Can we fix further education?

The Conservatives want to revolutionise further education and apprenticeships. But can Britain ever make a German-style model work? Simon Wilson reports

Worker and apprentice
Germany: a successful model but not an easy one to follow
(Image credit: © imageBROKER/Shutterstock)

What’s happened?

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson has announced that the government is scrapping the Blair-era target that 50% of students in England should go on to higher education and pledged a pivot – in status and funding – towards vocational further education. “For decades, we have failed to give further education the investment it deserves,” said Williamson in a speech hosted by the Social Market Foundation think tank. “There are limits to what we can achieve by sending ever more people into higher education, which is not always what the individual and nation needs.” Williamson wants to build a “world-class, German-style further education system” that will equip young workers for the 21st century. He pointed out that five years after completion, the average higher technical apprentice earns more than the average graduate. He even updated Tony Blair’s election slogan, saying that: “From now on, our mantra must be further education, further education, further education”.

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Simon Wilson’s first career was in book publishing, as an economics editor at Routledge, and as a publisher of non-fiction at Random House, specialising in popular business and management books. While there, he published Customers.com, a bestselling classic of the early days of e-commerce, and The Money or Your Life: Reuniting Work and Joy, an inspirational book that helped inspire its publisher towards a post-corporate, portfolio life.   

Since 2001, he has been a writer for MoneyWeek, a financial copywriter, and a long-time contributing editor at The Week. Simon also works as an actor and corporate trainer; current and past clients include investment banks, the Bank of England, the UK government, several Magic Circle law firms and all of the Big Four accountancy firms. He has a degree in languages (German and Spanish) and social and political sciences from the University of Cambridge.