Youth unemployment was the result of school’s failure to teach appropriate work skills. And this skills was to blame for Britain’s economic decline, at the result was aim to reduce youth unemployment, to increase people’s skill levels and make more aware of the world of work, and appeared vocationalism.
Vocationalism is a series of measures in the 1980s that reemphasized the importance of work-related education .
Vocation education and training have had many critics, particularly from neo-Marxist writers. Finn(1987) argues that there is a hidden political agenda to vocational training.
It provides cheap labour for employers, keeps the pay rates of young workers low.
It reduces political embarrassing unemployment statistics.
It may also be intended to reduce crime by removing young people from the streets.
Philip Cohen (1984) argue that the real purpose of vocational training is to create good attitudes and also work discipline rather than actual job skills. It is help young people come to accept a likely future low-paid and unskilled work. Youth unemployment it is not mean that they haven’t experience from part-time jobs, it is mean that people need in the vocational courses, to improve their knowledge and skills.

There are two main aims of vocational education and training:
First, to provide the training for a high wage and high skill economy, so the UK can compete successfully market in the world.
Second, to reduce unemployment, particularly for young people.

Part of the reason to change was to raise the status of vocational qualifications to the level of academic qualifications The aim of NVQs is to raise skill level in a wide range of jobs. In 1990s, was fastest growing job in hospitals and nursing homes.
Tony Blair claimed that it helped to young people find jobs, and also it helped others move into higher education.
Correspondence theory , it is a close correspondence between the social relationship in the classroom and those in the workplace.
Schools, like the wider society are based on the hierarchies. Pupils have little control over their work and future result depend only from pupils. Schools reward punctuality, obedience, hard work. Pupils should be motivated by educational qualifications, how workers are motivated by paying. Gintis argue that this correspondence between schools and workplace effectively reproduce workers from one generation to the next.