Practice Makes Perfect: The Importance of Practical Learning

Practice Makes Perfect: The Importance of Practical Learning

Edited by Dermot Kehoe

Practice Makes Perfect: The Importance of Practical Learning 1

The Social Market Foundation The Foundation's main activity is to commission and publish original papers by independent academic and other experts on key topics in the economic and social fields, with a view to stimulating public discussion on the performance of markets and the social framework within which they operate. The Foundation is a registered charity and a company limited by guarantee. It is independent of any political party or group and is financed by the sale of publications and by voluntary donations from individuals, organisations and companies. The views expressed in publications are those of the authors and do not represent a corporate opinion of the Foundation.

Chairman David Lipsey (Lord Lipsey of Tooting Bec)

Members of the Board Viscount Chandos Gavyn Davies David Edmonds Martin Ivens Brian Pomeroy Shriti Vadera

Director Ann Rossiter

2 Practice Makes Perfect: The Importance of Practical Learning

First published by The Social Market Foundation, March 2007 The Social Market Foundation 11 Tufton Street London SW1P 3QB Copyright ? The Social Market Foundation, 2007 The moral right of the authors has been asserted. All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book. Kindly supported by

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Practice Makes Perfect: The Importance of Practical Learning 3

Contents

About the authors

4

Foreword ? Bill Rammell MP

10

Introduction ? Andy Powell and Maurice Biriotti

12

1. Which skills matter? ? Pedro Carneiro, Claire Crawford

and Alissa Goodman

22

2. Does the education system teach the right skills?

? John Weston

39

3. Extra-curricular and extended school programmes and

positive youth development ? Jacquelynne S Eccles and

Janice L Templeton

52

4. Learning to become one of us ? Ruth Silver and

Wendy Forrest

66

5. Putting the practical back into the academic and

vocational ? Richard Pring

80

6. Employer-provided vocational training: what are

the returns to NVQ level 2 and the potential effects of

`train to gain'? ? Lorraine Dearden, Alissa Goodman,

Barbara Sianesi and Helen Simpson

88

7. Why do governments treat further education students

like children? ? Alison Wolf

99

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About the authors

The Editor Dermot Kehoe is a Senior Associate Fellow at the Social Market Foundation. He was previously at the BBC for eight years working in public policy, strategy and communications. He worked on a number of priorities for the Corporation, most recently the renewal of the BBC's Royal Charter. Dermot was previously a director at the Fabian Society specialising in constitutional reform and modernising government.

Bill Rammell MP Bill Rammell was first elected to the Commons in 1997, and sat on both the European Legislation and Scrutiny committees. He joined the government in 2001 as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Tessa Jowell, before moving on to the Whips Office. In the October 2002 reshuffle he was promoted to Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office.

His current responsibilities as Minister of State for Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education include adult skills and ensuring the overall coherence of all post-19 policy.

Andy Powell and Maurice Biriotti Andy Powell and Maurice Biriotti have been working together on Edge since the foundation was established three years ago, both drawing on different experiences in education, business and the public sector. They have significant experience of research with young people and involving learners in the development of new solutions for education.

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