It’s true they were. Right to start with the young that is. To start with Sure Start, Children’s Centres, investing in primary education, community nurseries and tax credits. These interventions all have the right intentions at their core – to ensure that children born to poorer parents have the same life chances as children born to richer parents. However it’s now time to turn our attention to teenagers.
I’m hopeful that in time – let’s not forget that Labour’s children are 12 at the most – these policies and interventions will be proven to have had had an impact; if not sufficiently to narrow the gap, then at least to stop it from growing wider and deeper. That said, we shouldn’t accept this as being enough. We need to strive for more and greater social mobility. And we need to do this by concentrating on teenagers. For me, the focus of any policy looking to address social mobility must remain with education and skills and it’s the turn of teenagers to reap some of the benefits. Not least because as I pointed out earlier, Labour’s babies will soon be teenagers and we need to build on the start these children have had.
We need to do this in two ways. First we must make it easier for bright but poorer students to get to university and to get experience of working in high level jobs, and to access employment in the professions. The Social Mobility panel is clearly correct in its assertions that this is STILL a massive barrier and it needs to be tackled.
Second we need to end our fixation with university and abandon the 50% target. University is clearly great for those who want to continue academic study and it is crucial that being able to attend the university of your choice is not linked to the finances of your parents.
But university isn’t and shouldn’t be for everyone. There needs to be a variety of post 18 options that include further learning, training and skills development, as university does, but differently. Granted there are some , and apprenticeships have had more and better press in recent years. But this is not enough.
Too many young people are pushed into applying and attending university because it’s what their school think is best or because they don’t quite know what else to do. Clearly, not all careers require a university degree, but more to the point even some that currently do, should have other routes in. And crucially in all this, these other routes need to be as valued as university. They should not be viewed as the route in for the less able, less driven or those with lower aspirations. They are just different. To do this we need to change the perceptions of employers, schools and parents.
This training, apprenticeship, accelerated skills programme – whatever you want to call it – must be a feature in a variety of careers and professions and across a whole heap of sectors. They need to nurture talent, develop skills, and crucially pay a decent wage. If we are to change things, then like internships, it is crucial that they are not the exclusive domain of those who can afford to work for free.
Only by offering a broad range of valued options that really develop the skills of young people, will we succeed in addressing the social mobility of our teenagers.