Schools are not just 'feeders' for local job market

[mids2019]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jul/27/burnham-to-tell-schools-in-england-to-adapt-teaching-to-local-business-needs

Andy Burnham says schools should be looking to feed the local job market when he I is in charge of the most Oxbridge weighted cabinet in years whose children presumably are aiming for university and certainly not looking to enter any local job force.

Which proportion of the school should be dissuaded from university entrance to make this plan work.? Is there any counter message for the bright kids at state schools (presumably this message isn't aimed at grammar or private) to aspire to university including Oxbridge to look ultimately at non regional roles?

Maybe we could bring back the grammar school system while sale so we have a university capable cohort with new secondary moderns catering for local business .....would that suit Mr. Burnham.

it's frustrating as my children are fairly academically capable but it seems state schools are being pushed to hear career advice to local non graduate jobs to fulfil government agenda which is leaving them confused.

GCSEs are a 14 to 16 course. Currently the only truly compulsory subjects are maths, English & science. Most schools insist on one of humanities & mfl and English lit for evaluation stats, but they don’t have to.
Every other option can be vocational - this is possible at my DD’s school.
i could understand some pupils not studying say English lit. However, I think all pupils should be studying maths, English and science at this stage. Everyone needs a core education even if they have a vocational slant. Dual entry functional skills can be an option schools look at.

Part of the problem is that more jobs need “academic-adjacent” skills. Anyone self-employed needs strong functional maths, timekeeping and scheduling, conveying information clearly verbally and by text/email, how to research and understand basic tax information and any relevant tax or legal updates/changes. Most schools already teach those things, though perhaps not explicitly. You could learn AI and automation for quoting and invoicing if you prefer but that can be self-learnt by anyone with nous.

The other side is who is going to teach this stuff? Why teach plastering or bricklaying or anything construction-related when you can earn far more and manage your own hours and build your own business with those skills? And 1000s of “entry level” jobs are vanishing - partly due to AI and partly because why should orgs pay a high minimum wage AND pay to train people, when they can hire people with 3-5 years’ experience on about minimum wage and not have to pay to train them at all.

It’s almost like the old system of polytechnics and HNDs, combined with more traditional unis and on the job/vocational training worked quite well?

Good point.

The danger though is that the 8% you refer to it this was the case would once again come from grammar and private schools predominantly. Yes we need to fewer graduates in general and fewer poor quality univedsities. We need to ensure that comprehensive are in a position to produce some of that 8% (or whoever leads than 40%) and to that we should ensure there are still avenues for bright comp pupils.

I’ve been teaching in secondary schools for 20+ years. This simply isn’t a ‘thing’. Aspiration is shaped by parental
influence in the first instance; all teachers can do is teach excellent lessons to a range of abilities, and encourage students’ interest in their subject.

I can assure you that we don’t ‘miss’ bright students from more complex backgrounds; these children have the same access to excellent teaching as everyone else.

The children who are really struggling are those who cannot read, write and do maths, because they are unable to access the secondary curriculum (many of these children have a reading age of 6 or below). These children have targeted reading and maths interventions throughout school. A more ‘practical’ curriculum from, say, Year 9 is exactly what will help these young people access the jobs market.

You sound terrified comps are suddenly going to start telling the super bright academic kids to go and be builders and not bother with uni.

Come off it, that's not going to happen and never has. They are just going to stop telling kids with a healthy clutch of grades 4-6 at GCSE that university is the ONLY right way to become successful when its not the case.

The super duper bright kids arent going to be dissuaded from uni because usually their passions lie in the heavily academic subjects so they are going to want to continue with further study. Teachers aren't stupid, when faced with a kid who's highly academic and capable of getting a really decent strong degree they are going to sit there and tell them not to bother with uni as there's more jobs available locally in hairdressing and plumbing.

I think politicians are in a bond about this with trying to acknowledge the reality a significant proportion of people are going to be doing vocational jobs while trying to retain the idea that anyone can aspire to anything and university is the door for that aspuration.

There is a reluctance though for some schools to identify kids that maybe will be aiming towards more professional roles as they don't see that as perhaps their core nission. It is is policy announcements like this which seem to act as push to see schools simply as some.driver of.local.economic growth rather as places of edication.

Our local industry is petrochemical. Is advertising apprenticeship options there a good thing? Yes - I’d have thought. Is highlighting the maths English and science GCSEs needed for many of those options a good idea? Seems useful to me. Does that mean English lit, art and music should or would be abandoned? No. Does that mean you stop talking about uni routes? No.
Local jobs aren’t necessarily just care & retail, but care is often a shortage sector. We have BTEC Health and Social at level 3 & 2. Many students use it as a springboard to nursing.
You can have a class of students in one room studying health and social, while in another room students are studying further maths (with obviously different teachers with different specialisms). That is the reality of a good comprehensive. It is about students having choices and options.
On MN so many parents say my child only hears about uni. All paths can be discussed. Then students can make informed choices.

He will have got the idea from good schools like this and recognised many schools don't have those links.
I think its a great idea, as you demonstrate its benefical for industry and individuals.
Especially now that many young people can't afford to leave home and move away even if they want to. Therefore, most of them opportunities will be local.

in most EU countries, education is split from say 12-15. I’m in France, and this ‘sorting’ is very much the norm. At 15 children are sorted into academic (general) / technical / vocational (professional) routes, depending on grades, attitude / learning capacity (as determined by the school/teacher) and their own career aims. I hated this system when I first came here - now, to me, it looks like a fairly sensible (if slightly brutal) way to ensure that there are many options available to a young person rather than just university (and a massive debt). It is absolutely elitist and I’m sure some children get pushed into the wrong box but there are also routes to reorientate (my own son went to uni, but is stopping after one year to do a much more technical qualification instead, which will suit him much better).

Well, hopefully it’s far less of a danger now than 45 years ago when I went to university! Universities actively encourage potential students from
non-selective state schools - quite rightly imo. At my school, the vast majority left at 16, only a handful of us stayed into 6th form and did A levels and of these, an even smaller handful went to university. I think universities are far better now at recognising that a bright young person from a state school is likely to do better at university than someone who’s been hot housed in a private or grammar school. And I also think that in a genuine comprehensive, teachers are well able to recognise which students have the genuine ability and aptitude for an academic route.

This.
Don’t need hordes of graduates in history or English. Unrealistic expectations.
Definitely need more plumbers/electricians/builders and respect given to those trades.

But that is teacher attitudes.
They don't have to think like that, and they shouldn't.

I think this is great from AB. We offer a couple of vocational jobs. You don’t have to be bright, just a hard worker, able to do very basic maths and be a little engineer minded. Decent pay plus a house.

Work closely with th local college offering work experience for a decade now. Nearly all of them cite wanting to be a manager in our industry and go into Uni. We don’t need that many managers. and if we do we want people with experience who can learn skills along the way.

Interestingly, the one or two who have stayed local either with us or other local business are in a much better place financially and socially than those who spent another 3-5 years in college/uni. I can’t think of one who has made manager (as far as I know)

I think if vocational courses can take young people into apprenticeships and graduate apprenticeships and the workplace that can only be a good thing. Schools having closer links with local employers is a good thing, because many young people will go on to work in their local communities at least for a period of time as weekend jobs or after leaving school.

Vocational spent need to mean low paid or low aspiration, it may mean becoming a local business person, employing others and supporting SME, which is the route to growth in many instances.

I’m in Scotland, our education system is utterly fucked - I’d be delighted if the Scottish government would give some proper though to how education should support young people into employment.

I actually disagree with that slightly and it depends on the school. A grammar definitely won't not push bright kids but at comprehenives there is A reluctance at some to prioritise academic achievement (possibly simply because of resource). My local comprehensive does support bright kids (to a beer extent to other schools in the area) but there is a reluctance to push the line that some kids are going end up doctors and lawyers while some will be labourers as it is feared divisive and elitist. Take work experience for example the school is reluctant for their to be any division of the type available dependent on academic achievement. Teaching of subjects like English and music are under pressure as comps face pressure to improve their vocational offering. I guess that why some families choose private?

Do you have direct experience of a good, large comprehensive where a range of options and pathways are presented and supported? You seem to make the assumption that academic routes are not supported. This is not my experience. It isn’t some intrinsic part of comprehensive education. At 16 students can choose a highly selective a level setting or a vocational college. Options are there and can be discussed.

We don’t.

The curriculum dictates what we teach, as laid out by the government; it doesn’t dictate who we teach - at my comp, we have the full ability range. Our attitudes don’t come into it. We just deliver the curriculum; high-attaining pupils access more of it than lower-attaining pupils. If we had a more functional and practical skills-based curriculum, more of our lower-attaining children would access more of the curriculum.

Do You have teens OP?
Large state comps often do offer all routes. Ours does. But we are surrounded by schools hell bent on pushing all kids down academic route whether it’s right from then at 14 or not

Precisely.

Children choose their own work experience. Our Cambridge-bound Y13 engineer went to a university robotics department (state comprehensive).

I think there is bigger debate here Andy B studied English at Cambridge (bloody useless eh?) By denouncing academic routes too rapidly you woodpecker rafts of the population aspiring toward elite professional roles in society. Yes we need plumbers erc. but we don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water and start limiting aspiration or overly critiquing traditional academic institutions.

I think the issue is that graduates often can't get retail work and basic admin jobs are almost non-existent due to AI.
The actual content of GCSE and A Levels needs to change as learning by rote is what AI is more capable of. Practical application using lived experience, not so much.

Disagree

at gcse options choice, the school I used to work in had no vocational options. None.

prior to year 9 all students learn am(and have to learn) a broad snd balanced curriculum. Everyone does maths and history and music and PE and some sort of cdt (craft design and technology) and so on.

gcse options time allows kids to narrow down, but not totally narrow down.

english, maths and science are compulsory for everyone across every school. But many schools offer no vocational choices at age 14.

it wouldn’t seriously harm an academic child to do one vocational option out of ten GCSEs either. I went to Cambridge and I have GCSEs in PE and woodwork (and the woodwork one has been bloody useful!)

pre gove my school offered catering, construction, hairdressing as vocational courses. Catering was wildly popular with all types of pupils (it’s a life skill and for pupils aiming for uni can get you a part time job to support your studies). Construction was also very popular with the boys who were aiming at a trade.
hairdressing somewhat less popular and mostly female but there was a lot of “dealing with clients” and working out costs etc that meant a lot of students with special needs really benefitted from it.

Your interpretation of the situation is far from reality OP.