The number of young individuals not engaged in education, employment, or training has reached concerning levels, largely due to the inability of Whitehall to adequately address their needs, according to Andy Burnham, who will be highlighting this issue in a key speech. Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, is set to warn that the count of “NEETs” – which now stands at nearly 1 million, the highest in 11 years – will continue to rise unless the Department for Education (DfE) shifts to a new schools policy that focuses more on the needs of these youths.
Recently, government ministers have been aiming to justify cuts in welfare by pointing to the number of young people not in employment or actively seeking work, and instead supported by benefits. However, Burnham will argue that one primary cause of the NEET crisis is the traditional schools system, which is heavily focused on the path to university and neglects those inclined towards technical education.
In Greater Manchester, about two-thirds of individuals do not pursue the conventional university route, indicating a mismatch between the education system and the diverse requirements of the youth. Burnham calls for a change in schools policy, pushing for parity between academic and technical education and advocating for the devolution of responsibility for post-16 technical education. This stance is backed by a joint inquiry launched by the Policy Connect think tank and the Skills Commission, aiming to reduce the NEET percentage among youngsters by 2050 to the lowest in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Additional complexities include ethnic and regional inequalities, with young people of Black Caribbean backgrounds facing NEET rates more than double those of their white British peers, and significant disparities observed across different regions of England. Burnham will use data from a survey across Greater Manchester’s schools, involving 100,000 students, indicating a decline in pupils’ sense of belonging to their schools and a decrease in wellbeing as they progress through their education, calling for a rebalancing of priorities in the education system.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/mar/30/whitehall-teenagers-greater-manchester-mayor-andy-burnham-education-young-people
