Pre-Vocational Education in Scotland: a case study of one local authority

Citation

McGlynn C, Canning R & Dolan M (2012) Pre-Vocational Education in Scotland: a case study of one local authority. In: Pilz M, Berger S & Canning R (eds.) Fit for Business: pre-vocational education in European Schools. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, pp. 17-33. http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-531-19028-0_2

Abstract
In order to carry out an in-depth study of the Scottish curriculum for pupils in their final two years of compulsory education, one specific local authority, North Lanarkshire, was selected, this is a local authority area of Central Scotland covering a population of around 326,000, which is 6% of the total population of Scotland (North Lanarkshire 2011). The North Lanarkshire school-based model of delivering pre-vocational courses to 14 to 16 year old pupils is unique in Scotland, both for the scale on which it is offered and the range of provision across different levels. The influential report on Quality and Equity of Schooling in Scotland by the OECD (2007) highlighted the advantages of offering prevocational education in schools based upon this local authority model. Although concerns were raised about how the vocational curriculum could be better integrated with academic subjects (Raffe 2008; Priestley and Humes 2010) there was overwhelming support for expanding the delivery of vocational education within the compulsory school years.