Labour made a “terrible mistake” by pushing young people to enter higher education without an ambitious plan for those who would not go to university, according to Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham.

The Cambridge-educated former Labour cabinet minister warned this has had “serious consequences” as he blasted the “snobbery” which he claims is “riddled” throughout the education system in England.

He is concerned that people in Britain grow up in two separate “worlds”, saying: “You’re on the university route or you’re not on the university route.”

Then-PM Tony Blair set the “target of 50 per cent of young adults going into higher education” in September 1999 in a landmark speech. Higher education can be provided in non-university settings but there is widespread concern that young people feel pressured to become graduates.

Speaking candidly at a Centre for Social Justice event, Mr Burnham regretted there was not a similar focus on the futures of young people who will not go to university.

“It was a real terrible mistake actually, with quite serious consequences,” he said.
Condemning the “snobbery at the heart” of education in England, he attacked “this sense that the university route is the be all and end all”.

The most recent figures show 48.6 per cent of young people in England attend higher education by the age of 25, with 43.4 per cent studying for an undergraduate degree.

Ed Davies of the Centre for Social Justice said: “The current push to increase university numbers is leaving too many young people with little more than a useless qualification and a bagful of debt.

“Too often the dichotomy is not perceived as academic v. technical education, but academic v. second class. Every attempt to promote technical and vocational skills in UK education ends up demoting them as secondary to an academic education.

“While better apprenticeships, T levels, and BTECs are all useful parts of the system, real change will only happen when technical routes are given the same esteem from age 14 onwards as happens in some other countries in Europe.”

Raising the prestige of apprenticeships so they will be an attractive option for young people has been a challenge for successive governments.

Official statistics show a significant decline in people starting this form of training in recent years.
In 2015-16, 285,300 people under-25 in England started an apprenticeship. But in 2022-23, just 176,500 started one.
Despite the prospect of paying tuition fees and the challenge of student debt, many young people have the ambition of a university education.

Nearly 1.4million UK students were studying for a first degree at a British university in 2021-22.