Context is key – to numeracy and to our youth unemployment programme
As Alan Milburn works at pace to investigate the surging youth unemployment rate, which topped one million young people in the latest statistics, what could he recommend to make the education system better at preparing young people for employment?
For one, schools will have to deliver greater technical provision. The government scrapping the English Baccalaureate accountability measure should give schools the freedom to deliver technical subjects. Headteachers will also note the Schools White Paper has included STEM skills in its incoming enrichment framework. As one accountability measure closes, another one opens.
Teaching young people technical skills and increasing their understanding of relevant pathways is welcome. However, it is imperative that the education system – from early years through to university – also helps students develop less obvious but nonetheless essential skills.
Teamworking, communication, and critical thinking are all in demand by employers, while core knowledge such as literacy and numeracy provides the crucial foundations on which technical skills are built.
Yet at the same time as the youth unemployment crisis, we have a school attendance crisis: nearly a fifth of pupils were persistently absent in 2024/25 (the latest year for which data is available) and the percentage of severe absentees increased from 2023/24.
If the education system must better prepare young people for employment, how can we ensure students are in school to be prepared?
I recently appeared before the House of Lords’ vitally important Numeracy for Life Committee with Lord Baker, Baker Dearing’s Life President and a former Education Secretary.
During our evidence, I said the University Technical Colleges schools which we support and which deliver a high-quality technical education designed with local employers, are all about contextualisation.
Silverstone UTC, for example, is based at the famous racetrack, but students can take a business pathway, a digital pathway, or an engineering pathway. The students do not just study motorsport; but they are taught in the context of motorsport, so the skills they learn are applied to the running of race teams, the track, and the organisation behind it all.
Leigh UTC in Dartford, like many UTCs, works with wide range of companies. When those companies engage with students, through employer projects, work experience, lectures and so on, the employers indicate the purpose of learning and what they value. The projects they undertake with students help the young people utilise their skills as they would do at work.
UTC students are constantly aware that the skills they are developing are of use and importance and they will be valued in the long run. That is not just computer-aided design or CPR skills, it is the numeracy, critical thinking, communication, etcetera that lie behind them and which students will need in day-to-day work.
This contextualisation works for some of the hardest-to-reach learners: a 2025 report by Policy Exchange, From School to the Skilled Workforce, found that disadvantaged students in UTCs achieve comparatively strong outcomes in maths relative to national averages.
Furthermore, a survey of year 9 and 10 UTC students last year found just under half agree the mix of academic, technical and practical learning is more interesting and relevant. Almost two-thirds of year 11s said their attendance had improved at the UTC.
By engaging students and helping them achieve, UTCs each year help around a fifth of their year 13 leavers to progress to apprenticeships. Last year, half these apprenticeships were higher or degree level. Just five per cent became NEET.
Contextualisation could work in any school. Crucially, it needs employer involvement so we would encourage schools and colleges to run networking events to build links with their local business community. This can then lead to the creation of employer representative boards, where companies and organisations feed into curriculum and enrichment.
T Levels, which include a minimum 315-hour industry placement for students, are challenging to deliver. But students build links with the placement employer who can offer them an apprenticeship or job, and the school or college strengthens its relationships with business. Incoming V Levels, smaller and more vocational than T Levels, could offer similar benefits.
The government could support this activity, partly through initiatives already underway such as the enrichment framework. But also by reactivating capital funding for settings that roll-out T Levels, to encourage their delivery.
Baker Dearing is supporting more schools to deliver employer-led technical education, through our Baker Award which celebrates students who engage with employers and develop technical skills. Also through our UTC Sleeve initiative, which develops a high-quality, employer-led technical education pathway within a mainstream school. One UTC Sleeve will open in Barrow-in-Furness this September and we are working with central government and local mayors to open more.
Kate Ambrosi is Chief Executive Officer of the Baker Dearing Educational Trust, which works to empower young people through high-quality, employer-guided technical education, including via England’s 44 University Technical Colleges.
