Outgoing Ofsted chief inspector, Sir Michael Wilshaw has used his last speech to say that a shake-up in education is needed to close the skills gap in England.

The chief inspector launched a scathing attack on policymakers, questioning whether an apparent overlooking of non-university routes into work was because of class prejudice. He asked whether the disparity was “because this is a sector that educates other people’s children?”

Sir Michael then noted, “Each year, around 100,000 16-year-olds enrol at a further education college to do technical or vocational courses. How many of them are the children of the powers that be, of national politicians and the commentariat?”

With £7 billion spent on further education each year, Sir Wilshaw stated, “We can no longer afford to accept mediocrity on such a grand scale. We cannot allow this state of affairs to continue. Things have got to change.”

Progress and Parenting

Sir Michael was speaking as Ofsted launched their annual report into schools, saying that there had been real progress over the last few years, with 1.8 million more children attending good or outstanding schools in England than in August 2010.

However, Sir Michael said that the best head teachers were willing to push some of the impetus back onto parents. He said, “Good heads challenge those parents and say to them, directly, you are not supportive of your children, you are a bad parent, and that’s why your children are failing.”

Stereotypes

Despite improvements, Wilshaw said that there still existed a damaging stereotype around state schools which was “out of date and frankly wrong.”

“I don’t think the many critics of our education system appreciate just how much has changed,” Wilshaw continued, “If they did, perhaps they wouldn’t be so dismissive of a system that has delivered so much to so many over the last number of years. Nor would they blithely advocate turning the clock back to a time when the top few percent went to grammar schools and the rest were left with a very threadbare education.”

Disparity Of Opportunity

Sir Michael also said that there seemed to be a disparity of opportunity between the north and south of England, saying, “People living in the north can read league tables as well as anyone else … and they sense that somehow their children are not going to get as good a deal as youngsters in the south of England.”

He also hit out at the government review of further education provision, where underperforming colleges will be merged, saying, “Merging two poor colleges to create one even larger college is unlikely to improve them and may well make them worse.”

Teacher Shortages

So ,what can be done to improve things further?

Sir Michael Wilshaw was clear that more teachers were needed, saying, “Everywhere I go, head teachers – particularly secondary heads − tell me how difficult they are finding it to appoint high-calibre teachers.”

It seems that while there has certainly been improvement, Sir Michael Wilshaw fears that there could be backward steps made and that policymakers simply aren’t focusing on the needs of those young people who aren’t heading into further education.

Without a shake-up of the education system to address the issue, there are concerns that there will be a widening skills gap which could harm the economy. Yet, for Sir Michael at least, the answers lie in our schools and colleges.