In 2002, the Canadian government agency responsible for sport adopted what was known as the Canadian Sports Policy.

The aim of this was to enhance participation, excellence and capacity, and it led to a document entitled Canadian Sport for Life - Long-Term Athlete Development, promoting lifelong engagement in sport and physical activity for all Canadians.

This “long-term athlete development model” (LTAD) has now become recognised globally as a key way to create a sporting environment which affords everyone the chance to develop the skills to participate successfully in sport and physical activity at which ever level they wish.

Background: Commission on the ‘college of the future’ unveiled

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Lifelong learning

This may be a sports-related tale, but it is also one about lifelong participation - and one which contains some key lessons worth considering as an educator.

Previous academic work has shown that while there are some sports - although only very few -  where early specialisation is essentially for elite-level performance, for most sports - including all team sports - much later specialisation is best. The emphasis during the early phases of training should be on the development of general motor and technical-tactical skills which are non-sport specific. Another interesting aspect of this is known as physical literacy which refers to the acquisition of skills and confidence in those skills which will foster lifelong participation in sport and physical activity.

So now consider substituting “sport and physical activity” with vocational education - are there lessons we can learn about early specialisation and the impact that may have on one’s capacity for lifelong learning?

Rushed into college

Every academic year, young people, often school leavers, are being rushed into coming to college. They make very early vocational choices with very little understanding of what those careers may look like or what skills may be required to attain that qualification. Colleges will then spend a lot of time justifying numbers on courses. And when students leave, accounting that the course was “not what they expected”, we see this as something we could not influence. The other common thread that is clear is that often young people come into adult education without the developed social skills or confidence required to attain a vocational qualification and complete the tasks required.  

How can a 17-year-old know that they want to, for example, be a sports coach if they have never had any real exposure to industry and the reality of what that entails. How can they be expected to develop an ICT based report if they have not developed the necessary literacy skills or confidence in those ICT skills?

Often, students will stay on a course for a few months to try and “stick it out” - however, why would they continue if they have decided by this point that it is not for them? We know from Fogg’s behavioural model that, in order for any behaviour to occur, there needs to be a convergence of motivation, ability and prompts. If a student decides that the course is not for them, or they quickly realise they don’t have the required skills to complete the tasks required, they will not succeed. If that happens more than once, they will likely disengage from education completely.

A lot of the current thinking around future college provision touches on this. There seems to be a direction of travel away from solely vocational programmes with a focus on these broader meta-skills. What is unclear, however, is the strategy for this.

The Canadian LTAD model recognises that it can take a number of years to develop those generic skills in a sporting context. How long does it take learners to develop the skills required to successfully achieve in vocational programmes or in education as a whole?

The Independent Commission on the College of the Future recognises this very fact and suggests a movement away from this early specialisation. Instead, it focusses on the colleges’ role in developing meta-skills. But if in reality, someone is coming to college without those basic skills and perhaps are only participating in a one-year course, how can they be expected to succeed? How can lecturers be expected to support the development of these skills meaningfully in such a short space of time?

There are also a lot of high-level assumptions and misconceptions. For example, the idea that young people are coming out of school tech-savvy, in my experience, is false. Yes, they can use smartphones for communication, social media and games, however, if you ask them to save a document to the cloud, those skills quite often are less honed.

Pathway choices

Education needs to consider a model by which young people can be afforded more time to make educational pathway choices and more options to explore and try various avenues before they decide to specialise. Perhaps the answer lies in sector-devised programmes with late specialisation. There also has to be a real focus on those meta-skills and ensuring that we spend appropriate time developing these. We could then afford young people the chance to make vocational decisions when they have confidence and aptitude in those generic skills that are necessary to sustain and attain as a bedrock to vocational knowledge.

On a recent trip to Finland, I came across a college that offered a place for those who were undecided. At the time, it felt like somewhat of a holding pen, the idea being that students could be prepared for further study with an offer of subject-specific taster sessions. This may not be a model I would promote, but what was clear was that there was a recognition of a need to engage people in education even when they had not made clear vocational choices.

I don’t know what the answer is. However, I am clear that more needs to be done to build the skills and confidence required for lifelong participation in education. We need to consider a mechanism through which young people can be supported with suitable time and relevant guidance to make more sustainable vocational decisions.

Philip Storrier is a curriculum manager at Glasgow Kelvin College.