EPI and SKOPE: Policy Churn Creating Chaos for 16-19 Year Olds

UK nations are failing to provide a coherent and equitable education offer for 16-19 year olds, new research finds 

Constant Policy Churn, Fragmented Pathways, And A Lack Of Sustained Focus

Post-16 education and training systems across the UK have been undermined by constant policy churn, fragmented pathways, and a lack of sustained focus from policymakers, according to a new report from the Education Policy Institute (EPI) and the University of Oxford’s Centre for Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance (SKOPE). 

These findings come from a multi-year project jointly conducted by EPI and SKOPE, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, which reviewed post-16 education and training systems across all four UK nations. Key findings from the project include: 

• Policy churn, fragmented pathways, and a lack of sustained focus from policymakers have created confusion for young people, entrenched inequalities, and raised serious concerns among employers.
• Educational outcomes in Wales are particularly concerning, with lower participation, attainment, and higher rates of young people not in education, employment or training, particularly among disadvantaged young people. 
• All four UK nations must also urgently review apprenticeship participation to ensure greater uptake among young people. Apprenticeships are a popular option amongst young people, but availability remains low for them.  
• By failing to address skills deficits, the system also risks holding back efforts to drive economic growth. 

The project’s final report, “Comparing inequality and outcomes across post-16 education in the UK”, identifies a series of key recommendations to improve the effectiveness and coherence of post-16 education and training systems. 

Key recommendations: 

Improve apprenticeship participation: all four nations should conduct an urgent review to increase the apprenticeship participation of young people and those from more disadvantaged backgrounds. 

Pay for Further Education (FE) staff: there is an urgent need to conduct a full review of pay and conditions for FE staff. 

Establish stable post-16 pathways: there is a huge complexity in post-16 pathways across all four nations, with constant policy churn adding to the mix. Policymakers should target a stable set of post-16 pathways.  

Improve coordination: policymakers should establish greater coordination at both national and local levels. 

Embed employability skills: employability skills should be explicitly integrated into post-16 curricula as part of ongoing curriculum and assessment review. 

Use better data to target inequalities: the UK government and devolved administrations should enhance data collection to facilitate more robust comparisons across nations, with a particular focus on addressing inequalities. 

Improve outcomes in Wales: urgent action is needed in Wales to raise the proportion of young people achieving Level 3 qualifications, which is notably lower than the rest of the UK.  The share of Welsh boys going to university has hardly increased at all in the last 25 years and is now lower than it was 6 years ago before the pandemic.  

Luke Sibieta, Research Fellow at the Education Policy Institute, said: 

 “Post-16 education and training institutions are vital to the UK’s educational landscape. Yet they are often an afterthought for policymakers, with huge policy churn adding to the complexity across all four nations. Policymakers must focus on creating a stable set of high-quality post-16 education institutions, with a greater focus on addressing persistent inequalities. 

“The share of young people in Wales achieving A-levels or equivalent is lower than anywhere else in the UK, particularly for those from working class backgrounds. This is highly likely to reflect persistently low skills and outcomes in schools. Disadvantaged young people in Wales have worse outcomes before age 16 than the rest of the UK. This problem has been known about for years, if not decades. Policymakers in Wales must take urgent action to address the root causes, ensuring that another generation of disadvantaged young people is not failed.”  

Professor James Robson, Director of the Centre for Skills, Knowledge, and Organisational Performance (SKOPE) at the University of Oxford, said: 

“This research highlights the challenges post-16 education and training faces across the whole of the UK and the difficulties both employers and young people face in navigating complex pathways and sets of qualifications. However, across the UK nations, there is a trend towards more joined up policy approaches to education and training that emphasise greater collaboration between HE and FE, the state playing a greater role in coordinating skills supply, and a more place-based approach to the development of an integrated tertiary education system. This policy approach needs to be developed further to ensure post-16 education and training is working effectively and efficiently for both the economy and society.” 

Dr Emily Tanner, Programme Head at the Nuffield Foundation said:  

“This research demonstrates the value of taking a four-nation perspective on education and training policy. Young people face similar challenges in the transition to employment and the policy solutions being tested offer rich opportunities for shared learning. Improving data would unlock further opportunities to understand and address inequalities.” 

David Hughes CBE, Chief Executive, Assocation of Colleges (AoC) said:

“The report from the Education Policy Institute and Oxford University takes a thorough look at the recent experience in post-16 education and training policy churn, strained resources, complex pathways and inequalities in access and calls for a better way forward. I would agree. All of these conclusions will also be familiar to those working in colleges.

“We agree with the researchers that government policy should be built around a longer-term strategy, address staffing issues, focus on reducing the number of young people who drop out after 16, tackle inequalities and work with employers and colleges to increase the number of apprenticeships for those at the start of their career.

“I look forward to the forthcoming post-16 education and skills white paper to offer a more coherent vision and systems design for the next few years and perhaps even more.”