Youth Employment Secretary Angela Constance has pledged a "hearts and minds" campaign to make studying at college more attractive after a new report raised concerns that some young people are not being equipped for work.
Sir Ian Wood, the former chairman of the Wood Group, has published his final report into developing the country's young workforce. He concluded that "we are simply not preparing or equipping these young people for the world of work".
The system is too focused on the 50 per cent with academic aspirations while the other half are given "fill-in things to do" until they leave school, he said. He has set out 39 recommendations including quality work experience and a recognition of colleges' role in developing the workforce.
Ms Constance said: "We have to engage in a hearts and minds campaign to get away from vocational versus academic and this notion that vocational education is only for those who perhaps don't do quite as well in their highers.
"European countries that have very successful economies have very well-established vocational education training which is highly regarded by business."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article