University might not be best for everyone — but tell a Jewish parent that and be prepared to hear a resounding: “Well it is for my kids.”
It is no secret that, as a community, we value education, and that enormous naches that can be schepped when young David gets into a Russell Group institution.
This week, as A-level results arrived, Facebook was inundated with proud and joyful posts from parents with kids heading for Oxbridge, Birmingham, Nottingham or Bristol. You tend not to hear from the families where the news is not so good.
But, according to Sophie Adelman, co-founder of apprenticeship company, White Hat, even some of the top universities are not fit for purpose and, despite what many think, it is not the only route to success.
Unlike most start-ups, Adelman’s office is in central London. However, once inside the building, it feels more like Shoreditch. Hip young people populate the desks, laptops dominate, and rooms are divided by clear, glass walls.
Adelman, 35, went to Cambridge University and left a successful career in banking to start her own business, so on paper she is not the kind of person I’d imagine advocating vocational training.
But she thinks that, now we have 49 per cent of school-leavers headed to university, young people risk graduating with burdensome debts and may struggle to find a good enough job in an increasingly competitive and over-populated market.
She thinks those who opt for a more vocational route could end up the real success stories — two years ahead in an established career by the time the graduates catch up.
That’s why Adelman set up her company with Euan Blair, son of Tony Blair — ironically, the prime minister who in 1999 set the goal that half of school-leavers should go to university.
White Hat’s target is to tempt some of the best candidates away from university and into on-the-job training in prestigious places such as Google, Warner Brothers and law firm Mishcon de Reya.
“People assume you need to go to university to get a job and get the best job possible but that is not true,” Adelman says.
“If you leave school at 18 for a two-year apprenticeship at Google doing digital marketing, you are going to be several years ahead of your peers.
“You’re probably going to be managing them; you are going to be earning a significant amount of money, around the £20k mark, and you won’t have a huge amount of university debt.”
Adelman and Blair want to transform the landscape for those leaving school and hope that, by 2035, 35 per cent of school leavers will choose an apprenticeship. But how do they deal with the anxieties of parents convinced that university is the only aspirational route for their children?
“A couple of months ago, we had a meeting with some of the heads from the top private schools in the UK and they were saying they feel pressure from parents to get their children into university but the heads don’t necessarily think it is the right route.”
It is something Charlotte Abrahamson, White Hat’s head of community and education, knows all about and has encountered on her trips to many Jewish schools. One of the challenges she faces is meeting Jewish students who are keen, but scared to broach the subject with their parents.
“Jewish parents are tough nuts to crack,” says the former JFS pupil — who went to Manchester University.
“The students I meet are far more interested in apprenticeships than their parents are. I have found Jewish parents to be the most scared because, culturally, it is the academic reputation that is really important.”
But when she explains that young people who take the apprentice route can go and work at Google, or Facebook, or “some of the other brilliant companies that their friends work at, they get really excited.
“I think my biggest piece of advice for young people at the moment is be able to identify what kind of learner you are. Are you someone who loves learning? Then university is right for you, but if you are really hands-on and practical, then maybe you want to work. And that is the best way to talk about it with your family.”
According to Abrahamson, the Jewish community is well set up for apprenticeships.
“The fact that people belong to youth groups means there is a lot of vocational training going on the whole time. They are primed for it already and that lends itself really well to the work place.”
Adelman believes the focus on university education has led to too many universities, which in turn has diluted the standard of degree available to school-leavers.
“Instead of having a small group of universities where there was a lot of intellectual rigour, and a lot of research that was very good, you have universities that aren’t actually very good, but people have to pay the same to go to them as they would to go to Oxford.”
She thinks if a student today is not going to go to one of the top ten universities in the country then it might be better for them to do an apprenticeship. “You end up with the same amount of debt whether you go to Oxbridge or to an ex polytechnic. Yet you don’t get the same opportunities at the end of it.”
She uses her own journey as an example.
“I read geography at Cambridge and what it did was open doors. I wouldn’t say I have applied my degree in what I do but people look at my CV and see that name.”
Her university education got her a career in banking, which she hated, but it is how she met her business partner Blair. Looking back, she finds the idea of an apprenticeship attractive.
“I’m not saying I wouldn’t have done my degree but I think the two things can work hand-in-hand. I would love people to do one and then the other.”
She wants to create a world where an apprenticeship can carry the same prestige as her Cambridge education. “If they can come away with two years practical on-the-job training experience with a top business, that is better than going to a third-tier university and puts them ahead of their peers who graduate from Oxbridge.”
It is hard to argue with Adelman when she tells you that 90 per cent of the White Hat cohort stay on with the companies to which they are apprenticed. She says that some people are just better suited to apprenticeships.
“That doesn’t have anything to do with whether or not you are smart and everything to do with what kind of learning you are good at. A lot of schools assume that apprenticeships are for students that are not as academically smart.” But she is determined to change that.
“We have some of the brightest students come to us, some of them are coming from the UK’s top schools. It is just that they want to learn in a different way.”
Budding apprentices also come from some of the most disadvantaged schools, attracted by the prospect of earning straight away instead of mounting debt at university.
“We make sure, no matter where they come from, that everyone starts at the same point.
“When you are in a business where you get to have impact from day one it is very fulfilling, and it is the exact same thing with an apprenticeship.”
White Hat is running an event for Y12 and 13 and post A-level students on August 21 www.whitehat-beyondthegrades.eventbrite.co.uk
