Read Rewiring Education Part I HERE
For at least a generation, too many young people have fallen through the cracks between education andwork. Since the early 2000s, the rate of 16- to 24-year-olds not in education, employment or training (NEET) has averaged 13 per cent. Today, over one million young people – 13.5 per cent – are classed as NEET.
This crisis is urgent. We have over a quarter of a million more NEETs than five years ago, with the number projected to continue to rise. For each NEET individual, even if they re-enter the labour market, they will lose up to £300,000 in earnings over their lifetime. For the nation, the crisis costs £125 billion a year and rising.
We need to rewire our education system to ensure it is building routes for those falling behind. Following best practice in the Netherlands, Singapore, and Germany, as well as the best of our charity sector, this report explores how we can reduce the proportion of young people falling out of education or work around three principles:
- Technical earlier
- Rationalising further education
- Put local employers back in charge of apprenticeships
Our education system has improved remarkably in the last fifteen years, but these policies have not solved the system’s inability to secure outcomes for the bottom fifth. These reforms form the first building block in rewiring our education system towards one where there is a thriving academic and technical route – and where children are not left behind.
But they are not the whole picture. Technical education is about more than the NEETs crisis. We must aspire to become a technical education superpower in the way we are a higher education superpower. The future of higher technical training and the university system will be explored in more detail in Rewiring Education: Part 3 this autumn.
