Britain’s new prime minister, Andy Burnham, has announced plans to reverse former Labour leader Tony Blair’s drive to get half of young people to attend university, saying there must be more focus on work-based education.
Unveiling his plan to tackle soaring youth unemployment on Tuesday, Burnham said that under his premiership, Britain would “value the hard hat every bit as much as the graduation cap.”
High school pupils aged 14–18 in England will be able to study subjects like manufacturing and AI in addition to core academic learning under the reforms.
Soaring Welfare Bill
The government said the policy will eventually drive down the nation’s soaring welfare bill for young people, with increasing numbers in receipt of disability allowances for conditions including depression, anxiety, autism, and ADHD. Such claims sometimes begin in childhood, as parents can claim disability living allowance on behalf of children diagnosed with certain conditions. One in nine British children is now classed as having a disability.
The situation with young people being both economically inactive and disengaged with education has grown worse since the COVID-19 lockdown era, with the British Chamber of Commerce warning last April in a report that the situation was “not sustainable.”
Young People ‘Let Down’
“For too long in this country, students have been told that you must take the academic path to do well and to be respected,” Burnham said in the policy statement. “The whole school system has been built around it and that has let down young people seeking technical qualifications.”
The prime minister, who read English at Cambridge University before entering politics, added that he wants to see an education system “based on parity between academic and technical.”
The proposed courses will be linked to local industries and designed to give teenagers a clearer pathway into work, signaling a departure from a longstanding drive to get more young people going to university. The 50 percent target, set by Blair in 1999 accompanied by his mantra of, “Education, education, education,” was reached in 2019.
Data published this year revealed more than one million young people aged 18–24 across the UK were not in education, employment, or training—so-called “NEETs”—the highest level in more than 12 years.
An interim report published in May by former Labour Minister Alan Milburn warned the number of NEETS risked leading to a “lost generation.”
The government said in its policy statement that Milburn’s report “painted a stark picture of a system that too often leaves young people leaving school without the skills, experience or connections they need to step into the world of work.”
Few details have been revealed by the government about how the new vocational courses will work in practice, and it is unclear how they might operate in areas of low industrial activity.
The prime minister said his mission is to reduce the number of young people not in work or education. He has not set a date or target figure for the proposal.
‘Drastic Shortage of Jobs’
Under the proposals, high school pupils will continue to study math, English, and science but will have the option of combining these core subjects with technical education and the chance to gain work experience with local employers.
While several business lobby groups welcomed the announcement, the Institute for Fiscal Studies cautioned that repeated overhauls of technical education had created disruption and securing employer involvement would be crucial to the plans’ success.
The Conservative opposition MP Helen Whately told “BBC Breakfast”: “What’s going on there is a drastic shortage of jobs because Labour’s policies over the last couple of years have killed job opportunities for young people. This announcement will not solve that.”
Tuesday’s announcement is the latest in a series of policies in recent years designed to offer a vocational route in education as a counterbalance to soaring numbers of young people going to university and criticism that many degrees on offer are poor quality. The university drive has long been criticized for leaving many young people burdened by a lifetime of debt, and often without a well-paid career job.
Under the previous Conservative government, T-levels were introduced in 2020 as a technical alternative to academic A-Levels in England, with courses including construction, agriculture, and health being offered to students over the age of 16.
Burnham’s approach is consistent with that of his predecessor, former Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who, as party leader in 2019, scrapped Labour’s previous ambition to get half of children to university. Starmer said instead that two-thirds of young people should either go to university or take on an apprenticeship.
The government said measures announced by Burnham together with apprenticeship reforms unveiled earlier this year by Starmer would help deliver 50,000 additional youth apprenticeships by the end of the current parliamentary session in 2029.
Blair’s think tank, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Affairs, said on X following Burnham’s announcement, “It’s not about university vs high-quality technical education. Britain needs both.
“Two routes of equal standing and equal ambition: that is how Britain ends decline.
“Our future belongs to the hard hat and the graduate cap alike.”
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