The design of qualifications, particularly vocational qualifications also matters. There is a need to try to facilitate opportunities for progression and for future learning
in even the most basic entry-level offerings to young people, and if certain types and
29 levels of vocational qualifications have little currency in the labour market there are serious questions to be asked about their purpose. The UK’s depressing record in having several hundred thousand young people at any moment studying for vocational qualifications that are more or less worthless in terms of their value in the labour market is a stark warning of what can happen when things go wrong (see Wolf 2011). Another clear strand running though this paper is the need to join up different elements of policy and practice. At one level the bringing together of education and training providers with forms of education and training delivered by employers (apprenticeships, work experience, etc) is an obvious starting point, but the need extends far beyond that. It also needs to encompass education and training design and provision, recruitment and selection and employment practices, the structure of occupations and their skill requirements and career pathways; and the regulation of the labour market