The government can’t rewire education with rhetoric alone. Pepe Di’Iasio argues that real change will depend on putting the funding in place to make its ambitions a reality.

Rewiring costs money

I was speaking with a trust chief executive recently about Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s plans for education at a roundtable I was attending in Manchester at No. 10 North. The roundtable, I told him, was entitled ‘Rewiring education’. “Great,” he replied wearily. “What, with no money?” 

And there in a nutshell is the problem facing both Andy Burnham’s administration and the leaders of our schools and colleges. 

Two years on from the election of a Labour government, and with a vast amount of change already coming down the line, there is the prospect of a breathless new bout of reforms. But alongside these various lofty policy ambitions, many of which are laudable in their intention, funding is tighter than ever. 

The government relies heavily on the notion of schools ‘maximising value’ from their budgets to make ends meet. ‘Maximising value’ is, of course, nonsensical 

Whitehall gobbledygook that obfuscates what this actually means – more cutbacks.

And hey presto, we are left with a collision between aspiration and reality: on the one hand, millions – and I mean literally millions – of words in largely impenetrable policy documents setting out a host of new expectations; and, on the other, shrinking resources. 

It is not therefore surprising that the notion of ‘rewiring education’, whatever that actually means, is met with a weary shrug. 

As far as I can tell, ‘rewiring education’ involves four things.  

• The first of these is to provide more technical/vocational pathways from the age of 14, including greater access to work experience and careers guidance. 
• The second is to achieve parity of esteem between technical and academic education. 
• The third is to devolve more powers to mayors, including over 16–19 funding. 
• The fourth is to reduce the number of young people in the UK who are not in education, employment or training (NEET). This is the policy objective of the first three things. 

Many of us probably agree with most of the items on this list, the exception possibly being a wariness over devolving powers to mayors, which I will return to later. 

The forgotten third

I think we are all aware that our education system works very well indeed for about two-thirds of our students, but not so well for what we refer to as ‘the forgotten third’.

There are many overlapping reasons for this, some of which are linked to the current system in which we operate and some of which are societal. In the latter category is the combined impact of poverty, generational disadvantage, communities that feel left behind, cost-of-living pressures and a rising tide of mental health issues. Schools, as we have often observed, cannot solve these issues on their own, but they can play an important role in improving the prospects of these young people. 

Which takes us to the education system itself. At pre-16 it is heavily focused on an academic curriculum through the accountability regime under which schools operate and the design of qualifications. There is some room for technical/ vocational subjects, but it is at the margins of the curriculum. This approach has merits for students who are academically strong, but it creates real problems for those young people who struggle with these subjects. 

From the age of 16 onwards, there are lots of vocational/technical pathways available. But students taking these courses are often those who struggled academically and are demoralised by the experience. Furthermore, they may have had little to no pre-16 experience of the subjects they are now studying. 

So, there is obvious sense to Andy Burnham’s planned reforms. 

Critics claim that it will undermine educational standards. 

Care must clearly be taken but it should surely be possible to provide more opportunities without diluting the merits of the current system. 

The question of devolving powers to mayors is slightly more problematic. Andy Burnham sees this as a positive move to place decision-making with those who best understand the needs of their communities. But the risk is that it creates a postcode lottery of provision, complete with extra layers of bureaucracy and complication. 

Meaningful change 

And then there is the issue with which I started this article: money. Setting up a host of new vocational/ technical pathways doesn’t come cheap. It requires teachers with the subject expertise and experience to teach those courses. It requires training facilities and equipment that are often very expensive. 

Furthermore, a big part of this plan is access to work experience opportunities and careers guidance. But, in many areas, employers are reluctant to provide work placements, and it is difficult to see how expanding opportunities will be achieved without some form of support.

And national careers guidance was decimated in the early 2010s and left to schools to deliver with no funding. Developing a new careers guidance infrastructure will require substantial investment. 

Where will the money for all of this come from? School and college funding is already impossibly squeezed. Maintaining existing provision is often not possible let alone adding in more responsibilities and expectations. And the national finances, as we are constantly reminded, are under intense strain. 

Many will suspect that change will be leveraged by adding new requirements to the Ofsted framework. That the government will resort to the same old formula of expecting schools and colleges to do more with less. 

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Turning 'Rewiting Education' into more than a slogan requires the government to 'rewire education funding'.
It's that simple.

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I hope that this isn’t the case, and that the new administration proves itself to be better than that. After all, meaningful change isn’t achieved by giddy government press releases and labyrinthine policy documents. It is achieved on the ground in schools and colleges where there are real-life students and teachers. 

And if the money isn’t there to deliver the government’s aspirations, then they’ll be a damp squib. 

I have no doubt that schools and colleges will do their best, as they always do. But it will be a case of making the best of a bad situation. That’s not good enough for children and young people, and it’s not good enough for leaders and their staff. 

Turning ‘rewiring education’ into more than a slogan requires the government to ‘rewire education funding’. It’s that simple.

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Pepe Di’Iasio
ASCL General Secretary
@pepediiasio.bsky.social

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