Problematizing 'empowerment' in education and work: an exploration of the GNVQ

Inge Bates
School of Education, University of Leeds

CONTENTS

Abbreviations
Abstract
Introduction
The GNVQ, its Discourse of Empowerment and Pedagogic Apparatus
Table 1: The NVQ/GNVQ Discourse on Learner Empowerment, Autonomy and Responsibility for Learning
Table 2: GNVQ Grading Criteria
The Vocational Rationale: 'Empowerment' in the Workplace 11
School Implementation
Objectives and General Analysis
Empowerment Issues at 'Weston High School'
Conclusions
Acknowledgements
References 34

ABBREVIATIONS

A level - Advanced level
ESRC - Economic and Social Research Council
GNVQ - General National Vocational Qualification
HRM - Human Resource Management
NCVQ - National Council for Vocational Qualifications
NVQ - National Vocational Qualification
TQM - Total Quality Management

This paper explores the new British vocational qualification, the GNVQ, focussing particularly on its emphasis on learner empowerment and transferring responsibility for learning to students. It examines the discourse of empowerment and the pedagogic principles involved, together with the homologous relationship which can be discerned between GNVQ classroom pedagogy and recent approaches to managing employment relations. In both classroom and employment settings the paper notes potential contradictions between the emphasis on developing individual autonomy and empowerment and the underpinning grids of accountability and control. The paper then examines some data from a school where the GNVQ was in the early stages of implementation. The data suggests how the contradictions in the pedagogy may be sharpened and exposed when the model is introduced in a situation where there is at times a substantial degree of mismatch, if not conflict, between teacher and pupil objectives. The overall aim of the paper is tentative and exploratory. The purpose is to delve deeper into the complex issues surrounding classroom-level 'empowerment'. The paper does not support an argument that the GNVQ is inherently 'disempowering', nor devoid of 'empowering' potential. It does lend support to the view that such claims need more scrutiny, definition of terms and more empirically-based evaluation than has so far taken place.

INTRODUCTION

This paper explores the GNVQ as the most recent British version of vocational progressivism. Its progressive pedigree rests upon two claims which could be regarded as hallmarks of this tradition: the promotion of equality of opportunity - through the creation of a high status vocational pathway intended to enjoy 'parity of esteem' with the academic 'A' level route; and the development of individual autonomy or learner 'empowerment' - through the installation of pedagogic principles which transfer responsibility for learning to students themselves.

In this article I shall focus on the latter of these two themes, although clearly the pursuit of equality and empowerment are projects which are ultimately deeply inter-twined both in principle and in issues of praxis. It is perhaps important to emphasize at the outset that my purpose in this context is not to evaluate the effectiveness of the GNVQ in relation to the goal of learner 'empowerment'. In order to do so with any degree of rigour it would be necessary to specify criteria to guide such an evaluation and to examine a much wider range of data than is currently at my disposal. My purpose at this point is more modest than this. Stated in the most general terms it is simply to render problematic the notion that the GNVQ serves to 'empower' students and thus to place the issue of what constitutes 'empowering' practice in post-16 contexts on the agenda for more considered debate amongst both researchers and practitioners.

The terms in which such a slippery and appealing concept as 'empowerment' might be problematized are many and varied. With the rise of the concept as part of wider social developments associated with New Right discourses for the re-structuring of society and the economy, the language of 'empowerment' has attracted a number of discussions and critiques (see eg Ellsworth, 1989; Heelas and Morris, 1992; Hodkinson, 1994; Troyna, 1994; Avis, 1996). Troyna, for example, locates the use of the term 'empowerment' in New Right discourse as an example of appropriation of the emancipatory ideals of the left for contradictory purposes. Arguably, the reasons for this critical attention are linked with the strategic political importance of vocabularies of power in controlling actors' definitions and orientations towards the power relations which they inhabit. While hegemonic control depends upon winning contested struggles over meanings in many areas, possibly the most critical site to target is the understanding of power itself. The point has been vividly demonstrated by the feminist movement which, in its struggle to advance the cause of women, focussed particularly on re-casting everyday taken-for-granted understandings of the balance of power between men and women to reflect theories of female oppression. The GNVQ philosophy of 'empowerment' has not, however, undergone extensive interrogation, despite the potentially radical implications of any attempt to re-structure the distribution of power between teachers and students. Hyland's work is a notable exception here (e.g. Hyland, 1994) but a multitude of questions remain to be asked, for example:

In what areas and over what issues are students granted new kinds of power?

What sorts of parameters define the limits of these new freedoms?

What sorts of new responsibilities are involved?

How do teachers and students perceive and respond to their changed relations?

What is the rationale or source of legitimation for the GNVQ version of 'empowerment'?

What are the possible implications for students' orientations towards their future lives and work?

More concisely there are questions to be explored concerning the model of 'empowerment', the terms in which it has been justified and its effects.

In this paper I shall define the territory a little more narrowly and deal particularly with: the GNVQ discourse on 'empowerment' and the pedagogic apparatus through which it has been operationalized; the vocational rationale for the GNVQ; and some problems of implementation at the school level. The school material is drawn from an Economic and Social Research Council Project, The Social Construction of Competence, which has been examining the British National Vocational Qualification framework more generally and includes a case study of the GNVQ.

The GNVQ arose in response to a long-standing need to establish an additional route through post-compulsory education and training. Existing provision offered an academic pathway based on 'A' levels or various types of occupationally-specific vocational training. Previous attempts to establish broader forms of pre-vocational education at 16 had not become firmly established on a national scale. Given the policy drive to raise post-16 participation in education and training, increasing numbers of students were gravitating toward 'A' levels and for many this was felt to be an unsuitable, overly academic and specialized form of education. The conditions were ripe for the launch of a new national qualification. Meanwhile, in 1986 the Government had established the National Council for Vocational Qualifications (NCVQ) with a remit to develop a framework for National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) as part of a broader strategy to develop an internationally competitive workforce. However, the new NVQs were linked with specific, rather than general vocational preparation and, by the early 1990s, had attracted a variety of criticisms (see eg Callender, 1992; Smithers, 1993; Hyland, 1994; for review see Bates, 1995). Consequently, in 1991, the Government announced a new kind of vocational qualification - General National Vocational Qualifications (GNVQs) which were to be linked with broad-based vocational education.

The Advanced Level GNVQ, which is the main focus of this paper, has been designed as a route leading to either higher education or directly to employment and is intended to achieve 'parity of esteem' with 'A' levels. It has been promoted as a means of bridging the academic-vocational divide, which has been seen as a peculiarly British phenomenon hampering the development of a high quality workforce (Hodkinson and Mattinson, 1994).

As with NVQs, the policy objective is one of radical intervention in social processes shaping not only the development of skills but orientations towards work in preparation for what are assumed to be the changing conditions of employment. In representing the world of work the policy discourse intermingles post-Fordist visions of the modern work-place with the New Right promotion of the enterprise culture in a manner which is characteristic of the rhetoric of post-16 reform (see, for example, Avis, 1996). The common strand is an emphasis on the values of flexibility, enterprise, responsibility, self-reliance and empowerment or more generally the development of a self-steering subject. The language of empowerment, of which Table 1 is indicative, is thus embedded in a cluster of related concepts from which it takes its somewhat chameleon complexion.

In the light of this it may be argued that the GNVQ is explicitly vocational not only in its curriculum content but through the'empowering' pedagogy it seeks to install. It is through these same pedagogic values, however, that the appeal to liberal progressive educational values is made. In common with earlier versions of vocational progressivism (see eg Bates, 1984), there is an inter-twining of economic instrumentalism and quasi-liberal values and a de-problematizing of possible tensions. In the context of the GNVQ, however, vocational progressivism takes on a particular cast. The ideals of developing individual autonomy and empowerment are deployed not so much in order to counterbalance the subordination of learning to economic ends, but - at least in part - to complement and reinforce the economic function. This is because the version of 'empowerment' operationalized within the GNVQ is derived not only from educational traditions and ideologies, although it is refracted through these, but also from theories of human resource management, a point which will be discussed more fully below.

What does this entail in terms of pedagogy? When we examine the pedagogic principles of the GNVQ we find that the student's enhanced powers and freedoms are to be exercised within tightly defined parameters.

As Jessup explains:

One characteristic of GNVQ assessment, which distinguishes it from assessment in most academic qualifications, is that it covers the curriculum outcomes far more comprehensively. All the outcomes reflected

in the units must be achieved. Students do not, for example, have a choice of questions or sections of the syllabus as in traditional examinations. (Jessup, 1995, p.44)

The performance criteria are extremely detailed and the student's work, or rather evidence of performance, is subject to close scrutiny. Thus it could be argued that the student's autonomy tends to be confined to what was termed in the Leeds studies of TVEI 'procedural autonomy' (Barnes, 1987), in other words to matters of how the various criteria are to be covered.

Moreover, there is a certain amount of slippage from the concept of control over learning to responsibility for learning. The emphasis on transferring responsibility to the learner is made particularly explicit in the GNVQ criteria for grading students' work for purposes of awarding merits or distinctions. At the time when our research was undertaken, these were organised around three main themes: planning, information seeking and handling, and evaluation. (These themes have been stated in a variety of ways and have now undergone modification). In the guidance on criteria used in our research they were summarised as shown in Table 2.

Table 2: GNVQ Grading Criteria 1. Planning Drawing up plans of action Monitoring plans of action 2. Information seeking and handling Identifying and using sources of information Establishing the validity of sources 3. Evaluation Evaluating outcomes and alternatives Justifying particular approaches (NCVQ, 1993)

Here again we see that the emphasis is on how they learn. There is little opportunity to participate in determining the content of learning, or, in terms of the now very old 'new' sociology ofeducation, 'What counts as educational knowledge' (Young, 1971). Moreover, the salient features of the required mode of self-regulated learning are clearly specified: planning; self-monitoring of planning; information handling; evaluation. Once operationalised at an institutional level these specifications breed further specifications following an inherent tendency in criterion-based models for the criteria to multiply. For example, our school-based research showed that teachers found students had a variety of perspectives on what constituted good planning or evaluation of their performance. Consequently, yet further explication proved necessary in order to provide a basis for consistent judgement.

In essence the GNVQ pedagogy revolves around a project of individualization and self-responsibilization. In contrast with more formal academic styles of teaching it also offers the potential for some forms of student 'empowerment'. Firstly, the transparency of the curricular content and standards may reduce students' dependence on the teacher as arbiter and controller of knowledge. Secondly, there is the possibility for students to take an active part in choosing and planning the activities through which they will achieve the required standards. The pedagogy thus involves what might be termed an 'empowering' superstructure which opens up for students new arenas of choice and control.

However, these gains are accompanied by new constraints. The detailed control of content and standards moves well beyond the orbit of teacher control. One consequence is that it is much more difficult for a teacher to take account of student perspectives and interests in shaping the direction of the curriculum. The teacher thus sacrifices what can be a key motivational resource and students sacrifice an indirect, but nevertheless powerful means of exerting pressure on the curriculum covered. More importantly, perhaps, students are formally required to exercise a high degree of responsibility for their work and the extent to which they do so is scrutinized through the assessment criteria. They are thus placed in a situation of imposed autonomy, which is inherently ambiguous and contradictory. This is not to suggest that such tensions are confined to the GNVQ. They occur in different forms throughout educational systems. However, they potentially become more pronounced in the context of the GNVQ as a result of raising the status of student responsibility for learning to a formal curriculum requirement.

THE VOCATIONAL RATIONALE:

As we have seen the GNVQ pedagogy of 'empowerment' draws legitimacy from a fusion of liberal progressive values and vocationalism. In this section I shall briefly explore aspects of the vocational strand of this rationale. Educationalists tend to be disadvantaged in debates about appropriate forms of vocational knowledge by their relative lack of theoretical and practical knowledge of industry and employment. In order to gain some critical leverage on the concept of 'empowerment' it is helpful to become acquainted with similar usage in industrial contexts, particularly in the field of human resource management. Empowerment lies at the heart of the very notion of human resource management and it is worth considering therefore the corpus of knowledge on which theories of its efficacy in the workplace are based. Basic human resource management texts describe empowerment in terms of giving more responsibility to employees to determine how tasks can best be done and reducing the extent to which they are closely supervised through hierarchically and bureaucratically structured tiers of management. For example, Graham and Bennett (1992) define it as the 'process of giving an employee the right to take executive decisions within certain specified limits, but requiring that person to assume full responsibility for his or her actions'. In practice this frequently means employees, through innovations such as Teamworking, Quality Circles, Total Quality Management systems or Just in Time working methods, are given greater responsibility and authority for making decisions about work tasks and how best to achieve them (Blyton and Turnbull 1992; Sisson 1989; Legge 1995).

Three clusters of arguments for 'empowerment' are typically invoked. Primarily they are seen as a means of securing greater employee satisfaction and commitment to managerial goals, which is expected to result in enhanced profitability: 'Within the rhetoric of HRM there is an enormous focus on the nature and importance of an approach to staff and organisation which empowers, liberates and develops the individual employee in order to develop and engage employees' commitment and creativity and energy' (Mabey and Salaman, 1995). This emphasis was explicitly argued by Peters and Waterman (1982), who promulgated the view that excellent companies have in common the fact that 'they push autonomy remarkably far down the line'. Additionally, the 'empowered' worker is seen as potentially a more flexible worker, capable of greater initiative and enterprise (Guest, 1987) Thirdly, empowerment is expected to reduce supervision requirements and thus permit stripping out of layers of management, or de-layering, which again is seen as a means of reducing costs. The various arguments all hinge on the notion of improving an organisation's competitive edge and imply a unitary model of employer-employee relations (Guest, 1987; Legge, 1995; Storey, 1992), in contrast with the pluralist or conflict models which have at times played an important role in industrial relations and labour process theory.

It is important to note that while these approaches, when implemented do lead to greater individualisation of control over work, this control is exercised - as was noted in the context of GNVQ pedagogy - within much stricter frameworks of accountability and performance appraisal, evidenced for example in the growing use of performance-related pay. Thus, again as was noted in the context of the GNVQ, this is autonomy of a highly circumscribed and ambiguous kind. For example, teamworking which is frequently seen as an exemplar of empowerment in practice, is a highly circumscribed form of empowerment since senior managers usually specify required outcomes and the resources at the teams' disposal. Within that framework teams have varying degrees of freedom to determine for themselves how to allocate tasks and responsibilities, but this itself can be used as a managerial technique to intensify work processes (Marchington 1992). Within TQM systems employees may be encouraged to take responsibility at operational level for quality and continuity of production. However, it is higher levels of management who usually determine the quality norms. Other authors (see Blyton and Turnbull, 1992) have drawn attention to the fact that in any initiative to move towards empowerment, employees are faced with an asymmetry of power which makes it difficult for them to influence their work, beyond the immediate task.

Finally - and again here we find a parallel with the GNVQ pedagogy - the new performance measures usually involve what I shall term 'double-decker' assessment - involving not only work output measures but measurement of employees' effectiveness in self-regulation of their output. Thus the new worker autonomy could be seen as confined to procedural autonomy, as was noted with the GNVQ. Even this category however may overestimate the type of autonomy involved since the employee may have little choice about entering into the self-measuring mode; there may be no choice, ultimately, about whether to take on the new burden of self discipline. Thus in this situation we may find a form of imposed autonomy in which, again in parallel with the GNVQ, there are inherent contradictions.

But what evidence is there of how these approaches are faring, the impact on profitability, performance and perhaps more importantly, employee satisfaction and fulfilment? A limited search suggests the empirical evidence of impact is very flimsy (Legge, 1995). The employee empowerment discourse appears to have been spun around gurus and anecdotes rather than on the basis of well-documented testing of propositions. Some empirical studies, however, have covered, or touched upon, the impact of empowerment on employees and suggest that these methods of management are associated with increased insecurity and stress levels (see Blyton and Turnbull, 1992). The stress is associated not only with increased work demands but with the work effort involved in attempting to be self-policing and self-regulating and with the penalties for not doing so. Some work has also noted that in such regimes employees become instrumentalised towards the achievement of performance targets (see Blyton and Turnbull, 1992 and Legge, 1995). Overall, however, there still appears to be a dearth of rigorous evidence or analysis of the impact of the 'empowerment' model on either of the key objectives of improving company performance or enhancing employee satisfaction.

In summary there is an obvious resonance between the GNVQ pedagogy and recent approaches to HRM. Further exploration of the factors involved in this convergence of discourses is beyond the scope of this paper. Certainly both owe much to the 'enterprise culture' and related economic and political conditions. The implications for this paper are twofold. Insofar as GNVQ pedagogy reflects theories of human resource management, then these theories themselves merit further critical analysis and testing. Perhaps more importantly, if educators are to make informed judgements about vocational curricula they need to engage increasingly with the world of work, not only with work experience and industrial placements, but with disciplines and evidence which illuminate emerging structures and features.

While the above discussion highlights difficulties and ambiguities in the concept of 'empowerment' in the official literature and accompanying curricular texts, its 'classroom' realization will be influenced by a much wider range of factors than this. The issues identified above may disappear or mutate in classroom contexts - or quite different problems and possibilities may come to light. There is a rich tradition of literature which explores the ways in which educational policies - particularly curricula - are re-interpreted in institutional contexts, altering and amplifying policy-makers' intentions in unintended ways (Bates, 1989; Bowe, Ball and Gold, 1992; Whitty, Edwards and Gewirtz, 1993). In the third part of this paper I shall draw on material from a research project which set out to investigate such interpretations and which included a case study of the implementation of the GNVQ. The study took place at a stage when the GNVQ was still in its infancy and consequently many of the issues surrounding the theme of 'empowerment' were entangled with the typical sorts of difficulties, or 'teething problems' associated with the early stages of implementation of any innovation. Nevertheless, it is possible to distill a number of more fundamental problems likely to be of enduring import for the GNVQ.

The general argument I shall draw out is that the implementation of the GNVQ model of 'empowerment' at the school level will be shaped substantially by two factors and that these factors are themselves nested in wider social and cultural formations. Firstly, it will be influenced by teacher perspectives and the extent to which they subscribe to the pedagogic principles of the GNVQ. Secondly, the potentially contradictory elements of the 'empowerment' model may be pulled apart by the existence of conflictual relations between teachers and pupils and the pursuit of clashing priorities. This is not to say that this will always and inevitably be the case. There will be many instances when teachers are in a position to dissolve or circumvent such conflict and to achieve shared frameworks of meaning between themselves and pupils. In such situations pupils may indeed become the self-steering subjects envisaged in the GNVQ discourse. The extent to which they can do so, however, may be only partly within the teachers' orbit of control. The evidence of this study suggests that some of the important 'variables' in explaining levels of success in the 'empowerment' endeavour are likely to be: the wider institutional ethos and prevailing styles of pedagogy; the social background and previous educational experience of students; student orientations towards school, particularly the degree of alienation from formal educational purposes; the resourcing of the GNVQ programme; and teacher agency as reflected for example in their motivation, creativity and expertise in developing and adapting the GNVQ course in a way which engages pupil interest and commitment.

The overall argument is rooted in analysis of the wider implications of the ethnographic data gathered at school. In order to illuminate the dynamics involved the story is told in a condensed form below. Space does not permit a fuller account in this paper and for this reason particularly it should be emphasized that the story as told here reflects the purposes of the paper and thus concentrates intentionally on characteristic problems of implementation. The extent to which these proved superable varied in the course of the year, between subjects, between teachers and in relation to the student group - or sub-group - involved. Further comparative data would be needed to examine in more detail the above categorisation of factors likely to hinder or facilitate the implementation of the GNVQ 'empowerment' model.

The research took place in a large inner-city comprehensive school in the Midlands. It was a former grammar school and had attempted to sustain a strong tradition of academic success. It was regarded locally as one of the best comprehensives in the city with parents moving into the catchment in order to ensure a place for their children. Nevertheless it had maintained a broad social and ethnic composition. The study focussed on the Advanced Level GNVQ.

There were three teachers involved in the GNVQ Health and Social Care Course and two in GNVQ Business during the main period of the research. They were all highly committed to the GNVQ values of developing student autonomy and responsibility through active learning, seeing this as a force for 'progressive' change in a school with a strong academic tradition, where more didactic methods generally prevailed. The team had been recruited by Mike, the original co-ordinator, mainly for this reason. In Mike's view, with the GNVQ, they would move towards individualised learning and 'formal class teaching will go - unless it's Introductions and Conclusions (to lessons)'. In talking to students staff constantly emphasised the more 'adult, professional' approach involved and the need to 'get organised' and 'be responsible' ('Its not just what you learn but how you learn'; 'we're trying to get you to think about your attitude to learning'; 'the agenda is yours rather than mine') On the whole they thought the grading criteria were useful in highlighting the forms of learning involved though found them difficult to apply for assessment purposes. Staff saw themselves as in the vanguard of change, working against a conservative school culture where the dominance of academic criteria resulted in failure for many pupils. It was their enthusiasm and commitment to what they saw as progressive, egalitarian values which drove them to invest considerable energies in coping with the organisational demands of the GNVQ and the widely reported 'burden of assessment'. Their identification of themselves as progressives was further intensified by opposition to the GNVQ from powerful staff in the school heading academic subject departments and whom they saw as reactionary.

Questions such as those raised above concerning the highly circumscribed nature of NVQ/GNVQ 'autonomy' were not salient in their perspectives. They were not in any sense part of teacher talk. They saw their problems with the GNVQ as largely practical rather than ideological and their identification of the GNVQ as an empowering, progressive curriculum was largely unqualified. They saw the elements of self-responsibilization as appropriate preparation for employment and adulthood.

Turning from staff perspectives to classroom practice the picture became more complex. Across both Business and Health and Social Care there was a common basic model. I have categorised the main elements involved as 'instructional sessions' and 'independent learning sessions'. These were generally linked in a sequence consisting of a single key lesson or series of lessons used for instruction followed by a series of lessons, perhaps over two weeks, in which students were expected to work independently on set tasks. The instructional sessions were used for information on the topic, on aspects of the structure and processes of the GNVQ, on the assignment to be done or feedback on assignments. Instruction generally relied on quite traditional methods such as dictating notes, lengthy 'lectures' from teachers, copying from the board, copying from the text book or even reading aloud from the text book. Independent

learning involved gathering information for assignments in school or out of school, commonly known as 'research' and preparing the assignments for deadlines which were set or negotiated, depending on the teacher. During 'independent learning' sessions teachers were generally available to students for consultation and guidance, though this varied according to the teacher and other pressures upon them. Such sessions could be seen as an enlargement of the more familiar school concept of 'homework' only undertaken during school time as well as at home. Alternatively there are echoes here of the recent managerial practice of out-sourcing in that teachers encourage pupils to make extensive use of educational input from external organisations and resources. It was this element of the GNVQ which was the major form in which responsibility was transferred to students.

At one level students' new found responsibilities were consistent with the GNVQ grading criteria in that they became responsible for planning their work to meet deadlines, gathering information, writing up assignments and contributing to the evaluation of what they had done. It was noticeable though that by far the most time-consuming and demanding of these new responsibilities transferred to students was locating and obtaining information. Students became hunters and gatherers of information, visiting libraries and organisations, and estimated that 50% of their GNVQ time could be spent in this way. The amount of time involved was increased by difficulties in finding resources or unsuccessful attempts to contact organisations.

In addition to the above, students acquired a further type of responsibility which is not explicitly identified in the GNVQ criteria. The 'independent learning' elements required students to manage a greater proportion of their work output, over longer periods than is the case where learning is mainly based on classroom teaching. This reflects a feature of the course design in that access to learning, on which achievement rests, revolves significantly around the production of assignments. This basic 'do-it-yourself' principle meant that students needed to discipline themselves, or in sociological terms to become self-regulatory and self-steering (Heelas and Morris 1992; Rose, 1990).

The main difficulties of implementation arose in connection with the assumptions involved concerning students' intentions and capacities regarding self-regulation. Crudely summarised, the staff perspective was that students did not use the time allocated to pursue their various projects, resulting in large backlogs of work. Staff concerns on this point resulted in complex distortions of the preferred pedagogy as they sought to control in a variety of ways students' perceived misuse of time; coding themes in our qualitative data for example include 'nagging'; 'reprimands'; 'moral lectures'; and 'expulsions'. The main theme in staff explanations of their difficulties was the traditional, didactic mode of teaching ('spoon feeding') which was said to prevail through most of the school. The GNVQ teachers thought that as a result both students and other staff were unaccustomed to more 'active', 'student-centred' approaches.

An important point of contrast between Business and Health and Social Care was the different strategies adopted for dealing with this situation. In Health and Social Care staff involved adopted a system of increasingly detailed supervision of students' work, taking over areas of responsibility from students. In Business the member of staff observed resorted to increasing use of general exhortations concerning the need for students to be responsible, but did not attempt closer supervision. There was limited evidence that the approach adopted in Health and Social Care was more successful in ensuring students made effective progress through the course but the two situations became difficult to compare since in the course of the year the Business group also suffered from successive staff changes.

Turning to students in general to begin with students spoke in terms of 'liking' the extra freedom they were given in the GNVQ. They spoke of being 'treated like adults' and felt 'teachers treat us as responsible people and trust us to get on with it and do it ourselves'. Many were also taking an 'A' level subject and made comparisons with this experience ('You've just got a teacher in front of you, a person writing you a list, writing notes, copying off a board').

As the first year progressed, however, attitudes became more ambivalent, particularly among the Business students. As backlogs of work began to accumulate students found the responsibility more burdensome. Some wished they had been given firmer deadlines, or kept better records of work they had done. They thought that help was not sufficiently available and that they were given 'too much slack'. The most disillusioned statements came from some of the Business group, some of whom felt that the experience of the GNVQ had put them off going on to higher education ('If I go up to university and I'm treated like this I'll probably, you know, jump off a bridge or something'; 'At universities the syllabus, from what I've heard is similar to this, you work on your own steam ....and we work under our own steam now and we're getting nowhere'). The extent to which students found their new responsibilities difficult to handle varied according to (a) individual needs in terms of guidance and supervision and (b) teachers' interpretations of the amount of detailed supervision of their work which was required. Students who failed to make any progress on the course and in some cases dropped out were often weakly motivated students working with a non-directive teacher.

What was underlying the difficulties students had with taking responsibility for learning? Individual variations aside, across the entire cohort there were some common factors which limited the extent to which students took responsibility for the tasks delegated to them. Firstly, the GNVQ course design itself seemed to undermine the objective of allowing students more responsibility. This was the result of the complexity of the assessment and recording systems which required extensive instruction and interpretation by teachers, particularly since the systems were changed a number of times in the course of the year. Secondly, there were difficulties associated with the school environment, particularly the library provision. In comparison with provision we observed in a further education college, this resulted in difficulties in students gaining access to appropriate information, thus increasing the extent to which their responsibilities became mainly those of 'hunters and gatherers'.

The third, and perhaps most important, factor was the character of student motivation and meanings. The GNVQ model assumes the possibility of a harmony of interests between policy-makers, teachers and students. It assumes that rendering visible all the learning targets and criteria for assessment, so that these are no longer the relatively exclusive and private property of the teacher, will erase a significant barrier to motivation. The evidence of this study suggests that these assumptions under-estimate the extent to which there are conflictual elements involved in teacher-student relations. The identification of such conflict has been a familiar theme in educational research (eg Hargreaves, 1967; Willis 1977; Corrigan 1979; Riseborough 1985; Woods 1980). The findings of this study reveal ways in which such conflict may re-emerge in the context of a style of pedagogy which, given its emphasis on the self-steering subject, might be expected to dissolve such problems. Basically our observations suggested that 'independent learning' sessions were frequently colonised by students for their own richly meaningful individual and social purposes and struggles. Once in school they were with their 'mates' and time which was not tightly supervised tended to become social time and its use shaped by: pressing personal and social needs related to sharing problems and life events; peer group expectations and implicit rules. The role of peer group interaction, once unsupervised, was particularly important in deterring on - task effort, sometimes taking the form of enjoyable socialising but also the usual classroom tensions and feuds. Students' attitudes towards this were ambivalent; they enjoyed themselves but they were frustrated by the accumulating work. This was particularly noticeable during the long periods when teachers absented themselves from the classroom which served as a GNVQ base during GNVQ time. Students were then fully exposed to the dynamics of interaction between and within sub-groups and whatever regimes emerged. In these situations we observed an almost complete absence of GNVQ work, much laughter and enjoyment - but also racism, outcasting and other forms of social discomfort. There were also variations between groups of students. Some could take time off in school and organise themselves at home to catch up. Some were less able to do so.

In practice the above three factors became closely interrelated. In pursuit of their own meanings students converted 'course design' and 'school environment' problems into social possibilities. For example difficulties in understanding assessment demands increased the likelihood that they would abandon work and entertain themselves; problems with getting information could be translated into a shopping trip to town via the library.

The impact of the GNVQ project of transferring responsibility to students and the more specific grading criteria (planning; information seeking and handling, evaluation) needed to be understood against this wider backdrop of student interests and motivations. Our research suggests that student performance on the grading criteria was subject to a variety of distortions resulting in a disjunction opening up between manifest and actual performance. 'Action plans' were widely reported to be undertaken after the work was complete. Student evaluations of their work appeared to follow a number of stock formulae. Evidence provided by students of their information-gathering and handling appeared to be more authentic, but there were many examples of creative copying and instrumental application of the criteria ('Yes the book was in the school library this time but I went to town because you get marks for that') The extent to which fabrication is a problem in NVQs and GNVQs has been widely acknowledged and is reflected for example in the fact that the training of verifiers alerts them to this problem and teachers attempt to devise assignments which cannot be easily copied. Throughout our GNVQ study there was evidence of the development of a variety of strategies in fabricating evidence not only of work output itself but of effectiveness in managing their own work.

These findings were to some extent unsurprising given that students found themselves in a situation in which there were strong incentives to become instrumental about the production of completed assignments for their portfolios: they had accumulated large backlogs of work; they needed to 'pass'; they felt a sense of injustice and cynicism; the assessment system (in comparison, for example, with the leaner examination system where the conditions of production are controlled) depended on producing 'evidence' of large amounts of work undertaken in uncontrolled circumstances; there was considerable potential for contriving the relevant evidence; and finally the sheer burden of assessment meant that teachers often did not have adequate time for close scrutiny of the voluminous products.

The role of power in classroom relations and in learning is too fundamental an issue to leave unexcavated. Following from this, the claim that any reform is 'empowering' - or involves the acquisition of new powers amongst a specific group of actors - deserves close analysis. In this paper I have suggested that in recent years a number of reforms have been promoted under this banner, drawing legitimacy from a variety of intermingling strands of discourse: post-Fordism; the enterprise culture; the New Right de-construction of 'society' in favour of the individual and the market-place. Against this backdrop, trends in Human Resource Management and developments in vocational education and training, such as the NVQ/GNVQ framework, have played a prominent role in the translation of these wider ideological currents into systems of ideas and concepts applicable to specific spheres of social practice.

The paper has then examined elements of what 'empowerment' entails both in theory and practice, concentrating on the GNVQ. The major thrust of the argument has been to suggest that the GNVQ pedagogy of 'empowerment' can be more clearly grasped in terms of individualization and self-responsibilization. New powers and freedoms are granted - but as a necessary pre-condition for effecting a formal shift of responsibility for learning towards students and away from teachers. In effecting this shift the pedagogic discourse tends to separate the warp and weft of content and process in learning. These overlapping spheres are constructed according to different sets of rules. Official content, or the detailed specification of curriculum, is elevated beyond the influence of teacher or student. Control over and responsibility for process is shifted towards students. Thus learning remains the transmission of pre-arranged knowledge, but the transmission process is substantially re-designed to allow a high degree of student participation, choice and initiative.

To this extent the GNVQ is relatively 'empowering'. The exercise of initiative and independence in relation to the achievement of learning goals is a formal part of the curriculum and in this respect the curriculum is highly innovatory. Moreover, given the relationships which obtain between process and content in learning, the expansion of students' opportunities for choice in matters of how they learn will inevitably have consequences for what is learned. The distinction between content and process, which is a latent feature of the GNVQ, is not one which will hold fast in practice.

The balance between freedom and constraint, as experienced by students, will be realised in 'classroom' contexts. The evidence of this study underlines the ways in which students' new found freedoms were highly conditional on their performing as required. Given the fluctuating levels of congruence between teacher and student objectives in relation to the demands of school work, teachers were placed in a classic dilemma. How should they interpret the GNVQ pedagogy in a situation in which students appeared increasingly likely to fail the course as a result of non-completion of assignments? They could allow students to fail or they could re-appropriate control and exert various kinds of pressure on the group. The dominant pattern of response was to reclaim responsibility and control over student learning or, as one teacher graphically explained, 'We've had to clamp down on them in a big way to make sure they pass.' Teachers' willingness to step in in such circumstances serves to underline the circumscribed and tenuous nature of the 'empowerment' ceded to students. 'Freedom to fail', presumably an essential characteristic of initiatives designed to encourage responsibility and initiative, is clearly reluctantly granted in the context of teachers' moral career investments together with performance appraisal.

There was a third alternative, which was a route out of the dilemma, although this could not easily be pursued as an immediate solution. This was to rebuild the curriculum around the sites of student interest, either within the overall framework of the GNVQ or, if necessary, by abandoning this curriculum framework. Such an approach would involve a logical extension of the terms of 'empowerment' and formally recognize student influence over both content and pedagogy. It also recognizes that in situations where, for whatever reason, there is a low level of student commitment to the official learning objectives, influence over learning processes alone may not be experienced as an enhancement of autonomy. Consequently, students may utilize the freedom made available to them to exercise a more subjectively meaningful form of autonomy, that is, they may increasingly replace the official learning objectives with their own unofficial activities. The situation in which they are placed potentially 'empowers' them to do so. Moreover in the exercise of this power, they move into a position where responsibility for their learning becomes a site of complex contestation and struggle.

Notions of empowerment, for all their innovatory and liberating features, compared with traditional pedagogic forms, have to be treated with some caution. The changes involved, particularly in terms of who is taking responsibility for what, are perhaps not as extensive or significant as proponents of the GNVQ have at times hoped. Nor, on the other hand, are they without potential. The fluidity and complexity of the processes involved in the 'empowerment' initiatives examined above need careful unravelling and further research. Moreover, given the ease with which the nexus of concepts of power, responsibility and accountability appear to be interchangeable within the discourse, more careful analysis of the precise implications is required.

1. I would like to acknowledge the support of the ESRC in providing funding for the case study research on which this paper is partly based (ESRC Grant R00023390801)

2. I would like to acknowledge the invaluable assistance of Judith Dutson in gathering parts of the ethnographic data for this study during the first term of the school-based research.

3. I would also like to thank the students and teachers at Weston High School for their considerable help.

4. Finally I would like to acknowledge the role of various colleagues in sharpening my own thinking on the GNVQ and the issues I have begun to explore in this paper. At Leeds, discussions with Jeremy Higham, Paul Sharp and David Yeomans have been particularly valuable. Elsewhere, Martin Bloomer and Phil Hodkinson have extended my own thinking through our collective participation in a number of conference symposia on this issue.

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© IMH Bates 1998

Post-14 education and training has been the site of intense policy debate and change for over two decades both in Britain and throughout the world. These changes have led to substantial re-organisation of forms of governance, organisation, curricula and pedagogy and have had major implications for the lives of young people, mature students and adult learners.

The Post-14 Research Group, a unit of the University of Leeds School of Education, has interests in the analysis of these changes across: secondary education, further and higher education; workplace and lifelong learning; and youth training. Methodological approaches draw upon: curriculum study; policy analysis and evaluation; historical and sociological research; and youth ethnography. Research has been supported by extensive ESRC and Government funding, together with grants from a variety of educational foundations, regional bodies and local education authorities.

External and internal seminar series act as a focus for discussion both within the School and region and this Occasional Publications series publishes recent research by group members:

This document was added to the Education-line database on 16 October 2002