Prime Minister Andy Burnham has set out a shift in how Britain treats education and training, declaring that from today the country will value the hard hat just as much as it does the graduation cap. The message marks a deliberate move to put vocational and technical routes on an equal footing with the traditional academic path that has dominated for years.
At the heart of the plan is a call for schools to teach pupils for local jobs. According to the reporting, the Prime Minister wants young people to be able to gain the skills they need, whether that means instruction, coding or classics, maths or mechanics, and to be given the respect they deserve regardless of which route they follow.
The approach represents a change from the Tony Blair era, when the drive was to send around 50% of young people to university. In the years since, questions have grown over whether some degrees are worth the cost, with students leaving education carrying large debts and, in some cases, struggling to find work that matches their qualifications.
As part of the plan, the way schools are inspected is expected to change. According to the report, Ofsted will have to adjust its methods and its reports so that they recognise schools offering a high quality of technical education, and not only those focused on academic subjects, giving vocational provision a clearer place in how schools are judged.
The reforms are also tied to a wider devolution agenda. The idea is to hand more of that control to local mayors, so that they can decide what the opportunities are in their areas, identifying the jobs and growth industries that matter locally and working with schools to prepare young people for them.
Driving the intervention is concern over the number of young people not in education, employment or training, known as NEETs, which has reached a record high of more than one million. Burnham is said to hope the changes will help bring that number down by opening up different opportunities and routes into work in people's local areas.
The move follows work by Alan Milburn, a former Labour health secretary, who produced a report earlier this year warning that the country risks losing a whole generation of young people if the issue is not addressed. Milburn, who has been looking into the NEETs crisis, described the announcement as a big step in the right direction, while noting that the diagnosis now has to be matched by action.