Let’s celebrate London’s A Levels but be realistic about the challenges facing London’s young people

By Oona King / @Oona_King

Media coverage of today’s A level, and no doubt next week’s GCSE, results will focus on the success of the students involved. And rightly so. I enthusiastically join the chorus singing the praises of London’s teenagers who’ve done so well.

But after the celebrations subside we’re overdue a real in depth examination of the challenges facing London’s youngsters. And not just those who’ve been lucky and able enough to leave school with strong A Level results and a choice of top universities. But all our youngsters whatever their academic abilities and attainment. Our youngsters should be taking the first steps on the exciting journey in to work and adulthood. But these are uncertain times with increasingly limited opportunities.

Today’s headlines show a further improvement in academic achievement across London. But despite improved results the options for our young adults are more limited than they’ve been for years. Youth unemployment for both school and university leavers is escalating at an alarming rate. Unless we confront this problem head on, we risk leaving another generation of youngsters on the scrap heap.

As Mayor I will make youth opportunities and youth employment one of my top priorities. I will create a London-wide work experience scheme so who your parents or teachers and lecturers know is less of a factor in tasting the work opportunities that all young people are interested in. I’ll create a London-wide volunteering scheme aimed at helping children and young people develop skills and raise aspirations across the board. And I will establish 10 new skills academies to give young people access to a variety of training and qualifications, supplemented with a London wide apprenticeship programme, ensuring that all our young people, whatever their skills, will be the best equipped they can be to enter the world of work. To boost jobs and the economy I will re-open London’s international offices, scrapped by Boris Johnson, to encourage the investment we need to create the job opportunities that currently simply don’t exist.

As Mayor I want to take a proactive strategic role in education. This is not to remove powers from councillors, governors and communities but to support them to better deliver for all our young people. Many parents face significant challenges getting their child in to the secondary school they want and sadly Labour’s time in power didn’t significantly improve this enough across the board in London, we can and we should do more. The coalition government has perniciously cut BSF, leaving many London schools in desperate need of repair to their buildings and short of infrastructure they need to deliver the quality of education our children deserve. The future of capital investment in our primary schools has simply been left in limbo. As Mayor of London I can help take a London-wide view to ensure we use our schools to the maximum advantage of all our young people.

Labour has always led the way on ensuring the maximum number of people have access to high quality education from the introduction of comprehensives to expanding university places. It’s never been more important to continue this tradition than now, when job opportunities are scarce and a Tory led government is implementing massive spending cuts to our education system. As Mayor I will do everything I can to ensure our young people are valued, well educated and able to access employment.