Over the course of this parliament, careers advice has been gutted, making the transition from school to work during even more treacherous for young people. We have seen the scrapping of Connexions, the removal of schools’ duty to provide face-to-face careers advice, the creation of a National Careers Service that is not up to scratch and, now, a last ditch attempt at improvement in the form of a centrally-backed careers and enterprise company to broker relationships between schools and employers.
It is therefore no surprise that a Local Government Association report published last week has found that poor careers advice and guidance is a key cause of young people dropping out. The report identifies that 12 per cent of all government spending on post-16 education and skills leads to ‘uncompleted’ courses. This is nothing new. The Work Foundation warned back in 2012 that ‘most of the rise in NEETs in recent years has been down to young people struggling to make the school to work transition.’ Reversing the decline in access to high quality careers advice and providing young people with high quality, local transition services needs, therefore, to be a priority for the next government.
We agree with the LGA that these should be offered on a local, rather than national level. There are indeed already a number of stand-out examples being pioneered by Labour councils. Bradford council and chambers of commerce are partnering to create an employer engagement brokerage service and deliver an enterprise curriculum for schools and colleges. In Oldham, the council’s youth guarantee will ensure an employment or training opportunity for every 18 year old by 2015, delivered by aligning the efforts of local employers, jobcentre, colleges, schools and the voluntary sector.
Transition services on similar lines, based on collaboration between schools, colleges, employers and Local Enterprise Partnerships need to be created across the country. To achieve this, the next government will need to find some additional funding to support new face-to-face provision. It will also need to introduce a duty for schools ‘to collaborate’ in the creation of a locally commissioned careers service in each functional labour market. Basing careers and employability services on collaboration between institutions on a local level rather than establishing new central government initiatives will also keep costs down and result in a more effective, tailored offer for each locality.
We also need to better prepare teachers to give careers advice. Already, so much guidance, both formal and informal, comes from teachers, particularly those with pastoral responsibilities. As part of training and continuing professional development, teachers should be expected to spend time with local employers, to gain an insight into how they work and what they require from their employees. Businesses are continually bemoaning the inadequacy of school leavers. It is time they played a part in teacher development so teachers know clearly what they want.
These reforms will cost money, at a time when there is not much to go around. However, in the greater scheme of things, the amount of investment required is relatively small, especially compared to the outlandish proposals of the Greens and Cameron’s unfunded tax cuts. Indeed, the costs might even be met through re-prioritisation of current budgets. We will not fix the Tories’ low-wage, low-skill economy solely through improving the school to work transition. But putting proper guidance in place will be a crucial step in greasing the wheels to good jobs and giving our young people the brighter future for which they are working so hard.
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Jamie Audsley is a Labour councillor and works at Pearson UK to improve the transition from school to work
Joel Mullan works in strategy for an education charity
Jim O’Connell is a philosophy teacher at a London sixth form.
They are the authors of ‘Greasing the wheels to good jobs: A school-to-work agenda for government’, which will appear in the next issue of Renewal.
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