden on students.

After introducing grading in the Class 10 board exams and making the examinations optional from 2011, the HRD ministry is now focusing on easing the pressure on Class 12 board examinees.

Among the ministry’s future plans is holding a general awareness and aptitude test after Class 12. The scores of this test will be combined with the board examination marks and a weightage will be calculated.

A common core curriculum for science and maths formulated by the Central Board of Secondary Education will be a stepping stone for this.

‘This will help in controlling the growing trend of coaching institutes. Even institutes like IITs agree that the best talent is not coming due to increasing coaching institutions,’ Sibal said.

A National Institution for Assessment and Evaluation, digitization of certificates in DMAT form to avoid forgery and inclusion of physical education and value education in the school curriculum are the other innovative measures the government is taking to improve school education.

Sibal also proposed a National Vocational Education Framework for evaluation of vocational training institutes.

‘We have got positive response from the states on almost all plans,’ Sibal added.

Vocational Education and Training Authority (VETA) trainers have been urged to be creative in preparing students who can contribute to the national economy especially on the implementation of ‘Kilimo Kwanza’ initiative.

VETA Director of Studies, Mr Kabeho Solo said this when opening a two-week capacity building training to VETA heads of training from all regions in the country.

He said vocational training could be useful if supervisors were creative and trained students on what was necessary for the time being in improving the county’s economy. “We have been given the responsibility of creating vocational skills in the society, so we have to be the good supervisors in making sure that we achieve the goals of having proper technicians in all sectors,” he said.

Mr Solo said vocational training institutes were necessary for any country which aims at developing because every country needed technician with skills in conducting different duties. Solo said VETA under the assistant of Ministry of Education and Vocational Training improved services in its regional offices whereby they have employed qualified tutors, maintenance and the building of infrastructures and they have improved the syllabus to meet the employment market needs.

He has also called the regional heads of VETA to make sure their institutions became role models in their areas by participating in community development projects.

“Leaders have to be the example of development in their respective area. You have to participate in solving problems around your colleges,” Solo said.

Over 20 heads of VETA in all regions are participating in the two weeks’ training.

Education is important for every individual in a nation. It plays a vital role to change the stare of a country. No country could bring a revolution in it unless its people are educated enough to meet the challenges. Education makes a man realize about himself and his goals and how to achieve that goals. Basically, Education is divided into three groups. The Education which teaches the concerns of a society is called Social Education. The Education which develops a personality inside a man himself is called Spiritual Education. The Education that concerns with the professionalism is called Vocational Education.

The Technical Education comes under the branch of Vocational Education which deals practically in the field of trade, commerce, agriculture, medicine & Engineering. We are living in the modern age of science where we found Technologies in every aspect of life. What makes life so easy for us’ simply; these are the Technologies which we use for our ease and comforts. Not only in our daily life but also in the research centre, in defensive measured of a country, biological aspects etc. No nation could make the progress unless it promotes technical aspects in its fields. The technical education produces technicians for all type of industries and it is true that the progress of a country much depend upon its Industrialization without which a handsome economy would not be possible. Using a technology is far easier than to develop it.

For developing a technology, it needed high skill teams which have a high knowledge for the theme. It also needed a high amount of time and also money. To fulfill all these, there must be technical institutes which must cover all the faculties of technological studies and also the support of government to support financially & to make it at international level. If it would be at International level then it would be easier to students to acquire knowledge in their own state so that they could do something for their own country. Pakistan leads in the technological era. The exhibition canters in Pakistan plays a vital role in backing up the technicians to come up with more and more new technologies because it gives reflection of our technologies to the foreigners which are representing their country, which means we are reflecting our image to that world. By this we have a sense of development and prosperity that we also produce creative mind in the technological aspect. As far as Pakistan’s implementation in techno field is concern, we can look around and observe that in every field of life we are using high class technologies whether it is in the Industrial purpose, business purpose, agriculture purpose or defensive purpose. There has been a lot of emergence of on-line trading, which deals with high technological concerns in term of machinery and software. Pakistan Telecommunication field also deal with high-class technology. Pakistan also promises to produce best technicians of its own through their technical education centers which allow approximately all the faculties for technical development. These institutes also support the new courses of technology which are introduced at a time so that there would be no line at which we lay behind. The most important institutes of in Pakistan which support the technical courses include, NED University, GIK University, Karachi University, Mehran University and there are also some other private Universities which deal in technological subjects. These institutes promise to produce technicians who cold meet the challenges of the technological era. I feel proud when I watch the students rushing towards these technical institutes to become a prosperous technician who have a sense of responsibility for the progress of their nation.

Technical education promotes the material prosperity and economic advancement. It produces the sense of self-respect and dignity. If a country has her own technical experts, she can save a lot of foreign exchange i.e. Technical Education makes a country rich, prosperous and resourceful. Our country is rich in raw material resources but the thing is, we must have enough technical knowledge to benefit from them.