Context is key – to numeracy and to our youth unemployment programme
Alan Milburn and his panel are working at pace to investigate the surging youth unemployment rate, which topped one million young people in the latest statistics. At the same time, nearly a fifth of pupils were persistently absent in 2024/25 (the latest year for which data is available), putting them at risk of underachievment and future unemployment.
What can be done to make the education system better at engaging young people in school and at preparing young people for employment?
Our argument is that students can be engaged in education and better prepared for employment if learning is placed in the context of careers and industry. Demonstrating to students that the knowledge and skills they are learning will be valuable in work engages them and means they are more likely to retain what they are taught.
This is the argument I made to the House of Lords’ Numeracy for Life Committee when giving evidence alongside former Education Secretary and Baker Dearing’s Life President Lord Baker.
The University Technical Colleges, which we support, deliver a high-quality technical education designed in partnership with local employers. These state-funded schools use the business context to engage their students and to support them to learn crucial skills such as numeracy, while developing technical and professional skills.
Silverstone UTC, for example, is based at the famous racetrack; students can take a business pathway, or an engineering pathway. The students do not just study motorsport (although they are just about to launch the first T Level in motorsport), but they are taught in the context of motorsport, so they learn skills in computer science and English, by applying them to the challenges facing their employer partners, such as Aston Martin and the Silverstone Circuit.
The Leigh UTC in Dartford, like many UTCs, works with a wide range of companies, for example Kenard Engineering, European Springs and Pressing Ltd, Alcatel Submarine Networks and Amazon. When those companies engage with students, through employer projects, work experience, lectures and other activities, the employers indicate the purpose of learning and which skills and aptitudes they value. The projects they undertake with students help the young people utilise their skills as they would at work, reinforcing the learning and improving retention.
UTC students are constantly aware that the skills they are developing – whether specific to a job or more broadly useful, such as numeracy – will be valued in the long run.
This contextualisation works for some of the hardest-to-reach learners, meaning that according to a 2025 report by Policy Exchange, From School to the Skilled Workforce, disadvantaged students in UTCs achieve strong outcomes in maths relative to national averages.
Furthermore, a survey of year 9 and 10 UTC students last year found 89% know they will gain skills which will make them employable. Eighty-two per cent agree the UTC has helped their attendance and engagement by creating a positive school environment which is welcoming, safe, and inclusive.
UTCs each year see around 20% of their year 13 leavers progress to apprenticeships, three times the national average. Last year, 9% of the apprenticeships taken up by UTC leavers were higher or degree level, versus 2% nationally. Just 5% of UTC leavers became NEET, compared to 10% nationally.
There are multiple ways government can support contextualisation to achieve similar outcomes in mainstream schools.
The government made a positive move in scrapping the English Baccalaureate accountability measure. But schools are unlikely to use this freedom to deliver technical subjects, or teach to the quality students need, without guidance. Nor without funding for the facilities, equipment, and specialist teaching to offer these expensive subjects, which must replicate industry settings and practices.
T Levels, which include a minimum 315-hour industry placement for students, are challenging to deliver but can make a huge difference to social mobility and access to employment and apprenticeships. When T Levels, and hopefully incoming V Levels, are delivered with strong employer partnerships, specialist teaching, and industry-equivalent facilities, they can help students explore pathways and prepare for careers and higher technical education. As they do in UTCs, where last year nearly three-quarters of T Level leavers who progressed to apprenticeships started at the higher or degree level (compared to 61% nationally).
Baker Dearing is supporting schools to prepare young people for employment, through our Baker Award for Technical Education 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.
