Social Mobility and Technical Education: Comfortable Bedfellows?

This chapter shares research on social mobility, levelling up and the impact of gender, age, disability and social class on technical education. It explores the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on technical education, levelling up and the shape of the future labour market in England, and what this means in terms of ‘place-based’ learning (a concept which has emerged from the Skills and Post-16 Education Act, which will also receive detailed consideration in this book). It assesses the impact of emerging approaches to skills in the civic and employer-led spheres. It presents a researched critique of collaborations in technical education through different stages of the education process, as well as detailing the intended and unintended consequences of past policy and hypothesizes on the potential positive and negative impact of future policy.