The great reforming secretary of state for education, Tony Crosland, wrote in 1956 that to create an education system which achieves equal opportunity ‘the most important step...would be the raising of the school leaving age to 16'.  This ambition became a Labour commitment at the 1964 general election and was implemented by Edward Heath's Conservative government in 1972.

Forty years later, we're taking another step along this road when the age at which young people can leave education or training rises from 16 to 17 next month, before it rises to 18 in two years' time.

This is an historic change and a huge opportunity.  A million young people have no job, long-term youth unemployment has doubled in the last three years and one third of 18-year-olds are not in any education or training.

Research from the National Foundation for Educational Research found that helping these young people into education or training brings an immediate improvement to their knowledge and skills, as well as a long-term benefit to their earnings and employability.

But this generational change is set to become a massive missed opportunity.  In 2013 – as happened in 1972 – a Labour initiative is being introduced by Conservative ministers, although that is where the similarity ends.

Two of the foundation stones for raising the education leaving age that Labour laid in 2008 when Parliament passed the legislation have been removed.

Careers advice to help all young people make good choices about their future and financial support so that no young person is excluded from education or training because of cost have both been broken up by this government.

Under the cover of creating a new all-age careers service, responsibility for support has been shifted from local authorities to schools and colleges but with no funding, specification or accountability.

Legislative change and funding cuts have swept away area-wide services.  Ten years ago in our local Rotherham area, Connexions provided a universal information, advice and guidance (IAG) service, with extra help for vulnerable 13-19-year-olds.

Now, support is restricted to just one in eight year-11 students, plus some 16-18-year-olds who are outside learning.

In Barnsley, funding cuts mean our IAG service, which is targeted at all young people defined as ‘vulnerable', will from September restrict its work to those with SEN statements, are in care or have offender management orders.  The council will no longer be able to support schools with NEET prevention.

Professor Tony Watts from Derby University describes the changes as precipitating a ‘crisis'.  Even the Conservative-dominated Education Select Committee recently found ‘a worrying deterioration in the overall level of provision for young people'.

This is important because, as one local authority official told me, support, advice and
guidance through Connexions is ‘the glue that was supposed to hold the pieces together' when the education leaving age is raised.

Financial support is the second pillar supporting a higher education leaving age that ministers have demolished.

During just four years from 2005 in Rotherham, the number of school-age students on the education maintenance allowance (EMA) increased by around 1,000, from 72% to 82%.

As the take-up of the EMAs grew, participation in learning rose and the number of young people not in employment, education or training (NEET) fell.  This was the experience and evidence across the country, yet in 2010 the Government scrapped the EMA and replaced it with a largely discretionary fund with a budget only one third of the size.

Teenagers from poorer families will not go to college if they cannot afford food, books and transport.

Research from Banardo's found that the new bursary system was failing to support disadvantaged 16-19-year-olds, with the result that young people were considering dropping out of education or training altogether due to financial hardship.

Since then, the Government has announced that the bursary fund will receive a real-terms cut while it also wants to expand eligibility.

As less is made to stretch further it is even more unlikely that the bursary will meet students' costs and provide the same successful incentive as the EMAs.

Good active work is being done by local authorities to try to make up for these national government failures.  Tower Hamlets has introduced a bursary fund of its own as a partial replacement for the EMAs;  Barnsley is setting up locally-based personal advisers to provide advice and guidance; Rotherham remains committed to funding an independent online ‘search and apply' prospectus and application system for all young people; and Brighton and Hove has set up a post-Connexions ‘youth employability service' to support young people who are NEET or whose education status is unknown.

Local action is necessary but it is simply not sufficient to get the potential gains from this great education change next month.

This generation of Conservative ministers have shown they have no commitment to Crosland's dream of a country where opportunities are widely and fairly shared and all young people have the chance to flourish.

Instead, they have washed their hands of the rise in the leaving age.  That is why we have heard nothing from ministers or the national media about this historic change in our education system.

John Healey is a former local government minister