Labour announces plans for improved careers advice with launch of Education Manifesto

Labour’s Education Manifesto will be launched by Ed Miliband, Tristram Hunt and Chuka Umunna today – and the headline announcement is the introduction of guaranteed one-to-one careers advice for every teenager.

The plan – which is set to cost £50 million, funded though “a partnership between universities, schools, colleges, and employers”  – will include information about apprenticeships as well as academic routes into universities, as well as reversing the government’s decision to scrap compulsory work experience for 14 to 16-year-olds.

The Education Manifesto will also confirm previously announced Labour policies on education, including:

• protect the entire education budget in real terms
• restore the role of Sure Start as family hubs in communities
• deliver smaller class sizes for five, six and seven-year-olds
• end the Free Schools programme
• tackle underachievement with new Directors of School Standards to support local schools
• ensure all teachers become qualified and introduce new Master Teachers who are subject experts and specialists in classroom discipline
• build a gold-standard vocational route through education and into the workplace with a Technical Baccalaureate, compulsory English and maths to 18
• guarantee an apprenticeship for every school leaver who gets the grades

Meanwhile in the Mirror this morning, Miliband is focussing on the early years aspect of Labour’s plans:

“Labour’s plan makes those early years a priority – because this is the time children acquire the physical, emotional and mental skills that will set them up to succeed at school and beyond.”