Read: LPC 23 - Young Enterprise puts applied learning at the top of the Labour Party Conference agenda
Labour’s fifth mission in Government – breaking down the barriers to opportunity – highlighted the importance of a curriculum that ensures young people leave school ready for work and ready for life. That includes helping them to understand the skills they’ve already accumulated during their academic education at school and how they can be used to meet the kind of challenges they might encounter in the real world.
Applied learning puts that ambition into practice. It enables teachers to bring real-world contexts and ideas to young people’s education through hands-on experiences and problem solving across different subject areas, linking their learning to a life beyond school. It has been shown to improve engagement and motivation, build transferable skills, improve academic outcomes, create a more productive workforce and is cost-effective to deliver.
At an event hosted by Young Enterprise and the Purpose Coalition at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool today, Ready for the real world: How can applied learning give young people the skills they need for the future?, a panel discussion explored how a comprehensive system of applied learning would improve access to opportunity for young people and boost social mobility, equipping them for a more productive and prosperous future. As part of a coherent skills system, it can also encourage the digital, oracy and life skills that Labour’s fifth mission promotes. Speakers included Chair of the Purpose Coalition and former Education Secretary, Rt Hon Justine Greening, Sharon Davies, Chief Executive, Young Enterprise and Nick Forbes CBE, Engagement Director, Purpose Coalition. The event also heard first-hand about the experiences of two young people who have taken part in Young Enterprise programmes.
In a rapidly changing world, too many young people feel that they are ill-equipped to take their place in the workplace and research shows that many employers share similar misgivings with 42% citing a lack of skills, 36% a lack of experience and 34% a lack of confidence (34%) as the main reasons why they are not hiring young people. With a 2022 PwC study showing that improving education, training and employment for young people could provide a £40bn boost to the UK’s GDP, it is vitally important that politicians, policy makers and business recognise the economic and social benefits of applied learning and the impact it could have on young people’s futures and that of the economy.
