Civitas says schools courses are inadequate for work

Last year a diploma in environmental and land-based studies was launched in some English schools, part of a trend towards offering pupils alternative, non-academic courses - although figures from Lantra showed that so far only five pupils have taken any of the three levels of award offered.

Civitas head of education Anastasia de Waal told HW: "What gets called 'vocational' often isn't really. The subject may not be appropriate for schools. For example, you can't do any work on a building site for health and safety reasons - it has to be classroom-based.

"Yet people like Alan Titchmarsh have told me that what mattered for them was to get out and do it - in his case, through an apprenticeship. Employers also say they are very keen for young people to have a background in other subjects like history, geography or languages first, then to get proper training, rather than something piecemeal."

De Waal was researching for her book Unqualified Success, which will be published by Civitas later in the year.