Arguably the most important stage of a young person’s education is the combination of primary and secondary schooling, usually completed at 18. The current system brings together two separate tiers of qualification: GCSEs and A-levels. After completing year 11 at age 16, students then go on to take A-levels or some form of vocational qualification in sixth form or college. The system has its critics in different quarters, and is not widely regarded by employers for producing school leavers with adequate professional skill to enter the workplace. Every year, around the time of exam result publication, there is a great deal of media fascination with the question of whether or not GCSEs & A-levels are of a high enough quality for the educational needs of Britain’s teenagers.

In a globalised world, and particularly in an inter-dependent European economy, Britain is no longer served adequately by its independent, fragmented form of secondary education. To be competitive in the world, the way British teenagers are educated ought to be similar in structure and quality to other secondary systems in the industrialised world. The International Baccalaureate, which is run by a Swiss non-governmental organization in partnership with UNESCO, provides a rigorous, multi-disciplinary academic ‘template’ which can be and is being applied in some of the best schools around the world. Although efforts are being made in some countries to make the IB route an option for pupils of state schools, the qualification is sometimes seen as a reserve of the rich and of private schools. With better state funding, this reality could change and the GCSE & A-level system could be replaced completely.

According to Howard Gardner, a professor of educational psychology at Harvard University, the International Baccalaureate helps students to “think critically, synthesize knowledge, reflect on their own thought processes and get their feet wet in interdisciplinary thinking”. The IB is a complete programme taking children through from the age of 3 to the age of 19, in three different phases, the last of which being optional:

- Early Years Programme;
- Middle Years Programme (typically what we would refer to as secondary education) &
- Diploma.

The EYP & MYP take students through to age 16 and then they can elect to continue the programme until 19 upon the completion of which they would be awarded the diploma. The IB curriculum is multi-disciplinary, and teaches students a broad range of topics in some depth and with rigour. Not only are the appropriate academic fields taught, but students also learn critical reasoning skills, and are encouraged to question the world around them and think for themselves, to get to know themselves and their strengths, and to take an interest in community service and ethics, as well learn the important academic subjects. The programme is structured as follows, for all pupils, and all subjects are mandatory:

- Language
- Second language
- Individuals and societies
- Experimental sciences
- Mathematics and computer science
- The arts
- Extended essay (EE)
- Theory of knowledge (TOK)
- Creativity, action, service (CAS)

An IB education is valued and respected worldwide by alumni, by parents and by employers. It would be a pragmatic & progressive choice to replace the GCSE & A-level system with the IB system. Of course it would require considerable upheaval and re-training of teachers, but the outcome would be a system of primary, secondary and college education which provides a very high level of academic education for all British teenagers. Students who complete the 16-19 IB diploma would be educated to a high enough level to enter the workplace at junior levels, without needing to study for a degree at university. It would equally provide a way for students to demonstrate their academic excellence to universities when applying to study a degree, if academia is their chosen route.

The IB for all students in Britain would be a considerable step forward to a better educated and well-rounded population of school-leavers. The simplicity, broad structure and depth of the system would make primary & secondary education in the UK more predictable and uniform, and all students and parents would know what to expect from their education. The IB draws its confidence not only from the design of the curriculum but by the fact that its implementation is overseen by a respected international organisation providing high quality teacher training and educational material.

A look at how to reform British secondary education is not complete without a look at vocational education, and this is indeed an area which needs serious though and investment if it is to be taken seriously as an alternative to university.

Currently, students who are unable or unwilling to pursue the academic route have the option of studying for vocational qualifications at college, and at the same time applying for apprenticeships on the open market. Once again, this is an area of public policy which has suffered at the hands of tinkering politicians, and where pragmatic solutions have been left to the wayside in favour of experiments with different qualification systems and programmes over the last few decades. It is baffling as to why successive governments in the UK, and oppositions for that matter, have not looked abroad for inspiration, or when they have looked abroad have ignored pragmatic and simple answers to the vocational conundrum. There is demand in the economy for vocationally skilled young people. If Britain is to be economically competitive in the inter-dependent, globalised world in which we live, then the country’s education system must produce skilled school-leavers. Assuming that a rate of 50% or 60% of graduates will automatically make the economy more diverse and competitive is naive at best, dangerous and counter-productive at worst.

In Switzerland, over half of all people between the ages of 25-64 has taken a vocational qualification at some point in their lives. It is possible in that country, and in other highly developed European countries, to enter professional fields as diverse as banking and engineering without ever having stepped foot inside a university. In Sweden, post-16 secondary education presents students with 17 study options, 13 of which are vocational and 4 of which are academic. So at the age of 16, the vocational path is followed in the same colleges and with the same structure as the academic path but the student has the option to select a vocation from one of the 13 vocational fields or an academic route through one of the four academic options. In Norway, apprentices are paid a salary ranging between 30% and 80% of the salary of a normal employee doing a similar job. Britain must look at examples such as these if vocational education is to be taken seriously, and if the political class is serious about facilitating meaningful vocational education.

In the UK, vocational education has been shifted from pillar to post for years, despite the commitment of subsequent governments to address the issue more effectively. It seems that politicians of different colours are all too willing to pay lip-service to the importance of vocational education, but are either unable or unwilling to develop an adequate system of delivering that education where it would be useful. The obsession over recent years of increasing the percentage rate of people entering university or having degrees is dogmatic & arbitrary and ignores the reality that simply increasing the body of university students results in a devaluation of degrees, produces far too many graduates for graduate jobs, and assumes that a degree is a one-size-fits-all solution to producing educated young professionals. This is the opposite of political pragmatism.

The solution to Britain’s vocational education needs really is very simple. There is no need for an over-complicated programme, or multiple types of vocational qualification. The end must be drawn on the constant cycle of scrapping qualification programmes and creating new ones. If, as suggested with the International Baccalaureate, a single post-16 academic diploma is the answer for academically gifted and academically aspirational teenagers, therefore a vocational diploma, running in parallel for the same period of time must surely be worth considering as an answer to the vocational question in Britain. The choice at 16 would be simple: complete a three-year academic diploma in the form of the IB Diploma, or complete a three-year vocational diploma with a number of work placements in the public and private sector, in businesses, government agencies or non-profit organizations throughout that three-year period. And instead of leaving students to seek out and apply for apprenticeship places at various companies and organizations, colleges should work with the businesses and organizations in their local areas to find placements for their pupils.

The keys to overhauling the British secondary education system are 1) simplicity and 2) rigour & quality regardless of whether a student’s chosen route is academic or vocational. Students and parents must be confident that the qualification system that holds the key to unlocking their own or their child’s potential is capable of providing a good level of education and preparedness for the working or academic world. This reassurance is realised by creating a single, inter-connected qualification system for all students, backed up by the highest levels of teaching quality and the broadest, most challenging curriculum available. By bringing the academic and vocational post-16 routes together and simplifying them into a single structure, secondary education in this country will provide the confidence our teenagers need when approaching working life or when embarking on university study.

It struck me today, while doing some basic maths, that the estimated total amount of money required to pay for all of the tuition fees (at current levels) for all UK & EU students in the UK (around 1.9 million) would only be around £5billion. I previously assumed that it would be much, much more than this. Let me put this number in perspective:

- £5bn is 1/30th of the total amount of revenue the Treasury raises from income tax;
- £5bn is just under 5% of all national insurance contributions raised per year;
- £5bn is the total amount raises from petroleum, air passenger & spirits taxation revenue;
- £5bn is a tad over a tenth of what the UK spends on defence each year.
* Source: Wikipedia.

Considering that UK students currently have to saddle themselves with tuition and living cost debt, often more than £30,000 worth before they even get onto the jobs market, isn’t it time that we looked at other ways of paying for university education? It is already the case that students in Scotland (either home students there or EU students residing in Scotland) have their tuition fee subsidised by the public purse. It is unethical, unfair and constitutionally baffling that a student in England or Wales should have to break their back with debt when a student in Scotland does not.

When Vince Cable introduced the idea of a graduate tax, I wrote here that I agreed in principle with the idea. But in practice there are a range of problems, not least the fact that the tax effectively “stops at the border” and that EU students, with the legal right to be treated equally with UK students, would be able to study here and then leave having received in-effect a free university education.

The whole of society benefits when a large proportion of its citizens receive university-quality education. It results in better doctors, better engineers, managers and scientists, amongst others, which makes the country run better.

Instead of saddling 18 year olds with tens of thousands of pounds in debt, and instead of a clumsy change to the tax code, why not just raise all taxation by 0.8% across the board to make university education free at the point of use? Now that would be progressive…

Many people are unable to achieve their goals in life because of the heavy debt burden which prospective university students are presented with. The perception that in order to get a good education, one must laden oneself with £30,000+ in debt to cover tuition fees and living costs, is a powerful disincentive to continue education post-18. That’s why I welcome Business Secretary Vince Cable’s announcements today on higher education reform.

The headline suggestion that Mr. Cable has announced today is the replacement of the up-front tuition fee system with a “graduate tax” which would see graduates paying back their student debt through the tax code. The current system already has a link between payback of debt and earnings post-graduation; graduates start to pay back their government-lent tuition fees when they earn £15,000 or above.

The proposed graduate tax would alter the balance between state and individual in a positive way – instead of handing out debt at the start of university, and therefore making students dependent on the state early on, the state pays for one’s education with the bargain that the state will create a job for each graduate in order to be able to pay that debt back. Instead of a large handout of debt, one’s education is paid for at the point of use by the state.

I would like to see more initiatives like this, and I think Labour lost an opportunity to transform the culture of this country by making people slaves to the state instead of freeing people up to achieve their own goals. Tax credits is an example of this: instead of removing people from paying tax, you spend the same amount as the revenue you would lose by reducing the tax burden on the lower-middle income groups on handing out money each week or month to those people, making them clients to state handouts. It even costs more than a tax burden reduction would, because of administrative costs. Tax credits are an amazing achievement of the Labour government but the same goal could be achieved at the same time as making people feel independent and in charge of their own destinies.

Ed Miliband, one of the front-runners in the Labour leadership contest, supports the proposed Graduate Tax:

"the Graduate Tax is a fairer alternative (to tuition fees), and one I’ve been arguing for for some time"

The Graduate Tax will make it easier for people from less privileged backgrounds to become socially mobile through education. This is one of Labour’s principles is it not? Therefore, the whole of the Labour Party should support Cable’s proposal today and work towards removing huge up-front tuition fees which keep those less well-off from achieving their aspirations.

Ideally we would scrap tuition fees for people from certain socio-economic backgrounds altogether.