In February 2005, the government published the 14-19 Education and Skills White Paper. This Paper announced the development of new Specialised Diplomas, covering 14 main occupational areas in the UK economy.
These Diplomas will offer a new educational route to 14-19 year olds, in parallel with GCSEs and A-levels. They are intended to appeal to those students who wish to continue in full-time education but are looking to undertake a mix of high quality general and applied learning. At the same time they aim to help young people develop essential learning and thinking, and employability, skills in preparation for participation in future education and employment.
For employers it is hoped that the new Specialised Diplomas will help them identify future skills needs and increase productivity.
The first phase of development will see the rollout of five new Diplomas from 2011. Diploma Development Partnerships have been set up to manage, co-ordinate and develop the new course programmes. These Partnerships involve key stakeholders such as employers and sector bodies who have an interest in each of the Diplomas.
One of these Partnerships, representing six Sector Skills Councils, commissioned Pye Tait to undertake an initial stage of work to inform the development of their Specialised Diploma - namely, to establish the skills needs of employers from across the six sectors involved.
This work involved: