According to a recent Report for England & Wales, the voices of young learners are key to understanding what 'the provision of clear and meaningful choices, which stretch and excite them, which can be tailored to their needs, interests and aspirations and which materially advance them towards their goals in life' actually entails (Final report of the Working Group on 14-19 Reform, 2004). This echoes European and global political concerns about the importance of education in generating the human capital to sustain and promote the development of advanced and developing economies alike. Yet it is often such voices which remain peripheral, as wave after wave of initiative focuses upon intensifying the worth of young people's transition to a world beyond school, and where partnerships (a key political 'buzzword') between schools, colleges, workplace providers and other support services are being designed and manufactured in order to make such choices 'happen'. In part, absent voices are sometimes justified in relation to the learners targeted, namely those who are seen as the most disadvantaged and/or disaffected, and among whom the value of work and enterprise needs to be instilled, ironically among learners who might otherwise be seen as the least enterprising. Elsewhere, directions in transition might be seen as operating for learners' best interests, rather than in terms of whether, for learners, as well as for the other stakeholders involved, the learning partnership is 'real', 'imagined' or manufactured for the short or longer term. This paper draws upon the findings of three research studies conducted in England and Wales between 2003-2005 by the author (in association with Professor Jacky Lumby also from IIEL) and the voices of more than two hundred young people researched in three localized settings, in order to examine their understandings about learning pathways and partnership. Evidence is drawn from two studies that were specifically concerned with the evaluation of two 14-19 Pathfinder partnerships that are among thirty nine projects in the UK designed specifically to test new ways of providing education and training, and draw upon partnership arrangements between schools, colleges, training providers and support services. Data from a third study focuses upon transition choices in a locality where partnership had barely moved beyond the rhetorical yet was sought by a local authority so that coherence for transition might be developed and learner choice prioritised. Findings draw on learners' perceptions of choice seen in terms of access to and experience and engagement with teaching and learning in diverse provider settings. Viewed alongside the perceptions of the other partnership providers, and including parents, research findings offer important messages for leaders and managers of partnerships, specifically the ways young learners are shown to understand them, challenge the values of the learning and its contexts, and of knowledge worth having.