Girls and vocational education

[Himalaya]

I volunteered at my DS's school this week - interviewing 15/16 year olds as part of their 'careers day'.

Amongst the top stream university-track kids the girls and boys were doing the same kinds of subjects and had similar ambitions, but amongst the less academic kids it was sharply divided with boys saying they were focused on tech, ict, business and girls wanting to do childcare and hairdressing.

I know this isn't NEWS, but it depressed me to talk to these girls who knew so little about the world and yet had been encouraged to specialise so early and define their ambitions so narrowly.

I chatted to the deputy head about it, who sighed and said 'it's very hard to challenge the overall culture, and that kids tend to go with their peers'. I guess their main challenge with quite a lot of kids is keeping them in school and motivated at all, so they encourage them to do things that correspond to their interests. But it just seems so limited and uninspired.

What can/should be done differently?

There is also this problem in society that people are simply prepared to pay men more than women for equivalent work because of the magical penis. That is going to be a hard one to tackle (fnah fnah)

oh SQ that was your choice you know. the 16 year old you should have made better choices so now you would be in the male denominated world of aeronautical engineering. Tch, women and their choices, eh.

The "aspiration gap" is a big problem isn't it.

I think they should be running a program for all children to inspire them and show them what an amazing range of jobs are out there. It's something else where children of successful / professional / university education parents have a huge advantage. Their parents are simply more aware of the possibilities.

Having said this I have never worked in careers advice or anything so for all I know this is already happening but not working.

I totally agree SQ - my own background is a classic example of that.

Careers advice is So important. There seems to be no enthusiasm for it though, it's a given that the pupils will continue to tread the old grooves. Maybe it's true. But you'd hope for more than a sense of futility.

AS the mum of a daughter with an 'academic' background who has voluntarily given up a high flying and highly paid business career after years of regular 60/70+ hour weeks and endless international travel to retrain as a plumber and heating engineer I get a bit fed up with this academic v non-academic non-valid comparison. The initial 'second career' course she was on was sprinkled with successful ex so-called 'academics' in their thirties/forties who had simply decided on a change of career for lifestyle and a variety of other reasons.

It is one of the problems in this country that we have this artificial divide between what we perceive as academic and non-academic. Possibly a lingering relic of a class-based grammar school v secondary modern system; but in a changing world I believe a lot of the old divisions between white and blue collar are going to have to shift. And maybe that will help to break down the barriers between 'male' and 'female' jobs as well. Certainly my daughter was not the only woman on this career shift course.

But if someone is a very experienced childcarer/ cleaner we should value that and pay them plumbers' rates, not just the min wage.

But could we? If it was more than I earned in an office job, I'd have to give up and do my own childcare/cleaning.

Childcare is v important, but cleaning is not very skilled. Anyone can learn to do it right. Capitalism, innit.

I think many roles are academic though. I think you would be hard pushed to pursue a career as an actuary or a chemist if you did not have the relevant academic background.

And the point for your daughter is that she had choice. Of course no-one is saying that academic = some jobs and non academic = others. Apart from anything else, academic in this context is completely different from clever, as people's academic qualifications will depend much on background.

Anyway have to go out now, will be back later.

Of course no-one is saying that academic = some jobs and non academic = others

Hmmm. Not sure about that.

I think it's just hard to define what is being talked about. It is people who do not achieve academically in school, and what happens to them. The reasons people don't achieve academically in school are numerous and usually nothing to do with intelligence and much more to do with background.

The thing that academic success gives you is choice. While a person who has a batch of excellent A-Levels can choose to be a hairdresser instead of a nuclear physicist if they want, a person with no qualifications is going to struggle to get into the field of nuclear physics. And most especially if they don't even know that it is a possibility. So choices are limited, and at the moment people with fewer options are being further restricted by considering "gender appropriate" roles (for whatever reason).

I am not sure what your quibble is here sportsfanatic?

My quibble Sardine? It's more discomfort about the attitude of some towards jobs they perceive as non-academic. Let me give you one random example from someone earlier on this thread i.e..

But what careers are there for non-academic girls? The traditional '5cs' (catering, cleaning, clericare, caring) are all badly paid. Their arent 'pink' equivalents of plumbing, ie good hourly rates for low level quals.

A properly qualified plumber is someone qualified not just to install a new set of taps or unblock a loo i.e. something you or I could easily do, but who can install entire heating systems in major complexes as well as houses and who has a good grasp of maths e.g. hydraulic calculations, algebra and geometry, applied physics etc. Once you get beyond the basics it is a highly-skilled job.

The statement above that they have "low-level qualifications" and an assumption that they are non-academic is IMO a fairly typical attitude of us so-called 'professionals' to someone whom we perceive as working with their hands. It's an unhealthy attitude.

It's just something that irritates the hell out of me as I think it lies at the heart of the way this country (as opposed to, say, Germany) thinks of vocational career training as second best to university-trained careers.

Maybe I am not making myself clear. I'll leave it at that as I don't want to derail the thread.

Well bring it up with the person who said it then rather than reacting as if that view is shared by everyone on the thread.

It is certainly true though that you can get into the trades with lower initial qualifications, you then get your training and can take it as far as you want (right through to complex engineering solutions). The point is that there is not similar scope with a trade like hairdressing, where a very few people become very famous/wealthy but for the rest there is no obvious natural progression very far and the pay stays fairly low. It would be pretty unlikely that you would be able to work your way swiftly up the salary scale at a large multi-faceted company with hairdressing, while routes like that are open to things like plumbing.

I just don't see the point in insisting that something like plumbing is going to give you equivalent opportunities to something like hairdressing. That is what the thread is about. Academic qualifications are beside the point.

" Once you get beyond the basics it is a highly-skilled job".

But some people don't get beyond the "basics" and they still get paid more than jobs like childcare and hairdressing.

I just don't see the point in insisting that something like plumbing is going to give you equivalent opportunities to something like hairdressing.

Just to clarify - that is the opposite of what I meant. Sorry if I did not make myself clear.

Also I did not say it was a view shared by everyone. I used the word "some" i.e. specifically not everyone.

Anyway I will live it at that now we seem be running on parallel lines.

In fact it is just silly.

I worked in a FE college about 15 years ago. They offered electrical engineering, car mechanics, plumbing, brickwork etc. These courses were 100% male and taken up by young men who had not succeeded academically but wanted to get on by getting into a trade.

The college also offered hairdressing, beauty etc. These courses were 100% female and taken up by young women who had not succeeded academically but wanted to get on by getting into a trade.

I doubt much has changed in the last 15 years TBH. If I went back to that college and looked at the academic qualifications of the people taking these courses and what sex they were, I would be very surprised if there was much difference.

I get that clever people do the trades. Clever people do not necessarily succeed in their exams at school. They are not a measure of how clever someone is (although they might well show up if someone is a bit thick). I get that academically successful people sometimes take these paths. Sure, why not?

However I can't imagine that many young people with a clutch of great A-Levels and an offer of Oxbridge turn it down to pursue plumbing or hairdressing at their local FE college instead.

As someone else said, just because some plumbers are experts who do whole buildings, lots arent but they still get paid 10x what childcarers get. Personally i think that is a much more important job.

Yes workers cant afford that, so the government should subsidise it the way they do in other countries. Childcare should be as important a part of the welfare state as nhs and education, because most of the problems these departments face aee caused by poor childcare in the first 3 years.

I also think it is a mistake to assume that people who don't achieve good results in school exams aren't capable and clever.

sports, I think you are making yourself clear and -if I've understood you correctly- I agree with you.

Our education system divides children at a very young age into 'academic' and 'non academic'. There is little opportunity for a non academic child to explore any academic learning, and vice versa. This whole premise need to change, IMO. Both 'academic' and 'non academic' learning opportunities should be available to all, and the hierarchy done away with.

It is alarming that this division is becoming more entrenched in schools with 'pathways' at KS4- ensuring that if you are no good at say, maths or english, you are prohibited from taking history or languages for example, and if you are showing an aptitude for a practical subject you are moved away from 'academic' subjects all together. This reinforces the divide/hierarchy and encourages further disaffection with education.

altogether

Tethersend is right. I've just come out of FE teaching, in small part due to frustration at how rigid the course frameworks were. I had a few students on vocational courses who had extra talents, who could easily have taken GCSEs or even single A-levels, most of them in languages, but one notable one in art. The college were very resistant to this, just as they were extremely resistant to mature students taking A-levels. It was very much "us and them", with young "high-fliers" in traditionally-taught academic subjects, and everyone else with vocational or Access courses. Access courses do have their advantages, but there are people out there who want to do in-depth study of multiple subjects, and are capable of it.

I agree that careers advice in schools needs to be much better, with greater emphasis on non-traditional careers such as: Customs and other enforcement work, jobs with animals, specialist engineering, lab technician-type roles and support roles for disability, like BSL interpreting. I know people in all of these fields who have come into them through all kinds of routes. Careers advice tends to be very lazy, unimaginative and often semi-recruiting for local companies, and this breeds sexism.