Our youth commission is looking at how to improve education and employment opportunities for 16-24 year olds in England.  The launch report has identified five key challenges:

• better supporting 700,000 young people not in education, employment or training
• increasing the number of people qualified to at least level 3
• improving attainment in literacy and numeracy and other basic skills
• creating a diversity of higher level learning routes through life
• support job quality, career progression, and economic security

Young people in theory have a world filled with opportunity and longer lives to enjoy it. But for too many these opportunities are out of reach. Educational attainment is increasingly central to life chances, but more dependent on family background here than in other countries.

Rises in insecure work along with stalled pay risk further divides within and between generations. This is a tale of two countries and the challenge that our Youth Commission seeks to tackle: how to ensure all young people have a fair chance in life.