EDUCATION chiefs from the North East have criticised the Government’s plans to change school league tables so they include fewer vocational courses.

Just 70 vocational qualifications will count towards a school’s GCSE performance in future – a cut from more than 3,000 under the current system. The move is part of an attempt by the Government to stop schools encouraging youngsters to take qualifications that boost their league table position but do not help a pupil’s prospects.

However, school leaders from our region claim ministers have missed the point, stressing vocational qualifications can help pupils on to their career paths.

David Pearmain, headteacher at Kenton School in Newcastle and chairman of Schools North East, said the majority of pupils who study vocational courses take them alongside traditional subjects, such as maths and English.

“It’s about finding the right courses for the ambitions, needs and abilities of particular students and often they’re a mixture,” he said.

“Schools that will provide vocational subjects for some students and a mix for others will also provide, as my school does, very rigorous GCSEs.”

Mr Pearmain added that many vocational courses were directly linked to the job the student wanted to do, such as engineering or hairdressing.

“I think the best vocational courses are where they are definitely linked to employers, often linked with apprenticeships and very rigorously related to that area of work,” he said.

A regional spokesman for the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) said vocational qualifications were in danger of being treated as “second class courses”.

He added: “Playing with the equivalencies of vocational qualifications is part of the problem rather than the solution. Vocational qualifications are an essential part of the mix.” Plans to cut the numbers of “equivalent” qualifications were first announced by ministers last year after Professor Alison Wolf’s review of vocational education.

Under the current system, 3,175 vocational courses count in the league tables, and some of these are multiple GCSEs.

For example, a level two BTEC in horse care, one of the qualifications to be cut from the new style tables, is worth four GCSEs at grade C or higher.

The new system will see every qualification count equally in the tables.