Labour would make sure every child leaves school job-ready and life-ready. Labour would refocus the curriculum, deliver new opportunities for digital skills, practical work and life skills, sport and the arts, and access to a professional careers adviser, to make sure every child leaves school ready for work and ready for life.

Labour’s plan would deliver the following six things:

• Reform the ‘citizenship’ statutory programme within the national curriculum to include practical life skills, such as pension planning, understanding credit scores, applying for a mortgage and understanding employment and rental contracts.
• Set out a long-term aspiration to make sure no young person leaves compulsory education without the qualifications they need for the modern economy. This will start with providing £250 million to local authorities to re-engage the 65,000 16-to 17-year-olds who are not known to be in Education, Employment or Training (i.e. NEETs).
• Introduce 2 weeks’ worth of compulsory work experience, to connect young people with local employers and build the skills needed for work. Give every child access to quality careers advice in their school by giving schools access to a professional careers advisor 1 day a week.
• Make sure all children leave school with the level of functional computer skills needed to succeed in the workplace.
• As as we recover from the pandemic, give every primary and secondary child access to weekly extracurricular activities and after school clubs.

To pay for this, Labour will end the charitable status of England’s private schools, ending the VAT and business rate exemptions that they currently benefit from, raising £1.7 billion.