Not all skills are best learnt in a classroom environment.  Practical skills (for example carpentry, cookery, gardening etc.), are often best learnt ‘on-the-job’ or through an apprenticeship. Both routes place young people into contact with professionals in the field as well as giving them access to a wider range of tools and materials than could possibly be available in schools. For many young people who would like to work in these areas extra years at school will merely be time ‘treading water’ before they can get on with learning the skills of their trade. This is even more alarming in the case of the UK with the new tuition fees for universities, which are likely to decrease the chances of certain socio-economic categories of going to university at all.