Labour’s high-profile plan to cut tuition fees may prove a winner with younger voters.
But the party is quietly planning a more radical change to the way society prepares young people for a successful career – by making it easier for them to avoid fees entirely.
Labour leader Ed Miliband has announced he would cut student tuition fees from £9,000 a year to £6,000 a year, if he became Prime Minister.
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Birmingham MP Liam Byrne (Lab Hodge Hill), a shadow business minister, had the task of touring the television studios to explain why this is a good thing.
Critics point out the cut only helps graduates on pretty good incomes (around £31,000, although the precise figure varies according to who’s doing the maths). But Labour’s private polling suggests it is hugely popular among students and young people in general.
However, Mr Byrne and colleagues such as Labour’s shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna believe bigger changes are needed in the longer term.
They want to see less focus on the current system, in which students run up debts on the basis that they will pay the money back when they graduate, and a shift towards courses which allow them to learn while working.
In other words, students would not only avoid fees but actually earn a salary while studying – making them tens of thousands of pounds better off.
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This isn’t about crude schemes in which the apprentice works four days a week and spends one day at college. It’s about employers helping to create vocational qualifications in which learning on-site and, if appropriate, in a more traditional academic setting are seamlessly integrated.
It’s worth remembering “vocational” training today may be no less academically challenging than a traditional academic course. Students will be learning the complex skills required to succeed in a career in computing, financial services or modern high-tech manufacturing, for example.
And, for most young people who hope to end up with a £40,000 job, this is a much safer bet than studying history or philosophy. So it’s not a second-class option.
Labour is not alone in developing “earn while you learn” proposals.
The Government has drafted in Sir Charlie Mayfield, chair of the John Lewis Partnership, to try to help it find ways of improving skills.
He’s chair of the 海角视频 Commission on Employment and Skills, which recently published a plan designed to help young people get high-paying jobs. The proposals were backed by the CBI and TUC, so employers and the unions are both on board.
And the commission is a firm supporter of the “earn while you learn” idea.
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It said in its report: “Earning and learning should be the gold standard in vocational education
“We need a step change in attitude and uptake of quality vocational routes into good jobs. High-quality apprenticeships should be a normal career pathway for many more young people and a normal way for businesses to recruit and develop their talent pipeline.”
One challenge is we traditionally assume in the 海角视频 the brightest and the best people will go to university to study subjects which are clearly academic – and these are the same people who are guaranteed high-paying jobs in adult life.
Sir Charlie argues that this attitude has to change. But he may be pushing at an open door, as Labour argues young people today are already aware of how the job market works and understand that their best bet is to learn skills which are directly related to life in the workplace.
Sir Charlie’s report stresses that employers need to take the lead in delivering skills, backed by the Government.
And schools need to do more to build links with local businesses and inform young people about the breadth of career opportunities available. This ties in with long-standing concerns from a range of bodies that careers advice in schools is not up to the job.
Another challenge when talking about skills is that it’s not considered a sexy topic.
There’s a story that Tony Blair once remarked, as Prime Minister, that he could declare war on another country and nobody would notice if he did it in a speech called “Meeting the Skills Challenge”.
But for evidence of how important this issue is, consider the results of a survey of employers, cited by the 海角视频 Commission on Employment and Skills, which found they frequently struggled to find staff with the skills they needed.
Manufacturers said 30 per cent of vacancies fell into this category. In the business services sector, the figure was 28 per cent, and in the transport and communications sector the figure was 26 per cent.
Certainly, in Birmingham, we know a lack of skills has held the city back for decades – a point made by thinktank the Centre for Cities in their recent report.
The big political battle at the moment is about student tuition fees.
But fees are part of an education system which some employers and politicians believe is increasingly unfit for purpose.