An independent study commissioned by education secretary Michael Gove has called for a major shake-up of the provision of vocational courses.

According to the Wolf Review, up to 400,000 young people aged between 16-19-years-old are currently studying on courses that have "little value". Professor Alison Wolf of King's College London also said that students without a C grade in GCSE English and Maths should continue to study those subjects post-16.

Recommendations for reform include the removal of "perverse incentives" for students to enter low-quality courses and enabling 14-16-year-olds to enrol in colleges. Moving regulation away from qualification accreditation and towards oversight of awarding bodies and directly involving employers in assessment activities are also proposed.

Professor Wolf said: "We have many vocational qualifications that are great and institutions which are providing an excellent education and are heavily oversubscribed. "But we also have hundreds of thousands of young people taking qualifications that have little or no value."

Gove has already accepted four of the report's recommendations, including allowing further education lecturers to teach in school classrooms and allow 14-19-year-olds to taken any vocational qualification offered by a regulated awarding body. "We will reform league tables, the funding system, and regulation to give children honest information and access to the right courses," he said.

Ofqual chief executive Glenys Stacey added: "We welcome the report's endorsement of our strategic approach to regulating awarding organisations rather than regulating individual qualifications."