Edge is an independent foundation that claims that the UK suffers from a kind of academic snobbery, aiming to raise the status of vocational and practical learning in the UK. Edge argues that schools and parents put too much stress on students needing to get good GCSEs, and afterwards we tend to think that ‘A levels’ are better than more vocational subjects and that doing a degree will give us a better chance in life than going straight into a job.

What Edge wants to see is much more focus on vocational learning in schools from the age of 14 onwards – with students that want to being supported in learning a profession, alongside studying the more traditional academic subjects. They also stress that going to university is not necessarily going to result in your being more employable or in you earning more money than those without a degree.

So there are three related questions to focus on here –

1. Are schools too focussed on GCSEs, should they be more focussed on vocational education?

2. Are traditional A levels ‘better’ than BTECs – to limit the discussion focus on the question are ‘A levels’ are more likely to get you into a university than BTECs?

3. Does getting a degree make you more employable, and will it get you a ‘better’ job that earns you more money in the long run?  (NB – this is an excellent example of a question that would require longitudinal research!)

I may well post on this later as there’s a lot of digging to be done, but I’m going to take the radical step of getting students to do the digging for me first of all and answering any of the three questions above by doing their own research and posting comments!