While GCSE results are stable and education reform is welcome, qualifications without a healthy labour market, entry-level jobs, and a functioning support system won't make a difference.

Beyond the celebratory headlines of results day, structural inequality remains deeply embedded in our education system. Rewiring our tertiary system for lifelong learning is essential for true educational parity.

Properly designed, rewiring could turn education and skills into part of a coherent place-based economic and social system. Poorly designed, it could replace national fragmentation with a patchwork of regional systems and transfer financial risk to places and providers without transferring sufficient resources.