I think

that workers in sectors for which there is overseas competition - which is an increasing majority, as technology advances - will need to compete in high-end, high-value added parts of those sectors, for which they'll need to be well-educated.

And I think that even for those sectors where there's unlikely to be much overseas competition - like estate agents - then we'll continue to want to innovate and make people more productive. Beucase people in the end get paid according to how productive they are, and we will want to encourage people to work in those sectors, rather than the well-paid externally-facing jobs.

So yes, I think the future lies in educating people as highly as possible. I think pretty much every other developed country recognises this, too. So it would be a very odd time to decide to shrink the number of people who stay in education.

Posted By: Tricky Hawes, Nov 24, 14:06:11