Andrew Ranger, Labour MP for Wrexham, writes for the CSJ about the need for a new technical and vocational education at its heart.
If social media was the big moral panic of 2025, the plight of university students is shaping up to be 2026’s.
New fronts in the higher education debate continue to emerge: the student debt crisis reaching political fever pitch, rising youth unemployment and the Centre for Social Justice’s revelation back in January that Level 4 Apprentices now earn £12,500 more than the bottom quartile of graduate earners.
As 17–18-year-olds begin sitting their A-Levels this week it is becoming clear that the ‘golden ticket’ of a university degree leading to a well-paying professional job is no longer guaranteed.
Britain has an overeducation problem. More than a third of adults over 25 are currently overqualified for their job, the highest rate in the OECD. That stat alone should prompt us to rethink the near 25-year consensus on the role of universities in our system.
This is not to say that their expansion has been without value – Tony Blair’s drive to get working-class people into universities served as one of the greatest upward forces of social mobility that this country has ever seen. But now the goalposts have changed, and so must we.
A new vision is needed, with technical and vocational education at its heart. If we look to Europe we find strong alternatives. For every three young British people who go to university, just one receives vocational training. In the Netherlands, that ratio is two to one. In Germany, its one to one, and in Austria, twice as many are vocationally trained as attend university.
How? By the age of 15, 75% of Austrian children choose a vocational pathway – either through college or a dual apprenticeship – from over 200 options, ranging from engineering to hospitality to finance, typically completed over four years. Crucially, this system is linked to both the Austrian Economic Federal Chamber and individual employers, ensuring it is not training for training’s sake but matching the needs of the labour market. As a result, 88% of program participants end up in employment.
Our current post-16 system is not short of vocational options with apprenticeships, T-Levels, BTEC’s and now V-Levels, but the fact remains that they are not seen as an equivalent option to university. Nor – as that long list implies – are they streamlined into a clear, coherent alternative.
Many stereotypes about our young people persist – those who don’t work are ‘lazy’, students choose university to ‘kill a few years’; and ‘have a good time’. These stereotypes need to be discarded. Most do want to work, and many go to university in pursuit of a better life for themselves, but it is undeniable that too many risk being let down.
Many A-Level students in exam halls this week will be planning to follow the path they have been told leads somewhere. For some, it’s exactly what they need, but for too many, it leads from a degree straight to the job centre.
I recently called on the Government to pursue ‘NEET Zero’ as fervidly as it is seeking to achieve Net Zero. This is the time to show bold unapologetic ambition for our young people and to do so, the work must begin now – in the form of a clear, coherent technical alternative to university.