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Tens of thousands of 18-year-olds will not receive A-level results this week because they have dropped out of education and training, according to the Department for Education.

Nearly 58,000 18-year-olds are no longer in education or training - although some of these are in employment, the DfE has estimated.

It has become clear in recent weeks that this group will be a prime focus for education secretary Lucy Powell. From 2028, new technical education routes in schools, announced last month, will be piloted for 14-year-olds, combining skills training with work experience and connections with local employers.

However, MS Powell said she does not want to oversee a “two-tier system” in schools; she wants technical and vocational routes and paths that lead to university to be on an equal footing.

Neet crisis a priority for Powell

Almost 1 million young people aged 16 to 24 in the UK are (Neet).

Speaking ahead of A-level and T-level results day on Thursday, Ms Powell told the Press Association: “It’s a big number. We know that they’re more likely to be not in education and employment for the years to come, already being out of the system.”

The education secretary made a “clarion call for all of us in government, and business and employers and society more widely, to really address this issue because this has a huge impact not just on those individuals for the rest of their lives but on society and the economy for years to come”.

Ms Powell said that “pretty much” her first meeting as education secretary was with former health secretary Alan Milburn, who is leading a review into the Neet crisis.

In May, his government-commissioned interim report warned that education in England was too focused on exam-based qualifications rather than whether students go on to sustained employment or learning.

Warning over ‘hierarchies of opportunity’

Mr Milburn, whose final report is due this autumn, said last week that primary schools should be identifying children who are at risk of becoming Neet.

Ms Powell said there is no “silver bullet” to solve the Neet crisis, but she wants a “revolution in vocational and technical qualifications and education”.

Over recent decades, successive governments have sought to achieve parity between technical and academic routes, with policies ranging from General National Vocational Qualifications under Tony Blair’s premiership to T levels under Theresa May and V levels under Sir Keir Starmer.

Vivienne Stern, chief executive of Universities UK, which represents more than 140 universities, said she agrees that higher education is not the right route for all, but added that government rhetoric should not be “going backwards in terms of encouraging people to participate in universities”.

Lee Elliot Major, professor of social mobility at the University of Exeter, said: “Giving technical pathways equal status is the right ambition, but success will ultimately depend on whether they lead to rewarding careers. Young people need more high-quality routes to success, not new hierarchies of opportunity.”

Asked if there was a danger of anti-university rhetoric putting young people off higher education, Ms Powell told PA: “I’m absolutely clear I’m not going to be overseeing some kind of two-tier system in education.

“This is about having high standards across the piece, high aspirations, high expectations.”

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