Blimey, I agree with Boris...

By focussing on trying to make photography into a degree, we abandon excellence. Train for photography, practice and learn the techniques behind it, get a qualification, but don't pretend its academic
So would you rate all art forms as unsuitable for a degree? Sculpture and painting for example? What about the works of Annie Leibovitz? Or any of the other photographer artists? Or are you simply saying that photography is different because it involves technique? But all art forms do. There is also an awful lot of academic work in understanding photographic processes and composition.

By focussing on trying to make photography into a degree, we abandon excellence. Train for photography, practice and learn the techniques behind it, get a qualification, but don't pretend its academic.
Well expressed Alegrias. Like the BA degree in Street Dance at my local university in East London!

But primary school teachers need to understand far more about child psychology and development, which are academic fields, than I do.

Undoubtedly, but they don't need to be at the cutting edge of knowledge in these areas.

I was taught Physics at University by people whose knowledge was at the forefront of the subject. We were learning about things that had only been worked out a year before - and we were being taught by the people who worked them out. One of my lecturers had worked with Crick and Watson. One did the groundwork for Solar Cell technology. It wasn't an Oxbridge college, it was redbrick.

By focussing on trying to make photography into a degree, we abandon excellence. Train for photography, practice and learn the techniques behind it, get a qualification, but don't pretend its academic.

I would equate a degree in photography as the same as an art degree- just a different media, but equally creative. It may lead to a job as a photographer doing weddings etc, but it has value in itself.
I see nothing wrong with more people going to University, although what has happened is-an ordinary degree- BA or BSc- is commonplace now and a Masters with the prospect of studying for a Doctorate is what academia demands.
I'm just not sure how this will be presented in schools to children who have been trained since 5 years old to see passing tests as vital. It's difficult to explain to a teenager who has begun to accept that she isn't clever, that you are now going to test her skills and she might do better.
And after Googling it I found out that there is already an equivalent process already in operation (but I hadn't heard of it) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_qualifications_frameworks_in_the_United_Kingdom

There are other staircases leading to a career in photography which don't require a 3 year degree course.
Yes, true.
However, it could be down to talent too as well as being a learned skill.

I'm glad you get my point Callistemon. No learning is useless, per se, all education is of some benefit. In order to get things back on track, however, the worth of any qualification has to be in employment. There are other staircases leading to a career in photography which don't require a 3 year degree course.

Err ... yes, we do need graduates in photography. Taking good photos is a highly skilled job and is precisely what Johnson is now proposing.

Although I'm not sure they do need a university degree - a paid apprenticeship or on the job training leading to membership of the Institute of Professional Photography can lead to a very well paid career.

Cinematography, film making etc - media arts courses are not useless.

It looks as if I'm agreeing with both of you!

Err... yes, we do need graduates in photography. Taking good photos is a highly skilled job.
Err ..... no growstuff, you misunderstood. Where did I say photography was not a skilled job? What I was talking about was the excessive number of universities, over 100, offering courses year on year in photography when there is not enough employment for all their graduates.

But could this be a diversionary tactic, trying to fix our minds on something other than the pandemic? I would be interested to know when the Blair government tried it, could it have been at the time of the weapons of mass destruction debacle? I'm not normally a cynical person but I do wonder at the timing of Boris' announcement?

It's weird that "vocational" is seen pejoratively, because two of the most prestigious degrees, Law and Medicine, are vocational, in that they train people for specific jobs.

Alegrias

Yes growstuff I know, that's my point.

In Scotland when I was young, secondary school teachers were graduates because they needed an education in the subject they were teaching. They then did a year of teacher training. Primary school teachers were not generally graduates because they needed a different set of skills.

Maybe I'm just looking back to the golden age of my youth.....

But primary school teachers need to understand far more about child psychology and development, which are academic fields, than I do.

Ellianne

If nothing else this pandemic has shown us we need to get our priorities right, and this may at last be one step in the right direction.
We need to start elevating the people, a lot of whom are women, who do valuable jobs in childcare and caring. They deserve to be better paid and would thereby gain better job satisfaction. There will always be jobs in these areas.
There's no point universities churning out umpteen graduates with worthless degrees in photography and media for example because we just don't need them.
I would like to think we could look at the whole education system and make decisions for the long term.

Err ... yes, we do need graduates in photography. Taking good photos is a highly skilled job and is precisely what Johnson is now proposing.

Yes growstuff I know, that's my point.

In Scotland when I was young, secondary school teachers were graduates because they needed an education in the subject they were teaching. They then did a year of teacher training. Primary school teachers were not generally graduates because they needed a different set of skills.

Maybe I'm just looking back to the golden age of my youth.....

The Blair reforms didn't increase significantly the number of "academic" courses. He actually did what is now being proposed, which was to give so-called vocational degrees equivalence with traditional courses. If you total the number of graduates now with the number who used to attend universities, polytechnics and colleges of higher education, it hasn't increased as much as people think.

If nothing else this pandemic has shown us we need to get our priorities right, and this may at last be one step in the right direction.
We need to start elevating the people, a lot of whom are women, who do valuable jobs in childcare and caring. They deserve to be better paid and would thereby gain better job satisfaction. There will always be jobs in these areas.
There's no point universities churning out umpteen graduates with worthless degrees in photography and media for example because we just don't need them.
I would like to think we could look at the whole education system and make decisions for the long term.

Ahem! All teachers are now graduates. Most secondary teachers have a university degree in an academic subject, followed by teacher training and a further year as a trainee before they become fully qualified teachers.

I didn't see Johnson making the speech but I've just read the Guardian article. I have to say, I'm not convinced .

In my view, and it is my opinion only, the rot set in when the idea was put forward by Blair that 50% of people should go to university. This is where I might get onto unpopular views....but University used to be meant for academic people, those who could flourish in an environment where they were expected to think academically and learn truly new things. Not everybody excels in that, other people excel in being plumbers, or teachers, or whatever. There is no "equivalence" between academic and vocational courses, they are just different.

Saying that we should elevate the status of vocational training or jobs shouldn't mean that we reduce the standing of academic people and complain when they get paid high salaries. I think Johnson is playing to the Red Wall and trying to divide and conquer.

Gone are the days when you trained for a trade at your fathers knee. My BiL trained up four of his five sons in building and carpentry skills. None of them were particularly academic and couldn’t wait to get out of school. They all went on to work for themselves and train up people in their turn. I have another nephew who is a skilled bricklayer and learned from his father. These days, to work on a building site, you have to have a ‘ticket’, and to get this you have to go to college. To be a bricklayer, for instance, you have to have two O levels to get onto a college place and then you must come out of college with:
Level 1 Certificate in Construction Skills.
Level 2 Diploma in Bricklaying.
Level 2 Diploma in Trowel Occupations.
College places can be hard to come by.

I'm afraid I'm very cynical about this idea. It's nothing new and I see it as a sop to the "red wall". Gove's education reforms turned the clock back decades on vocational education. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that there is going to have to be massive retraining over the next few years. Covid and Brexit are going to cause mass unemployment. Unfortunately, I suspect many of the new jobs will be low paid and low skilled.

The UK needs to have a complete rethink about employment and that will depend on the direction the powers that be choose to take us. There isn't much point training people to do jobs which don't exist. The country needs to decide what our strengths are. It's not going to be in traditional manufacturing, unless workers are prepared to work for third world wages.

The country could certainly do with high level training for jobs such as managing care homes and food processing factories. It has always struck me that there are very few Level 4 vocational courses for traditional female jobs, so I think planners should be aware of that. More young women need to be encouraged to go into fields such as engineering and science.

I don't think much will change unless the public's perception of higher education changes. At the moment, real power is in the hands of people with traditional degrees from traditional universities. There's a perceived hierarchy with Oxford and Cambridge at the top, followed by a few London colleges, then the remaining Russell Group institutions then the rest. That needs to change before there can be any meaningful equivalence between "academic" and "vocational" courses.

The first thing which needs to happen is for Johnson to appoint an Education Secretary who knows what he or she is doing!

It’s a great idea so hope it translates into action.Have hoped that various governments over the years would do this but they never have.Plumbers/electricians are very needed and
It’s not something that can be described as manual work, because you need intelligence and training, it’s a trade.

Davidhs

I look forward to the day when a lawyer rates the same pay scale as a plumber. There are professionals that do deserve their pay, doctors and nurses are a good example, others are simply parasites. There should be a pay review body to determine pay in relation to merit, including CEOs of companies and public bodies.

The last time we used a lawyer (three years ago) they were considerably cheaper than any plumber/electrician here in S E Essex!!!

I look forward to the day when a lawyer rates the same pay scale as a plumber. There are professionals that do deserve their pay, doctors and nurses are a good example, others are simply parasites. There should be a pay review body to determine pay in relation to merit, including CEOs of companies and public bodies.

Perhaps give FE colleges and their staff more money to start with, they’ve been starved of funds for decades. I think every PM comes out with this as if it’s some new idea , then nothing happens.

To clarify - by ‘the other way round’, I mean that making trades graduate entry won’t make people want to go into them.

I think he’s saying it to appeal to the ‘red wall’ voters whose support he is losing.

I have heard lots of people say this sort of thing over the years, but when questioned they mean that apprenticeships are a great idea for other people’s children (as ‘we’ need tradespeople that ‘they’ could become), but their own children would be better suited to traditional professions or academic subjects.

Until we stop classifying people based on occupation there will always be a two-tier system. I don’t think that the skills on The Repair Shop are necessarily either graduate skills or the type learned in traditional apprenticeships either. The people on there are more like artists than tradespeople, and anyway I don’t know that a lot of people who go into trades would want to do degrees or equivalent vocational qualifications.

Suggesting that everything can, or should be the same in order to be equal is missing the point. Starting by valuing trades as equal to (or more useful than) many ‘white collar’ jobs might encourage people to take up apprenticeships if they can get them, but I don’t think it will work the other way around.