Report urges careers advice reform

Ever since schools were given responsibility for securing careers advice, fears have been rife about their ability to cope.

An education select committee inquiry has now warned that careers provision has in fact deteriorated since the change came into force. The inquiry calls for a number of urgent reforms to address the problem.

Chief among these are an expansion of the role of the National Careers Service to become a “capacity building and brokerage body” for schools, a requirement on schools to publish annual careers guidance plans, and a duty to provide a minimum of one personal careers interview with an independent adviser for every pupil.

Brian Lightman, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, says extending the remit of the National Careers Service would go a long way in helping schools to meet their new duties.

“It doesn’t have a role with schools at the moment apart from website and telephone information, which is not enough,” he says. “We have called on the government before to extend its remit to face-to-face guidance for all young people. Offering a brokerage service would ensure that there is a service of some kind providing access to face-to-face guidance that schools could use.”

Lightman, however, does not support the concept of annual careers plans for schools.

“Our experience is that annual plans just tend to gather dust and it becomes another bureaucratic requirement,” he says.

“Any successful school will have a clear policy of careers education and guidance within its curriculum. It would be perfectly acceptable if you were required to consider that in any assessment of the effectiveness of the school.”

David Milton, president of the Institute for Careers Guidance, believes that the service should play an even bigger role in delivering careers advice in schools than the committee suggests. He says the “capacity building” role suggested by the committee is “a little vague”, arguing that the service could take full responsibility for the provision of careers advice in schools.

But he warns that the select committee’s recommendations could come to nothing. “It’s all about what the government response is and I’m not sure what that will be,” he says. “So far, the Department for Education has taken little interest in supporting the careers guidance agenda.”

Milton backs the idea of annual plans, although he has doubts as to whether it would work in practice, given that Ofsted’s existing inspection framework is not a “credible accountability check” on the provision of careers guidance – a view echoed by the committee.

“I’m not convinced there’s enough in place to monitor that it is done,” he says. “If schools don’t produce a plan, how are they going to be held to account?”

Vince Barrett, president of the Association for Careers Education and Guidance, echoes the committee’s view that there should be a basic requirement on schools to provide careers education.

“I would like to see a careers plan from year 7 onwards so that it’s built in across the curriculum,” he says. “A lot of teachers are not necessarily aware of where their subject leads to. But schools that build in contextual learning fare much better because young people can see a reason for learning those subjects in school. Careers education should be the glue that brings the whole lot together.”

Barrett believes the recommendation that each pupil has a minimum of one face-to-face careers appointment with an independent adviser is “overly prescriptive” and could lead to a restriction in services.

“One would be enough for those who know what they want to do. But for those who don’t have a clue, they might need 15 or 20 careers interviews in the space of a year,” he says.

“I would prefer a duty to say that there should be access to a qualified independent adviser for young people to make an appointment at all times.”


Select committee inquiry into careers guidance in schools: the key recommendations