'Children are steered toward irrelevant vocational courses', claims think-tank

Vocational courses used to 'babysit' under-achieving pupils are creating an educational divide, a report claims today.

Tens of thousands of under-16s are being steered toward ' irrelevant' job-related qualifications instead of core academic subjects to help meet school performance targets, according to the study by the Civitas think-tank.

It claimed that the courses - including applied GCSEs, BTECs and OCR Nationals - leave poorer pupils lacking a proper grounding in English, maths, languages, the arts and humanities.

On the day that 750,000 teenagers get their results in GCSEs and alternative qualifications, Civitas accused schools of consigning struggling children to 'substandard' qualifications.

The courses are highly prized by schools because the Government has awarded them the same status in official school league tables as standard GCSEs - but critics say they teach children few valuable skills.

Far from being hands-on, they often entail simply learning about different job sectors.

The report, by Anastasia de Waal, head of family and education at Civitas, said: 'Aside from the highly questionable idea that 14-year-olds have already decided tourism is the career for them, a more useful area of study at school would be a language or geography.

'Too many people are being cheated in this Government stunt. Pupils, employers, the public and all to make the Government look like it is doing better than it is.'

The report said the trend towards work-related qualifications is due to continue with the introduction from next month of the flagship diplomas, which are intended to combine vocational studies and academic theory.

'The situation looks like it will be getting worse as vocational courses become much more than a way to boost league table performance and become a wholesale "babysitting" service for pupils with weaker prior test performance,' it said. 'There is a grave danger that academic study is being reserved for the high performers.'

The report calls for the scrapping of vocational studies at age 14 so schools offers only core academic qualifications.

But Schools Minister Lord Adonis said: 'The central premise of this report is wrong. The achievement gap between children from deprived backgrounds and the more affluent is closing.'