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.

I have a Year 10 and she's adamant she does not want to do BTech or any vocational studies. Her school has 6th form college days and she picked do to maths and physics. I'm going to do whatever it needs to help her fulfil her dreams. I have no idea if it will lead to jobs and I think it's wrong to just do a course because it is wanted in the local job market. While at the same time I think Andy Burham is right that we only promote university and the academic path as the only worthwhile path.

I hate to use the word technical because both DH and my job are highly technical but all our colleagues are university graduates. DH and I are in data science and software. When I did my degree, my parents were against it and they wanted me to study law, like my father. I was not certain there were jobs in software. But it later became a very hot area and I never worked a shop job and walked into my first industry job after a handful of interviews. DH was a research scientist at unversity on computer vision and it was not an area with a lot of work. He didn't know 30 years ago that data science suddenly became really hot, and anyone with experience handling big data maths basically walk into jobs. His current job was the only one he interviewed and he got it, switching from academia to industry. Neither of us work for a local company.

I don't know what is to learn about 'AI' that Burnham is talking about. Everyone at both DH and my work are doing agentic workflows and no one needs a course to learn to use it. The value a human bring is actually the domain expertise, not how to use AI. Europe is very behind in AI. All the good models are either in China or the US. The US is holding back on the most advanced models. China we don't trust. And the technical people we need to make us self reliant are those that come from university. Not technical people who stop being academic from 14. People who work for the likes of DeepMind.

I keep telling my children that I have no idea what job will still be there in 10, 20 or 40 years. I didn't see software development as something that will easily find a job when I went to university. I did it because I found I was very good at it when I did it at GCSE. My long essay here is that we shouldn't stop kids dreaming about what they want to do, all in sacrifice of the local job market.

Oh and I did to jobs at university. I did tutoring instead of McDonalds.

I don't think clever children should have the mindset that University is their only option. My son is very clever and wants to be an engineer in the car industry. He is better off getting an apprenticeship after A levels in that industry than going to University. I wouldn't push him down the Uni route because that's what you do when you are clever. I think University is something you should go to if your chosen profession requires it. The days of just going to Uni for the hell of it are over.

Turkish Barber looks like a growth area.

I don’t believe Burnam’s model is pushing “working class jobs for non academic kids”. Rather an updated 1980s model would be small, selective, debt‑free, academically rigorous, and embedded within a dual‑track post‑18 system where vocational and technical routes are equally prestigious and well‑funded.

A national cap of say 15-25% of the cohort would be set for academic degrees. There would be a competitive entry based on GCSE results, interview, and subject specific aptitude tests – mirroring the selective methods for Oxbridge. Priorities would be weighted towards STEM, data science, teaching, engineering and medicine thus aligning academic training with national needs. Funding would be via grants instead of loans.

The other half of the system would be vocational and technical led routes. Instead of going to university most young people would enter a technical college, an apprenticeship or polytechnic style institution. These routes would be prestigious and not second class. Students would receive grants, paid apprenticeships and employer led career paths.

The government would set annual targets based upon need and university and vocational places would be allocated accordingly. Local authorities would set up regional skills boards to decide which industry needs more workers, and which training centers to fund.

This is Burnham’s model.

@mids2019 ,

I kind of agree with you about reintroducing grammars. But then we need a lot of them and spread out, so there are enough places for all that are able to get in (without a hothouse tutoring regime).

OTOH, both my children go/went to the local comp. A lot of subjects are settee and they have had opportunities to visit other schools about careers in medicine and visited one of the top private schools in London for a debate competition, where they placed respectably and above many private schools.

Children aspirations aren’t mainly set by the careers service at a school. They are mainly set at home, both by their parents’ backgrounds and the messaging there.

If makes a lot of sense for those who aren’t academic to learn job skills rather than being sent down an academic pathway where they will always struggle and be frustrated. The vast majority of the country will never be able to solve quadratics. That is just how it is, and asking them to try is unfair on them.

How many potential Cambridge students do you think are missing out by Burnham’s policies? I would bet vanishingly few.

Is it? I don't think any of the detail of that (caps on student numbers, selection of 16) has been announced outside from your obviously AI-generated post?

https://www.dailymail.com/debate/article-16020699/MICHAEL-GOVE-Burnhams-Labour-message-working-class-know-place.html

Interesting piece by Give which readers here will have but there is an argument of pulling up the drawbridge here. Essentially the reforms are perceived on giving up on working class aspiration through aspiration but ensuring they do the types of jobs their forebears did; a perpetuation of the working class and an antithesis to social mobility.

interesting perspective of Burnham as being highly intelligent and well read but quite willing to deny others the chance by streaming then into vocational training at an early age.......

as I said I guess the Andy's children and his cabinet's won't be wearing a hard hat......fair bet they will be graduates from good universities though.

It’s not surprising that Michael Gove has come out swinging to defend his own abysmal record as Education secretary. I did still read it though - and you’re right, I did hate it!! Not just because of the smug, patronising, sniping tone (I mean talk about playing the player not the ball) but also because it’s central arguments are so fundamentally flawed. It’s easy for Gove to cherry pick successes but it is a fact the educational attainment gap between wealthy and disadvantaged students has continued to widen, and it’s going to take more than endlessly tougher exams to fix it. Interestingly, Ken Baker - the Conservative Education Minister who Gove himself praised in that article - has said he thinks Burnham could be “Britain’s greatest PM for education since the 1980s”, so hopefully there are some thinkers on the right who will engage with these reforms in good faith and give them the serious discussion and debate they deserve - that Michael Gove article definitely isn’t it, though.

I think one point is are we actually addressing educational inequality by introducing what effectively is a vocational stream for some kids at 14. One could say effectively we are giving up on educational attainment for some 14 year old by steering them towards early vocational choice yet maintaining the full academic curriculum for the 'brighter' kids and therefore unintentionally entrenching inequality or at least narrowing life choices. (Gove can be abit smug in style granted)

I feel this ides has been broached by multiple past governments and there has been a failure to address the argument you are moving back toward a grammar (professional jobs) secondary modern (skilled manual jobs) but with modern marketing.

As I said earlier it's not Eton or selective grammars taking up the burden of an altered curriculum. (which actually might be quite w
egalitarian) but average comps and aprt of my concern is that a school shift of focus towards preparation for jobs may inadvertently compromise their raison detre which is excellent academic education as places of learning.

I do hear you - and the last thing I would want to see is working class kids exclusively funnelled into vocational routes, while the more traditional academic curriculum is exclusively studied by middle class kids - but absolutely nothing about either Andy Burnham or Lucy Powell’s life experiences or political philosophies make me believe that is what they want either, which gives me faith that of all governments, they are the ones to do this and do it properly.

I would bet money that not one single kid from a working class background with the academic interests and abilities to end up at Cambridge will be funnelled into a vocational route at 14. And I don’t believe that Michael Gove thinks that will happen either - which is why I find that article to be so disingenuous.

The hope, however, is that plenty of kids who might have given up on school altogether at 14, because they spend every day feeling bad at everything, might spend a few hours a week in vocational training, where for once they feel good at something, and they start to value of education and see it as a way into a future, rather than a waste of time.

Although the word IQ is very unfashionable these days, schools still do measure it. They just call it cognitive testing instead and repeat it at various stages.

But the reality is that mainstream schooling has to somehow educate pupils with cognitive scores of 80-150 (and a few either side). It can’t be one size fits all.

There is a difference between being aspirational for all and thinking everyone is capable of an academic education. And, by 14, you pretty much can divide the cohort up.

It is actually unfair trying to pursue a tough academic curriculum with those unsuited for it. They just get miserable as they can’t really achieve. It makes a lot of sense to start teaching them more vocationally at this stage.

overall the main issue is society always needs its workers to do all the low wage jobs, then society needs only so many managers or ceo's to run those companies.

in theory you tell society all you can be, but in reality you need peope do do the general duties rather than be management etc

I think Burnham has Germany as a model in mind. They do vocational education really well and score highly in the Pisa rankings (although have dropped recently).

Equal opportunity does not mean equal outcomes
This is where political messaging often becomes simplified.
Governments frequently promote:

• "You can be anything."
• "Work hard and you'll succeed."

These are statements about opportunity, not statistical probability. In reality:

• not everyone can become a surgeon
• not everyone can become a judge
• not everyone can become a company director

because the economy only requires limited numbers of these occupations. Even if everyone possessed identical ability, there would still be competition for a finite number of positions.

A criticism of the "opportunity society"
Political scientists have long pointed out an inherent mathematical problem.
Imagine 100 people competing for 10 executive jobs.
If everyone receives perfect education:

• the competition becomes fairer,
• but there are still only 10 executive jobs.

Therefore:

• 90 people will still not obtain them.

Academic discussions of social mobility argue that focusing solely on helping individuals "climb the ladder" overlooks the fact that the ladder itself has a limited number of top rungs.

Why is he pushing vocational education?
There are several reasons.

1. Labour shortages are not where graduates are

The UK has persistent shortages in sectors such as:

• engineering
• construction
• advanced manufacturing
• logistics
• healthcare technicians
• green energy
• digital technicians

Many of these occupations require technical qualifications rather than traditional university degrees. Burnham argues schools should prepare students for actual labour market demand, especially local demand.

Too many graduates are underemployed
One of the biggest economic criticisms of Britain's education system is that many graduates end up in jobs that historically did not require degrees.
Examples include:

• retail management
• customer service
• administration
• hospitality
• sales

This is sometimes called credential inflation. Degrees become entry tickets rather than indicators that a job genuinely requires graduate-level knowledge. Burnham believes many young people would have been better served by apprenticeships or technical education instead.

Britain has undervalued Further Education
For decades Britain expanded universities while FE colleges received relatively less attention.
Countries such as:

• Germany
• Switzerland
• Austria
• the Netherlands

have long-established vocational systems that employers regard as prestigious rather than second-rate. Burnham wants Britain to move closer to that model.

Regional economic strategy
One distinctive aspect of Burnham's policy is devolution.
He argues Greater Manchester should train people for the industries actually located there rather than follow a one-size-fits-all national curriculum.
For example:

• aerospace
• biomedical science
• manufacturing
• construction
• transport
• NHS careers

should influence what schools teach locally.

Does Burnham want fewer university students?
Not exactly.

His position is better described as:

University should be one prestigious route, not the default or only prestigious route.

He argues that England has spent decades treating university as the benchmark of success while undervaluing technical education. His objective is to give vocational pathways equal status and stronger links to employment, rather than to diminish universities themselves.

The broader economic question

At a structural level, Burnham's reforms reflect a recognition that labour markets are demand-driven. The economy determines how many engineers, nurses, electricians, software developers, care workers and executives are needed. Education policy can influence the supply of skills, but it cannot create unlimited high-status professional jobs.

In that sense, the vocational push is not simply an educational philosophy. It is an attempt to align the education system more closely with the occupational structure of the economy, while raising the status and quality of careers that are essential but have often been viewed as less prestigious than the traditional university route.

The UK is unique in Europe in rehearsing the academic v technical/vocational argument again and again because our class system is still entrenched. The context for his announcement about changes at 14-19 was made in the context of the current high NEET figures and politicians having failed Gen Z. The changes proposed are positive, provided that new qualifications ensure high quality provision, that there is flexibility and choice for all pupils, that careers advice and mentoring are given greater priority, and that employers, schools, colleges and universities are all involved in developing the technical and vocational offers.

A personal anecdote from the 1970s. I was academic and trotted off happily to university, desperate to leave home. Our school pushed hard for my brother to do the same but he, desperate to remain in our home city, was having none of it and did an engineering apprenticeship. Our parents both left school at 14, my dad eventually taking over the family business with his brother. My parents did what most Education has to change because the world changes.

There is some truth in this and let's face it the low low skill workers will come pretty much from one cohort of students, those taking the 'vocational' fewer G C S E route. Managerial/professional jobs will come from the academic GCSE cohort, the majority of which will have degrees. A builder grafting 10 hours per day on building site in winter with limited breaks will not be thinking at that point his hard hat is as prestigious as the university cap once worn by a corporate lawyer. A healthy amount of cynicism about politicians use of snappy platitudes I think is not a bad thing to have. Therefore I do think we have to look at such 'revolutionary' schemes with caution even when delivered by a charismatic optimistic PM.

one thing I have observed locally is that when non academic kids are offered free choice of vocational courses in FE they go for creative arts, music, acting, fashion design, sport management etc. All vacations with limited real employment prospects as guess what the local job market is weighed towards ware house operatives rather than music producers. There are plenty of disappointed college leavers locally who have spent time studying or even practising a subject where there as no jobs. However no one is voluntarily do vocational training in retail, security, bus driving, care work etc., all necessary jobs but maybe not the first choice on people's list given some hypothetical choice.
I
one concern is that if a school brings in vocational training students will choose the more glamorous vocations which will waste time and money if there are no jobs. ( Unless we have a teacher telling young Johnny he is a for lad and the local council need refuse collection operatives and there is a great co-academic course for that you can do at school).

We have to be real about society.

fit lad above

I disagree, education is about preparing kids for adulthood, this can mean academic qualifications and off to university but for at least half of kids this means ensuring they are ready to go into apprenticeships or other entry level positions. This doesn’t mean non academic students don’t learn academic qualifications but it does mean offering a broad appropriate education which will perhaps engage a subset kids far more than the current curriculum from 14