Once again, hundreds of thousands of young people are getting their A-level results as well as the options they have for moving on. A-levels are a well-worn rite of passage – but their traditional function as stepping stones to employment is anything but what it used to be. The nearly 50 per cent of 18-year-old A-level students going on to higher education (HE) face a 21st century world of work where continual change will be the norm, not the exception. A-levels are increasingly a starting block, and not a finishing line.

How do we keep their options open – to meet their aspirations and those for our economy and society? And crucially, how can we have a laser-like focus on social mobility to help neglected and disadvantaged groups into both higher and further education (FE)?

A-level results 2018 – in pictures Show all 21 1 /21 A-level results 2018 – in pictures A-level results 2018 – in pictures Students celebrate their A Level results from Ark Academy in Wembley PA A-level results 2018 – in pictures Charlie Jenner, Nathan Sharp and Abhinav Boddu receive their A Level results at Norwich School PA A-level results 2018 – in pictures Students collect their A Level results at Brighton College PA A-level results 2018 – in pictures Students celebrate their A Level results from Ark Academy in Wembley PA A-level results 2018 – in pictures Twins Himmat (left) and Arjun Sohal, who both got 3 A's in Maths, Physics and Chemistry, and will both be going to Bath Universirty to study Chemical Engineering, celebrate their A Level results at Peter Symonds College, Winchester PA A-level results 2018 – in pictures Students celebrate their A Level results from Ark Academy in Wembley PA A-level results 2018 – in pictures Alex Cox receiving his A Level results at Mander Portman Woodward College, Edgbaston, Birmingham PA A-level results 2018 – in pictures Students react as they receive their 'A' level results at Stoke Newington School and Sixth Form in London Reuters A-level results 2018 – in pictures Moyle Oloko with her results at Brighton College in East Sussex PA A-level results 2018 – in pictures Grace El-Mokadem, Maddie Backhouse, Claudia Ballard and Sophie Plumber read their A Level results at Brighton College in East Sussex PA A-level results 2018 – in pictures Twins Emily and Molly Goldberg receive their A Level results at Merchant Taylor School in Crosby, Merseyside PA A-level results 2018 – in pictures A student reacts as she receives her 'A' level results at Stoke Newington School and Sixth Form in London REUTERS A-level results 2018 – in pictures Students react as they receive their 'A' level results at Stoke Newington School and Sixth Form in London Reuters A-level results 2018 – in pictures Simran Kaur Bahia 20 receiving her A Level results gaining an A*, A and B at Mander Portman Woodward College, Edgbaston PA A-level results 2018 – in pictures Students pose for a photograph as they receive their A Level results from from Merchant Taylor School in Crosby, Merseyside PA A-level results 2018 – in pictures Amanda Georgevic with daughter Phoebe Georgevic 19, who got two A's and one B in her A Level results at Mander Portman Woodward College, Edgbaston PA A-level results 2018 – in pictures Students react as they receive their 'A' level results at Stoke Newington School and Sixth Form in London Reuters A-level results 2018 – in pictures Harriet Selway, 17, left, and Niamh Davies, 17, right, both from Horfield, Bristol, react as they open their A Level results at St Mary Redcliffe and Temple School PA A-level results 2018 – in pictures Eleanor Elizabeth Sykes 18 receiving her A Level results gaining 2 A's at Mander Portman Woodward College, Edgbaston PA A-level results 2018 – in pictures A group of students talk after receiving their A Level results at Mander Portman Woodward College PA A-level results 2018 – in pictures A student reacts as she receives her 'A' level results at Stoke Newington School and Sixth Form in London Reuters

For Labour, these are priorities at the heart of our plans for a new transformative National Education Service. But there are also concerns that need tackling in HE now. Clare Marchant, the head of Ucas, estimated the number of young people starting degrees this year is expected to be “2.5 per cent lower” than last year – with the highest decline in the number of young men applying for three years.

But we know already that the overall number of English undergraduate entrants from low participation areas fell by 17 per cent between 2011-12 and 2016-17 – with a 54 per cent fall in entrants from those areas studying part-time. The record of successive Tory-led governments since 2010 has been dire. Analysis of HE Statistics Agency data just published by Labour shows just a 1 per cent increase over that time of the intake from such areas to Russell Group universities, while simultaneously, research released by the towns group of MPs shows young people from towns are far less likely to go onto HE than their counterparts in London.

This year’s fall in application numbers has also seen a huge upsurge in universities making unconditional offers to around 23 per cent of A-level students. This threatens to devalue their achievements and eventual HE outcomes as well as having a bias against disadvantaged groups.

If we will the ends and benefits of social mobility pre and post-18, we must also will the means. Ministers have consistently stuck their heads in the sand on bringing back HE maintenance grants, despite near universal agreement across the sector they are urgently needed now. Labour’s firm commitment is to reintroduce both those grants and our pre 2010 Education Maintenance Allowances, which helped 16-18-year-olds from poorer backgrounds to progress into both HE and FE.

And of course, from day one of their studies, HE students incur indefensible rip-off interest rates of 6.1 per cent on their student loans – based on an unjustifiable formula imposed by ministers – whilst coping with increasingly expensive accommodation and other costs.

Alongside these challenges, how do we get more opportunities for disadvantaged young people to be in contention for A-levels and HE in the first place?

Universities under attack for failing to broaden intake and widen access, routinely refer to the millions of pounds they spend yearly in trying to attract those groups. But perhaps the issue we should be getting to grips with is when, and how effectively that money is being spent.

The Sutton Trust, and more recently the National Education Opportunities Network (NEON) have consistently been advocates for earlier intervention by the HE sector with targeted groups of young people, encounters that can play a vital role in sparking aspiration for their futures post 18.

We should be looking at more sustained programmes with schools and particular social and ethnic groupings at a far earlier age, in the final year of primary and the first two years of secondary school. On the basis of increasing evidence, these groups should include working-class white children, particularly working class boys, as well as other underrepresented groups such as Afro-Caribbean pupils and those with particularly difficult life pathways – children in care or with disabilities, for example.

This approach is far more likely to yield results than universities narrowly focusing the bulk of their time and money solely on 16-18-year-olds – a strategy that arguably consolidates applications from young people who are likely to have gone to HE in substantial numbers anyway.

FE colleges must also be part of this “early bird” strategy. One in 10 students in HE do their courses in England. This government has systematically underfunded FE colleges and treated them as afterthoughts in their HE strategies, but FE remains a huge gateway for social mobility and life-changing experiences. Instead of diverting time and money from the Office for Students into untried, new, narrowly focused private for profit providers, we should be signing FE up as a major player in HE access and outreach.

This isn’t about trying to set young people’s futures in stone in their early teens – it’s about awakening their sense of worth, ambition and potential – and working with their families to do so.

As Marchant, head of Ucas, has reminded this year’s achievers – A-levels are not just pass cards to university. They can be pathways to earn as you learn employment, including apprenticeships and skilled jobs. Alongside the new T-levels, they must be fit for the multi-purpose opportunities and demands of a rapidly changing economy and workforce, right into the 2030s.

Labour’s National Education Service and lifelong learning strategies embody this approach, which will provide progression not just for young people, but also repeated opportunities for older ones to learn, train and reskill, underpinned by our pledges on fees. Meanwhile though, this government’s thinking is still stuck in last century’s silos. If we don’t break out from them, we risk having not just a “lost generation” of the young, but also of the middle aged.

We can’t just tell people we’ll expand their educational chances. We must take them with us on that journey. It can’t all be done by Whitehall – and much should be done by devolving appropriately to the communities where people live, learn and work. It’s what I said writing for the Fabian Society’s Life Lessons publication earlier this year: “too often education has been something done to the people – rather than by, for or with them … What about ‘education of the people, for the people, by the people?’”