THE chairman of BAE is calling for a rebalancing of the education system after a report urged the Government to consider a schooling 'reset'.

Sir Roger Carr said young people needed to be equipped with the skills to do jobs that are valuable to society and said apprenticeships should be valued higher.

BAE was featured in a report conducted by The Times newspaper's education commission.

The commission has called for a new baccalaureate that mixes academic and vocational qualifications.

The commission looked out how the company was working with schools to produce the next generation of workers.

Sir Roger said: “We need a programme in this country that doesn’t start from the belief that we have the finest education system in the world because we have some of the finest universities in the world.

"We have to think, how do we equip those who start life with the fewest advantages to have a first-class education, which is developing relevant skills, which can convert into jobs that are both valuable to the society, and also to the individual?”

"Schools must also have more to do with the businesses in their community.

In Barrow BAE, the biggest local employer, runs educational programmes in schools designed to drum up an interest in science and technology to create the well-qualified workers it needs for its nuclear submarine plant.

The report described how the  company has produced 'engineering fairy tales' for local primaries in which Rapunzel has to get out of the tower, but instead of lowering her hair for the handsome prince she builds her own winch.

There are after-school clubs and holiday camps, with activities such as 'bug bingo;, where children have to find a worm, a beetle and an ant, or build a chair out of newspaper.

The company gives its engineers time off to go into schools.

Between them these 'ambassadors' delivered 4,000 hours of educational activity in 2019.

Neil Doherty, the company’s corporate social responsibility manager, said that it was more about enlightened self-interest than philanthropy for a company that is heavily reliant on recruiting in one of the most disadvantaged parts of the country.

“Educational attainment is lower than the national average at GCSE level . . . and we know that the future workforce is going to need to be better qualified," he said.

About 2,400 apprentices are training with BAE Systems, which is manufacturing the next generation of nuclear submarines in Barrow and the Eurofighter Typhoon jets in Lancashire.

More than a quarter come from underprivileged parts of the community.

“We seek out those people who have got ambition and talent from all backgrounds,” Carr said.

“I think it’s socially important we do that . . . You can have a defined academic university career path which is first class, but you can have in parallel to that a well-defined and valued apprenticeship career path, which is equally recognised.”

Sir Roger told the commission how growing numbers of undergraduates were quitting university courses to take up apprenticeships, which offer a clearer route to employment and no debt.

He said: “Fifty years ago we had a society where apprenticeships were both valued and important, respected and recognised.

"They went through a period where there was a whole shift towards, if you hadn’t gone to university to study an academic subject, somehow you were getting a second-grade education and apprenticeships were socially downgraded as a result of that.

"We threw the pendulum too far in one direction and I think that pendulum is now swinging back.”

He added: “We seek out those people who have got ambition and talent from all backgrounds.

“I think it’s socially important we do that.

"You can have a defined academic university career path which is first class, but you can have in parallel to that a well-defined and valued apprenticeship career path, which is equally recognised.”