Education: the ideas
Children born today will be taking their first steps into adulthood in 2040. What will life in the UK be like for them, according to current trajectories? What policy options do we have now that can influence or change that trajectory for the better?
When we started UK 2040 Options in June 2023, with 12 months to go before the general election, we asked more than 60 education experts two simple questions: ‘what are the greatest issues facing the education system?’ and ‘what interventions might best help to address them by 2040?’ As education is devolved, we asked experts to consider these issues in relation to England.
The results highlighted the range of challenges facing England’s education system, some well-known, some more surprising.
It sparked a year-long dialogue with experts about where there is consensus on the issues and way forward, and where there is fertile ground for new ideas.
With the Education Policy Institute, we set out the fundamental facts about the education system that policymakers need to know. We then worked with experts to dig into the big choices the new UK Government would face. This report focuses on 10 of the most interesting, innovative policy ideas that have emerged during this process.
What follows is not intended as a set of Nesta recommendations, but exciting ideas from some of education’s brightest minds, offering food for thought for policymakers looking to innovate in an area of policy that is vital for improving outcomes between now and 2040.
The 10 ideas in this report are:
- Build a professional development system for the early years: raising the quality of training and development early years practitioners receive throughout their careers.
- Reshape school structures: a single system to run and improve schools: blending the best of the maintained system and the trust-led system together.
- Make teaching a 21st-century career: backing innovation in working practices to increase flexibility and reduce workload.
- Decouple the process of mainstream Education Health and Care Plans from special school admissions: enabling mainstream schools to understand and meet a wide variety of learning needs.
- Develop the next generation of integrated family support services: building on Sure Start and Family Hubs, and testing, learning and iterating to continuously meet the needs of users.
- Protect young people’s mental health: introducing legislation to create ‘safe phones’ for under 16s.
- Expand enrichment to all young people: opening schools from 8am to 6pm.
- Make kinship care the first port of call: allowing children who cannot live with their parents to stay in their family networks wherever possible.
- Revive youth apprenticeships: targeting apprenticeships at young people, and offering a different approach for adults upskilling and reskilling.
- Increase the supply and demand of sub-degree qualifications: introducing exit qualifications after each year of university study
Ideas to propel us to a better 2040
By Alexandra Burns
Over the last few years, the public debate about politics and policy has often felt bleak. With public services struggling to meet demand, a fragile economy and an increasingly unstable world, it’s easy to see why optimism about the future has been lacking.
But what would it take to change course?
UK 2040 Options has worked with around 300 experts in an effort to lift our collective heads from the crisis and look forward. A child born today will become an adult in the early 2040s. We’ve examined what the country will look like for them if things stay the same, and what we could do now to alter that trajectory for the better.
First, we assessed the fundamental facts that underpin each of the topics. We then highlighted the big choices that the Government faces as a result. These reports now focus on policy ideas. In doing so, they aim to bring to the fore some of the interesting and potentially impactful policy ideas that experts have suggested to us over the past year.
Across areas critical to the country’s future – economic growth, health, education and the transition to net zero – we found a high degree of consensus about both the issues and the big, difficult choices facing the new Government. But we found hope and new, innovative ideas too. The four reports we’re publishing today aim to be honest about the challenges and bold about the solutions.
From the introduction of safe phones for under-16s to setting supermarkets targets for the healthiness of the food they sell, from harnessing AI to reduce labour market inactivity to decarbonising homes street by street – the ideas aren’t lacking. Now is the time to debate them and their trade-offs honestly. Our hope is that they provide food for thought for those engaged in designing the country’s future.
Continue the conversation at Policy Live on 12 September – registration is open now.