Am I the only person in Britain to have watched the video of the launch of VQ Day? I can’t see it making it on to YouTube, unless of course they decide to introduce a section specifically for dull-as-ditchwater clips with a further education setting.

VQ Day, in case you’ve missed it, is intended to be a celebration of achievement for students who have taken vocational qualifications rather than the more academic GCSEs and A-levels.

The academics get their moment of glory every August when the results come out and, with politicians on holiday, the media are desperate for something to report. No matter the story is the same every year.

Vocational students, the eternal poor relations, have no such brouhaha when their results appear. This is partly because they trickle out in dribs and drabs as the summer term draws to a close, but mainly because FE is habitually treated as a non-story by the mainstream media.

Hence VQ Day, the first of which will be celebrated on July 23. According to the VQ Day website, several events are planned around the date, including a big bash on the day at London’s Royal Opera House.

The day has the backing of Edge, the ebullient and well-funded organisation set up specifically to promote the virtues and increase the status of vocational learning. It also had a hand in the launch of VQ Day in April, immortalised by that grey-tinged video found on the event’s website, showing FE’s great and good scoffing and boozing in a tent. Hopefully the day itself will be somewhat livelier.

One cloud on the horizon, however, may be a lack of participation by the students themselves. With their results already in the bag, they are likely to be off in Ibiza, doing some scoffing and boozing of their own.