National Youth Strategy published

It’s not often that the government chooses a nightclub as the venue to make their latest policy announcements. But that’s exactly where I was yesterday, for the launch of the first national youth strategy in over two decades. In recent months, we’ve had several announcements related to young people, from the review of the curriculum, which Teach the Future contributed to, to new measures just last week to tackle youth unemployment and the lowering of the voting age to 16. But Youth Matters: Your National Youth Strategy is different. It ties all of these threads together, setting out a whole-of-government approach to respond to the priorities of young people, grounded in evidence gathered from over 14,000 young people. 

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The strategy has three core goals: ensuring young people have people who care about them, ensuring they have places to go and things to do, and ensuring they feel seen and heard. The strategy includes major investments in everything from youth centres to public transport, as well as specific policy actions for at least 11 government departments.

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There’s a lot in here for Teach the Future to be happy about and proud of the work we’ve done over the last six years to help shift the national conversation, and there are three highlights which tie directly to our asks:

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• The government have found through their independent research, and recognise, that young people are concerned about the impact of climate change on their job prospects, something our campaigners have been calling out since 2020. They have responded by tasking Skills England to act to tackle the green skills shortage, better preparing young people for the green jobs of the future.

• The government want every young person to have the opportunity to connect with nature, and are committing to ensuring everyone has a green or blue space within a 15 minute walk of home.

• Perhaps most notably, the government have committed to climate education “from an early age”, which is a major win for Teach the Future, and has been our core campaigning objective since our inception. While we would like to see this go further than citizenship, and be woven through every subject, this is progress.

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I’m proud of all the work that has brought us to this place, from Teach the Future, Students Organising for Sustainability and the wider youth movement across the UK. This strategy is a document, and a moment, for us to be proud of, and I’m excited to see how it improves lives for our generation and the generations which follow us. The government have committed to ensuring young people remain involved in holding them accountable for the delivery of these pledges, and I know Teach the Future will be doing just that.