Search Results

Further Education colleges are a key way in which 16-19 year olds acquire skills in the UK (much like US Community Colleges), especially those from low income backgrounds. Yet, little is known about what could improve performance in these institutions. We design and conduct the world's first management practices survey in these colleges (based on the World Management Survey) and match this to administrative longitudinal data on over 40,000 students. Value added regressions with rich controls suggest that structured management matters for educational outcomes (e.g. upper secondary qualifications), especially for students from low-income backgrounds. In a hypothetical scenario where a learner is moved from a college at the 10th percentile of management practices to the 90th, this would be associated with 8 per cent higher probability of achieving a good high school qualification, which is nearly half of the educational gap between those from poor and non-poor backgrounds. Hence, improving management practices may be an important channel for reducing inequalities.

Published abstract. Show less

Enrolling in vocational education and training programs constitutes a natural response to the current dynamics of the labour market, which is being reshaped by routinisation, automation, and outsourcing. We estimate the value-added of colleges providing vocational education and training to young and adult learners in England, and the returns to different fields of study taught at these colleges. Using a unique panel dataset that includes multiple measures of students' prior ability and background characteristics, we are able to comprehensibly account for usual threats to identification. We find moderate heterogeneity in college value-added for outcomes such as daily earnings and employment probabilities. Dispersion in value-added for academic outcomes is more pronounced. Earnings returns vary substantially across fields of study, are higher for young than for adult learners and tend to be larger for females than for males.

Published abstract. Show less

Some countries, notably those which have long had a weak history of vocational education like the UK and the US, have recently seen a rapid expansion of hybrid schools which provide both general and vocational education. England introduced 'University Technical Colleges' (UTCs) in 2010 for students aged 14 to 18. Forty-eight UTCs are currently open. We use a spatial instrumental variable approach based on geographical availability to evaluate the causal effect of attending a UTC on student academic and vocational achievement and on their labour market outcomes. For those pupils who enter the UTC at a non-standard transition age of 14, UTCs dramatically reduce their academic achievement on national exams at age 16. However, for students who enter at a more conventional transition age of 16, UTCs boost vocational achievement without harming academic achievement. They also improve achievement in STEM qualifications, and enrolment in apprenticeships. By age 19, UTC students are less likely to be unemployed and more likely to study STEM at university.

Published abstract. Show less