It needs someone like this chap to lead it. Former Lightning pilot; obligatory one more takeoff than landing; F4 squadron commander and RAFG Station Commander. Left very shortly before the Berlin Wall came down and carved out new career. He was one of the good guys.
Unfortunately Ali is probably a bit long in the tooth and enjoying retirement but there must be others like him around.
exmpa
Iām doing my A-Levels at the moment (taking a revision break as I write this) and I find it terrifying how mandatory university feels (note the word feels). Student loans are handed out like candy to naive kids who donāt know what theyāre signing up for, and many of them will never use their degrees! University used to mean something but now itās diluted and unimportant. As others have said, apprenticeships are the way ahead, gets young people into trades, earning (ie fending for themselves) and the government doesnāt have to loan them money for uni!
GCSE in Tarmac engineering?
You might say that in jest, but weād all do well to recall what happened to the population of Golgafrincham in Hitchhikerās Guide to the Galaxyā¦
Perhaps a mandatory gcse in telephone sanitising then 
We definitely need to make it cheaper or free of charge.
There are immense benefits to having a more educated population, even if they donāt go on to use their degree directly.
Even meeting people from further afield is immensely beneficial.
The true value in most degrees (some specialist ones exempted) is the networking opportunities they provide.
Iām lucky, I graduated my bachelors with a first anyhow, but it was the relationships built that have enabled me to work in the field. Whilst not directly related, I was only successful in securing my current role due to the work in the field that was secured through my undergraduate network.
Things like medicine and most STEM subject, the value is absolutely in the degree itself (as well as the networking), but for most others itās the networks. And I donāt think this is explained well enough before most students start, leading them to prioritise their energies in the wrong areas.
why not take this furtherā¦
..use this to get HS2 over the line?
ācheapā labour, that labour learn a trade, and the project gets movingā¦?
(like @WestlandScout only slightly joking)
i am tending to agree with this.
i am a child of Blairs āEducation, Education, Educationā - and resulted in me going to university.
I never felt i was āthe uni sortā and my parents were split on it.
i have been working with my degree (Engineering) for the same company for 16 years, but i have colleagues i rub shoulders with who are at the same level who got here via the Company apprenticeship and makes me wonder - was uni worth it? i could have save 4 years of uni, and the loan and other expenses that encountered, been earning sooner (and thus taxed sooner) via the apprenticeship routeā¦
having seen new grads enter the company/department they know the theory but never the practical so are not as āgoodā as an apprentice who has worked through the process.
that would be my generation who went to university on a ābusiness studiesā course. while no one said it out loud, it was the course 6th formers looked to as a way of getting to university yet had no clue what they wanted to do with their career, they didnāt have enough passion, interest or enthusiasm in anything to have a clue where to start, but wanted to go to uni and live the āuniā life - because Blair wanted everyone to have the opportunity of gaining a degree (because it once upon a time meant something) a business studies course permitted that
I had a place to read law at Warwick which I eventually turned down as I checked out a few law books In the library and found them so boring. I had chosen law as my uncle was a successful solicitor.
Instead I signed up to Articles of Clerkship (now a training contract) with a firm of Chartered Accountants and qualified like that through self study and on the job training.
We used to joke at work that the last recruit you wanted in a firm of Chartered Accountants was a guy with a degree in Accountancy as they spent all their time debating which way to do something and not actually get on and get the work done.
Back in the 1960ās and 1970ās a degree was proof of an ability to learn at a high or advanced level hence people reading classics etc and then going into a completely different career.
Well done to the government for actually looking at what works around the world, if only theyād take a leaf out of virtually any other countries book to fund defence