Manifesto report: Education

In this section

• Independent expert commentary from the National Foundation for Educational Research
• Manifesto clash: the number of apprenticeships
• Manifesto clash: the quality of apprenticeships
• Manifesto clash: university fees
• Manifesto clash: academies
• Manifesto clash: free schools

Introduction

The last five years have seen a transformation in English schools. Before the last general election, there were 200 open academies, mostly secondary schools. There are now 4,800 academies and free schools, more than half of which are primary schools. About three in ten pupils attend academies.

Although academies have been a central tenet of education policy over the last five years, parents are still quite uncertain as to how they differ to other schools. 46% of parents want more information about academies and only around half got the right answers to questions about academy freedoms, according to evidence from the National Foundation for Educational Research.

In brief, we've got two types of academies:

• Sponsored academies—these have sponsors such as businesses, universities, other schools, faith groups or voluntary groups, who have majority control of the academy trust. Most, but not all, sponsored academies were previously underperforming schools that became academies in order to improve their performance.
• Converter academies—these don't have sponsors; in general, they are schools previously assessed as 'performing well' that have 'converted' to academy status. About seven in ten academies (excluding free schools) are converters.

Free schools are set up as academies, and intended to be founded with the support of local groups.

Academies aren't the only area where there have been big changes. Education is often seen in terms of creating a route to work for young people. But approximately one in six young people are unemployed (16.1%) in contrast to an overall unemployment rate of 5.6%.

Apprenticeships are prized as a way of preparing young people for work and securing skills that will contribute to economic growth.

In the 1950s, apprenticeships were about three years long and mainly for young people, and featured more in the manufacturing sector, whereas now they're shorter and for all ages. Many apprenticeships now last a single year, according to the Sutton Trust.

This hasn't always been the case either—a one year minimum length for apprenticeships in the UK was set in 2012 in order to "drive up quality". The year before this came into force, around 200,000 apprenticeships had a planned length of stay of less than a year. But the National Audit Office (NAO) has said it's too early to tell if the minimum length has had any effect.

There's still disagreement between the parties on whether this and other changes have gone far enough.

We hear less about other reforms, such as the requirement to continue studying English and maths post-GCSE if pupils haven't achieved an A*—C grade in those subjects.

The state school population is expected to rise from 7 million now to 8 million by 2023, creating a future planning need. There's also childcare, tuition fees, qualified and unqualified teachers and more.

Despite these significant changes and debates, education has received relatively little attention apart from the occasional peak in coverage in relation to tuition fees during the election campaign. It is still one of the most important issues which people say will inform who they vote for. A quarter of people say education will be very important to them in making their decision.

We don't have enough evidence yet to say how well some high-profile changes are working. Free schools, for example, because they are new schools, often fill up year by year. So a secondary free school that opened up two years ago will only have year 7 and 8 pupils in it now. It's difficult to say for sure how well a school is doing—or is likely to be doing—when it only has two year groups. Some evidence is available on the individual components of vocational reforms, but it's still too early to know what the overall effect of the changes will be.

Updated 05/05/2015

Originally we said "approximately one in seven young people are unemployed (16.1%)". What we should have said was one in six young people are unemployed (which 16.1% is closer to).