A new proposal suggests offering recent school leavers a 50% discount on their total university fees in exchange for a year of volunteering in social care. The scheme, potentially named 'Care First', aims to address the ongoing crisis in the UK's social care sector and issues with university funding.
The social care sector is currently facing spiralling costs, with many local councils dedicating a significant portion of their budgets to it. Families are also reportedly seeing savings depleted by nursing home fees, a problem expected to worsen with an ageing population.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham, in his second week in office, pledged to fix Britain's social care system. However, the administration's specific plans for achieving this, particularly regarding funding without raising income tax, VAT, or national insurance, remain unclear.
The 'Care First' proposal suggests that if uptake is high, the state could gain a substantial amount of short-term labour, offsetting lost loan revenue. It also posits that young people would benefit by graduating with less debt. Dr Paul Sagar, a reader in political theory at King's College London, is confident that incentivising students to try social care before university could encourage some to rejoin the profession after graduating, potentially reducing stigma around the work.