The school system does too little to prepare students for work and support those most at risk of unemployment, a landmark review warns.

The government-commissioned report, which was led by former Labour health secretary Alan Milburn, says education in England is too focused on exam-based qualifications rather than whether pupils go on to sustained employment or learning.

Almost one million young people aged 16 to 24 in the UK are not in education, employment or training (Neet), and education is not alone in falling short - health and welfare systems, for example, are also failing in creating paths towards work, the interim report says.

The report states: “The education and skills system does not fail by accident, but by design. It is designed to produce qualifications rather than working adults.”

While school “works well” for many who “can see a route into good jobs”, many others experience it “very differently, as ‘traumatic’, ‘stressful’, ‘boring’ and something to be endured rather than embraced”.

‘This is a whole-system failure’

Qualifications remain one of the “most powerful protective factors” against becoming Neet, the review finds.

However, the amount of school time taken up by the national curriculum and the limited range of assessment approaches at key stage 4 mean some students are “effectively set up to fail”.

These students are “overwhelmingly” from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The report adds: “That is not because they lack ability. It is because the system defines ability in ways that exclude them.”

The review also cites survey findings showing that 67 per cent of Neet young people believe the curriculum does not prepare them for work, while 55 per cent feel the education system does “not suit people like them”.

“It is hard not to be pessimistic when you examine the data,” says the foreward to the report, which stresses that various sectors, not just education, fall short: “This is a whole-system failure.”

It also stresses that there is much to praise in schools: “Education should be the bridge between childhood and the world of work. For many young people, it is. There are excellent schools, colleges and teachers doing remarkable work.”

Disengagement ‘begins early’

Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the NEU teaching union, said the review is “right to highlight that England’s education system is exam-obsessed and that the narrow, packed curriculum disengages many young people”.

He added: “Our overreliance on exams does not support young people to develop the skills necessary for work and life, and demotivates a large cohort.”

Schools need to strike the right balance between the curriculum, careers guidance and work experience, the report says.

However, it warns that this is not what “schools are currently achieving”, and pinpoints problems that extend throughout a child’s time at school.

The review states: “The system knows, from the moment a child arrives at school, who is most likely to fail. It has the data, and the unambiguous evidence. A study of over 8,000 young people in Bradford found that children who were not school-ready at ages 4 to 5 were nearly three times as likely to be Neet at ages 16 to 17 years old.”

It continues: “Disengagement did not begin at 16 or 17, but much earlier - sometimes as early as Year 7.”

GCSEs ‘a source of dread’

GCSEs, meanwhile, were “described repeatedly [by ex-pupils] as a source of dread rather than anything that felt fair or useful”.

School leavers who may have struggled in the past are now often “better prepared”, but many do not get the rewards for their hard work: the review finds it “striking that of the Neet population, nearly 30 per cent are now getting good GCSEs or equivalent... yet the labour market is not absorbing them”.

The review shows that only 47 per cent of 18- to 24-year-olds, and 36 per cent of those who are Neet, felt ready for work when they left education.

“A school is recognised, regulated and rewarded for examination results, not on where the student ends up,” the report states, and schools do “not have labour-market participation as a sufficiently core objective”.

It adds that only 32 per cent of young people reported receiving face-to-face careers advice in 2025, while apprenticeships were discussed with just 18 per cent.

“The careers advice on offer was frequently perceived to have made things worse rather than better,” the review notes, although it acknowledges that careers guidance has improved.

Lack of work experience is the barrier to employment most commonly cited by young people. It is “an afterthought for many schools”, with students often told to find their own placements, says the review.

Schools measured on exam results

“Good qualifications are still one of the best defences against a young person becoming Neet,” the report states.

But school accountability drives leaders too often towards qualifications rather than work-readiness or employment outcomes, it warns.

The report adds that Ofsted does not inspect or report on whether students end up in sustained employment or learning after leaving school, and says performance tables “reinforce the same distortion” in ranking schools by exam results.

It notes that post-school destination measures are published by the Department for Education but do not generally drive Ofsted judgements or funding, adding: “A metric that carries no consequence is not accountability, but at best information.”

The report says that many of its findings chime with a survey of teachers for the review: three-quarters agreed that the curriculum put too much emphasis on passing exams and not enough on preparing young people for employment.

Mr Kebede said England’s “exclusively exam-focused assessment system” should be urgently reviewed.

The report states: “It would be easier to blame one thing [for the Neet problem]: Covid, smartphones, benefits, schools, employers, parents or young people themselves, [but] evidence does not support a single explanation.”

The Francis curriculum and assessment review, published in November, prioritised exams reform. It described the amount of time spent on key stage 4 assessment as “excessive” and proposed reducing overall exam time by at least 10 per cent.