Party Conference Review – Education and Skills

Policymakers are grappling with a series of interlinked challenges in the education and skills sector.

The cost of special educational needs (SEND) provision has soared by 66% over the past decade and could rise by a further £3 billion a year by 2029 without reform. School absence remains stubbornly high compared to pre-pandemic levels – now 6.9% compared with 4.7% – and almost one in eight young people aged 16–24 are not in education or employment (NEET).

At the same time, the UK economy is hampered by skills shortages in key sectors including digital, adult social care, and construction. Universities, meanwhile, face their own reckoning: years of frozen domestic fees and a downturn in international recruitment have left many institutions in fragile financial health.

It was the higher education sector that dominated the conference headlines. The Education Secretary’s pledge to reinstate student maintenance grants was widely welcomed – until it emerged that universities themselves would foot the bill via a levy on international student fees. The Prime Minister’s decision to abandon Labour’s long-standing target of 50% of young people going to university further underlined a philosophical shift in post-16 education.

Across party lines, both Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch championed a “rebalance” between academic and technical routes. In a world of tight public spending, that likely means redirecting funding and prestige from traditional three-year degrees towards level 4 and 5 qualifications and apprenticeships.

Yet amid the noise on skills and higher education, the biggest issue – SEND – was barely mentioned. Beyond warm words on inclusive schools, no new commitments emerged. With the schools white paper due soon, that silence won’t last. When the debate returns, as it must, SEND reform will dominate education politics well into 2026 and beyond.