Why schools need to do more to prepare young people for work - Matt Bromley
Alan Milburn thinks our school system is “exam-obsessed” and is leaving young people unprepared for work. He’s not alone. In a recent YouGov poll, 74 per cent of teachers said there was too much emphasis on exams, while 73 per cent said there was not enough focus on preparing young people for employment.
Milburn, a former health secretary and chair of the Social Mobility Commission, is head of a government-commissioned review into young people and work. Launching the review, he said: “We have built an education system that is brilliant at sorting young people by academic ability and poor at equipping them for adult life.” In his interim report, published late May, he added that “the [education] system fails to enable [young people’s] participation in the labour market.”
I think Milburn’s right which is why the third book in my Equity in Education series – Securing Future Success for Every Child – explores ways of preparing young people for life beyond the school gates. I argue that academic success matters – profoundly so – but schools do not merely prepare students for their next academic assessment; they prepare them for life. The real measure of a school’s impact is not only what students achieve at 11, 16 or 18, but who they become at 20, 30, 40, and beyond.
And a successful life outside the school gates requires more than good grades; it demands independence of thought, emotional intelligence, resilience, cultural confidence, and readiness for the complex demands of further study, employment, and adult responsibility. These are not optional extras; they are core outcomes of a high-quality education.
The question, then, is not ‘what’ but ‘how’.
Firstly, schools must cultivate independent thinking. In an age of algorithm-driven feeds and polarised public discourse, the capacity to think critically is indispensable. Secondly, schools must promote intellectual autonomy because, when teachers articulate how they approach a problem, why they select certain strategies, and how they evaluate sources, they demystify expert thinking. Yet independence without emotional intelligence is brittle. And so, thirdly, schools must support students to become emotionally literate and self-regulated. Fourthly, and closely related to this, is the development of motivation, resilience, and self-efficacy. Resilience is not simply stoicism; it’s adaptive persistence – the willingness to confront challenge, seek support, adjust strategy, and try again. Self-efficacy is the belief that one can succeed through effort and strategy.
However, education does not occur in a vacuum. Students are members of communities – local, national, global. Fifthly, then, and in order to thrive beyond school, students must have cultural and social confidence. This means understanding diversity, navigating difference, and contributing positively to society. And finally, preparation for post-16 study, employment, and adult life must be explicit. Careers education should not be confined to a single week in Year 10; students benefit far more from sustained engagement with the world beyond school: encounters with employers, talks from alumni, workplace visits, mock interviews, and guidance on pathways.
Matt Bromley is CEO of bee and chair of the Building Equity in Education campaign. He is the author of numerous books on education. Find out more at http://bee-online.uk