This is an edited version of an article that appeared in The Yorkshire Post on 16 June 2026 in which Matt Bromley says Alan Milburn is right about the role schools must play in preparing young people for life beyond the school gates…
Alan Milburn thinks our school system is “exam-obsessed” and is leaving young people unprepared for work. He’s not alone. In a recent YouGov poll, 74% of teachers said there was too much emphasis on exams, while 73% said there was not enough focus on preparing young people for employment.
Milburn, a former health secretary and chair of the Social Mobility Commission, is head of a government-commissioned review into young people and work. Launching the review, he said: “We have built an education system that is brilliant at sorting young people by academic ability and poor at equipping them for adult life.” In his interim report, published late May, he added that “the [education] system fails to enable [young people’s] participation in the labour market.”
I think Milburn’s right which is why the third book in my Equity in Education series – Securing Future Success for Every Child – explores ways of preparing young people for life beyond the school gates. I argue that academic success matters – profoundly so – but schools do not merely prepare students for their next academic assessment; they prepare them for life. The real measure of a school’s impact is not only what students achieve at eleven, sixteen or eighteen, but who they become at twenty, thirty, forty, and beyond.
And a successful life outside the school gates requires more than good grades; it demands independence of thought, emotional intelligence, resilience, cultural confidence, and readiness for the complex demands of further study, employment, and adult responsibility. These are not optional extras; they are core outcomes of a high-quality education.
The question, then, is not ‘what’ but ‘how’…
Firstly, schools must cultivate independent thinking. In an age of algorithm-driven feeds and polarised public discourse, the capacity to think critically is indispensable. Secondly, schools must promote intellectual autonomy because, when teachers articulate how they approach a problem, why they select certain strategies, and how they evaluate sources, they demystify expert thinking. Yet independence without emotional intelligence is brittle. And so, thirdly, schools must support students to become emotionally literate and self-regulated. Fourthly, and closely related to this, is the development of motivation, resilience, and self-efficacy. Resilience is not simply stoicism; it’s adaptive persistence – the willingness to confront challenge, seek support, adjust strategy, and try again. Self-efficacy is the belief that one can succeed through effort and strategy.
However, education does not occur in a vacuum. Students are members of communities – local, national, global. Fifthly, then, and in order to thrive beyond school, students must have cultural and social confidence. This means understanding diversity, navigating difference, and contributing positively to society. And finally, preparation for post-16 study, employment, and adult life must be explicit. Careers education should not be confined to a single week in Year 10; students benefit far more from sustained engagement with the world beyond school: encounters with employers, talks from alumni, workplace visits, mock interviews, and guidance on pathways. They need clear information about academic routes, vocational qualifications, apprenticeships, and emerging industries.
Some argue that schools are already overburdened, that their primary duty is academic instruction. But this presents a false dichotomy. The development of character, competence, and confidence is not separate from academic learning; it’s intertwined with it.
Ultimately, education is an act of hope. When we teach, we invest in futures we will not fully witness. Our responsibility is to ensure that students leave school not only credentialed, but capable – of independent thought, managing their emotions, persisting through adversity, engaging confidently with a diverse society, and navigating further study, work, and adult responsibilities with competence and integrity.
Read more of Matt’s columns for The Yorkshire Post…
