After nearly two decades of education, what are we preparing young people for?
School tells us how pupils perform. This chapter asks what that performance actually leads to — subject choices, post-16 routes, apprenticeships, university, and the labour market at the end of it.
The pathway this chapter follows
Every pupil in England moves through the same rough sequence — school attainment, subject choices, what happens at 16, and then a route into further education, an apprenticeship, university, or work. This chapter follows that sequence and asks, at each step, what the published evidence actually shows about where it leads.
It makes no assumption that university is the right choice, and no assumption that a technical or vocational route is somehow more “real”. Both claims get tested against the same evidence standard as everything else on this site: a claim is either supported by the data or it isn’t, and juxtaposition is not causation — a decline in one subject’s entries next to a shortage in a related trade is a fact worth showing, not proof that one caused the other.
The pages in this chapter
Seven pages, each with its own question, all built from a verified data pipeline rather than from secondary summaries.
- 10AWhat are we teaching?GCSE subject entries over time, the EBacc incentive, and the decline in technical subjects like Design & Technology.Read this page
- 10BThe university expansionWhat Blair’s "50%" target actually said, whether it was met, and who gained access as participation rose.Read this page
- 10CApprenticeships and technical routesStarts by level since the levy, and whether "traditional" apprenticeships were replaced or added to.Read this page
- 10DWhat was the qualification worth?Key stage 2 through to earnings, using the Department’s own longitudinal outcomes data.Read this page
- 10EDegrees: what happens next?Employment, earnings and industry by degree subject — not anecdotes.Read this page
- 10FWhat skills does Britain actually need?Employer-reported skills shortages, by sector, against what the education system supplies.Read this page
- 10GOutcomes explorerChoose a starting point and a route; see what the data says happens next.Read this page
Why this chapter exists
Chapters 1 to 9 of this section are about what happens inside school: attainment, funding, who runs schools, special educational needs, attendance, behaviour and the workforce. None of them answers a question that comes up constantly in public argument about education — what all of that is actually for. Is the curriculum preparing pupils for the jobs the economy has? Did expanding university access work as intended, and for whom? Did apprenticeships shrink, or change shape? This chapter is where those questions get the same evidence-first treatment as everything else on this site, rather than being left to whichever survey or opinion piece last made the news.
Related chapters
- In this sectionAre children learning more?The attainment measures this chapter’s subject-choice and outcomes data build on.
- In this sectionWho gets left behind?The same disadvantage gap, carried through into who reaches university and who does not.
- Leaves this sectionEmploymentWhere the labour-market half of this chapter’s evidence comes from.
- In this sectionEducationThe other chapters, and how this section is built.
Scope and definitions
England, not the UK
Education is devolved. Every figure on this page is England only. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland operate different frameworks with different legal definitions, and their figures are not directly comparable.
Three populations, never combined
This chapter draws on three separate populations, never combined into one total: GCSE exam candidates (Ofqual), higher education entrants (DfE/HESA), and apprenticeship starts (DfE) — a start, not a person, since one person can start more than one apprenticeship. Each figure on this page states which one it counts.