Compared to our competitors, friends and enemies, we shall be a small country when this war is over and we shall depend more than anything else on the skill of our people. We must concentrate upon producing the most highly-skilled technologists the world can show.

So said Rab Butler in the House of Commons when pushing through his landmark 1944 education reforms.

Yet in truth his comments could have been uttered at any time in the subsequent seventy years. To this day there exists a depressing disconnect between the needs of enterprise and our education system on three key issues – skills, careers and character. And while education is about far more than preparing young people for a competitive labour market, ferocious global competition and radical technological transformation mean that, for social justice reasons, it is perhaps the first of these that requires the most urgent attention.

According to a 2012 report by management consultancy McKinsey, by the end of the next parliament the global economy will require 100m fewer low-skill jobs than it does now. At the same time however, there will be a 45m shortage of high-skilled workers worldwide, with at least 450,000 technician level workers required just to meet demand from the high-growth science, engineering and technology sectors here in the United Kingdom.

These projections raise both terrifying and tantalising prospects. Because while we know an unemployment crisis can have implications in disadvantaged communities, we also know that advancing social mobility relies heavily on increasing the demand for high-skill jobs. That is why education and skills are such a crucial element of Ed Miliband’s high wage, high-skill ‘race to the top’ economic vision. As well as illustrating why we are right to prioritise excellence and rigour for the ‘forgotten 50 per cent’ – those young people who wish to pursue vocational learning instead of higher education at university.

Indeed, there can be little serious argument that the lack of a high-quality vocational alternative represents the historic failing of the English education system. The ‘one nation’ promise of Butler’s technical schools route was simply never realised. Meanwhile, young people who choose vocational learning today face a bewildering array of options and courses some of which, as the Alison Wolf report showed in 2011, often fail to offer progression to good jobs or further study.

The coalition’s policy on vocational education is similar to Lord Salisbury’s approach to foreign affairs: let us not get involved. In contrast, in 2015 Labour will offer rigorous new vocational qualifications underpinned by business accreditation to guarantee genuine marketplace value; a gold-standard technical baccalaureate to offer young people a clear and high quality route through upper secondary education; compulsory English and maths to 18; and higher aspirations for apprenticeships – they should all be level three and last a minimum of two years.

Yet we will also need to make sure young people are aware of these new opportunities. Just as with vocational education, England has never enjoyed a golden age of careers education and guidance. Nevertheless, from low career aspirations in disadvantaged young people, to a lack of understanding of apprenticeships and a chronic mismatch between further education courses and labour market demand, the imprint of the government’s shoddy neglect is visible everywhere.

Labour is attracted to the Confederation of British Industry’s proposals for local careers brokers – which builds upon the Directors of Enterprise proposals put forward by Andrew Adonis in his growth review – and we will examine this model carefully as we move towards our 2015 manifesto. And given the cultural scars that youth unemployment has left upon our national psyche, we also believe there is a strong case for encouraging schools to collect and publish far more rigorous destinations data than the government is currently demanding. After all, a coalition of headteachers is already taking steps to publish their own league tables with a broader set of performance measures and clearer information about school leavers’ next steps certainly falls within that category. What is more, the wider benefits, such as developing the capacity for a school to build strong alumni networks – which innovative careers social enterprises like Future First have shown can help dramatically raise aspirations – could be quietly transformative.

The third and final issue is making sure all children, including those with high academic attainment, are properly prepared for working life. Because as employers have persistently argued, outstanding qualification results, on their own, are no guarantee of the wider aptitudes required by the world of work. That does not for one second mean we can compromise on high standards. Rather, as with so many things, we need to strike the right balance. And the evidence from academic disciplines such as neuroscience, behavioural economics and cognitive psychology is all beginning to show that character traits – such as motivation, curiosity, perseverance, self-control and grit – can be nurtured and even taught.

Understandably this is a concern for enterprise: demonstrating the emotional intelligence to work in a high-performing team, the grit to persevere with a challenge when gratification or reward is remote, the discipline needed for consistent professionalism – such skills are the bread and butter of working world success. But we should also take the cultivation of character seriously because it is right for our young people in and of itself. Education should be about offering a rich educational experience that empowers them to become active, resilient citizens with a sense of moral purpose, as well as equipping them with the knowledge and skills to compete. There are no quick wins on this mission – it will require a broader cultural shift away from the top-down, target-driven, exam-obsessed that permeated so much of our education system in the last few years. However, the answer, as with so much else, can be found in world-class teaching. So we would encourage teacher training providers to focus on character and revalidate teacher expertise at regular intervals so that teachers keep abreast of the latest breakthroughs in this exciting area of educational research.

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Tristram Hunt MP is shadow secretary of state for education

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Photo: Barnshaws