The academic pathway from GCSEs to A-levels to an undergraduate degree at university is a well-trodden and well-understood route that attracts tens of thousands of young people in England every year. However, while this pathway receives considerable political and media interest, just 37 per cent of young people take three A-levels in their final years at school or college. In other words, over six in ten young people are not on a solely academic path. Even so, ever since then Prime Minister Tony Blair’s infamous speech in 1999 that set a target of 50 per cent of young people entering Higher Education (HE), the academic pathway has been placed on a pedestal above all else.
The statistics lay bare the impact of so many young people being badly neglected. In 2022, 12.3 per cent of young people aged 16-24 in England were ‘Not in Education, Employment and Training’ (NEET) – the same proportion as when Tony Blair gave his aforementioned speech. Meanwhile, just 2.8 per cent of 16-year-olds were on an apprenticeship in 2022 – down from 7.9 per cent in 1999. Even if you include 19 to 24-year-olds, the volume of young people starting an apprenticeship has not increased in 20 years. To unearth the root causes of these concerning outcomes, this report investigates why the first few rungs on the ‘ladder of opportunity’ are missing for so many young people who do not follow the academic path.
Surveys of employers often report that they are hesitant to recruit 16 to 18-year-olds due to concerns that they may lack ‘soft skills’, motivation or the right attitudes. While this is understandable from an employer’s perspective, it illustrates the importance of ensuring that young people who are not on an academic path can acquire and utilise these skills and attributes before they leave school or college. Two initiatives under the last Labour government proved remarkably successful in this regard.
