Selecting Craft and Technician Apprentices: Cognitive Explanations of Success in Further Education

During the Courses for Craftsmen Project which resulted in the Scottish Council for Research in Education publication A Day Off Work?*, it was noticed that the more able of the students often failed to perform well in City and Guilds Craft courses. It was also observed that an increasing proportion of entrants to Craft courses had secondary school qualifications which were adequate for entry to City and Guilds Technician courses. The Council therefore agreed in 1970 to mount a two year investigation into the overlap of the entrance qualifications of Craft and Technician students. It was hoped that some alternative procedure could be suggested for deciding whether the prospective student arriving at college was better suited to a Craft or a Technician course. An alternative procedure was required in any case, since by 1973 the existing criterion for entry to a Technician course of ";a four year secondary course with, in the final year, Mathematics and Science"; would be satisfied by almost all college entrants in Scotland