Colleges will be key to Delivering the Prime Minister’s Youth Offer

The government’s plans for young people will go further if they are built around the colleges already providing technical pathways, work placements and apprenticeships, argues Laurence Frewin, Principal and Chief Executive, South Devon College

We welcome the prime minister’s focus on youth unemployment, and much of what Andy Burnham set out in his speech to the Labour Party conference in Liverpool on 29 September will be familiar to anyone working in further education.

 He spoke of almost a million young people who are not working or learning, and of a school system “overly focused on the university route and not enough on technical education”. Colleges see the consequences of that every year in young people who arrive having only ever been shown one route.

The national figures show the scale of the problem. The Office for National Statistics estimates that 981,000 people aged 16 to 24 were not in education, employment or training between April and June this year, around 13 per cent of the age group and 30,000 more than a year earlier.

 Alan Milburn’s interim review of young people and work, published in May, found that access to good careers advice remains uneven and that apprenticeships and vocational routes are still not promoted well enough to the young people who could benefit from them.

The pathways the offer needs are already here

The prime minister has promised technical pathways from 14, a 45-day work placement for young people aged 16 to 18 and an apprenticeship at 18, with education secretary Lucy Powell leading work on a new system of comprehensive education. 

Colleges are already delivering a great deal of this. Every T Level includes an industry placement of at least 315 hours, which is roughly 45 days, and colleges have spent several years building those placements with employers and learning what makes them successful for students and businesses alike.

At South Devon College we support students from Level 2 through to Level 6, including GCSEs, A Levels, T Levels, other technical qualifications, higher technical qualifications, apprenticeships and degree apprenticeships. 

That range enables young people to progress from education into skilled employment while remaining connected to local employers and opportunities, and the business that hosts a student’s placement at 17 can become the employer offering them an apprenticeship a year or two later.

For many young people, the most important opportunity they can be given is a first chance, whether that is a first job, a meaningful work placement, an industry project or an apprenticeship. Employers have an essential role in opening those doors and in helping young people develop the confidence, practical skills and workplace behaviours that come from real-world experience.

Through our construction employability pilot with Build Torbay and local construction businesses, full-time students develop the knowledge, skills and behaviours they need to succeed in their qualifications, together with the professional habits and employability skills that employers tell us they need in any business. 

14 Students took part in the 6-week employability & behaviours course with 13 of them gaining meaningful work experience with Employers that engaged with the programme. 8 of these students have subsequently moved into an Apprenticeship with all others undertaking or continuing with their learning at the College.

 Milburn found many employers keen to do more for young people yet held back from taking them on, and the pilot is a practical example of how colleges and employers can work together to create sustainable pathways into employment.

Careers guidance should start in primary school

Supporting more employers, particularly small and medium-sized businesses, to engage with apprenticeships is a positive step, although apprenticeships alone will not solve the challenge.

 If we are serious about reducing youth unemployment, careers education and guidance needs to start in primary school and continue throughout a young person’s education. It must be objective and informed by local labour market opportunities and employer needs, and it should present the full range of pathways available so that no young person grows up assuming the only route is GCSEs, A Levels and then university.

We also need to place greater value on technical and vocational education from age 14, and I welcome the prime minister’s commitment to it. Many young people thrive when they can see a clear connection between what they are learning and the careers they aspire to, and earlier exposure to employers, industry and technical learning can help raise aspirations and improve long-term outcomes.

Colleges should be central to delivery

National programmes often arrive with new structures attached, and there is a risk that time and funding go into setting those up while existing provision waits to see where it fits. Further education colleges already hold the employer relationships, facilities, placement experience and progression routes that this offer depends on, and the government will reach young people more quickly by placing colleges at the centre of delivery from the outset.

The challenge of youth unemployment is too complex for any single intervention to solve. Strong employer engagement, high-quality careers guidance, technical education, meaningful workplace experience and clear progression routes all have a part to play, and colleges such as South Devon College bring those elements together. We are well placed to help many more young people progress into skilled careers, and I hope ministers will draw on that experience as they turn the prime minister’s commitments into policy.

By Laurence Frewin, Principal and Chief Executive, South Devon College