Schools to be tasked with ‘ensuring pupils have a post-16 destination’

Schools will be “tasked with ensuring every pupil has a clear post-16 destination”, Downing Street has said, after Sir Keir Starmer announced a new target for further and higher education participation.

The prime minister told the Labour conference in Liverpool he would scrap the last Labour government’s target of having 50 per cent of young people go to university, which he said was not “right for our times”.

The government will “replace it with a new ambition, that two thirds of our children should go either to university or take a gold standard apprenticeship.

In further details released shortly after the speech, Downing Street said the target would be for “two-thirds of young people participating in higher-level learning – academic, technical or apprenticeships – by age 25, up from 50 per cent today”.

A sub-target will “ensure at least 10 per cent of young people pursue higher technical education or apprenticeships by age 25 by 2040, a near doubling of today’s figure – helping support our economic needs”.

Lack of details on new policy

Downing Street went on to say that “schools will be tasked with ensuring every pupil has a clear post-16 destination, supported by Ofsted, with a guaranteed college or FE provider place available as a safety net”.

However, after publication of the press release and this story, the government updated its text, watering-down the language.

The release now states that schools will “play a greater role in ensuring every pupil has a clear post-16 destination, supported by Ofsted, with a new approach to a guaranteed college or FE provider place available as a safety net being tested”.

The Department for Education said schools would only be responsible for ensuring pupils’ immediate post-16 pathway, not their wider destinations up to age 25.

The department said it would “revise guidance so that schools routinely provide targeted support for those at risk of becoming NEET, helping them choose their next step and successfully transition into post-16 education and training”. It has not said whether this guidance will be statutory.

Those without a post-16 study plan will be “automatically allocated a place at a local college or further education provider. Those young people will be “contacted by the provider to be given a place and have the wraparound support provided to ensure they remain in education or training”.

Lack of detail on proposed new responsibilities

Schools already have a legal duty to provide careers advice to their pupils, but are not expected to guarantee them a post-16 pathway.

Local authorities on the other hand have a duty under what’s called the “September guarantee” to find education and training places for 16- and 17-year-olds. It is not clear what additional duties will be placed on schools, and whether they will be statutory.

The government has also said that colleges “will be expected to deliver at least 100 hours of face-to-face English and maths teaching for those who haven’t passed those GCSEs, supported by targeted funding and training”.

It has not said, however, whether schools will also face the same expectation for sixth formers who have not passed the qualifications.

Starmer vows to fight ‘deportation’ of school workers

Starmer also took aim in his speech at Reform UK’s recently-announced policy of ending indefinite leave to remain if it wins the next election, warning of potential ramifications for the school workforce.

“If you say or imply that people cannot be English or British because of the colour of their skin. That mixed heritage families owe you an explanation,” he told a packed conference hall.

“That people who have lived here for generations, raised their children here, built their lives here, working in our schools, our hospitals, running businesses, our neighbours.

“If you say they should now be deported, then mark my words, we will fight you with everything we have, because you are the enemy of national renewal.”