PM plans ‘builders universities’ to train an army of young manual workers
THERESA MAY is to declare war on educational ‘snobbery’ by setting up a network of prestigious ‘builders universities’ to train a post-Brexit generation of manual workers.
The Prime Minister believes too many families push non-academic children towards university degrees when they could follow better-paid careers by learning a trade.
The move will form part of the Government’s long-awaited industrial strategy, which will earmark billions of pounds for training schemes, research and development and cutting-edge robot technology to get ‘the whole economy firing’, according to Mrs May.
But the most striking proposal in the consultation – being launched by the Prime Minister at a regional Cabinet meeting in the North-West tomorrow – is an attempt to bridge the historic ‘prestige gap’ between academic and vocational careers. A total of £170million will be spent on a string of new Institutes of Technology in England and Wales, taking students from age 16 to 19. The aim is to equip them with engineering, construction and other ‘handson’ skills.
Mrs May will also ensure every city has a designated free school for 11 to 18-year-olds acting as a specialist centre of learning for maths, in a bid to redress the shortage of graduates in the subject.
Mrs May’s plans have been given added impetus by her pledge to curb EU migrants after Brexit, which critics fear could lead to a shortage of workers such as plumbers.
The reforms come as research shows many university degrees offer a questionable return on the ‘investment’. On average, a degree adds £100,000 to a graduate’s earnings over a lifetime, although a medicine or dentistry degree adds nearly £400,000.
But studying a subject such as creative arts or design leaves a student worse off by £15,000. Nearly half of graduates take jobs that don’t need degrees.
The average salary for a plumber is just over £28,000 – £1,000 above the UK average.
A senior Government source said last night: ‘Mrs May thinks it is unwise to force less academic pupils into the straitjacket of university, leaving them drowning in debt for the sake of a poor degree – particularly when we have a chronic shortage of British plumbers and engineers.
‘That’s why she thinks there should also be a “university” for the builders of the future as well as the lawyers and doctors.’
Mrs May said last night: ‘Our modern industrial strategy is a critical part of our plan for postBrexit Britain. As we leave the EU, it will help us grasp the bigger prize: the chance to build that stronger, fairer Britain that stands tall in the world and is set up to succeed in the long term.
‘That means boosting technical education and ensuring we extend the same opportunity and respect we give university graduates to those people who pursue technical routes.’
The strategy is welcomed by Mrs Thatcher’s Education Secretary Lord Baker, a veteran campaigner for technical education, who blames ‘snobbery’ for the closure of technical schools after the war.
Writing in today’s Mail on Sunday, he says parents wanted their children to go to the ‘grammar school on the hill’ rather than study in ‘shabby premises with dirty jobs and greasy rags down in the town’.
‘It’s a chance to build a stronger Britain’