House of Commons Sub-Committee on Education, Skills and the Economy: inquiry looking at careers advice, information and guidance

Transcription

1 House of Commons Sub-Committee on Education, Skills and the Economy: inquiry looking at careers advice, information and guidance Written evidence submitted by the Career Development Institute (CDI) 20 January Executive summary 1.1 The Career Development Institute (CDI) is the UK-wide professional body for the career development sector. Our 4,650 members are careers teachers, career advisers, career coaches and career consultants, working in the public, private, community and voluntary sectors. 1.2 The main points in our submission are as follows: numerous reports over the past three years have found that the current provision of careers support for young people in schools and colleges is patchy; the level and quality depend entirely on which school or college a young person attends the role of the careers professional is not fully recognised in the current policy context young people need access not only to careers information, advice and guidance but also to careers, employability and enterprise education the quality assurance framework for careers support for young people should be strengthened, to require schools and colleges to use only careers advisers who are professionally qualified in careers guidance, to a minimum of Level 6, and who are on the UK Register of Career Development Professionals all schools should also be required to work towards achieving a quality award for careers education, information, advice and guidance, nationally validated by the Quality in Careers Standard schools should be given a capacity-building grant for developing and implementing their careers strategy, conditional upon making a commitment to work towards achieving a quality award the statutory duty to provide careers education in schools in Years 7 to 11 should be re-instated, and extended to age 18 in both schools and colleges 1

2 to support schools with implementing the statutory duty consistently the Statutory Guidance should be restructured using the Gatsby benchmarks and supported by a resource pack that includes items such as: an overview for teachers of all pathways, including in particular apprenticeships; the CDI Framework for Careers, Employability and Enterprise Education; and a template for drafting a careers strategy for the school the recently strengthened position of careers in Ofsted s inspection framework must be applied consistently, and robustly, in all school inspections careers advisers and careers teachers need to be provided with regular, easily understood digests of labour market information the duplication of brokerage support for school-employer links provided by both the Careers and Enterprise Company and the National Careers Service should be removed and the resources pooled links between schools and employers make an important contribution to careers support but do not replace the need for impartial careers guidance from a careers professional the work of the Careers and Enterprise Company should be extended to include promoting, supporting and funding the role of careers professionals the Government should explore alternative models to the current approach, including models for re-constituting the current National Careers Service into a genuinely all-age careers guidance service, working with young people in schools and colleges as well as with adults. It should examine whether the current school-commissioning model represents the most appropriate approach and investigate other options including, for example, a national, all-age careers guidance service managed and monitored by the Careers & Enterprise Company and commissioned through the LEPs we need a national training programme to enable careers advisers and careers teachers to gain experience of apprenticeships further investment is required to promote the role of careers professionals in schools. 2.0 Introduction to the Career Development Institute 2.1 The Career Development Institute (CDI) is the UK-wide professional body for the career development sector, with over 4,650 members. In the context of this particular inquiry, we represent careers advisers working with young people in schools, colleges and in the community, and careers teachers and tutors who have responsibility for leading and managing programmes of careers education, information, advice and guidance in 2

3 schools and colleges. Our principal focus is on quality and professionalism: the Institute is responsible for the UK Register of Career Development Professionals; we are the custodian of the National Occupational Standards for Career Development and we have published a nationally-recognised Framework for Careers, Employability and Enterprise Education 1. We offer a wide range of services, including a well-regarded programme of professional development. 2.2 Our reasons for submitting evidence to this inquiry are twofold. Firstly, we remain concerned about the level and quality of careers support now available to young people in England. Devolving responsibility for careers guidance to individual schools and colleges has led to provision that can only be described as patchy. While it is true that a significant minority of schools have responded positively to the new arrangements, and have put in place support that represents an improvement on that which existed immediately previous to September 2012, in many schools the support is barely adequate and in some it is poor, or even non-existent. The phrase postcode lottery is over-used but it applies to the provision of careers advice, information and guidance for young people. The level and quality of support a young person receives is entirely dependent on which school he or she attends. Secondly, we are concerned that the current policy does not adequately recognise the role of careers professionals. The most recent version of the Department for Education s Statutory Guidance 2 suggests that schools should consider the role that careers professionals can play in supporting pupils, but it fails to acknowledge fully the unique role that a professionally qualified careers adviser has. Not all schools are commissioning careers guidance services from an external provider and not all of those that do so are using professionally qualified careers advisers. Furthermore, those schools that are working with careers professionals are not buying in support at the same level as that which they received free of charge prior to September As a consequence of this, and the substantial cuts to the budgets of local authority support services for vulnerable and disadvantaged young people, careers advisers have left and are leaving the profession. Further evidence of the decline in the profession can be seen in the closure of some training courses for careers advisers (most recently the Qualification in Career Guidance at London Southbank University). Our surveys also show that some schools have removed the role of careers teacher. Our concern is that, by the time the need for access to careers professionals is finally acknowledged, those professionals may no longer be available in the numbers required. 1 CDI (2015) Framework for careers, employability and enterprise education 2 DfE (2015) Careers guidance and inspiration in schools 3

4 3.0 Definitions and scope 3.1 We note that the sub-committee s inquiry covers careers information, advice and guidance. We agree that all three of these elements of career development support are important. Young people need access to information on the future study options open to them and on the labour market; they need advice on how to access the opportunities that are best for them; and they need access to guidance to help them make the right choices. However, we also know that young people additionally need access to programmes of careers education that help them to develop the knowledge and skills to make effective use of the information, advice and guidance provided, and to develop their career management and employability skills. Our submission, therefore, makes reference to careers education as well as to careers information, advice and guidance. 3.2 The CDI believes that the eight benchmarks of good career guidance practice, identified by the Gatsby Foundation in , provide a comprehensive and easily understood framework for thinking about the career development support that young people need. We now reference all of our publications to the benchmarks and promote their use to other organisations with which we work. 4.0 The quality and impartiality of provision 4.1 The Education Act 2011 gave schools and colleges a new statutory duty to secure access to independent careers guidance for all pupils and students from Year 8 to age 18. We are now in the fourth academic year of this policy and the level and quality of support for young people is still inconsistent. Some commentators say it is poor; it is poor in some schools, but in others it is adequate and in a few very good. Patchy is a more accurate description. A policy based on the twin principles of school autonomy and the free market, with no additional funding made available to schools to take on this additional responsibility and very limited regulation, is almost bound to lead to inconsistent levels and quality of provision. Ofsted s original report 4, in 2013, found that only 1 in 5 schools were providing pupils with the level of careers guidance they needed. A survey undertaken by the CDI, in partnership with Careers England, in May found that the situation had improved three years on, but still only 3 out of every 5 schools were commissioning careers guidance from an external provider. Research commissioned by the DfE, and published in July , found that only two-thirds of schools were meeting the statutory duty. 3 The Gatsby Charitable Foundation (2014) Good Career Guidance 4 Ofsted (2013) Going in the right direction? 5 CDI and Careers England (2015) Survey of career education and guidance in schools and links with employers 6 Department for Education (2015) Mapping careers provision in schools and colleges in England 4

5 The same research reported that 16% of schools had dropped careers education from the curriculum. 4.2 Concerns remain over not only the level of support, but also its quality. The DfE s Statutory Guidance highlights a three-pronged approach to assuring the quality of career development in schools but we propose that this should be strengthened. We recommend that schools should be required to use only careers advisers professionally qualified to Level 6 or above and who are on the UK Register of Career Development Professionals. These two measures would help to protect young people s entitlement to good quality careers guidance. The CDI is a member of the Quality in Careers Standard Consortium that nationally validates the quality awards for careers education, information, advice and guidance. We welcome the recommendation in the March 2015 version of the Statutory Guidance that all schools should work towards achieving a quality award. We think, however, that this too should be strengthened. If a school has achieved a quality award nationally validated by the Quality in Careers Standard, it will, by definition, have had to put in place a good quality provision. We recommend that schools should be required to achieve a quality award for careers. 4.3 Schools have been allocated no additional funding to take on responsibility for a service that previously cost local authorities 200 million per annum to provide. We accept that in the current economic climate we cannot expect an immediate return to this level of resourcing, but we do suggest that schools should be given some financial support to put in place careers support of a sufficiently high quality. A short-term development grant, linked to a requirement to gain a quality award, would offer an approach that has been shown to work in other settings. 4.4 We were pleased to see that Ofsted has strengthened the position of careers within its common inspection framework. Our concern is that inspection teams should apply this section of the framework consistently and robustly in all school inspections. This will require training for all inspectors. 4.5 The impartiality of careers advice and guidance remains a concern, particularly in schools with sixth forms. While we understand the rationale behind the statutory requirement for careers guidance to be provided by an independent adviser, using an external service does not always guarantee impartiality. A more effective approach would be to require all providers of careers guidance to be professionally qualified and to work to the CDI s code of ethics and to require all schools to publish annually their destination statistics at ages 14, 16 and 18. It is important to recognise also that impartiality is not only an issue in schools. 5

6 11-16 schools may not have a sixth form to promote but all schools should be enabling young people to be informed about the opportunities that are available at 14+ in studio schools and UTCs and these new establishments often report that they have difficulty in gaining access to Year 9 pupils in both and schools. 4.6 Our final points in this section relate to careers education. We believe all schools should be required to provide careers, employability and enterprise education. We recommend, therefore, that the statutory requirement should be re-instated and extended to age 18. But re-introducing a statutory duty is not enough on its own. The new arrangements place greater responsibilities on schools to lead, manage and orchestrate the programme of careers education, information, advice and guidance. Schools need to designate a middle leader to undertake the day-to-day leadership of careers support and identify a senior leader who has overall responsibility for the strategy. Our recent survey indicates that not all schools have such roles in place. We are working with Teach First on their careers and employability leader pilot and we urge the Government to support the expansion of this provision of continuing professional development for this vital role to other schools. We recommend also that an introduction to careers education, information, advice and guidance should be included in initial teacher training for all secondary school teachers. 5.0 How careers advice in schools and colleges can help to match skills and labour market needs 5.1 Good careers advice and guidance aims to help individuals achieve their aspirations and decide what is best for them to do, but must be grounded in the realities of the labour market. Achieving a match between skills and labour market needs requires a multifaceted approach. Firstly the young people themselves need an appreciation of the labour market and its trends. This supports the argument for re-instating careers education in the statutory curriculum. The recent LMI for All project has been a highly successful way of engaging young people and its future must be sustained now that it has been announced that its principal supporter, UKCES, is to close. 5.2 Secondly, the providers of careers education, information, advice and guidance need to have ready access to up to date local and national labour market intelligence (LMI). Such information is currently held by a variety of organisations, including the National Careers Service and the LEPs. These bodies must be encouraged to work together to produce regular, easily understood LMI digests for careers advisers and careers teachers. Careers professionals operating at Level 6 or above are trained to challenge 6

7 young people s ideas and misconceptions of the labour market. They have knowledge of the local opportunity structure and can help to prevent a mismatch between skills and opportunities. 5.3 The debate about the match, or mis-match, between skills and labour market needs is usually focused on specific occupational skills but it is equally important to recognise the need for the generic employability skills that all jobs require. This is further evidence of the need to re-instate the position of careers education. 5.4 Another neglected area is that of informing curriculum planning in schools and colleges with LMI. Schools and colleges need to be providing courses and qualifications that the labour market needs. Careers professionals pick up a lot of informal intelligence about labour market needs that could be very useful to curriculum managers. 6.0 The role of the new Careers and Enterprise Company and its relationship with other bodies such as the National Careers Service 6.1 The CDI has welcomed the establishment of the Careers and Enterprise Company and has formed a good working relationship with the Company. The provision of support for careers in schools is welcome. Almost all of the Company s work in this first year has been on supporting links with employers. We recognise that it is very important for young people to have direct contact with employers and employees, but it is equally important to see such encounters as complementary to access to independent and impartial careers advice and guidance, and not as a replacement for in depth career guidance interviews. In fact the more exposure young people have to a range of employers, the greater their need to talk to someone who can help them to make an informed choice between all the opportunities on offer. We would like to see the work of the Company extended to encompass careers as well as enterprise, and to recognise, promote and support the work of careers professionals. It is important to acknowledge that most young people do not go directly into employment on leaving school. They need to have contact also with providers of further and higher education, apprenticeships and other work-based training. 6.2 With regard to the relationship with the National Careers Service, it seems to us to be inefficient to have two national bodies brokering school-employer links. Some rationalisation and pooling of the limited resources is needed. 7

8 7.0 The balance between national and local approaches to careers advice 7.1 For almost 40 years, from 1973 to 2012, careers advice and guidance for young people was provided through a national service delivered locally. That has now disappeared: each of the 3,500 secondary schools in England makes its own arrangements, leading to the patchiness described earlier in this submission. 7.2 We recognise that the scope of this particular inquiry is limited to careers support for young people only but we wish to state our firmly-held view that the National Careers Service in England should be re-constituted as a fully all-age service, providing careers guidance to both young people and adults. We regard the current National Careers Service as a missed opportunity to do this: it provides face-to-face guidance only to adults and older young people who are NEET. We recognise the challenge of delivering a national all-age service in a country with a population of 60 million. One approach we suggest it would be worth considering would be a service with a national specification but delivered locally. Money currently spent on the National Careers Service could be passed to the 39 LEPs, and each LEP could be required to commission an all-age careers guidance service, following a national specification. The service would provide careers information, advice and guidance both to adults and to young people in schools and colleges. This would have the added advantage of linking the careers guidance service to the network of Enterprise Coordinators being established through the LEPs by the Careers and Enterprise Company. The Careers and Enterprise Company could be given the role of managing the commissioning process and monitoring the contracts. 8.0 Careers advice and apprenticeships 8.1 The CDI fully supports the Government s ambitions to increase the number of apprenticeships, but also recognises the challenges involved in achieving such a step change. A starting point should be that all careers professionals, including careers teachers, should be given up to date and accurate information about apprenticeships. We would be pleased to work with others to develop a scheme through which careers advisers, and teachers involved in providing careers education, information, advice and guidance, could visit apprenticeship providers and also shadow an apprentice for a day. 8.2 We are aware that the Department for Work and Pensions has plans for Jobcentre Plus advisers to work with schools. It will be important for those advisers to receive training on how to work effectively with schools and with young people. The introduction of 8

9 another group of advisers into schools also further underlines the need for schools to identify a member of staff to lead their careers work. 9.0 The potential for employers to play a greater role in careers advice 9.1 We believe that employers have an important role to play in contributing to programmes of careers, employability and enterprise education in schools and colleges, and in providing inspiration, information and advice to young people. They cannot, however, provide impartial careers guidance. We need both encounters with employers, in school or college and in the workplace, and opportunities to receive impartial careers guidance. An inspirational talk does not replace a careers guidance interview. As stated earlier, the more talks a young person listens to, the more likely it is they will need help with deciding between all the options. Further, it is important that interventions designed to inspire and motivate young people are complemented by impartial guidance to help individuals make choices that are realistic. So, in our view, employers have an important contribution to make, but alongside careers professionals. Further investment is required in promoting the role of careers professionals in schools 9.2 It is also important to recognise that it is not only employers who should be contributing to careers support in schools and colleges. Young people should also have direct contact with staff and students from universities, colleges and apprenticeship providers Our recommendations 10.1 We welcome the opportunity to submit evidence to the inquiry and would be pleased to provide oral evidence. The preceding paragraphs include several suggestions and proposals: our main recommendations are as follows: 1. the Statutory Guidance to schools and colleges should be re-structured using the Gatsby benchmarks 2. schools and colleges should be required to use only careers advisers who are professionally qualified in careers guidance and on the UK Register of Career Development Professionals 9

10 3. the statutory duty to provide careers education in schools in Years 7 to 11 should be reinstated and extended to age 18 in both schools and colleges 4. all schools should be required to achieve a quality award for careers education, information, advice and guidance, nationally-validated by the Quality in Careers Standard 5. the duplication of brokerage support for school-employer links provided by both the Careers and Enterprise Company and the National Careers Service should be removed and the resources pooled 6. the work of the Careers and Enterprise Company should be extended to include promoting, supporting and funding the role of careers professionals 7. the Government should explore alternative models to the current approach, including models for re-constituting the current National Careers Service into a genuinely all-age careers guidance service, working with young people in schools and colleges as well as with adults. Contact Jan Ellis, Chief Executive, CDI jan.ellis@thecdi.net 10