CVER's Jenifer Ruiz-Valenzuela, along with Camille Terrier and Clémentine Van Effenterre have been looking at evidence from Further Education Colleges in England, and ask How much do college principals matter?
The past twenty years have witnessed a large increase in research about the role of Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) in the management of firms; although much less is known about the effectiveness of CEOs in the public sector. A better understanding of what makes good public-sector managers is crucial to better inform decisions on leadership and management in key public services such as health, transport and education.
CVER's Hilary Steedman and colleagues have been looking at training in one area of the automotive sector
Car Service is central to the supply chain of the wider automotive sector, identified as a leading performer in the UK government’s 2017 Industrial Strategy. We asked Car Service employers in Germany, UK and Spain about skill shortages and their experience of training apprentices in the workplace.
With the proposed increase in the number of apprenticeships, CVER's Chiara Cavaglia, with Sandra McNally and Guglielmo Ventura, discuss the potential payoffs of starting an apprenticeship
The government aims to massively increase the number of apprenticeships and to make this a more important part of the post-16 educational landscape. In our research – published today by the Sutton Trust - we investigate whether there is an earnings differential to starting an apprenticeship over and above full-time school or college based education.
Steve McIntosh and colleagues from the University of Sheffield and London Economics look at what different types of data can tell us about the payoff to vocational qualifications
What’s the issue?
Researchers looking to estimate the payoff associated with vocational qualifications have different data sets available to them, with which to perform their statistical analyses. Both survey data and administrative data have been used by researchers in this area. However, they have not always produced similar estimated differentials. Our aim in this project is to investigate why this might be so.
Sophie Hedges from London Economics, together with NIESR's Stefan Speckesser, has been looking at how students make choices about their education after GCSEs
Why did we look at peer effects?
Following the increase in the education participation age, individuals are now required to study towards either a vocational or academic qualification until their 18th birthday once they have completed their GCSEs. However, there is currently relatively little understanding of the factors which determine which route learners choose to follow. Attainment in secondary school is clearly important, given that most A Level courses generally require a high level of GCSE achievement as a prerequisite, but there remain students with strong exam results who choose to pursue a vocational route. Furthermore, it is not necessarily the case that the pupils following a vocational trajectory are veering away from pursuing education at a high level; although it is less common than for A Level students, there are a significant number of individuals who proceed into higher education after achieving vocational qualifications.
NIESR's Matt Bursnall and Stefan Speckesser ask are we right to be concerned about access to skills in the UK?
Recently, the FT showed that contrary to popular belief the most troubling issue for SMEs in Europe is not access to finance but access to skills – with the level of concern and the gap between the issues getting larger.
Pietro Patrignani is a Senior Economic Consultant at London Economics working on CVER projects. In this blog he looks at the outcomes for those on vocational paths using newly matched data.
What’s new?
For the first time, the matched Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO) data has been made available for analysis of qualification attainment and labour market outcomes in England. This dataset combines information from different school (National Pupil Database), Further Education (Individualised Learner Record) and Higher Education (HESA) data sources in England with labour market outcomes information from HM Revenue and Customs and the Department for Work and Pensions. The key advantage of this matched dataset is that it contains detailed information from administrative data sources on both labour market outcomes and also early scholastic attainment (including Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 test score information), but is not restricted to a small sample of individuals (as in the 1970 British Cohort Study).
