Dan Canavan, who appeared on BBC TV’s Newsnight this week, launched The Spark Group in 2023 to create work opportunities for young people, through construction and green apprenticeships. Here’ he tells Daily Focus why Andy Burnham’s NEET approach, announced yesterday, mirrors his lifetime’s work.
For many months I have been advocating the need to change the choices we give teenagers in their last years at school.
While academic education is a fantastic route forward for some, it leaves others confused and frustrated.
One of my primary aims in setting up The Spark Group was to support youngsters who want to follow a more vocational route.
Now it seems the government, under new leadership, is getting on board, and it’s music to my ears.
Data from the Office for National Statistics shows that in 2025 the total number of young people not earning or learning – often known as NEETS – stood at just under one million. There are 948,000 young people categorized as NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET).
At The Spark Group, along with working with apprentices, we invite schools into our Hanley-based workshops. These young people are those in danger of falling out of school altogether, yet a day in our workshop gives themselves a sense of purpose and crucially means they don’t disappear off the school radar.
Imagine if this could be repeated across the UK and, to take it further, vocational routes were offered in schools from the age of 14, crucially having the same status as academic education.
I have worked to get young people into work throughout my adult life. It seems very obvious that some want to work as a joiner, a gas engineer, or a painter and decorator and don’t see a future in learning many traditional academic subjects. It is, however, crucial, that they complete basic maths and English, and we work with schools to ensure that happens.
Half of my family is Dutch, I know that in the Netherlands and Germany, these vocational routes are available from aged 14.
The Spark Group welcomes the new PM’s initiative. In Manchester, Andy Burnham launched the Greater Manchester Baccalaureate, an educational and technical framework designed to guide students aged 14 and older toward local vocational training, apprenticeships, and careers. It serves as a vocational alternative to the academic-focused English Baccalaureate (EBacc), linking school subjects directly to high-growth regional industries.
