Well, I think it’s vital that in schools and colleges students and pupils have a very clear understanding of what the options are for them, what the progression opportunities within those career choices are and what course options and so on they should take to get them there. And I think there’s a place for much more integration between the world of work, the local economy and schools and colleges, so anything that takes us down that route, I would welcome.

The Hazelkorn proposals that have now been accepted I think are a good institutional foundation for what we’re talking about today. There have, of course, been funding challenges—speakers have spoken about the cuts to FE, and there have also been cuts to the adult learning budget—and I think that presents a challenge in some of the things that John Griffiths referred to in terms of second-chance learning and so on. But I do want to pay tribute to the FE sector for great innovation in the face of some of those pressures. There are a number of examples, including in my own constituency, of FE colleges really looking very creatively at how they can deliver what they can deliver in a much more entrepreneurial way, and I think that plays into the spirit of those institutions. One of the, I think, if not hidden, then undervalued exports from Wales actually is the work that FE colleges are doing to provide education services overseas, which happens in lots of our institutions. So, I think that also should be recognised.

There are some boundary issues between FE and HE that I think need to be looked at closely, where you have degrees being offered by FE colleges under partnership agreements. There are issues around transparency of what can be delivered to learners that I think need to be looked at. We have now a system of tuition support that is based on the living wage, but, of course, an apprentice’s minimum wage is discounted minimum wage, so I think there is a potential there for some perverse incentives, which I think we need to look at.

We’re always invited to look at European models when we’re looking at FE, HE and vocational options. And I think it will benefit us to look at some of the things that are happening in the Netherlands. In the time left to me, I won’t be able to elaborate too much on that, but I’ll just pick out two or three lessons I think that we could learn. One is that the institutional landscape, for example, in the Netherlands is very, very straightforward. It’s very clear how the institutions work and how they interrelate, and I think there’s a benefit in that. There’s a high degree of flexibility and coherency, in particular around some of the apprenticeships, which, again, I know is not the only offer from FE, but it’s an important offer. And there’s a high level of flexibility between the academic and the workplace aspects of that. Most importantly, to take us back to where we started, the vocational route is promoted from a very early stage in the school and college journey. Most students that go through the system actually end up taking a vocational route in the Netherlands, and I think that’s testimony to the real level of integration and the lack of boundaries between vocational college-based and higher education. We’re living in a time of a changing economy where, actually, a linear conventional learning path probably is becoming outmoded. I think we need the imagination to look beyond that, and look at a flexible, modular part-time system as becoming the norm for all of us.