Higher Vocational Qualifications: Differing Approaches Within the United Kingdom to Meeting Skills Needs for the Twenty-First Century

Reeve, Fiona and Gallacher, Jim (2022). Higher Vocational Qualifications: Differing Approaches Within the United Kingdom to Meeting Skills Needs for the Twenty-First Century. In: Knight, Elizabeth; Bathmaker, Ann-Marie; Moodie, Gavin; Orr, Kevin; Webb, Susan and Wheelahan, Leesa eds. Equity and Access to High Skills through Higher Vocational Education. Palgrave Studies in Adult Education and Lifelong Learning (PSAELL). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, pp. 145–167.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84502-5_8

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the opportunities associated with the introduction of a new generation of higher vocational qualifications in the United Kingdom, namely, higher and degree apprenticeships in England and graduate apprenticeships in Scotland. Very different policy contexts have emerged in Scotland and England and the implications of these for the types of provision which have been developed are considered. The different policy frameworks have both strengths and limitations and the implications of these for the range of programmes which are now being established are analysed. However, the first section of the chapter also considers the earlier generation of higher vocational qualifications. The limitations of these qualifications have helped create the context in which there is a perceived need for these higher level apprenticeships as a response to the education and training needs of the UK in the twenty-first century. This comparison between Scotland and England can also provide an opportunity for ‘policy learning’. David Raffe and his colleagues have advocated the value of ‘home international’ comparisons and the idea that the UK can be a ‘natural laboratory’ for policy learning (Raffe and Byrne 2005). Given that England and Scotland are now developing graduate-level apprenticeship schemes, in quite different ways, there may be an important opportunity for ‘policy learning’, which could improve developments in both countries and further afield.

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