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Firstly, a Happy New Year to you all. It’s quite interesting to note as we start 2014, we’re only 15 months or so away from the next General Election.

At first glance the ONS (Office for National Statistics) figures for employment, covering the last three months, are encouraging, showing a drop of 39,000 in the number of 16 – 24 year olds out of work in the UK. However if we look at the figures for the last twelve months they have in fact risen from 894,000 to 902,000. Meanwhile, McKinsey & Company’s recently published report Education to employment: Getting Europe’s youth into work (January 2014) claims that youth unemployment is nothing new and has been as high as triple the rate of general unemployment in Europe for the last 20 years.  

The Department for Education has published its latest league table data showing that more schools in the UK are meeting government targets on GCSEs. The tables for 16-18 year old students have been split for the first time between academic and vocational qualifications. A total of 154 state-funded schools out of about 3,200 are classed as under-performing, which is 61 fewer than last year. Schools are said to be below target if fewer than 40% of pupils pass GCSEs including maths and English, with grades between an A* and a C, and pupils are not making enough progress.

The Prince’s Trust charity has called for ‘better training and support to get young people jobs and avoid mental health problems.’ This follows research from the charity which says that 40% of young people who are Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET) have experienced mental health problems. The trust says that almost a third of long-term unemployed young people have contemplated taking their own lives and urgent action must be taken to prevent the young jobless becoming the young hopeless.

English and maths qualifications are still very much the topic of discussion at the moment, with more and more employers coming forward asking for new recruits to have these basic skills before all others. Of course, this is not the first time that low levels of literacy and numeracy have been brought to the forefront of discussions, with reports in October by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) showing how England’s 16 to 24 year olds are falling behind their Asian and European counterparts.

This week saw the official release of the Programme for International Student Achievement (PISA) education survey results. These are used by the influential Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to compare the educational outcomes of different countries. Out of the 65 countries surveyed, the UK gained two places in maths and literacy to reach 26th and 23rd and only ranked 20th in science. The UK's position is virtually unchanged from the last PISA exercise in 2009, sparking concern that students are failing to improve despite the fact that the country spends more on education than the international average.

Sport England are giving FE and sixth form colleges the chance to bid for a share of £5.8 million from their Further Education Activation Fund, an investment of the National Lottery.  The aim is to encourage participation in sport in colleges, and the fund will help colleges with the design and delivery of projects tailored to their students. This comes at a time where college students have the lowest sports participation rates of learners aged 16 and over.

Change is something we all face each and every day, whether it’s in work or our personal lives. Ironically the only constant in change itself is its continual inevitability. The secondary education sector is certainly no exception to this. Following on from the implementation of the new school headline performance measures for vocational qualifications, which came into full effect this year, the Department for Education last month published the ‘Reforming the Accountability System for Secondary Schools’ document.

Nigel Whitehead, UKCES Commissioner, has published his recommendations regarding the future of vocational qualifications. The review provides a vision and strategy, looking at how we can ensure that vocational qualifications are valued as worthwhile investments, enabling individuals to progress in their careers and employers to grow their businesses and improve their competitiveness. The review states that vocational qualifications should be relevant to individuals and employers, affordable, matched to skills needs, rigorous, and based upon a robust future-looking occupational standard.

Last month we were hoping to bring you an early Christmas present in the form of the newly published Key Stage 4 list. Once released it will provide a full list of all the qualifications approved to count in the 2016 performance tables. Sadly, at the time of going to press (11 December 2013), the Department for Education have yet to publish the list of eligible qualifications. This is disappointing for all of us and especially any of you waiting to embark on your curriculum planning for 2014/15. We’ll send you an email bulletin as soon as we have news. We’ll also tweet an update - you can follow us at @NCFE.