9th August 2026
Britain has spent decades encouraging more young people into universities. Germany has maintained one of the world's best known apprenticeship systems, while China has built an enormous vocational education sector alongside its universities.
So which approach produces the workforce an economy actually needs?
For half a century Britain has steadily moved towards the idea that the best route from school to a successful career is through further and higher education.
The message has often been straightforward:
Get good qualifications. Go to university. Get a degree. Then get a good job.
It has worked extremely well for millions of people.
But there is another question we should be asking.
Does an economy really need most of its young people to spend several years in higher education before they begin their working lives?
Germany and China provide two fascinating comparisons.
Neither country has rejected universities.
Instead, both have maintained something Britain arguably allowed to weaken:
a large-scale alternative route into skilled employment.
Germany: university isn't the only road to success
Germany's education system is famous for its dual vocational training system.
Young people can become apprentices while simultaneously receiving classroom-based vocational education.
They don't simply study what a job might involve.
They learn while actually working.
The apprentice spends part of the time with an employer and part in a vocational school.
The system covers hundreds of recognised occupations, with qualifications developed in cooperation with employers, trade unions and government.
That connection with business is crucial.
The training isn't simply designed by an education system and then presented to employers.
Employers have a major role in determining what skills are required.
The apprentice earns while learning
There is another important difference.
A German apprentice isn't simply a student waiting to enter the real economy.
They are already entering it.
They gain:
practical experience;
workplace discipline;
technical skills;
an income;
contacts;
and a recognised qualification.
By the time they complete their training, they have not merely studied the theory of an occupation.
They have actually been doing it.
This is very different from spending three or four years obtaining an academic qualification and only then discovering what working in the industry is really like.
Germany hasn't abandoned university
It is important not to turn Germany into some kind of anti-university model.
It isn't.
Germany has substantial numbers of university students and highly respected universities.
The difference is that university isn't treated as the only prestigious route into a successful career.
According to OECD data, among Germans aged 25–34, around 37% have a vocational upper-secondary or post-secondary qualification, while about 40% have a tertiary qualification. (OECD)
That is a striking balance.
Germany has managed to produce large numbers of university graduates while retaining a powerful vocational workforce.
Perhaps Britain should pay more attention to that.
The British problem
Britain has apprenticeships too.
But for decades there has been a cultural hierarchy.
University has often been presented as the route for the academically successful.
Vocational education has sometimes been regarded as the alternative for those who didn't make the university grade.
That is a serious mistake.
A highly skilled engineer, electrician, machinist, technician or builder is not an inferior version of a university graduate.
In many industries, such people are extraordinarily valuable.
And when they are in short supply, their skills can command very good incomes.
What if Britain had treated technical skills differently?
Imagine if a 17-year-old choosing an engineering apprenticeship was told:
"You are entering one of the most important and respected technical careers in the economy."
Rather than:
"You could have gone to university, but you've chosen an apprenticeship."
That change in attitude could be enormously important.
Young people respond to status.
Parents respond to status.
Schools respond to status.
Employers respond to status.
If vocational education is regarded as second-class, it will struggle to attract the brightest young people.
Germany has done much more to make technical careers a normal and respected alternative.
China provides a completely different lesson
China is even more interesting.
It would be completely wrong to say that China has become an economic powerhouse without universities.
China has invested heavily in higher education.
It has enormous numbers of university students and graduates.
But China has simultaneously developed a huge vocational education system.
In 2024, China had around 20.9 million students in ordinary academic bachelor's programmes.
But there were also approximately 18.1 million students in higher vocational education and another 12.3 million in secondary vocational education.
That is an extraordinary scale.
China is effectively saying:
We need university graduates — but we also need millions of technically trained people who can build, operate, maintain and manufacture things.
And that is exactly what an industrial economy needs
Think about what China has built over recent decades:
enormous manufacturing industries;
electronics;
batteries;
electric vehicles;
machinery;
solar panels;
high-speed rail;
telecommunications;
shipbuilding;
robotics;
renewable energy equipment.
Universities are essential to many of those industries.
Scientists develop new technologies.
Engineers design products.
Researchers improve processes.
But somebody has to actually manufacture them.
Factories don't operate because there are enough people with degrees.
They require technicians, machinists, electricians, programmers, maintenance specialists, production workers and supervisors.
An economy needs the whole chain.
China's lesson isn't "don't go to university"
This is perhaps the most important point.
China has not chosen between university and vocational education.
It has increasingly pursued both.
The Chinese government has been developing closer relationships between vocational education and industry, including industry-education alliances and training programmes linked to strategic sectors such as advanced manufacturing and technology. (Ministry of Education of China)
The underlying philosophy is straightforward:
Education should help produce the skills the economy actually needs.
That sounds obvious.
But Britain doesn't always appear to organise education in quite that way.
Britain's qualification inflation problem
Britain has another problem.
As more people obtain degrees, employers can start using degrees as a convenient recruitment filter.
A job that once required ability, experience and training can gradually acquire a degree requirement.
That produces a strange chain reaction.
More graduates
↓
Employers raise qualification requirements
↓
More young people go to university
↓
More graduates
↓
Even higher qualification requirements
The result is qualification inflation.
The degree becomes less about what somebody actually knows and more about proving that they have reached a particular educational level.
Then the employer trains them anyway
There is an irony here.
After spending several years obtaining qualifications, a graduate may enter a company and immediately begin another period of training.
The employer has to teach them:
company systems;
industry procedures;
practical skills;
customers' requirements;
software;
equipment;
workplace processes;
health and safety;
and the specific requirements of the job.
Of course employers have always trained people.
But if somebody needs extensive training after obtaining a degree, perhaps we should ask whether the degree was actually the best preparation for that particular occupation.
The alternative: learn while earning
This is where apprenticeships become so attractive.
Instead of:
education → education → education → employment
the route becomes:
education → employment + training → qualification → career development.
The young person starts contributing earlier.
They earn money and pay taxes.
They develop practical experience.
The employer gets a worker who is being trained specifically for the industry.
And the economy gets productive labour sooner.
That doesn't necessarily make the apprenticeship route better than university.
It makes it different.
And that is the point.
Britain may need more routes, not fewer degrees
The solution isn't to reduce university numbers simply for the sake of it.
Britain needs excellent universities.
It needs researchers.
It needs scientists.
It needs doctors.
It needs engineers.
It needs teachers.
It needs lawyers.
It needs economists and computer scientists.
But it also needs people who can install electrical systems, maintain machinery, construct buildings, repair vehicles, manufacture components and operate sophisticated industrial equipment.
Those skills cannot all be produced in lecture theatres.
What about starting work earlier?
This is perhaps the most interesting part of the comparison.
A young person entering an apprenticeship at 16 or 17 may already have several years of workplace experience by the time a university graduate enters their first full-time job.
By 21 or 22, the apprentice might have:
several years of practical experience;
a recognised qualification;
an established employer;
an income;
and perhaps savings.
The graduate may have:
a degree;
limited workplace experience;
and several years before becoming fully established in their chosen career.
Again, neither person is necessarily better qualified.
But their economic journeys have been very different.
It also changes the cost of education
There is another consideration that is often overlooked.
When somebody studies full-time for several years, there is an opportunity cost.
They are not working full-time.
They are not earning a full salary.
They may be accumulating education-related debt.
Their family may be supporting them.
The taxpayer is supporting the education system.
An apprentice, by contrast, is earning while being trained.
The employer carries part of the cost.
The apprentice contributes to production.
The economy gains another worker earlier.
That doesn't mean every young person should become an apprentice.
It means the economic calculation deserves much more attention.
Perhaps the real measure is productivity
The success of an education system shouldn't be measured simply by the number of university places it provides.
It should be measured by what happens afterwards.
Do young people find productive careers?
Do employers obtain the skills they need?
Do wages rise?
Does productivity improve?
Do businesses invest?
Do industries expand?
Do young people have realistic routes into skilled employment?
Those are much more important questions than simply counting degrees.
Britain has another problem: an ageing workforce
The issue becomes even more important as Britain ages.
The country cannot afford to have large numbers of young people spending additional years in education simply because employers have gradually increased qualification requirements.
Nor can it afford to have older workers pushed out of employment because their skills are regarded as outdated.
The answer may be a much more flexible concept of education.
Learning should not stop at 21 or 22.
People should be able to learn new skills throughout their working lives.
That was once relatively common.
A person could work for several years and then undertake further education to move into a better position.
Perhaps Britain needs to make that route much easier again.
What older generations can teach us
Many people now over 50 will remember a very different system.
You could get a job first.
Then learn.
Then gain experience.
Then obtain another qualification.
Then get promoted.
Then study again.
The career wasn't necessarily built around one major educational decision made at 18.
It evolved.
That may be one of the lessons Britain should reconsider.
A person's potential at 18 isn't necessarily obvious.
Some people flourish academically at school.
Others discover their abilities once they begin working.
An education system that allows people to continue learning throughout their careers can accommodate both.
The university debate is therefore too simplistic
The argument should not be:
University good. Apprenticeship bad.
Nor should it be:
University bad. Apprenticeship good.
The real question is:
Which form of education produces the skills the individual and the economy need?
Germany has maintained a strong answer through its dual apprenticeship system.
China has developed university education on an enormous scale while also maintaining a huge vocational sector.
Britain has expanded higher education enormously.
Perhaps the missing ingredient has been balance.
The future may require both
The economy of the future will probably require more highly educated people than the economy of 50 years ago.
Artificial intelligence, robotics, biotechnology, advanced manufacturing and renewable energy all require specialist knowledge.
But those industries will also require people who can build, install, operate, maintain and repair the systems.
A modern factory may need a university-trained engineer and a highly skilled technician standing beside each other.
Neither is more important.
They perform different jobs.
The real lesson from Germany and China
Perhaps the biggest lesson is not that Britain should copy either country.
It is that successful economies don't rely on a single educational conveyor belt.
They create multiple routes.
University for academic and professional careers.
Vocational education for technical careers.
Apprenticeships for learning through employment.
Workplace training for practical skills.
Further education for people changing direction.
And opportunities to return to education throughout working life.
That is much more flexible than telling almost every young person:
"Get qualifications first and worry about work afterwards."
Britain doesn't need fewer ambitions
It needs more choices.
A 17-year-old who wants to become a doctor should be encouraged to pursue university.
A 17-year-old who wants to design machinery should have an excellent technical route.
A young person who wants to become an electrician should be able to enter a respected apprenticeship.
Someone who isn't sure what they want to do should have the opportunity to work, discover their strengths and return to education later.
And someone who starts in one occupation at 18 should still be able to retrain at 30, 40 or 50.
That is what a genuinely flexible education system should provide.
The biggest question for Britain
For decades Britain has asked:
"How many young people can we send to university?"
Perhaps it should now ask:
"How many young people can we help into productive careers?"
Those are very different questions.
Germany demonstrates that a prosperous advanced economy can maintain a powerful apprenticeship system alongside universities.
China demonstrates that a country can expand higher education enormously while simultaneously building a vast vocational education system to support manufacturing and technology.
Neither country has chosen university or work.
They have chosen university and work — with different routes between them.
Perhaps that is the lesson Britain needs.
A degree should be one route into a career, not the price of admission to adult life.
The real objective shouldn't be to produce as many graduates as possible.
It should be to produce the right skills, in the right people, at the right time — and give people the opportunity to keep learning throughout their working lives.
That may be a better definition of an educated nation.