First published in The Times, 11 July 2020:
Sir, For years the mantra was “university, university, university”, when it should have been “skills, skills, skills” (“Williamson drops Blair target of 50% getting university place”, Jul 10). Millions of students take on huge loans yet cannot be guaranteed a good graduate job. Rather than quantity over quality, post-16 education should be based on three criteria: does it meet our country’s skills needs? Does it help the disadvantaged to climb the education ladder of opportunity? Does it ensure skilled and decently paid employment for students?
Further education, which has so often provided the answer to these questions, was viewed by the establishment as the “Cinderella” sector. Yet Cinderella became a member of the royal family; it is time to banish the ugly sisters of snobbery and underfunding.
