Robert Halfon, MP for Harlow and chair of the Commons Education Committee, calls for the an end to the UK’s obsession with academic degrees and demand a dramatic increase in the delivery of basic skills and technical training by the Further Education and Higher Education sectors. In a keynote speech delivered at the Centre for Social Justice, in collaboration with Open University and the Learning and Work Institute, he says that only such a revolution can eradicate the skills gap which currently leaves one third of 16-19-year-olds with low basic skills, threatening a generation with “a tidal wave of lost opportunity”. A summary of Mr Halfon’s 6 main ideas is here.
