The more employers get to know about the Government’s flagship vocational qualifications, the less they care about them, new research shows.

In a study which shows how the introduction of national vocational qualifications has stalled, interest in NVQs is shown to have dwindled as understanding of them has grown.

The findings add further weight to concern expressed in the Government’s own paper on lifetime learning, published this month, which acknowledged progress towards national education and training targets was flagging badly.

The latest research is designed to examine progress since an earlier survey in 1993, which found more than a third of all employers were in the dark about NVQs, though around two-thirds were keen to find out more.

Two years on, the new study reveals awareness of the qualifications has risen almost to saturation point, but indifference to them also shot up, with more than half of employers saying they had no interest in NVQs.

The report, commissioned by the Department for Education and Employment and carried out by the Institute of Employment Studies, provides damning evidence of the Government’s failure to persuade employers of the value of their workforce acquiring NVQs.

Intensive efforts to market the qualifications resulted in a high level of awareness, but little real understanding of them, the study concludes. Even those employers hoping to introduce NVQs at some point often had no clue how to do so.

The research found the proportion of employers who actually introduced the qualifications had risen by just one percentage point, from 6 to 7 per cent over two years.

Scope for a swift increase in NVQ take-up seems limited, with a mere 3 per cent planning to use them (1 per cent up on last year). A tenth of employers said they “anticipated” doing so.

The study, based on evidence from a sample of 758 employers in England and Wales, also shows that even in those organisations using NVQs the actual proportion of the workforce working towards them remains low. On average, fewer than a tenth of employees are involved, usually because employers have introduced them only for specific groups of staff, or to limited numbers on a pilot basis.

The findings will cause great concern among ministers, whose lifetime learning document acknowledged the rate of progress towards national training targets is “not sufficiently rapid”. The Government wants 60 per cent of the workforce to be qualified to NVQ level 3 or equivalent by the turn of the century - but only two-thirds of that target group has so far reached this standard.

The document highlights the Government’s view that employers must play a key role in increasing participation in lifetime learning, but re-emphasises its view that involvement should remain voluntary. However, the Institute for Employment Studies report suggests more cash incentives may be needed to encourage employers to introduce NVQs. These lures might include grants, registration subsidies and certification fees.

The research offers few explanations for the resounding indifference to the qualifications, though it points to evidence that some employers are dissatisfied with the design of occupational standards - the skills goals set within particular fields.

It suggests that since nine out of 10 employers are now aware of NVQs, a shift is needed towards stepping up appreciation of their value.

Leading employers must be persuaded to use NVQs even where they may gain no direct advantage, creating an example for others, it adds.

Those organisations already offering NVQs must be encouraged to extend them to more of their workforce.