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This submission focuses on apprenticeship opportunities for young people aged 24 or under. The Commission assesses recent trends and considers what the implications are for opportunity today - and what they might tell about opportunities tomorrow. The Commission concludes that the policies in place may make a real difference for many young people. However, the Commission finds that there remains three substantial challenges to overcome if the youth apprenticeship offer is to improve and 16-24-year-olds are to reap the benefits of apprenticeship growth: (1) apprenticeship starts by young people are rising sluggishly, and are undermined by a falling success rate; (2) the majority of apprenticeship starts by young people are not a step up from their last level of study. For young people, an apprenticeship is rarely competitive in qualification levels with academic equivalents studied by the same age group; and (3) many youth apprenticeship starts are in sectors associated with lower pay and progression prospects.

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The question whether a socially mobile society is conducive to subjective well-being (SWB) has rarely been investigated. This paper fills this gap by analyzing the SWB effects of intergenerational earnings mobility and equality in education at the societal level. Using socio-demographic information on 44,000 individuals in 30 OECD countries obtained from the World Values Survey, this study shows that living in a socially mobile society is conducive to individual life satisfaction. Differentiating between perceived and actual social mobility, we find that both exert rather independent effects, particularly in their interplay with income inequality. We identify a positive interaction of perceived social mobility that mitigates its overall SWB lowering effect, supporting Alesina et al. (2004). In contrast, a high degree of actual social mobility yields an overall impact of income inequality that is SWB lowering, while for low social mobility the effect of inequality is positive. These interactions hold stronger for pre-transfer than post-transfer income inequality. Actual social mobility appears to be appreciated only by conservative persons, while leftist oriented individuals are indifferent. Robustness is tested using a world sample.

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Outlines the government's approach to increasing social mobility. Reviews evidence and trends in social mobility, comparing the UK with other countries. Sets out action to be taken in the foundation years, including the promotion of early intervention, parenting assistance, support for high-quality early years services and access to affordable and high-quality early education and care. Presents the government's plans for the school years, which focus on raising standards in schools, narrowing gaps in attainment and raising children's aspirations. Discusses action for promoting social mobility in the transition years of 16 to 24, including fairer access to higher education, increasing the proportion of young people engaged in education or training, improving outcomes in the labour market for jobseekers and reducing the rate of worklessness. Sets out the government's approach to increasing social mobility in adulthood, which includes encouraging employers to open up opportunities, supporting those who missed out on education first time around or want to build on their skills and qualifications later in life, improving support for workless adults through tax and benefit reform and the new Work Programme, and helping those with little wealth to build up assets. Explains how the government intends to put the commitments set out in the strategy into practice.

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University performance is often evaluated according to a limited set of indicators, namely financial returns to individuals and impact on economic growth. Such narrow valuations ignore the role universities play in building a stronger and more tolerant society - both directly through public outreach and indirectly through the student university experience. Where attention has been paid to the broader outcomes the lack of quantitative evidence has led to an assumption that their value to society is marginal. This report aims to challenge this assumption. Using principles based on the Social Return on Investment (SROI) methodology, it finds monetary values for three UK-wide societal outcomes: greater political interest, higher interpersonal trust and better health, alongside a number of community outcomes derived from community outreach activities at two universities, Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) and the University of Warwick (UW).

This research has attempted to quantify public value in a way previously not thought possible, however, it does not give a full account of all the broader benefits produced. For example, it does not quantify the vital contribution of scientific research on issues such as combating climate change and diseases such as cancer. Instead, it is an initial attempt to evoke discussion about the broader public contributions from the diverse ways in which everyone profits from the university sector in the UK.

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In Germany the request for Lifelong Learning and the reality of demographic change motivate a debate about the promotion of transitions from VET (vocational education and training) to tertiary education, two educational pathways which until now are institutionally separated. Based on a neo-institutional perspective, this paper presents an analysis of reports on the development of initial teaching at university. I assess, if universities address the issue of building bridges and enhance transitions and promote related reforms.

Published abstract.

The volume from which this paper is taken is available in VOCEDplus at TD/TNC 136.651. Show less

This paper presents findings from an initial scoping study that set out to ask and invite discussion on 'what more can be done in higher education to better facilitate social mobility for equity groups in Australia?' The research involved identifying studies which detailed information on the broad range of complex issues concerning social mobility both in Australia and internationally, in order to gain a fuller understanding of how important higher education participation has become in efforts to improve equity and social justice. Applying the findings about higher education's role in driving social mobility to a number of identified barriers to equity group engagement, the paper concludes that although social mobility discourse is problematic, continued funding for successful enabling, outreach and scholarship programs remains an essential part of ensuring that the full diversity of the Australian population is included in higher education, so that opportunities for social mobility are available to all.

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The essay does not seek to add to the scholarly literature on UK higher education, so much as to give a sympathetic account of the dilemmas confronting a progressive government of almost any political stripe and especially one that faces the constraints of New Labour. It begins paradoxically by pointing out that serious investment in higher education requires an extension of Sure Start rather than Foundation Degrees, accepts that no government can wait sixteen years for its plans to come to fruition, and examines some familiar issues about funding, quality management and the nature of 'mass' as opposed to 'lite' systems of higher education. Like some recent writers (Alison Wolf and Ewart Keep and Ken Mayhew most notably), the author is sceptical of the claimed productivity benefits of an expansion of higher education and even more doubtful than they whether in the long run degree-level qualifications will retain their value even as a positional good.

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Worldwide participation in higher education now includes one-third of the age cohort and is growing at an unprecedented rate. The tendency to rapid growth, leading towards high participation systems (HPS), has spread to most middle-income and some low-income countries. Though expansion of higher education requires threshold development of the state and the middle class, it is primarily powered not by economic growth but by the ambitions of families to advance or maintain social position. However, expansion is mostly not accompanied by more equal social access to elite institutions. The quality of mass higher education is often problematic. Societies vary in the extent of upward social mobility from low-socio-economic-status backgrounds. The paper explores the intersection between stratified social backgrounds and the stratifying structures in HPS. These differentiating structures include public/private distinctions in schooling and higher education, different fields of study, binary systems and tiered hierarchies of institutions, the vertical 'stretching' of stratification in competitive HPS, and the unequalising effects of tuition. Larger social inequalities set limits on what education can achieve. Countries with high mobility sustain a consensus about social equality, and value rigorous and autonomous systems of learning, assessment and selection in education.

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This report highlights how a teaching revolution is underway in modern universities with new approaches to teaching increasing employability and improving the social mobility of graduates. Modern universities are working to make sure that their teaching and learning delivers the knowledge, workplace and professional skills increasingly demanded by employers and by students themselves. The report also makes clear how modern universities play a key role in helping people in work and those who do not want to study full-time to gain higher qualifications with 34 per cent of students studying part-time and with many more undertaking sandwich courses, work and professional placements or other flexible learning opportunities.

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A key topic of national concern is that all young Australians should have the opportunity to strive to achieve their fullest potential, irrespective of their socio-economic background. This aspiration suggests a high level of intergenerational social mobility. This webinar presents new findings from a study that examines trends in one indicator of intergenerational mobility in Australia between 1975 and 2006 - the relationship between parents' socio-economic status and their children's academic outcomes. The study, based on survey data from the Youth in Transitions (YIT) and Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY), suggests that while overall levels of education have increased, there is little evidence of significant change in the relationship between parents' socio-economic status and their children's academic performance.

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