2. How is the Welsh Government ensuring that pupils at Key Stage 4 have access to vocational courses? OAQ54368

Thank you, Nick. I place great value on vocational qualifications being available for 14 to 16-year-olds. The Learning and Skills (Wales) Measure 2009 requires all learners to be offered a minimum of three vocational courses at key stage 4 in the local curricula offer.

Thank you, Minister. You've been quite clear that your move away from the five A* to C English and Maths measure was designed to encourage schools to focus on realising the potential of every child, not just those on the C/D/C borderline. Your new measure—the capped 9—puts value on vocational courses, which is very welcome, and, as she says, so many young people can secure a rewarding and successful career through the vocational route. However, we're still some way off, as I'm sure you would recognise as well, between achieving that university-recognised parity between academical and vocational qualifications. So, what are you doing to ensure greater availability of such courses in schools and colleges, and to ensure even more effective signposting for younger people, at an earlier age, so that we do see, over time, that the loss of—I was going to say 'prejudice'; that's probably too strong a word—the loss of that difference between vocational and academic so that both routes are equally acceptable?

Presiding Officer, I'm very glad that the Member has recognised, in the interim accountability measures, vocational qualifications do count towards a capped 9 score. So, there is no disincentive for schools to be able to offer these courses to pupils, where that is the right thing for those children. I'm very pleased to reassure the Member that all four secondary schools in Monmouthshire are meeting the requirement of the learning and skills Measure, and that that choice is available to learners in his area. For example, in King Henry VIII Comprehensive School, in Abergavenny—which I had the privilege to visit on GCSE day, and to celebrate with them a record set of GCSE results for that school—learners in that particular school are offered eight vocational courses at key stage 4. But the Member is right—there is more that we need to do to sometimes overcome perceptions of the value of vocational courses. And that's why we are currently piloting a new approach to information and advice to children and young people, so that we can ensure that all children are making the right choices on the basis of a real understanding and knowledge that vocational qualifications can help them achieve their career aspirations and fulfil their potential.

Minister, in your answer to the question from Nick Ramsay, I'm very keen and very pleased to hear that you actually recognise vocational education as being equivalent to academic pathways. And it's a shame that not enough young people—or their parents in particular, sometimes—understand the same thing. Because to ensure that we have that parity, to ensure that the skills that we need in Wales are available to people—and young people in particular—we also need to educate some of the older generation, and the parents, to ensure they also understand that. Because many people over the last 20 years have been pumped the message, 'Higher education, that's the way to go.' But actually there's a mix that is available, and equally treatable are both qualifications—vocational and academic. And they should not be seen as separate pathway, but as a single pathway with perhaps different outcomes at the end of it, but, at the end of the day, equal outcomes. So, will you also expand the discussions you're having with young people to their parents, to ensure that parents understand the importance of both pathways, the quality of both pathways, and the outcomes that children can actually achieve in their long-term careers?

Certainly. David Rees makes a very important point on the influences that children are put under when making choices about what courses to follow in school or in colleges. Often, children are listening to their peers—they're very interested in understanding what their peers are doing—but obviously parents and family are a huge influence in helping children make decisions. As part of the Gatsby pilot, which is currently being delivered in the Rhondda Cynon Taf local authority area at the moment, which is looking to really test and improve the system of information and advice, those schools are indeed working not just with pupils, but working with local employers and with parents to be able to ensure that children are exposed to that wide range of options that are available to them and recognising that taking a vocational course at 14 is not a barrier to higher levels of study. Indeed, taking a vocational course from 16 to 18 is a perfectly normal way in which you can then go on to attend a degree course or a higher level apprenticeship, if that's what you want to do.