Howard launches plan to increase vocational training

Conservative leader, Michael Howard, has launched plans for a scheme to promote technical and practical skills training in Britain's schools and colleges.

The new plans involve the introduction of vocational training grants, worth up to £1000, to help provide extra places at further education colleges or enable schools to set up vocational training for pupils seeking to learn craft skills.

The plans are part of the Conservatives new policy, which include: the establishment of a network of skills Super Colleges; the scrapping of the Learning Skills Council, in order to gain extra funding; and a series of centrally-directed initiatives and regulation, aimed at helping 14 and 15-year-olds to begin vocational training at school, while also providing specialist courses at further education colleges for them.

Speaking at a conference in St Albans, Mr Howard, said: "One of the tragedies is that we have overvalued the importance of an academic qualification at the expense of a technical or practical skill. It's time to end that snobbery. Our education system must recognise that every person is different, with different aptitudes, skills and ambitions. No path is intrinsically superior to any other or deserves to be automatically better resourced."

The Conservative leader called for the "elitist perception" that academic study was "nobler" than other occupations to be abandoned and said: "Our society needs skilled craftsmen, accomplished electricians, capable plumbers – and a whole host of technically-trained new professionals."

Commenting on the new skills initiative, Shadow Education Secretary, Tim Collins, said: "We have a million young people not in education, employment or training. We need to fill the skills gap that are holding back many of our businesses .We need to engage the disengaged young – so often the cause of trouble in our society – and help them build worthwhile skills."

Mr Howard's speech was followed by the publication of the education chapter of the party's election manifesto, which emphasised plans to raise educational standards, boost school discipline, scrap university tuition fees, offer a wider choice in education and strengthen skills provision.

(KMcA/SP)