Keir Starmer dropped Labour's Tony Blair-era drive to get half of all schoolchildren into university today, branding it outdated.
The Prime Minister used his speech to the party conference to alter course and get more students into 'gold-plated' apprenticeships.
Twenty six years after Mr Blair laid out the target at Labour conference, and six years after it was finally realised under the Tories, Sir Keir insisted it was said it was 'not right for our times'.
Instead he said Labour wanted two-thirds of children to either go to uni or get an apprenticeship, saying the latter needed to be more respected by the country.
Mr Blair unveiled the move in Bournemouth in 1999 to stop teens dropping out of education at 16, saying: 'Why, if education is the key to success, do we allow so many children to leave school at 16 when we should be doing all we can to get them to stay on?'
