Gove cans construction course

Flagship diploma offered in scaled down format to new students from September.

Education minister Michael Gove has been accused of short-changing the industry after scaling back a new construction qualification for 14-to-19-year-olds. From this September the Construction and Built Environment Diploma — designed as a route to an industry career for this age group — will only be offered in a scaled-down format and in a handful of schools.

The diploma was a flagship Labour policy, with construction being one of four subject areas that the first wave of students embarked on in 2008. Labour planned three other diploma lines, and enough coverage in schools and colleges to offer every pupil in England and Wales the chance to take any of them.

But in summer 2010, the coalition government backed away from this policy of “entitlement”, with the result that schools and colleges have chosen to move away from the qualification.

Nick Gooderson, head of qualification and standards at ConstructionSkills, said the industry had been “short changed” by the government’s actions. He described the coalition government’s decision to withdraw funding from the course as “incredibly wasteful of public money”.

Gooderson said: “Unfortunately it’s typical of this country where educational policy is linked to politics.”

He added: “We had meetings with Michael Gove but it was quite clear he didn’t believe in the diploma. In the early days he even suggested it would all just be shut down. They didn’t do that, but they knew that pulling the funding and support at an early stage would kill it off anyway.

“We’ve complained to ministers that our employers and professional institutions really got behind the diploma, and it’s just not given a chance. When education policy is linked to government policy, you always get ‘initiatives’ and nothing is around long enough to prove itself.”

The full diploma was a complex qualification with six different components, often assessed by different awarding bodies. To achieve a diploma, students’ work had to be aggregated by a central service. This body has been closed down, so it is now impossible for new students to be awarded a full diploma.

However, the examination awarding body, Edexcel, will continue exams and assessments for Principal Learning (PL), the academic core of the diploma. Some exam centres with a strong record in the C&BE are thought likely to continue to offer PL as a standalone qualification.

ConstructionSkills is hopeful that the new university technical colleges — five of which plan to offer construction courses — will also offer PL.

An industry employers group drew support for the diploma from many contractors, including Wates, Seddon, Balfour Beatty and Skanska. “The employers group told us they were starting to see a marked difference in diploma candidates applying for jobs,” Gooderson said.

Tony Ellender, training manager with Balfour Beatty Construction Northern, said the demise of the diploma was “a blow” to the industry. “We’re disappointed it’s gone, particularly as it was around for such a short time,” said Ellender. “It was a good way of demonstrating to schoolchildren that construction isn’t just about trade skills but also about managerial and professional skills.”

He added: “It’s a missed opportunity. It would have been nice if the diploma had been allowed to continue and build on the good practice it had started.”