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In Britain, a large majority of young people are now staying in full-time education and training after the end of compulsory education at sixteen. This has coincided with the introduction of a major new qualification - the General National Vocational Qualifications (GNVQ) which provides a dual route to higher education and employment. This chapter analyses the ideological rationale for and consequences of GNVQ as a means of restructuring mass education and training in England and Wales. The authors focus on four perspectives: the ideological tensions and ambiguities within government policy and English cultural values surrounding GNVQ; the relationship between GNVQ development and the new managerialism; the relationship between the knowledge and content of GNVQs, the labour market and notions of upskilling the workforce; and the importance in GNVQs, as in all post-compulsory education, of addressing wider educational issues beyond current obsessions with economic rationalism.