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We still haven't closed the vocational divide ― and the EBacc certainly won't help

Performance tables Vocational education Apprenticeships
As MPs call for ministers to do more to help schools effectively promote apprenticeships, SecEd editor Pete Henshaw asks if we can ever close the vocational-academic divide with our current EBacc obsession.

Despite years of discussion about how we can close the gulf in esteem between academic and vocational education, we still do not have a grasp on this most vital of issues.

MPs this week reported their findings after carrying out an in-depth investigation into the government’s apprenticeships programme (click here for the full news report). While the vocational-academic divide is about more than just apprenticeships vs university, the report gives us a useful state of the nation insight.

The MPs found that still, in 2012, after years of debate about the vocational-academic divide, there is an “underlying assumption that vocational training is only for those unable to take an academic route”.

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