There are great alternatives to university elsewhere. Let’s try them in the UK
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Version 0 of 1. Whether it is forcing celebrities to eat live cockroaches in the jungle or getting MPs to mimic household pets, there’s no country that does reality TV with quite the verve of we Brits. So it is no surprise that broadcasters have dreamed up a special form of cruelty: getting teenagers to open their A-level results envelopes live on breakfast TV. But the young people nervously pulling out that all-important slip of paper are invariably those predicted to get a mix of As and Bs, with a place at a good university hanging on their results. Have you got into the place you wanted? What do you do if you don’t? It’s these questions that dominate the media coverage following results day, with hardly any focus on the six in 10 young people who won’t go on to university. University as the be all and end all has been a growing feature of the British education system, as successive governments have expanded student numbers. These will swell further as a result of the government allowing universities to recruit as many entrants as they like from this year onwards. Demand for places exceeds supply, with many young people seeing university as the only route to a good job. In many ways they’re right: there is a dearth of alternative routes into skilled work. But while a degree may increase the chances of getting a good job, it’s certainly not a guarantee. New figures out last week suggest only 40% of graduates go into roles that genuinely require their qualifications. For English graduates the top job destinations on graduation are bars, restaurants and retail and clerical and secretarial. Young people face a tricky dilemma: as growing numbers go to university, the graduate premium has decreased.. And yet not going to university feels like an increasingly risky proposition even as the costs have increased: what if you can’t even get to pull pints because you’re competing against those with degrees? It’s not necessarily that numbers are too high: some of our international competitors send a greater proportion of the population to university than we do. And we would have been unlikely to see more young people from poor backgrounds progressing on to university without an expansion in numbers. (It’s hard to imagine those from affluent backgrounds graciously stepping aside for their brighter but poorer peers.) But there is evidence of a graduate skills mismatch: while many graduates are in jobs that don’t require degrees, almost half of employers report difficulties in filling vacancies as they can’t find graduates with the right skills. And there is a terrible lack of quality options for those who don’t go to university. Government funding of the university sector looks set to grow uncapped as student numbers grow (although much of it has been shifted off the balance sheet as it comes in the form of writing off loans for low-earning graduates). But while universities continue to soak up increased funding, the further education budget has been slashed by 40% since 2010. Instead, the government is trying to increase apprenticeships to provide an alternative pathway. But our apprenticeships system has serious problems. On the continent, apprenticeships tend to take three years to complete, and they involve high-quality, off-the-job training. In Britain, the government is putting quantity over quality in the context of feeble employer demand, watering down an already weak apprenticeship brand. Most apprenticeships are only the equivalent of GCSE-level, with many completed in under a year. There are signs some employers are simply putting existing employees into apprenticeships and using the funding to subsidise training they may well have stumped up for any way. There is a fundamental issue here. Apprenticeships are best suited to jobs that require specific, technical skills that need to be honed over a number of years. They are perfect for the present-day German economy, or the British economy of 40 years ago, when many school leavers went straight into manufacturing and craft-based jobs. But traditional-style apprenticeships are only ever going to be part of the answer in the modern British service sector economy, with its emphasis on transferable interpersonal skills and flexible careers that often involve switching sectors. Rather than massively expanding the number of apprenticeships, government should be trying to improve their quality and keep them focused on what they do best: preparing young people for careers that require technical skills. And we need to get much more imaginative about school-to-work transitions for those going into jobs that have a greater emphasis on transferable skills. Rather than trying to force the traditional apprenticeship model down the throat of a reluctant business community, what would it look like if government and business sat down together to design new sorts of projects? There are lots of exciting models to draw upon. For example, thousands of 18- to 25-year-olds undertake a year of “national service” in communities across the United States, serving in teams working in inner-city schools, on disaster relief efforts and on environmental projects. National and local employers contribute to their training and personal development and many of them end up recruiting participants. It is an intense experience, which develops skills such as resilience, team- working, discipline and motivation, exactly the sorts of skills British employers say many young people lack. There are some charities offering these opportunities on a small scale here, with the support of businesses such as National Grid and Credit Suisse. Why couldn’t the government invest in expanding them and encourage more employers to get involved? Another model worth exploring is studio schools, in which 14- to 19-year-olds learn not just through traditional class-based learning, but through enterprise projects and real work. The government’s obsession with apprenticeships as a catch-all solution might make for eye-catching numbers, but what it really amounts to is the serious neglect of the fate of many of our young people who aren’t destined to go to university. |