What happened to youth apprenticeships?
Half a century ago around one third of teenage boys entered apprenticeships on leaving school, mostly into programmes of 3-4 years in manual trades. A…
Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS)
The missing middle of higher technical learners
Compared to other countries, England has a high share of graduates: almost half of young people now progress to higher education. Yet at the same…
The importance of second chances in our education system
Across the country, there are millions of adults with poor qualifications and low levels of skills. In fact, a quarter of working-age adults in England…
IFS: Lack of progress on closing educational inequalities disadvantaging millions throughout life
New research on inequalities, carried out for the IFS Deaton Review of Inequalities and funded by the Nuffield Foundation, finds that disadvantaged pupils start school…
School spending per pupil in 2024 to remain 3% below 2010 levels in real-terms once you account for actual costs faced by schools
Between 2009-10 and 2019-20, we estimate that school spending per pupil in England fell by 9% in real-terms. In the 2019 and 2021 Spending Review,…
Delivering a Lifetime Skills Guarantee
The UK government has committed to deliver a ‘Lifetime Skills Guarantee’ – a commitment to provide every adult with the training and education they need…
Student living cost support cut to lowest level in seven years
The value of government support for living costs for university students from the poorest families will fall to its lowest level in seven years in…
Plans will leave spending on adult education and apprenticeships 25% below 2010 levels by 2025
Total spending on adult education and apprenticeships fell by 38% in real-terms between 2010–11 and 2020–21, with a 50% fall in spending on classroom-based adult…
IFS Briefing: Where should public sector pay rises be targeted?
Arguments over public sector pay deals later this year are inevitable. The government’s spending plans, fixed in cash terms last autumn, were predicated on pay…
Proposed minimum eligibility requirements for student loans could reduce higher education participation for ethnic minorities and poorer students
New IFS research finds that a blanket minimum eligibility requirement (MER) for access to student loans would be a highly imperfect way of improving student…