If we don’t support young adults to move forward, today’s problem doesn’t fade it just grows up.
Today’s reporting on young people not in education or work feels familiar. We keep circling the same starting point, then lose sight of what happens after.
At WEA we see what follows. People trying to move forward years later, still carrying the cost of missing out early. Once you fall behind, it doesn’t pause. It builds. When they enter our classrooms, 45% of our learners have no formal qualifications and 48% live in the most disadvantaged postcode areas. And the system still expects you to catch up on your own, with fewer options and less help than you had at the start.
The gap doesn’t close with age. It widens. Nine million adults in the UK don’t have basic skills. TUC research this week shows over a quarter of 24 year olds still don’t have Level 2 English and maths. For those from poorer backgrounds, it’s closer to half by that age. Those figures don’t sort themselves out over time. They compound impacting health, limiting options and increasing hardship.
So this isn’t just about young people drifting now. It’s about the adults they become, pushed further from work, from confidence, from any sense that learning is still open to them.
We talk about early intervention, then go quiet on the decades that follow. The Government is putting a lot of faith in the Lifelong Learning Entitlement, but for adults with low qualifications, low confidence and gaps in basic skills that’s not an accessible starting point, but community-based learning is.
We’re working with others across the sector to build a case for a proper lifelong learning strategy the government can’t ignore. Decision makers need to make it a priority with real investment, wider access, and local routes back into learning that fit around real life. Because if we don’t support young adults to move forward, today’s problem doesn’t fade it just grows up.
