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Richard Branson joins Young Enterprise campaign against 'strange' Government plan to axe school business lessons
Paul Eastham — 09 Jan 2012
Virgin tycoon Richard Branson has sparked a national debate by attacking 'strange' Coalition plans to scrap work-related education for 14-16 year olds.
He sent out a sharp message on the Twitter network declaring: 'Strange UK Dep of Education paper on work-related learning. Need more practical education, not less.' The oustanding businessman was immediately supported as within minutes over 150 tweets appeared congratulating him for speaking out so forceefully.
Mr Branson entered the debate after reading Young Enterprise's formal response to the Government plan which expressed strong opposition to the 'breathtaking' proposal.
In a blog, Young Enterprise Interim Chief Executive Catherine Marchant writes: 'Our distinguished Education Secretary, Michael Gove, is about to do something so apparently odd that it makes one gasp just to think of it.
'Even though unemployment among young people has climbed above the sensitive threshold of 1 million in recent weeks, he is preparing to scrap work-related education for 14 to 16 year olds. It means he is set to abolish a key legal right that young people currently have. This is for a few hours of the curriculum to be devoted to helping develop knowledge, skills and understanding that might be useful in work.
'So what gives Mr Gove the confidence to do this? Why is he prepared to ignore the furious protests of the CBI, Institute of Directors, and 204 of Britain's most significant employers including 02, Bosch, Tata Steel, Citi, QinetiQ and Sage who signed the Young Enterprise Charter to demand more, not less, work related learning?
'The Cabinet Minister says he bases his view on the findings of a Review of Vocational Education by Professor Alison Wolf. Yet when experts have examined the judgements and evidence she produced they have been puzzled by several apparent confusions and contradictions that riddle the document.
'Difficulties start when she declares that 'work experience' had 'served its time' because it was too expensive and 'fewer and fewer' employers were willing to accommodate under-16s on potentially hazardous shop floors. That, at the very least, is arguable.
'But her argument gets into real trouble when she asserts that 'work experience' had 'officially become' the same thing as 'work-related learning.'
'Er, no. It hasn't.
'Parliamentary legislation makes it quite clear that the traditional work experience on company premises is completely different from work-related learning in schools under the guidance from a volunteer from business.
'She was challenged about this seeming muddle at the Commons Education Committee on 27th April 2011. Nic Dakin MP said she appeared to have 'mangled together' two entirely different things. Professor Wolf appeared to shift her ground, conceding they were indeed 'not the same thing.'
'Yet on this shaky basis she concludes in her report that running work related education on school premises was 'largely pointless.' She was also asked at the Select Committee where she got the evidence for her claim that young people 'uniformly' did not find enterprise education useful. She replied she had not conducted systematic research but instead 'did a run-round of all my children's friends.'
'Young Enterprise has responded officially to Wolf's findings. We argue that by removing the statutory entitlement to work-related learning at Key Stage 4 Mr Gove is in danger of swinging the school curriculum towards an alarmingly narrow emphasis on the acquisition of academic facts and exams.'
Read the full response: http://bit.ly/AkcEAn Picture: Professor Alison Wolf
