City planning to blaze trail with vocation school

Bradford’s council, university and college have joined forces to develop plans for a university technical college (UTC), which Ministers last week said would be opened across the country to transform the value and status of vocational education.

The coalition Government want to create more than 20 UTCs by 2014 to deliver practical work-based education to pupils between the ages of 14 and 19.

The first planned for Yorkshire is being developed in Bradford where education chiefs want to work with the local employers to tackle a skills gaps in the city. The UTC could serve between 600 to 800 students and provide extra capacity in a city facing a shortage of school places because of the area’s fast growing population.

Skill levels in Bradford are said to be below both national and Yorkshire averages while the district schools system is expected to need to provide 40,000 more places by 2020.

The Bradford UTC bid has been submitted and will be considered from June by the Government and the Dearing Baker Educational Trust which is helping to role out this new form of education provider.

The first of this new type of school opened last year – the JCB Academy near Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire, providing a curriculum focusing on engineering and business education while also ensuring students sit GCSEs in English, maths ICT and science. Two more UTCs are in the pipeline in the West Midlands.

The dean of the School of Lifelong Learning and Education at Bradford University, Nadira Mirza, said the UTC planned for the city would offer education specialising in digital and health technologies and advanced manufacturing.

She said: “Our university has a history of providing technical education going back to before the 1960s, we are already a national lead university in encouraging interest in science, technology engineering and maths and we have our own academy which we sponsor in Keighley. The UTC will allow us to use all of this expertise and it will give pupils the best of all worlds.

“One day they will be taught by a school teacher, the next a university lecturer and then the next someone from the world of work.”

Ms Mirza told the Yorkshire Post that talks had been held with “national and international employers with a significant role to play in Bradford” and that businesses in the city would have a key role to play in helping to develop the curriculum.

The UTC will also need to work closely with Bradford schools in order to identify pupils best suited to a technical education from the age of 14.

The people behind the UTC are now looking for a city centre base for the project. Ms Mirza said it was more likely to be based in a refurbished building rather than in a new development because of the pressure on public finances.

Before it became a university in 1966, Bradford was an Institute of Technology and before that a technical college which had first opened its doors in the 19th century. Now it is looking to return to a role providing technical education as part of the Government’s planned changes to the school system.

The Department for Education’s (DfE) response to a damning report into vocational education has called for UTCs to be created across the country.

The Wolf Review led by Prof Alison Wolf warned that hundreds of thousands of school pupils were being pushed into courses which did not help them to get a job or secure further training or education. Her report said the league table system gave schools an incentive to enter pupils into subjects worth the equivalent of several GCSEs which earned them the most points.

UTCs are designed to help students get the practical experience needed for working life, with courses supported by local employers who will also offer work placements.

They will specialise in subjects such as engineering or construction, offering subjects that require technical and modern equipment, for example, product design, health sciences, and land and environmental services but they will have to teach business skills and the use of ICT to help all students get a head-start into working life.

The goal is that for those attending the college, by the time they are 16 they will be at least two years ahead of where they would be in a normal school. The programme is also aimed at meeting the needs of companies who have long argued that too many school-leavers lack both the practical knowledge they need as well as a general awareness of what is required by employers

A DfE statement said: “We believe that it is right for young people to have a choice as to where they take their education.

“That is why we are supporting the creation of UTCs which offer full-time technically orientated courses with clear progression routes into higher education or further learning in work, including apprenticeships. Studying in UTCs provides opportunities for young people to integrate academic study with practical learning, studying core GCSEs alongside technical qualifications.

“UTCs specialise in subjects such as engineering and construction and teach these disciplines alongside business skills and the use of ICT.”

In the Budget earlier this year Chancellor George Osborne committed the Government to establishing at least 24 UTCs across the country by 2014.