Labour will end the charitable status of England’s private schools

Keir Starmer, Leader of @UKLabour, has pledged to create an education fit for the future to make sure every child leaves school job-ready and life-ready 

Labour would refocus the curriculum, deliver new opportunities for digital skills, practical work and life skills, sport and the arts, and give every child access to a professional careers adviser, to make sure every child leaves school ready for work and ready for life.

Labour’s plan would deliver the following:

Reform the ‘citizenship’ statutory programme within the national curriculum to include practical life skills, such as such as pension planning, understanding credit scores, applying for a mortgage and understanding employment and rental contracts.

Set out a long-term aspiration to make sure no young person leaves compulsory education without the qualifications they need for the modern economy. This will start with providing £250 million to local authorities to re-engage the 65,000 16-17 year olds who are not known to be in Education, Employment or Training (i.e. NEETs).

Introduce two weeks’ worth of compulsory work experience, to connect young people with local employers and build the skills needed for work.

Give every child access to quality careers advice in their school by giving schools access to a professional careers advisor one day a week.

Ensure all children leave school with the level of functional computer skills needed to succeed in the workplace by:

• Guaranteeing every child has access to a device at home, by establishing a device renewal fund, out of which Local Authorities can fund renewing the 1.3million devices delivered during the pandemic as a permanent scheme for children without adequate access to a device.
• Specifying mandatory skills which must be embedded across the curriculum, to ensure a whole school approach to developing digital skills in every lesson, and including basic digital skills development in the computing curriculum, not just computer science.

Labour’s Children’s Recovery Plan and 10 by 10 Pledge, providing that as we recover from the pandemic, every primary and secondary child should have access to weekly extracurricular activities and after school clubs. This could include the Duke of Edinburgh award, highly valued by employers, sports clubs, drama and music, debating or book clubs.

Keir Starmer MP, Leader of the Labour Party said:

“Every child should leave education ready for work and ready for life.

“Employers all around the country, in every sector, have told me how much they need well-rounded young people with relevant skills, literate in technology, equipped for life. And young people have told me how ambitious they are for their own futures.

“That’s why Labour would create an education system that would give every child the skills for the future.” 

To pay for this Labour will end the charitable status of England’s private schools, ending the VAT and business rate exemptions that they currently benefit from, raising £1.7 billion. The business rate exemption is worth about £104.4 million, and the VAT exemption is worth about £1.6 billion.